For those of you who don’t know about the origins of J!-ENT and nt2099, nt2099 was created back in 1993. It was one of the largest Japanese animation and Japanese pop culture BBS around.
Note to those who may be confused about BBS as in message boards and online BBS that people had to call: Before the Internet became popular, we would run online sites that were ANSI-based (later RIP animation would appear). These were created by colorization of ANSI dots or blocks and people would call a phone number and connect to someone’s modem and connect to someone’s computer.
It was inconvenient back then because if we wanted to use our phone, we would have to shut the BBS down (unless you owned multiple lines). And since the site was modem-based at that time, while accessing the site didn’t take too long, downloading files took a long time. What would take seconds today for a several MB file, took and hour a lot more.
But because there were not many ways to access anime-related files and Internet did not flourish, BBS were the main ways to obtain info. and communicate with other fans.
The BBS would feature old school ANSI graphics, people could download files (games, videos, graphics, text files or software), play online text based games, chat, web mail and go on message boards via a news server. It may seem nothing to you now but back then, we didn’t have broadband.
We ran a VBBS site and then later a full-on Wildcat BBS site. But by 1994-1995, I knew that the BBS was coming to an end, as I was starting to use Internet. Granted, we still had to contact a local ISP via phone # but for those who were able to upgrade their modems, we went towards the Internet, while some others still continued to use the BBS.
Around 1996, I felt that the BBS has run its course. The Internet was going to be my main focus and thus, nt2099 BBS which became J!-ENT, went online.
We would cover Japanese pop culture since 1993 but in 2010, with the downturn of the anime industry and Japanese entertainment companies wanting to pull back, other companies wanted J!-ENT to explore entertainment in the US and around the world and so we made a major change to that direction.
But there are those who still wish we were the old J!-ENT and even featured the same content that was on Neo-Tokyo 2099. So, with our 25 year anniversary taking place in 2018, we decided to revive Neo-Tokyo 2099.
Sure, there are a lot of other Japanese entertainment and pop culture sites these days and although we are one of the oldest, in a way it’s like we starting all over again.
But it’s a different vibe, which we incorporate content from our other J!-ENT related sites as well.
So, please enjoy the return of Neo-Tokyo 2099!
Neo-Tokyo 2099 reaches out to Japanese and Asian pop culture fans worldwide. In one year, we received over 6,700,000 page views, average of 2.65 million impressions (May 2021) and we are grateful to our visitors who have supported our site.
As of May 2021, our top visited viewers are from the following countries (top 10). This goes to show how Japanese pop culture extends worldwide:
- United States
- Philippines
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Japan
- Canada
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- Thailand