For the last year, the staff and I have been quietly working together with select forum members to pave the way toward a new, better Kazamatsuri. On the surface, the Kazamatsuri community has been pretty much dead. Due to complications within our own personal lives, this has admittedly taken a lot longer than we would’ve liked. On behalf of all the staff, I apologise that it’s taken us this long to finalise. And also, we’d like to apologise for not being the best community we can be. The last year has been trying for all of us, as we’ve been forced to confront many realities about ourselves and the community that we know we have to change. It’s been a long, long time coming, but at long last, we’re ready to show you guys something we can take pride in. Our doors are opening once more!
Welcome, to the new and improved Kazamatsuri.
This video, together with our new Community Guidelines, will serve as people’s first introduction to Kazamatsuri. Even if you’ve been here for years, I ask you to take the time to look over it, as it sets out our Missions moving forward. By participating in Kazamatsuri, you do so understanding and accepting our new missions, so please keep them in your mind moving forward! Remember:
Be Empathetic, Strive for Quality, and Have Fun!
Of course, I didn’t gather you all just to share a mission statement. It would be pretty disappointing if that’s all we had to show for our efforts over the last year. No, we’ve got lots more to share with you guys!
The Little Busters Bookclub Returns!
We have unfinished business to take care of. The Little Busters Bookclub recommences now! Above we have the Kud Route Podcast we’ve been waiting to release. It’s a good one, quite happy with how that discussion turned out! But next on the agenda is Rin and Refrain!
We’re giving you boys and girls until the 15th of December to prepare your best discussion, because that’s when we’re holding our next podcast!
Also, it’s been a while, so if you’d like to apply for the Saya, Sasami or Kanata podcasts, Register in our topic here! And outside of the podcast itself, we’re also hosting a voice call next weekend on the 24th where everyone can jump in and talk about their thoughts on Rin2 and Refrain, as a way to stimulate discussion and get those forum posts flowing. Please bring some things to talk about on the day!
The Monthly Terra Reborn!
The Monthly Terra is back, although not quite in the same form as before! This time it’s taking on more of a radio show format, with a heavier focus on engaging with the community than reporting on the news. As a test, we recorded a new Monthly Terra today to go over everything regarding the New Beginnings in great detail, with a bit of reflection on my own personal beliefs and everything that lead to this point. It’s very rough, there’s some audio and visual issues, but bear with us! The next video will hopefully be much higher quality. Let us know what you think of this new format!
The K.E.Y. (Key Enthusiast Yearbook) returns as the Key20th International Fan Book!
When we first announced The K.E.Y., we severely underestimated how long it would take to complete! But rest assured, we haven’t stopped working on it at all. In, fact, we even have a complete draft of the AIR chapter here for your perusal! There’s a lot to say about this one, so I’ll refer you to our blog on Key20th for more info, including up-to-date submission details! We’re very excited to be pushing this forward again. Let’s create the ultimate Key fan book together!
The Winter Festival is now open to signups!
Formerly known as the Wind Festival, the Winter Festival is massive event designed to unite everyone through fun activities created by the Kazamatsuri community, for the Kazamatsuri community! Everyone who signs up will be placed in teams and must work together with their teammates to participate in as many activities as they can over the two week period and earn light orbs for their team! The organisers are making some last minute preparations, but we will be opening up to registrations within the day, so please look forward to it very soon! A lot of hard work has gone into preparing this, so we hope as many people join as possible. It’s gonna be crazy good fun. Sign up here!
And much more to come!
We have plenty planned for Kazamatsuri in the future. From now until the 15th of December, we’ll be focusing on the Little Busters Bookclub with Rin2 and Refrain. After that we’ll be taking a break to enjoy the Winter Festival right up until the end of the year, concluding with a New Years Party. We’ll begin 2019 by jumping back into the Little Busters Bookclub with Saya, followed by Sasami and Kanata, bringing the Little Busters Bookclub to a close.
After that? Well, you can expect plenty of the usual community events and Monthly Terras, and maybe even some new content. But for Bookclubs, the next coming up is the continuation of the Love Song Bookclub planned for March, covering Long Long Love Song and Hikikomori Songs! From there, we have many things we’d like to do. We want to revisit the our very first Bookclub - The Planetarian Bookclub - to go over the ONA, Movie and Dramas. After that we’d like to do a ONE Bookclub and maaaybe a Moon. Bookclub, going back to Key’s origins as Tactics. When their content is more accessible in English we’d also like to do a Rewrite Bookclub, Angel Beats! Bookclub and Summer Pockets Bookclub. We also plan to expand to non-key works, in particular I really want to do an ef Bookclub. And we’re also discussing the possibility of expanding Kazamatsuri into the business of creating Key merchandise, with art sourced by the community itself, but we’ll talk about that more later on!
But bringing the focus back to the present, let’s take a look at where we are now. Kazamatsuri is always changing staff, but I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge everyone currently part of the Kazamatsuri staff team.
Admins: Aspirety, Pepe, technololigy (Ember)
Moderators: cjlim2007, daysofsummer
Discord Chanops: BlackHayate02, Hardscope, grooven
Blog Team: Aspirety, Pepe, HeliosAlpha, nekotea, BlackHayate02, grooven
Web Design, Key20th, Logos: kyuketsukimiyu (Lead Developer), Aspirety
Winter Festival Organisation: Hardscope (Project Lead), nathanielevan, Echo, TomoyaOkazaki, Mogaoscar
Bookclub & Podcast Organisation: Aspirety
This list could change tomorrow, but I figure it’s important to acknowledge the work these guys are putting in now at this turning point of the site. But don’t forget, we’re always hiring! If you’d like to join the Kazamatsuri team, please check our Staff Vacancies and get in touch with one of the admins! We’re always looking for more people to help steer this ship towards our Missions.
Well, I guess that’s more or less it for now! It’s been a long time coming, but I couldn’t be happier to be opening the gates of Kazamatsuri once more. It’s a time for metamorphosis; not to return to how we once were, but to become something new, something better than ever before. So let your friends know, Kazamatsuri is back!
See you on the forums everyone.
