The Shades

John Tague is an anime critic who goes by the moniker "The Shades". He began his reviews back in late January of 2009, and has developed three popular shows of different types and styles, as well as an anime podcast that he hosts with several fellow anime fans. He joined XNO a year later in mid January of 2010. He Also has joined a large collaborative of Video Makers knows as "The Geek Fighters"

The Shades originally created his videos using only the room behind him as a backdrop, but while working for another anime website in April of 2008, switched to a single color backdrop. After leaving the site in July, he switched to a Chroma Key background, which he continues to use to this day.

Anime Takeover
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Anime Takeover is The Shades' basic review series. In it, The Shades reviews popular mainstream anime, as well as anime you may not have heard of, but should check out. While he has done a few negative reviews, The Shades reviews tend to lean to the positive.

The Shades also has a sub-series as part of Anime Takeover called "The Classified Files". With this series, The Shades looks closer at the anime culture and the elements within it. He mainly compares how anime is created and treated in it's birthplace of Japan, as compared to how it's treated in America.

Fandom Paradise
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One of the first series The Shades officially created, it began as simply "AMV Paradise". In this series, The Shades looks at the best fan-made works on the internet. He mainly looks at three major forms of fandom: Fan Art, FanFiction, and Music Videos, though he has also looked at Doujinshi (Fan-made Magna) and Flash Animations as well. He originally only focused on Anime, though he has begun to include Video Game-related Fandom as well. He sites three major sources for most of the fandom he features:


 * Most Fan Art featured on the show is located at DeviantART. DA is a popular website that hosts Artists of all type, with Fan Art being quite pervalent on the site.
 * Most of the FanFiction featured is located on Fanfiction.net. FF.Net is home to thousands of Fanfics of every genre.
 * Since the most common Music Videos are Anime Music Videos (also known as AMVs), The common source is A-M-V.org. This site offers AMVs for any anime you are a fan of, as well as some american cartoon and video game music videos, though the focus is primarily anime.

The Internet Hall of Fame
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One of The Shades' more recent series, this gives other internet critics and stars the recognition they deserve. Created in August of 2009, The Shades sits down with the rising stars of the web for an exclusive interview, allowing fans to get to know more about their favorite web celebs, and introducing them to new fans who may have never heard of them before.

The Rising Sun Podcast
The Shades and 4 other anime fans come together each week to talk anime on their weekly podcast "The Rising Sun". They talk about common topics in anime, and participate in activities such as quizzes. They end each episode with a look at the anime-related news that has occurred over the last week.

One of their earliest accomplishments was getting an exclusive interview with anime voice actor Kyle Hebert. This interview was on their first episode, and was set up curtosey of Mike "Birdman" Dodd from This Week in Geek.

Previous Guests

 * Kyle Hebert - Voice Actor
 * The STAR
 * The NovaSpec
 * The Enigma
 * The Red Poet
 * The Navigator