IT has returned. I have been both praying this moment would come and also dreading it.

Animaxis has returned.

Animaxis is a huge online store with absolutely tons of anime related merchandise, including... cels. Hundreds of cels. All from my favourite animation company, no less! The pure genius of Animaxis is the fact that they price all of their cels very cheaply and only on a scale of readily seen quality. They do not take into consideration the rarity of the cel or the popularity of the series. They make it possible for me to get cels that I could never dream of being able to afford otherwise. For this I must surely love Animaxis! And I do. Oh yes... I love Animaxis.

But there is a price to be paid. The competition is fierce. One must learn how to... "adapt." They update twice a week in what is quite a reasonable time in the afternoon if you are in Japan. But that translates into the dead of the night for anyone living in the United States. I am well familar with the green glow that a monitor gives off when everything else is dark and still. I haven't forgotten the bitter cold of night. But it doesn't end there. It's not as easy as just having to get up in the middle of the night twice a week. At the very least, you then have to wait, always watchful and prepared to act quickly. It doesn't hurt to be sneaky either. There are a couple such techniques for grabbing the cels you inevitably desperately want and getting to the checkout before everyone else. Through trial and error, I became a master at them. We shall have to see if I still have what it takes.

I both love and loathe Animaxis. But what can I do? I can't say that it isn't completely worth it. I can't say that it isn't fun. I can't say there isn't something reassuring about putting forth that sort of dedication and being rewarded for it. I suppose all I can do now is wait in anticipation for it to all get started again.

((Where had it gone in the first place? It fell into fire and shadow... well, not really. Actually my friend broke it. He spent too much money and ordered too many cels and the whole thing crashed. Its taken them a couple months to fix it. In the meantime they've been sending him Christmas cards and New Years cards to appease him so he doesn't break the system again. Alright, alright - so maybe it wasn't really possible for him to have broken it. But the timing was right.))