1 Year Later - reflecting on this past year and looking to the future!

As of July 28th, 2025, it has been one year of creating content for YouTube and Patreon. And, man, what a year it's been.

When we started, we were happy if our videos got ANY views. Our first video upload was Kaiju No.8 (which is so appropriate given we are reacting to season 2 right now). We went from thrilled for 5-10 views to now regularly seeing views in the hundreds and thousands for the same series. We have an amazing community of nearly twenty THOUSAND subs on YouTube alone. Taylor has been full time YouTube for months now, and Karlii will be full time YouTube (and VA) come November. We love what we do. We started this channel with zero expectations. To be able to go full time with something we love is... beyond shocking, but in the best way. You guys are amazing.

We'd like to take the time to speak individually about our experiences, so read on for that.

Karlii-

This year 1 update is supposed to be primarily about the channel, but I'm going to take it another way. Taylor is the only reason this channel exists- it was his idea for something to do together as people who are both passionate about anime. Moreover, he's a majority of the reason it's as successful as it is. Every day I get to do this with him is another day I spend knowing we have each other no matter what. I'm safe with him, I'm heard, I'm loved and this life we are building together thanks to YouTube is unreal.

I have learned some important things in the past year. Namely, something Taylor taught me which he calls "zooming out". I have pretty crippling anxiety at times, and content creation has brought that out more than anything I have done in the past 3 years. To say this job is unpredictable would be an understatement. Our subs on Patreon and YouTube vary daily. We have had some series we have absolutely adored and worked our asses off for do terribly while others thrived. I used to focus so much on our daily growth that Taylor would literally have to pull graphs to show me just how much we are growing. Growth matters to me for a few reasons. One of which being I could make way more money doing way less work at my day job (not to say my day job's easy. More so to say content creation is hard af). I'm tired constantly, and I weigh the value of our YouTube against the value of my mental health regularly. Which leads me to my second reason growth matters- mental health. We receive so many amazing comments that the negative ones stand out. I have daily reminders that being a woman on the internet means I have a bullseye on my forehead. But every new sub is another potentially positive interaction. Those positive interactions make a worlds difference. This job is not for everyone and without Taylors constant reminders to zoom out, his daily affirmations that I am loved and safe and cared for, I would have quit. I am more and more thankful for Taylor ever single day.

Now onto the YouTube channel. You. Guys. ROCK. I laugh at your comments all the time. You're some of the funniest, kindest, people I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with be it in real life or online. We will be eating dinner and say, "Hey, did you see "so-and-so's comment today?" Y'all go out of your way to educate us without being condescending. You're always looking out for us. Your passion for anime is unparalleled. You're just awesome. I grew up as an anime nerd, trying to make friends with similar interests in a world that wasn't yet hip to anime, and was bullied for my love of anime. I always wanted a community like this one, and I feel so fortunate to finally have one.

Taylor -

I've been making content for more than half my life. I'll be 30 in October and I remember being 11 years old, in my parents' living room, setting up my mom's camera facing the TV to record Call of Duty Zombies. At the same time I was trying to be quiet because my parents were in the kitchen talking and I didn't want them to know I was posting gameplay onto the internet. I've made many channels, streamed for thousands of hours, uploaded thousands of videos and every single one of those channels fell away at some point. This year I've learned what that reason was. Karlii is my reason for why we're so dedicated and committed to continuing our reactions. I've always had spurts of creativity and growth followed by feelings of burnout and failure. The difference is this year they've been overcome by the desire to share our love for anime with all of you as well as the drive to not let Karlii down for all the incredible hard work she puts into this.

In April, I was let go and Karlii pushed me to go full time into our channel, posting daily, making sure everything is ready to go on Patreon, YouTube, TikTok etc and she has continued working a day job, VA work and reacting. We would not be here without her encouraging me to go all in on this. She also makes our schedule, selects which anime we're reacting to, when we're recording and making sure that we're at least a week ahead in case something comes up. Karlii is the reason that this channel is working and all my other ones failed. I wouldn't be here without her.

Finally, thank you all. The fact that you want to show up to watch us enjoy anime that we all love and appreciate means so much to me. The fact that it's been 1 year already and we're about to break 20k subs, 2k subs on our second channel and have over 600 patrons that want to support us directly blows me away on a daily basis. We're tackling this second year with even more content, even more drive and systems in place that means we will only be growing from here. I can't wait to look back in a year and see where we get in year 2!