meme by u/adanteria, from r/GakiNoTsukai.

And here we are, at the end of a year we can all agree to be one of the worst we’ve ever been through.
I don’t even need to recap all the horrible things that happened, we all know them very well and this isn’t the best place to talk about them.

My experience? Well, I don’t really like to talk about myself, but as expected, it’s been pretty shitty overall. The worst thing I’ve been through due the pandemic is an alarming increase of my sense of distrust towards people and my whole country (Italy) in general, which proved (once again) to be full of irresponsible and dumb people.

People who deny the virus even exists while we’re one of the Country with the highest death count (still going), people who always feel the urge to remind everyone else that “everything is going to be ok” with this fake ass toxic optimism of someone who refuses to acknowledge how horribly everything is actually going, people who refuse to wear masks or don’t know that wearing it under your nose doesn’t do jack shit, people who couldn’t resist the urge to keep on doing every little useless and avoidable deed as if everything’s normal (‘cause it seems like having rules to follow is perceived as dictatorship here in Italy…) instead of realizing that’s not the best situation to do any of that and postpone plans to a better time and, most importantly, dumbf*cks who think that in a few hours, once we enter 2021, everything will be gone, the year is over, the pandemic is over, the world is a better place to live in, filled with better people with better new year resolutions and no problems whatsoever.

Well, (un?)luckily, I’m not part of this reckless bunch. I’ve seen this attitude everywhere around me during this year, be it on my workplace, on the news, by hearing people on the streets, reading articles, talking to people I know…

I’ve behaved responsibly since the pandemic started to spread, the thought of accidentally infecting someone else – being a family member or a total stranger – because of my thoughtlessness made me feel so anxious and guilty that I literally did my best to protect me and everyone else by constantly be vigilant of everything and everyone around me, while still working, doing the groceries and every other essential activity I had to do (sometimes unwillingly).

And you know what? Behaving correctly backfired me. I grew more anxious to the point I almost completely isolated myself, I felt enraged by everything I read online about how all the other people were underestimating this dire situation, I’ve felt rather alone and probably also misunderstood by all the friends that prior to this shit used to hang out with me regularly.

So yeah, I don’t personally think “2020” is over, at least not if we use the word “2020” not to refer to a year but rather to a “mental state” or “global situation” we’re still in and we still have to deal with (and with its consequences).

I went through a lot and stopped reflecting about everything more than once. Again, I don’t like talking about myself and that’s probably the first and only post I’ll make a post about this, but now I feel better, I feel like I have to tell you because you always backed me up and showed concern whenever I chose to take a break or such (thanks for that!).

Hopefully the global situation will get better soon with the vaccines and everything, but it doesn’t mean (most of) people is going to get any better or everything’s going to be easy (was it though?) as it used to be before. Still, I feel better than I used to feel months ago. Not because things are now completely fine, but because there’s always a bright side to everything, that’s how life is. I’m not here to deny all the bad shit I (we)’ve been going through, I’m accepting everything and I’m ready to move on.

Looking at the bright side, but while being conscious of the other side where the sunlight doesn’t reach, the side whose existence most people can’t even accept as a fact.

——————-

And now, finally, we’ll get to look at one of the best bright sides of this year: Gaki no Tsukai.

I’ve recently been to Japan before the whole pandemic thing happened, and… yeah, that was a pretty difficult experience too, not completely (of course, I still miss the hell out of Tokyo) but I had to face several difficulties and I came out of it with lots of doubts, fears and a crippling sense of dread for the future (this time I’m not gonna talk about it) which only grew worse once the pandemic started.

That’s when I told myself: “you know what? Let’s sub more Gaki to forget about all of this”, and so I (and the other typesetters) did.

To me, subbing Gaki no Tsukai has been one of the biggest relief of this crappy year, and not only it helped me getting through each day, but it also helped me to remind me how important Japan and the japanese language are to me.

And reading all of your comments, receiving your donations, seeing how many people supported my subs and worked with me to release new stuff helped me to feel a bit better about everything, even if just for a bit.

While this year surely hasn’t been the best year I’ve experienced, on the other side… it has actually been the best year for this website in terms of views and releases!!

Just take a look at all the episodes we’ve released during this year:

• #1051 – Burning Hot Tennis Lesson
• #1004 – Bananaman Shitara’s Shichi-Henge
• #337 – Limits – “Cold Noodles” (Hiyashi-Chuuka)
• #1183 – Let’s Play Nostalgic Arcade Games + EXTRA FOOTAGE
• #683 – Limits – “Omurice”
• #1489 – Absolutely Tasty Tapioca
• #1473 – Kiki Mentsuyu
• #1276 – Let’s Play Nostalgic Super Famicom Games
• # – Let’s Play With Table Games From Around The World!! – Fifth Round
• #1267 – World Ghost Stories Summit 2015
• #1283 – Animal Acting Contest
• #1080 – Bare Handed Hell – No-chopsticks Battle
• [extra] Downtown’s SmartNews spots collection
• #1447 – A Day With Mr. Freddie
• #504 – Itao’s Guerrilla Shichi-henge
• [extra] Downtown DX clip – Hama-chan is getting old
• [Special Episode] 11th Silent Library
• [Wednesday Downtown] Theory: Matsumoto Hitoshi is a Russian Spy
• #1352 – 7th Silent Library
• #905 – Shoji Murakami’s Class – Ghostbusters
• #970 – Food Marathon: Gyoza – Part 1/2
• #971 – Food Marathon: Gyoza – Part 2/2
• [Wednesday Downtown] Theory: A person who doesn’t know golf rules will end up believing any rule they impose on him
• #1396 – 9th Silent Library – Part 1/2
• #1397 – 9th Silent Library – Part 1/2
• [extra] Downtown Talk – “What if Hamada would 100% die tomorrow at 2 P.M.?”
• #1109 – Tanaka’s Breakdown II
• [Gottsu Ee Kanji] Cathy Tsukamoto & Gyoza
• #1331 – Ask The Best 5 in a Town We’ve Never Been To – Part 1/2

Lately, at least mentally, things are going a lot better for me, and sadly I don’t think we’ll get to see as many subbed Gaki episode as this year, mostly because I have less free time, more translation jobs (actual paid jobs lol) to work on, more private things to deal with etc., but that doesn’t mean there will be nothing anymore.

So, here are my gaki-subs-plans for 2021 (more like a general idea which I intend to follow but don’t know if I can keep up thoroughly):

• More general Gaki episodes / collabs with typesetters. Of course there will be part 2 of my latest episode, but I’m also currently working on another episode and I’m sure there will be more yet unsubbed gaki episodes to come with our usual typesetter and, who knows, new friends.
• Batsu 2020 – Go To Las Vegas. Just like I did for Earth Defense Force, American Police and Treasure Hunters, I’ll be a part of Team Gaki again this year to translate some parts of the new Batsu together with other subbers. Hope you’ll be looking forward to it!
• Typesets ideas. I also want to keep on typesetting + subbing entire episodes without relying exclusively on other typesetters’ help, just like I did for the two Suiyoubi Downtown theories I’ve subbed this year. In fact, that’s what I’d love to do: to pick up the Wednesday Downtown Theories I’ve enjoyed the most and work by myself on their translation / typeset. I have few ideas and I hope I can release some of them during 2021.
• Other projects. Can’t really talk about it right now, but I think there will be other collaborations for a bunch of golden extra yet unsubbed content you’re going to love seeing. Also, I’m thinking about Gottsu Ee Kanji a lot, lately…
• Remember Isho? Me neither. I don’t really have time for it, I don’t think I’m qualified for a JP to ENG book translation (JP to ITA would be fine, but then again, who cares?) and I don’t think many people care that much about it, so for now it’s on hold and it’s still going to be for a very, very long time.

…So, I hope you’ll stick with me some more for the upcoming year. This year it’s been tremendous, but not completely. High and lows (lots of devastating lows, few very brief highs), but I want to focus on the highs now. And one of the best highs was…
…You.

All the support you gave me, donations, collabs, nice comments, feedback, everything, I want to thank each and everyone of you for sticking around and showing support for this fansub project.

Before anyone else, thanks to Kedomas, one of the greatest typesetters I know and the one who typesetted the highest number of episodes for this project to this day (not counting my lousy typesets). I feel like this project of mine isn’t entirely mine anymore, but it’s also shared between him and between all the other typesetters who helped me out as well:

• Thank you, GakiDave!!
• Thank you, RIDDELL!!
• Thank you, WA (Shappuri Agemasu)!!
• Thank you, Otviss (Tofu Panda)!!
• Thank you, Mattee53!!

And of course, a big thank you also to Tiny_Paw and Amria for helping me on episodes prior to this mess of a year!

And here’s a huge thank you for everyone who liked my FB page, follows me on my Twitter and showed me support with Reddit comments, private messages, e-mails etc.

…And of course to all the beautiful people who donated on my ko-fi or subscribed to my patreon. I never got the chance to thank you as I wanted to (I’m shy as fucccc), but I’m really at loss of words whenever I get a donation notification, even if it’s 1$, it still leaves me speechless to this day to see how much support I’m getting. And so, I want to thank each one of you individually here and now (alphabetical order):

To my patrons (last checked 12/31/2020):

• Thank you, Abdulmalik!!
• Thank you, Alex!!
• Thank you, Andrew!!
• Thank you, b-4!!
• Thank you, Blaine!!
• Thank you, Brendan!!
• Thank you, Brett!!
• Thank you, Damon!!
• Thank you, Dan!!
• Thank you, Dave!!
• Thank you, David!!
• Thank you, Elena!!
• Thank you, Ethan!!
• Thank you, FruitPunchG!!
• Thank you, Jordan!!
• Thank you, Jotham!!
• Thank you, Ravi!!
• Thank you, Riccardo!!
• Thank you, Ronnie!!
• Thank you, Sean!!
• Thank you, tekno!!

To all my ko-fi donors (last checked 12/31/2020, hope it’s not incomplete):

• Thank you, Adrian!!
• Thank you, Akash!!
• Thank you, an actual body!!
• Thank you, Bokeh!!
• Thank you, Chris&Mono!!
• Thank you, Daniel!!
• Thank you, Dimmidice!!
• Thank you, Eduardo M.!!
• Thank you, Evilone135!!
• Thank you, Hudson L.!!
• Thank you, Imran!!
• Thank you, J!!
• Thank you, J.S!!
• Thank you, J_J!!
• Thank you, Janina!!
• Thank you, Jason!!
• Thank you, juanmaq8!!
• Thank you, Justin!!
• Thank you, Jyri!!
• Thank you, Ken!!
• Thank you, Kenny D.!!
• Thank you, Mike!!
• Thank you, Nasir!!
• Thank you, Pablo!!
• Thank you, Ronnie!!
• Thank you, Sabconth!!
• Thank you, ScroteDave!!
• Thank you, slackforce!!
• Thank you, Tim!!
• Thank you, Tom B.!!
• Thank you, Tymorafarr!!
• Thank you, whysochangry!!
• Thank you, yossi!!
…And all the other anonymous supporters, thank you!!

Lastly, a thought for all my friends who always supported me throughout this terrible year: thank you, me, myself, my mom, my other 6 personalities, that fish-shaped oven mitt I use as a puppet to talk to myself sometimes and, last but not least, my huge collection of Mlesna teas*.
*shionnotsukai is not affiliated by any means with Mlesna Tea Inc.**
**…sadly.

Wishing you all a good New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year, don’t forget to check out Team Gaki’s 2020 Batsu Livestream: I’ll be there watching it while most likely getting drunk.

May you spend a wonderful day and try your best for the upcoming year in spite of everything. And if today’s not your day, just remember: there’s always tomorrow.

Love y’all,

– Shion