- おふろ ♨ タイム -

ofurotaimu
(2009 - 2014)


Hello. It's been a while since I posted an update in this community, and I feel bad that it is going to be a sad one.

Since its opening in 2009, ofurotaimu has gained a lot of readers and followers, which in turn helped us meet a lot of people with the same interests in Vocaloid, utattemita, odottemita, and the general Nico Nico Douga community. We've witnessed a lot of firsts in the NND community (the first virtual concert, the first daikaigi, the first nnd movie, etc.) and even though there were only a few people updating this community, we're glad to have been part of the fandom.

However, as much as we'd like to continue with our usual posts and updates, the moderators of this community have grown busy--both in real life and in other fandoms--and thus find it difficult to find ample time to update. I personally had a lot of hiatuses these past couple of years due to work and other factors, and Stephie will be pursuing her own career soon. With a lot of things to take into consideration, we decided that we will close ofurotaimu. The comm will not be deleted, so everyone can still browse previous posts, but it will not be updated anymore.

Even though the dreamwidth community is closed, the ofurotaimu twitter and tumblr accounts will remain open. stephieku will continue posting updates, schedules, and information in the ofuro twitter while seraphictune will continue updating the utattemita tumblr. Both accounts are easier to manage, although the updates won't be as frequent as before, too. We hope you would continue following us in the said accounts even though this community is closed.

That said, thank you so much for following this community until now. I'd also like to thank the comm's moderators--Stephie, Len, and Tune. I feel bad that it has come to this point. But even though ofurotaimu closes, we will all remain connected with our love for Vocaloid and utattemita. This is not the end, right :).

Thank you,
Nikki


ofurotaimu @ twitter
ofurotaimu @ tumblr

art by benzene.
srsly, i think she's the official ofuro artist now XD.


Has it honestly been another year?! Time really flew fast, and here we are, celebrating our third anniversary. Last year, we entered our second year with more than 450 members. This year, we have more than 700 members and many more visitors not registered in the comm (as proven by the 300k view count). Thank you so much for being a part of Ofurotaimu and making it grow.

Even though this site has remained mainly an info site, I'm very happy that sometimes we do act as a big community and share in a single project or cause. You might remember Ofurosmiling from early this year, as well as random stuff like our anniversary greeting to Weekly Utaran, posts in our fanwork community, and even the old ones like the Ofuro Poetry Taimu. XD

Of course, our growth wouldn't be possible without our moderator stephieku and our mods seraphictune and southerncross. This year, I have been a terrible admin because of work, and without them, this site would've been gone! So, I'm really grateful for them for helping me keep the site alive. There might have been delays (tons) and skips (tons), but I thank everyone for their patience and assistance.

This year, we still have a lot of things to iron out, and we probably need some more people to help us with the work (to be honest, with just 4 staff members and a load of sites, the updating becomes very hectic). But for now, here are some things you should look forward to:

- Our revamped portal site (www.ofurotaimu.net) is now a functioning website instead of an aggregate site! While we write rankings, spotlights, guides, and news/nama pools in the comm, we will write event reports, editorials, reviews, and in-depth news stuff in the main site. Please do visit the main site as soon as we have content up!

- We intend to update our guides since they've been written uh...more than a year ago and Nico Nico has changed drastically after that time. Hopefully we'll include wallkthroughs of Nico Zero, Mikubook, and other sites of interest.

- We'll include the "Vocaloid Midyear Special Rankings" to our list of rankings, so please wait for all of them next week (I'll do my best)!.

- Aside from the odottemita spotlights (which was a bit discontinued, I think), we'll also be continuing the ensoushitemita spotlights. Our contributor asatenshi and I will be taking turns in writing it!

There are other plans underway, but we're still considering the time constraints and effort they'll take before we launch projects. For now, we'll work hard on maintaining the comm and making sure the writeups are on time ^^;;. Then, we'll think of what to do to improve our sites.


What about you? Do you have any suggestions on making Ofurotaimu a better site? Do you have ideas you want to share with us or requests you want to ask? Please do help us out by telling us things you want to see and we'll try to gather them and mull over them and then try to implement them! You may put your suggestions/comments/requests in the comments below.

Once again, thanks for being with Ofurotaimu and hopefully, we'll continue to grow for as long as we can! ♥

A belated April Fools' Day to everyone!

You might have noticed that the site changed drastically for April Fools :D. It took a bit of work but we're glad for all the responses we had. Thank you very much! Ikefuro is an AU thingy of the Ofurotaimu mods by benzene and you're very welcome to adore her for her awesome art.

I'm personally sad to let Ikefuro week come to a close but it's time to go back to our regular posts (and I am late with them, as usual, sorry ;; ). All the April Fools-related entries are now admin-locked save for one, so you won't see them interfering with our regular posts.

For those who want to relive Ikefuro, I've uploaded the pages, including your comments here: http://www.ofurotaimu.net/ofuroaf2012/main1.html . Of course, the links pointing to dreamwidth will not work, but if you click the "link" option in each post, it will lead you to the full post + comments :).

Thanks for participating in Ikefuro 2012, we hope you had fun as much as we did. I guess it's much better than 2011's April Fools, right? :D


Much love,
nikki

Ofurotaimu's 2011 has been remarkable in terms of growth, reach, and activity. In this year we opened a lot of new connections (facebook, twitter, last.fm, etc.). We also added a few more posts (guides, odottemita spotlights, etc.). We had a lot of memes (bananas, sheep, and recently #smiling2012). We also forged connections with a lot of people from different places. There were a lot of, let's say, bad things that happened for both the community and the fandom, but in general 2011 has been a year of success for Ofurotaimu. And we thank you for that!

This is the first time we have a New Year post in the comm so we made it special by having each moderator of the community (from this comm and in tumblr) to say a few words. We hope you'll have the time to read them :).

( Words from our Moderators )

Okay, now that the greetings and all that are done, let's go with the more interesting aspect of this post. That is, STATS. You might remember we got ofurotaimu a domain as a portal and we also got it a paid account for Google Analytics. Although the analysis of visitors to the comm only started this September, I think it would be interesting for you guys to see :).

( Stats for half of 2011 )

Hello, guys!

It's been a while since I wrote a modpost, I think. Well, now Stephie and I have some important stuff to clarify as well as to announce to everyone, so I hope you'll take the time to read my long-ass post. If you don't, we will cry and our tears will make the ofuro salty and it'll be your fault D:

( LOTS OF UPDATES! )

Aaaand that's it! Sorry, it's been a while so the updates and reminders kind of piled up D:. I hope you're not sleeping yet... /pokes.

Since we have a poll now, let's try it out :3! LOL I shouldn't be this excited....




LOL Once again, thanks for being here in Ofuro, we're glad you could share stuff (bath salts, shampoo, corny ofuro songs) with us! ♥.

Don't be afraid to leave all sorts of comments, but if you need srsbzns clarification on any of the stuff mentioned above, please contact me personally~.