Thoughts about Anime Wallpapers

When I shared my thoughts about collecting Anime Merchandise, I mentioned that my room is messy compared to other fans that are able to display posters, figures and such. Because of this reason, my computer is perhaps one of the only ways to advertise that I am a fan of anime. This is where wallpapers come into play.

Back in the 90s, the Internet was new, thus the selection was very limited. When I finally got my first computer that could connect to the internet with Windows 95 in 1999 to the late 2000s, that is when I started customizing my desktop through Desktop Themes, which is usually an optional program that allows you to change the wallpaper, color schemes, sound/mouse cursors and such. While this feature still exists in newer versions of Windows, there are more aspects you can customize such as visual styles, rainmeter themes, Winamp skins, etc. Even so, I primarily use Pokemon themed wallpapers until 2008.

During my first few years of college, I used to change my wallpaper quite often while spending some time customizing system icons and fonts. Back in the late 2000s, there were a few sites you can get these from, namely Konachan, Minitokyo and of course Anime Paper. Sadly, Anime Paper has shut its doors last year. While I never had an account with them, it seems that there are fewer choices, especially now since wallpapers these days are designed for 16:9 screens (which I largely despise due to some horizontal screen real estate being lost) as most laptops are using them opposed to 16:10.  Since I use primarily use Macbook Pros as my choice of laptops, I had to crop them so that they won’t look stretched or distorted.

Aside from that, I generally use wallpapers for series that are my favorites or I have enjoyed (mostly featuring cute anime girls). Since I have a sizable collection of desktop screenshots I took over the course of 5 years, I’m going to share my thoughts about them for each year.

During my first year of blogging, I didn’t watch that many shows considering that I was getting back into Anime. Of course, the shows that got me back into it are the ones from Kyoto Animation. From the first half of the year, I spent most of the time watching shows exclusively from them, mainly Clannad and K-ON as seen with my wallpaper selection. I admit that there was a pretty good selection from these shows. Eventually, I branched out in the latter half of the year, but I still used wallpaper from my favorite shows until mid 2010.

When 2010 came along,  I eventually gained some interest in other shows like Hayate no Gotoku (which is my first entry into Kugimiya Rie Tsundere shows) and Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. During the summer of 2010, I managed to get a copy of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and I enjoyed it not because I am a big fan of magical girl shows, but mostly because of Fate, which gets introduced halfway into the show. While that wallpaper is based on the first movie, I mainly used it because Nanoha looked adorable. Unfortunately, it was the last screenshot from my Macbook Pro I got during my freshman year before the discrete graphics kicked the bucket. Fortunately, Apple agreed to replace my computer with a newer model, which I didn’t have to repair once. I decided to named that laptop Takamachi Nanoha (高町なのは).

2011 was basically the year of Madoka. Of course, I used quite a few wallpapers from that franchise in addition to one that has all the girls depicted with sweets. Of course, I decided to use one showing Minase Iori from The Idolmaster, which I didn’t start watching until four episodes later.

Carrying from 2011 into 2012 is my strong interest in The Idolmaster (the other coming from Cinderella Girls, a social game I won’t play). While my enthusiasm for that franchise cooled down a bit, I eventually settled on using a Dog Days wallpaper with Millhiore and Leonmitchelli not because girls with animals ears look cute, I liked the scenery too.

Last year, I stopped changing my wallpaper as often since I was about to finish my bachelor’s degree and start working on my Master’s. With that, I decided to get a non-Retina Macbook Pro (named Takanashi Rikka 小鳥遊六花) with a matte display, which has a higher resolution than my old laptop. Because of that, finding higher resolution wallpaper became somewhat a challenge since some are made for 1440×900 or other lower resolution.

As seen with the first two screenshots, I really wanted Ruri to win for the fact that she was the better girl compared to Kirino. While she ultimately lost and I felt bitter about it, I still used those two wallpapers because they were nice looking, especially the first since she looks good in the dress Kirino picked out. Eventually, I decided to change it with Chuunibyou themed wallpaper since it had an awesome and colorful design summing up the things, which made the show enjoyable: the illusions. I used that one until recently when I realized that I haven’t changed it for at least 5 months.

Now for my current wallpaper:

Yep, nobody saw this coming for the fact that the Ano Hana movie is supposed to come out this year. I decided to use this one not because it looked pretty, but Nagi no Asukara pretty much regained my faith in Mari Okada as a director. Probably one of these days, I’ll bring myself to finish Ano Hana.

As a whole, I feel that Anime Wallpapers just like naming my inanimate objects like computers and smartphones after female anime characters shows ones passion for a certain series. Sure, finding good ones is difficult since I’m picky, but looking back at previous wallpapers I used, it just shows how much my tastes has changed in those 5 years. Even so, I feel that wallpapers is a simple way to advertise that you are a fan of Anime in general compared to other means like collecting merchandise, unless you are brave enough to decal your laptop’s lid featuring one of your favorite shows.

With that, what kind of anime themed wallpapers do you personally use? Feel free to share some sites that have Anime Wallpapers. Also, if you want any of the wallpapers you seen here, just notify me so I can upload them. ¶