AE Boards

AE Boards were an offshoot of the once-popular anime website, Anime Explosion, created in 2002 by OtakuBoards Anime Lounge moderator, Kevin aka “Rick Hunter” contributed to theOtaku.com by submitting anime reviews to add as supplements to the site’s hubs. In return, theOtaku.com would link to Anime Explosion in hopes of attracting new visitors.

Unfortunately, the arrangement between Adam and Rick Hunter began to deteriorate quickly. New visitors to Anime Explosion had difficulty navigating the site and the written content was riddled with grammatical errors to the point of being almost incoherent. In an attempt to attract more visitors to Anime Explosion, AE Boards was eventually created in hopes of achieving the same success that OtakuBoards had.

Rick Hunter, who had also joined OtakuBoards staff, befriended many of his colleagues on the forums.  As a result, many of his newfound friends agreed to help promote and run AE Boards.   Rick Hunter also used OtauBoards to draw prominent regular members towards AE Boards by promising them staff positions and a chance to run an online community that was similar to OtakuBoards. Many members held their first staff positions on AE Boards before eventually being given the chance to moderate at OtakuBoards. Charles (then Crazy White Boy), who was a moderator for the OtakuBoards Sony forum, received his first experience as an administrator at AE Boards. Babygirl, Shy, Queen Asuka, Syk3 (then Solid Snake) and countless others also worked as staff during the boards’ early months, often meeting over AIM to discuss the future of the site and issues of the day.

 An early criticism of AE Boards was that it was to its obvious inspiration, OtakuBoards.  Despite having a much lower member base than OtakuBoards, AE Boards adopted a similar forum layout to OtakuBoards.  The layout was impractical because there was not enough activity to sustain the broad scope of the site, which featured a roleplaying  forum, a poetry forum, an anime forum, a general discussion forum, and so on.

The “AE Boards Staff Chats” became infamous for the heated discussions between their participants, most notably between Rick Hunter and his fellow administrator Charles. In less than a year literally dozens of members rotated in and out of staff positions on AE Boards, with most being forcibly removed from their positions after disagreeing with Rick Hunter.  Rick Hunter insisted that they stimulate their forums with discussion even when it became apparent that the site was just too big to populate with enough discussion to make it appear “active.”  During these chats, Kevin coined the phrase “Kevin Smash!” (an offshoot of an Incredible Hulk phrase) which he used to express anger or frustration.

Although never as active as OtakuBoards, AE Boards received a significant boost in membership during the month-long OB downtime of 2004; Rick Hunter capitalized on the increased activity by moving AE Boards over to new software. However, because he rushed the new version of AE Boards out without testing its feature set, he soon discovered that the new software did not give him the administrative options he desired.  Reluctantly, he moved the boards back to the old, archaic software. Suddenly reverting to the old AE Boards proved to be a disasterous move. Many members did not feel like re-registering, and when the new version of OtakuBoards arrived, it even further surpassed AE Boards in terms of aesthetics and features.

By this time Rick Hunter had severed ties with Adam after Adam refused to give him greater control over theOtaku.com. Adam was not pleased with Rick Hunter’s work (he had to heavily edit his reviews and could not even use other) and he did not feel that his contributions would be a big loss for theOtaku.com. Rick Hunter, at this point, became vengeful. Instead of aiming to create a successful anime website, he became obsessed with “beating” theOtaku.com and its network of successful sites. As a result he demanded that all of his content be removed from theOtaku.com.

Meanwhile, his attitude toward theOtaku.com and its related sites became increasingly venemous, which ultimately lead to a conflict of interest with his staff members (who were all simultaneouly serving as staff members on the rival OtakuBoards web site).  Furthermore, Rick Hunter had become romantically obsessed with Babygirl, which placed a wedge between their friendship and caused her to leave AE Boards.

Regardless of this falling out with Adam, Rick Hunter held on to his OtakuBoards staff position hoping to destroy the community from the inside. Eventually, Rick Hunter became weird. His obsession with Babygirl had by this time completely ruined their friendship and it was starting to affect others’ perceptions of Rick Hunter.

The final connection between OtakuBoards and Rick Hunter was severed when James offhandedly said (in a thread in the Suggestions & Feedback forum) that he was flattered by the immitations he saw of OtakuBoards. Rick Hunter took this as a personal insult and went ballistic. He made an announcement on AE Boards thoroughly insulting OtakuBoards and its administration. James saw the announcement and de-modded Rick Hunter because it didn’t make much sense to keep him on staff when he was publicly insulting the “hand the fed him.” Nevertheless Rick Hunter was allowed to remain an active member. At this point, Rick Hunter had an insatiable thirst to “beat” Otakuboards. Unfortunately many of his staff had decided to quit or were banned in Rick Hunter’s path of rage. When Charles accepted an administrator position on OtakuBoards, Rick Hunter began to conjure up conspiracy theories. He felt personally betrayed, thus causing him to provoke OtakuBoards and its members even more.

Despite “hating” the site, he would still visit OtakuBoards daily, often leaving nasty messages directed at the site and its members. Although James believed in taking the moral high ground, Charles was not so classy; he created a thread in the art forum, in which he encouraged members to use an avatar that featured the “AE” logo being shot by bullets, which resulted in a stream of blood spelling “OB.” Many OB members immediately began to use the avatar. Of course, Rick Hunter saw the thread and completely “lost it,” which lead to him being banned after making several insulting threads/posts. He would come back several times to the forums under new user names and accounts, but he never again received much distinction.

AE Boards was deleted and re-formed several times as well, but without a popular companion site to draw members from, AE Boards, and Anime Explosion both failed to develop a following of their own. By 2005 Anime Explosion and AE Boards had been deleted.

In a bizarre move, Rick Hunter created a thread stating that Miramax had agreed to produce a screenplay he had written, entitled “Rage of the Inferno.” The film was set to star Sean Connery in the role of “Rikoshi.”. Rick Hunter then became obsessed with a a girl named “Blizzy” who played in Yu Gi Oh card battles. Rick Hunter has not been heard from since, and neither has his film. Sean Connery could not be reached for comment.

The thread in which he declared his film was picked up can be found here

A portion of his screenplay for “Rage of the Inferno can be found here

Is Rick Hunter somewhere in Hollywood basking in the success of his genius? You be the judge.

 Update: Rick Hunter returned to OtakuBoards on 12-29-2007 and created a thread in the Information Kiosk forum  entitled “To whom do I direct this to?” in which he whined about his Otakupedia article and revealed that Anime Explosion had been revitalized.  In the thread, Rick Hunter assured the community that he had matured substantially over the years, but at the same time, complained over the use of an image he himself had posted on OtakuBoards.  Kevin went as far as to insinuate that the use of the imagery was punishable in court (which was ironic considering that he did not obtain legal permission to use the name “Rick Hunter”).  Ironically, the article in question was over a year old and by posting about it in public, he drew more attention to it than it would have otherwise received.

Categories: History, Notable Bans, OB Spinoffs