I know we skipped a month with the holiday hubbub, but you better believe that we’re coming back strong with the first interview of 2008 (lucky number 7). All you lucky readers better strap yourselves in and hold on to your man-juice, cause we’ve got an interview with the one and only TJ Han of Riuva. Considering the impressive depth of his answers that were drawn up while in lecture, I will no longer accept school as a reason for decreased posting activity (especially if your “school” is the Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Art).

Deep Thought Questions

Not many bloggers have had their articles published in a magazine. Can you tell us some more about the experience and how the opportunity came about?

One must realize that the anime blogosphere is not just about the blogs but also interpersonal connections via IRC, Facebook, Skype and other social networking tools. There is a very active community which doesn’t differentiate between bloggers and readers, particularly on IRC channels such as #animeblogger on IRChighway and #SGanimebloggers on Rizon, the latter of which is for Singaporean otaku. Some of the members of these channels have good connections and one, Aheda, knew an editor from a local gaming magazine who was looking for people to submit a monthly figurine review freelance. He made the necessary go-between and we struck a deal where I could just send him my pictures and figure review copied in its entirety from my blog.

This may seem like free money, and it possibly is, but there is also work involved. For example, I no longer have 100% free editorial right, since I have to be mindful of the houserules of the publication, i.e. no vulgarities, nudity and offensive remarks, no inside jokes and other issues. This is why my reviews have seemed a tad bland these days with introductions of the character and anime series involved, but it’s really for a more mass market audience rather than the otaku niche.

Many bloggers/readers do not realize that it is very different writing for a blog compared to a proper article and the latter is a lot more unfun to write. Speaking of which, there are always many opportunities for anime bloggers to make money via freelancing. The anime magazines, especially here in Singapore, are actively recruiting freelancers, since there aren’t many eloquent otakus here. The going rate is about 40 dollars for an article. Aspiring writers can look for Ho Wan at Fresh Mode Magazine.

• An example of the paid review. Less humour, more information.
• An example of my old style of reviewing, which had more erotic humour. See how I use awesome cotton bud to stab the soft t*ts of Biker Rei.

What caused you to expand Riuva’s focus past figurine reviews into posts on many aspects of otaku culture?

Figure reviews are by far the most time-consuming type of posts. You have to buy the figure, take pictures of it (mostly outdoor and includes travelling time), upload and edit the pictures, write the actual review etc. Regular editorials take far less time and are easy to write, without seemingly like doing real work.

Blogs reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the blogger and I feel my powers are the ability to make people laugh at crude things, look at stuff logically and pseudo-scientifically and make fun of the sad sad stereotypical otaku. And posts which include all of the above elements are always wildly popular, compared to the usual figure reviews, so I try to mix it around a bit.

I personally find humour more or less the only thing I’m interested in when reading blogs, so it’s no surprise that most of my posts are humour-centric. And since otaku culture is very funny, either intentionally or not, I like to talk about otakus too. It’s both a self-derogatory and ego-boosting thing, since I’m both an advanced otaku and a ninja otaku.

But because after 2 years of blogging, I know the anime blogging circle and otakus in general quite well, it becomes very easy to do meta-blogging or meta-otaku posts without much research. Stuff’ll just roll off the top of my head. In a sense, my moving to such content could be seen as a sign of increasing laziness and less willingness to invest time and effort.

• 10 ways to be a ninja otaku in school
• What elemental otaku are you?
• Why liking anime is bad for you.
• 10 ways to get an anime-loving girlfriend. (The sad thing is I personally don’t think having an anime-loving girlfriend is essential or even good)

Do you feel that adding more authors has helped recharge your creative juices, or just allowed you to be lazier?

There are several reasons I chose to open up the doors of Riuva to others, and significantly, only to people from my college rather than say Impz, for instance, who taps on the world market.

The idea of group blogging isn’t new but I would think THAT is the first blog to, to put it negatively, outsource. I think most of us had a poor impression of this at first, as the existing group blogs such as Sea Slugs were mainly made up of friends, rather than a collection of people with ability and no common interest. THAT appears, at first, to be like a corporation and its efficiency is certainly indisputable, churning out posts at a steady rate and of varying topics and styles, which soon attracted many readers.

Back then, I had the notion that a blog was the avatar of our individual online personas and a group blog would never have the same effect. An example is how Random Curiosity seemingly suffered from some criticism when Omni recruited some dudes.

So why did I follow Impz then? There are two categories of reasons – the first being the logical type and the other, a more altruistic kind.

Having more writers means more people with varied interests and they will like stuff that I do not like, such as sissy shows (Hey there, Ascaloth). When they blog about such, they attract a different kind of crowd. If you notice, Ascaloth’s posts have markedly different commenters compared to mine and most of his pageviews come from Animesuki and other forums, or Google. This is a form of horizontal expansion, but does come at the expense of brand dilution. My solution for this was to enforce a compulsory nametag in the post title of every article.

More people posting means I can afford to go away, or not post and still have the site updated. Regularity of updates is a very important factor for the popularity of blogs.

I used to post more than once every single day for more than 1 year. That’s a shocking 500+ posts in 365 days. The secret is not dedication or l33t skills, but the fact that I had absolutely nothing to do during that period. I was serving my national service, as an Army Journalist and it was an 8 to 5.30 job. All my friends were in the army as well and unavailable to meet up, so I really had nothing to do but build Gundams, watch anime, and blog. My traveling time and shower times were spent on conceptualizing new post ideas. Now that college has started, it has really become impossible to maintain that kind of pace, or even any kind of pace.

The more humane reason for sharing a blog is because I have a close group of otaku friends, self-named the 1st Otaku battalion. We met one another in the Army, since all of us were doing clerical work with access to computers and we would chat online. Place several guys, with the same interests and personality, together for two years and you get good friends. One of them used to run the now-defunct Lolicontrol as well, we actually started our blogs at the same time but he just had more of a life than me then. But yeah, so for my non-blogging otaku friends, joining Riuva is kind of an opportunity for them to get their opinions heard and thus improve their self-confidence and writing skills. My English did improve quite a bit from the constant blogging.

But as I mentioned in a recent post, editorial content is a limited resource and to write good editorials, you really need to be abreast of the latest developments in the otaku and anime blogging world and at the moment, I really am finding it hard to do it.

What tips would you give to someone who is interested in buying figurines for the first time?

Don’t start. I must have spent like 10 grand on it and my house is more like a warehouse. Initially, you’ll think of them as a decorative accessory. But soon, it develops into a compulsion and next, you’ll find them messing up your place with the sheer volume.

If you have to, buy only figures of characters you like. Speaking of which, I’m selling quite a lot of my figures. Currently doing up the stocklist, so if you guys are interested, do buy from me, they need a new home!

Quick Shots

Will you ever get back to shooting figurines in public places again, and will it involve an intense training episode to get your otaku shell back?

I probably have to, since I don’t really have the tools to do it indoors. In the good old days, I would travel hours just to find a good backdrop. But for the past 1 year or so, it’s just been around my home and the neighborhood. It’s really quite an embarrassing thing to be squatting beside the road taking pictures of plastic little girls while everyone walks by and asks you “Did you make these?” Thankfully, I’ve always had thick skin when it comes to such.

How difficult is it for you to be a stealth otaku offline?

It is very very easy. I love my parents, they didn’t give me a nerdy appearance. Btw, you can check out how a huge number of anime bloggers look like in person via facebook. Search for the anime blogger group. Or just look for me, I’m the Emperor of Group Riuva.

In my college class, there are just five guys and most assume this other guy is the otaku since he has a Lucky Star ringtone. Yet he doesn’t even watch any anime at all! Compared to my 30-series on average per season…

But thankfully due to the overall crappiness of this season, I’m now only following a handful, like 5. Major season 4, Gintama, Persona, Bamboo Blade, Kaiji.

But I digress. Anyway, I don’t dress otaku, just normally though I do like and wear my Gurren Lagann and other COSPA shirts. Tip: Buying from COSPA is actually cheaper than Rip Curl or Levis’ here. And the shirt quality is comparable.

When people ask for my interests, I’ll just say some generic shit like e-commerce, guitar and photography. Not lying, just withholding information. And I have pretty standard to even good social skills, so I’m not the stereotypical otaku. I bathe daily too! And I have hair! And no fats!

What metrics did you use to determine the RPG classes of your blogroll?

I tried to go for an RPG feel but didn’t really put too much thought in it. There are general rules though. I really don’t like the link exchange system though and try to just include only blogs that I like/read. But then I’ll recall the days where I was a n00b and had to beg for links too, so I relent.

• (Bard) Bards are Singaporeans. That’s easy. Why are Singaporeans bards? Because bards sing, “La la la” don’t they? And Singaporeans have this habit of ending each sentence with a “la.” Like, “Let’s go eat, la.”
• (Beast) Beasts are the fearsome creatures spawned from the gates of Hell itself, 4chan. Or just people who I feel have animalistic tendencies towards moe.
• (Magic) The most common and staple class, Magic is the average Episode Summary blog.
• (Oracle) Oracles are just news sites. Makes sense, no?
• (Priestess) Ah, these are all the girl bloggers. Girl bloggers are a precious commodity, because they represent the highest chance an otaku can have of female interaction.
• (Rogue) Rogues are the bloggers with a prominent fetish.
• (Spy) Spys are people who focus on figurines. They look up skirts often.
• (Squire) Squires are new bloggers. I basically put everyone who asks me to add them here unless they get promoted.
• (Warlord) Warlords are the power wielders in the anime blogging world, or so I think. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but these are generally guys I give respect to. Like when I see Darkmirage in person, I have to kneel and kiss his hand, and chant the Darkmirage song, “Da Da Da Da Da, Darkmirage, is the greatest blogger on this sunny island, he is the sexy, he is the beast, he is the bestest blogger on the sea!”

Favorite anime blog besides your own?

I have a strong preference for the blogs who came out about the same time as myself, such as Minaide Hazukashii’s JP Meyer (though then known as Ai to Yuuki no Otogibanashi). Darkmirage’s blog was the main reason I started blogging actually and I sent him fan mail then. It was quite funny cos he had this contact address removemenadesicoremoveme@gmail.com and I sent it to that mail account, without removing the removemes. He did reply though, oddly enough.

I also like blogs which are funny and bloggers who I know personally. Like the Dango comics by DS are funny and Sasa of Heterochromia, who I consider my good IRC pal. Otherwise, j1m0ne’s really informative seiyuu blog is great too. Though I must say her tastes in music are horrible. I really think there needs to be more funny anime blogs.

Best part about blogging?

Becoming known internationally! I am like Britney Spears!! You know, there are tonnes of people who come up to me on the streets to say hi. And I take great pride when people mention that they know my site. Or even better, when people get shocked and go like “WOW YOU’RE THE RIUVA GUY!! AWESOME!!” and they start trembling with excitement at the honor of meeting me.

But the best part is probably meeting the countless people online, who are just so different from Singaporeans. I like talking to the Americans (all fat), Germans (all Engineers), Brits (all Chavs) etc cos it’s not something that I can do in real life. The number of international friends I have is far far more than what an average person my age in Singapore has.

Oh and the money’s a nice addition to my income.

Worst part about blogging?

Nothing really, except when the girlfriend (I call her Princess) reads some of the more risqué posts. She’s the main reason, along with my atrocious school grades, that I’m not really blogging much anymore. I’m terrible henpecked. If you’ve watched the Korean romantic comedy, “My Sassy Girl” (do watch it, it’s insanely good), she’s just like the main female lead.

Do the ladies prefer 2D Tripeman or Live Action Tripeman?

Tripeman? Nobody likes Tripeman. LOL. It’s quite a cult hit, restricted to people in the Riuva group and DS, the Dango fetishist. Thankfully, I get my share of lady action in real life. Tip: girls are not impressed by your anime website, even if it’s as big as Danny Choo’s. However, they are impressed by your “website which has 5000 visitors a day and earns your XXX money a month”.

That said, I love Tripeman. It feels more like I “found” him, rather than created him, such is how appropriate he is for the site. Just like the name Riuva, it’s quite cool isn’t it.

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