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Anime Bloggers Need Excitement

The relevance (or rather, lack there of) of contemporary anime blogs has again been brought into question, this time at the core of the blogsphere itself; blogsuki.
The central theme of the discussion is an unstoppable slew of generic episode summaries, the problem being that these dozens of posts all essentially describe the same things; why recap an episode if it’s already been done elsewhere?
I’m torn between both perspectives, as pointless as it may be to reiterate the contents of an episode that has already been echoed countlessly elsewhere, blogging is and always should be a personal labour of love.
If you see an anime series that just gives you that feeling, nothing should stem the ensuing passion; you know what I mean- when you discover an anime series you love, or see an amazing episode, you’re instantly transformed from that moody old seen-it-all-before to an excited kid so full of glee and enthusiasm that you just need to tell someone…, anyone…, about what you’ve just seen. That’s basically why I’m running an anime blog, to capture and share those glimpses of euphoric emotion, and at that point I couldn’t care less whether some other bloke has already said the same things 7 days previous.
Naturally I would love to be listed on BLOGSUKI and see my readership expand. No doubt I’m one of the dozens waiting in line to be granted this “honour”, but I am not going to appease my style just to earn their favour. Writing should always be a natural exercise, free of external pressures or set formulas.
Over the past few days there has been all this talk about how bloggers can do the right things and avoiding doing wrong things, but it’s all irrelevant if you lack the passion to write about anime. That is basically all you need to succeed, for me writing here is about fulfilment. It’s great to get comments, to express and share opinions with other anime fans and that’s all there is to it. To this end, it’s disappointing to be denied entry to a website like blogsuki, but I’ll live.

7 replies on “Anime Bloggers Need Excitement”

I agree with you 110%. Aside from the blogs that go under and die out shortly after they open their doors because they weren’t getting the amount of readership they wanted as soon as they opened up, I believe most people out there love what they do. If they’re the kind of blogger that do episide-by-episode reviews, then there must be something that they love about doing it. If they’re the type that writes editorials or funny posts all the time, then there must be something that they love about doing it. There’s no reason to change what you do just because there are so many other people that do the same thing; doing so would only defeat the purpose of your choice to blog, that is, to have fun (I assume that’s most peoples’ reasoning).
I’m getting a little peeved at the recent backlash against certain parts of the anime blogosphere. Hopefully soon people will let it go and go back to their normal selves.

While I understand the sentiment of wanting a large readership, it’s saddening that it has become the primary focus instead of anime itself. Okay, so I’m a more than a bit bothered by the recent developments.
In the three years both as a blogger and reader, I’ve grown to love this blogosphere. So the negative aura floating around is disheartening… and a tad irritating.
And the funny thing is that the more one wants to be unique, one ends up the being the same as the next dude. ;p
Hmmm. What I want to know is the thoughts of regular readers, the non-anime bloggers kind. Hee.

The phrase "storm in a teacup" comes to mind. I woke up this morning to discover every blog and it’s mother is going on about this issue! 🙂 So at the risk of sounding like a broken record…
I suppose this is something that happens every new season. A ton of new blogs open, hype up the latest and greatest show (this time, it’s Haruhi) and then people get sick of the praise and a backlash begins.
"Hmmm. What I want to know is the thoughts of regular readers, the non-anime bloggers kind. Hee."
Yeah- I doubt the regular readers care at all. This is such an insular issue that I’m sure it alienates a lot of casual visitors. Either way, I guess self analysis is useful every now and then! 🙂

Some good points made here. I really don’t like the idea that any blog is less valid even if it’s doing a post that has been done many times over. Blogging should be about the enjoyment and fulfillment of writing, not about hits and the like (obviously having a readership is a good thing and all, but priority should be enjoyment of what YOU as a blogger write). Whether you write mainly editorials, episode by episode posts, news etc… or a mix of everything, to me as long as you are writing as you enjoy writing (and its nice if other people can see that in your posts) that is the main thing.

I wasn’t really aware of this issue before now to be honest. I can see why people want to improve their blog’s popularity though – after all, if you care enough about something to blog it you care enough to want a sizeable number of people to read it too. Unfortunately this can lead to the decision on what to blog being based on what’s ‘in’ at the time rather than what you really want to talk about.

I tried writing a Naruto anime blog once, but I just got so bored with re-capping stuff. It’s tough to not speak Japanese well. If I did, then I would be able to comment about industry stuff, etc. 🙁

Once you realize how hard it is to blog episodes every day, it becomes hard to keep going. The thing is, I run this blog because I want to interact with people. I love reading comments and speaking with everyone… If you’re going to blog episodes, it’s hard to attract attention away from all speed blogging raw watchers out there. Full credit goes to those guys willing to blog episodes either during and just hours after it airs in Japan, but I quickly realized something like that wasn’t for me.

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