April 2025, the month including The New Leaf Journal’s fifth birthday, is in the books. The end of the month means that it is time for our regularly scheduled month-end-review post, a tradition dating back to August 2020. Below, I will recap our new articles from April 2025 and our most-visited articles of the month.
New Leaf Journal April Leaves
I changed things up in March 2025 at The New Leaf Journal by focusing on explaining how I came up with my article ideas. I thought it came out well, so I will do the same below.
The New Leaf Journal’s fifth birthday fell on April 27. I knew I had to write a celebration article. When I was trying to come up with an idea, I happened upon a post at a newsletter-blog called Construction Physics titled 50 Things I’ve Learned Writing Construction Physics. That gave me an idea, and that idea turned into 50 Things I Learned in Five Years of NLJ Articles.
I published an April Fools article this year after a one-year hiatus. Hip Green Smoothies For April Fools is a Justin and Justina dialogue. Like many Justin and Justina dialogues, it was inspired by an observation I have had while walking — here being that it seems like many people who walk around with (likely expensive) green smoothies seem to use them more as an accessory than a beverage. My second article of April, “Like Literally Like – Unclear Thinking and Speaking, was also inspired by an observation from one of my walks, this one being something I overheard on the street. This article also interacts with a series of articles I have written on the modern abuse of the word like.
I learned about a then-upcoming anime called Honey Lemon Soda last year. Based on the previews, I suspected that it would make a good addition to my long-running series of articles on anime hair color. My suspicion turned out to be correct and I started drafting a hair color study that would become Honey Lemon Soda Hair Color Analysis while the show was airing. However, I ultimately published my hair color analysis only after the show concluded and after I had published Honey Lemon Soda – Anime Review. There were two reasons for my change in plans. Firstly, I decided to hold out until the end of the show for more potential hair color points (that turned out to be the correct decision). Second, I had enough to say about the show to write a review, so I decided to publish that right before the hair color study.
At the end of January, I published my review of the year that was in anime in 2024 in two parts with The Best TV Anime of 2024 and 2024 TV Anime Category Awards. That was not new, I have published similar articles annually going back to 2021. In April, I came across Crunchyroll’s 2025 Anime Award nominees. The nominees included a number of shows I watched but did not feature in my own anime rankings, while excluding some of my favorites. I decided to pick from Crunchyroll’s limited (in my opinion, at least) nominees in Choosing the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards.
My last article in March was Worst NBA Playoff Teams By SRS (1984-2024), which I discussed in my March review. I built off that big project in April with “Best” NBA Playoff Teams With Losing Records. I noticed that the Miami Heat, which made the 2024-25 NBA Playoffs with a dismal 37-45 record, had a positive SRS, meaning they would not have qualified for my April survey despite their record. I decided to examine whether the Heat had the worst record of any NBA Playoff team going back to 1983-84 with a positive SRS or Net Rating.
I began noticing Amazon e-cargo bikes taking over my neighborhood in late November/early December of 2024. On April 6, 2025, I was able to take a good photo of a parked Amazon delivery vehicle. This inspired me to do some research and publish the results in Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn. Continuing on the New York news trend, I wrote A Skypark Bridge to Sell You to connect a current events story about negotiations to build a casino in Queens to an old-time New York story which birthed the I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you quip.
On April 25, 2023, I published an article about how I successfully emptied a sunscreen refill packet into an empty bottle of the same sunscreen brand. In March 2025, I accidentally purchased refill packets instead of a new bottle and did not have an old bottle. I decided to tell readers about my genius solution, and in so doing refer back to my first article on the matter, in Nivea Water Gel Sunscreen Refills in OXO Lotion Bottle. Continuing with the home-spun article trend, I made a snack recommendation in Crackers With Peanut Butter and Banana Slices. One reason I was inspired to write this article was because I had previously written about one of the two kinds of crackers I used for the peanut butter and banana snack.
While reading through my feed items one morning, I came across news that Google Search had collaborated with Pokémon to create a search-based Pokémon-catching mini game. I was originally going to share a link in that week’s newsletter, but I decided to one-up myself not once but twice, completing a play-through of the game and uploading a recording of my play-through to the Internet Archive. You can find the story and a link to the recording in Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search.
I took a trip down memory lane to write Nobody Beats Kirby’s Dream Land at The Wiz. The idea for this article came to me a few months ago when I read about Google buying Wiz. Of course, the Wiz Google bought is a cyber-security company. The Wiz in my story is the former electronics store. My story is set in a Wiz location in 1995.
My penultimate article of April, Diagnosing Fictional Characters, was prompted by an interview in a book called The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers. In the interview, Ryushiki07, the developer of Umineko: When They Cry, was asked about fans speculating that one character in his visual novel had Asperger’s Syndrome. I had an opinion on that specific character, and more broadly I also had opinions on attempts to diagnose other fictional characters . I began writing this article a couple of months ago, but I did not get around to finishing it until the end of April.
I published three short photo posts in the second half of April. Easter Sunday 2025 features a photo I had taken the day before Easter of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Portico Zebra on Cambridge Place in Clinton Hill comes as advertised. I wanted to publish this article both because the zebra on the portico was amusing and also to add another Clinton Hill article to our archive. I concluded the month with A Solitary Tulip in Red Hook which is my first brave plant article in some time.
I published several new April posts on our short-form sister publication, The Emu Café Social. I learned about Tinder chatbots, Chinese artificial Christmas Tree manufacturers, and an online platform called LTK. I covered the 2025 Masters golf tournament in an article about Fred Couples shooting a first round 71 and becoming the oldest golfer to be in red numbers in a round at The Masters. Having covered recent 2024 anime on The New Leaf Journal, I wrote about anime series with long gaps between seasons on ECS. I referenced two of my older New Leaf Journal articles in Woodpecker in Brooklyn and Waiting For a G3 Macintosh in 1998. Finally, I previewed a future New Leaf Journal article in Installing Tinker WriterDeck OS On Old ASUS Netbook
I also published four Saturday newsletters in April. Each newsletter includes 21 links from around the web and weekly article rankings along with a recap of our new posts, so there is something to read even if you are caught up on The New Leaf Journal.
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXVII 〜 Honey Lemon SRS, April 5, 2025
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXVIII 〜 Crunchy cargo refill, April 12, 2025
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXIV 〜 Gotta read ’em all, April 19, 2025
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXX 〜 Nobody beats the NLJ, April 26, 2025
If you enjoy the newsletter, do note that all issues are available online and it has an RSS feed.
Most-visited NLJ articles of April 2025
I use a WordPress plugin called Koko Analytics to count page views (Koko Analytics works entirely locally – you can read my 2022 review, although it has changed a bit while still maintaining the same basic functionality). Each month, I list our most-visited articles according to Koko Analytics. Below, you will find our 24 most-visited articles of April 2025 and for the three month period covering February-April.
| March Rank | Article (Author. Date of Publication.) | 3-Month Rank | 3-Month Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024. | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022. | 6 | -1 |
| 3 | Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix” Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 16, 2023. | 5 | +2 |
| 4 | Calvin Coolidge Describes His Mother, Victoria Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 13, 2021. | 4 | +2 |
| 5 | Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023. | 8 | +6 |
| 6 | The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022. | 7 | +2 |
| 7 | How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 11, 2021. | 17 | +8 |
| 8 | Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024. | 14 | +6 |
| 9 | Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2 Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 5, 2023. | 9 | -1 |
| 10 | Hair Color in The Apothecary Diaries Anime Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 15, 2023. | 15 | +9 |
| 11 | January 2025 Look at Pixelfed Social Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 29, 2025. | 2 | +1 |
| 12 | Bill’s Secret Garden – A Pokémon Generation 1 Urban Legend Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 6, 2022. | 26 | +29 |
| 13 | Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 5, 2021. | 11 | +2 |
| 14 | The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021. | 10 | +1 |
| 15 | Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025. | 59 | NEW |
| 16 | Ghostwriter Markdown Editor Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 7, 2021. | 18 | +3 |
| 17 | Fixing Refresh Rate Issue on 4K TV Monitor Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 26, 2024. | 12 | -2 |
| 18 | Yuki’s Hair Color in A Sign of Affection Nicholas A. Ferrell. February 2, 2024. | 17 | 0 |
| 19 | Victory Chimes Schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 5, 2024. | 27 | +33 |
| 20 | Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025. | 74 | NEW |
| 21 | Hair Color in Raven of the Inner Palace Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 15, 2022. | 16 | -4 |
| 22 | Honey Lemon Soda – Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 4, 2025. | 77 | NEW |
| 23 | My Logitech Washable Wired Keyboard K310 Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 20, 2024. | 13 | +2 |
| 24 | Reviewing FrogFind: A Search Engine For Vintage Computers Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 24, 2022. | 20 | -1 |
| 28 | Kaori After Story – Visual Novel Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 31, 2022. | 3 | -1 |
| 47 | A Sign of Affection – Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 28, 2024. | 21 | -5 |
| 25 | Installing LineageOS on a 2013 Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 28, 2021. | 22 | -4 |
| 60 | An Early Review of Pixelfed – Instagram Alternative Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 13, 2020. | 23 | -19 |
| 35 | Recommended F-Droid Apps For Android-Based Devices (2021) Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 28, 2021. | 24 | -1 |
Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships notched its third consecutive month victory and did so by a wide margin. It did much of its damage in the second half of the mark. The Bill’s Secret Garden – A Pokémon Generation 1 Urban Legend (ultimately 12th) led for most of the first third of the month before Calvin Coolidge Describes His Mother, Victoria (4th) took over until the half-way point before fading. Articles 2-10 were bunched very closely together in the final ranking.
Looking further down the ranking, we see three articles that were published in April make the top-24, and I set them in bold to highlight their strong starts. 15th place Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn, 20th Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search, and 22nd Honey Lemon Soda – Anime Review all made one weekly top five each en route to their debut-month top-24 placements.
A few ranking mainstays had weak months The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (14th) posted its worst monthly finish since missing its debut-month ranking in March 2021, and it was on pace for worse before improving in the latter two weeks of April. Kaori After Story – Visual Novel Review narrowly missed the top-24 for the first time since November 2024, but it still sits in second place in the 2025 ranking thus far and third for February-April. A Sign of Affection – Anime Review missed the top-24 for the first time since May 2024, ranking behind my article on the hair color of the show’s main character (18th).
I will conclude with a fun ranking note. How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name finished 7th in April 2025. Its April ranks in the previous three years were 8th in 2024, 7th in 2023, and 6th in 2022. Yet its best year-end ranking was 12th in 2023. I dare say no article has been more seasonal than my review of the forget-me-not flower.
Taking leaf
April proved to be a productive month in terms of the number of newly published articles, and a few of the new articles look like good long-term prospects for attracting new visitors to The New Leaf Journal. I am working on several new projects for May, so I hope to have plenty to report next month.
