Third time’s the charm, and in this interview we’ve brought you rising young star, Totali of Subculture Anime Blog. In just over 4 months, Totali has amassed an impressive number of episodic summaries that are both concise and entertaining. Totali takes some time out of his busy last week before entering life in Hell a University, to talk about his tensai blog and just a few of his favorite anime bloggers. Check out Totali’s site, force him to troll his own comments, and let us know what you think of the interview!
Deep Thought Questions
How does having an understanding of the Japanese language help with your enjoyment of anime? What would you recommend people who want to learn enough Japanese to watch raw episodes do?
Understanding Japanese got rid of a lot of the limitations I had before with watching anime, like having to wait on a fansub. I think I finished watching Hitohira way before it even started getting subbed past the first few episodes (that is, until Shirukii requested it… that was pretty leet). Besides that, I actually have a lot of fun just learning the language.
I think the first thing people need to do when learning the language is to change their mindset. A lot of people are like, “Oh I can’t learn Japanese. It’s way too hard”. Most anime fans have already gotten very familiar with the language by watching hundreds of fansubs, so it only takes a little knowledge of the language structure to start jumping into raws. I would start off with some audiobooks on basic language (hint: the internet is your friend), then start reading some books to strengthen your knowledge. Make sure you get a dictionary! I started off by writing up on raws, then checking myself with subs. After a couple months of basically translating all of the shows I watched, I discovered that I really didn’t need to watch the subbed versions anymore.
Old timers love to talk about what it was like starting an anime blog back when there were very few aniblogs around, and there was not a whole lot of community. Needless to say, things have changed (for the better). Care to shed some light on the planning behind Subculture, and the early days of building up an audience and establishing contacts between fellow anime bloggers?
When I first started my blog, I really just wanted a place to put my summaries based on my favorite anime raws. Because I was writing on shows that nobody else was, I actually ended up getting quite a few core viewers. While hanging around the AB IRC and looking around aggregators, I also started discovering tons of new anime blogs. While enjoying and commenting on them, I guess I started getting noticed by other bloggers as well. As I started having more fun interacting with everyone, I changed the style of my blog to give what my viewers wanted and made it more interactive.
The start of the summer season really helped in exposing my blog as well. I noticed that my site’s visitors doubled (tripled?) when people came to my site looking for summaries of the new shows. The funny this is, I was only blogging the ones I thought looked interesting, and I didn’t even plan on doing full coverage of all the anime that came out. By this point, I even started getting things like “Subculture’s post isn’t up so the episode must have not come out”. What!? No, I was just out with friends that weekend and didn’t have time to blog it! I mean, it’s pretty crazy. In reality, I’ve always just wanted to be a small blog that fills in some of the gaps for the community, kind of like psgels of Star Crossed or Aroduc of Tenka Seiha.
What are the top 3 things you would tell someone who has just started up a new anime blog?
Create your own voice. I’m as guilty as everyone else for being influenced by the other blogs that I enjoy, but I developed my own style throughout my blogging experience. If you really like green-haired lolis, express it! You’ll become known for it.
Get involved in the community. I see so many bloggers (old and new) that don’t seem to ever leave their blog or interact with others. Apparently there’s some rule that you have to keep all your thoughts confined to your own blog or something. Well, screw that! I don’t see why I can’t be a fan of another anime blog just because I do it myself. Different blogs exist because different opinions exist, and getting involved is what really makes it fun.
Don’t get discouraged by what seems like a lack of viewership. Out of a thousand visitors, one of those MIGHT comment. There will always be someone reading your blog, and if you can reach out to just one more person, you’ve succeeded. Time is the greatest challenge for an anime blog, so just hold out and love what you do.
We’ve all heard the (baseless) arguments about how editorials are better than episode summaries. Why do you think episode summaries reign supreme?
There are actually a lot more people that read episodic summaries than there are those that read editorials. While editorial topics tend to stay confined within the blogging community itself, episodic summaries spread all throughout the anime community in general. Just because a blogger doesn’t read episodic summaries, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t. I also believe that episodic impressions can carry just as much of a voice as editorials. Sure, if you are only jotting down a few quick thoughts on the episode you watched it might be superficial, but many episodic bloggers really go deep into analyzing what the creators had in mind for an episode. If anything, there is more work and thought put into episodic reviews than editorials, just in smaller chunks at a time.
Episodic blogs also come out on top for longevity. I always see older bloggers complaining that newer bloggers are only talking about the same things that they did all over again. That’s because everyone has already forgotten that the subject was already talked about months or years ago! What if I just want to find the episode where the samurai gangsters play baseball real quick? All I have to do is find one of my favorite blogs and hit “Samurai Champloo” in the categories, and I’m there. One of the reasons I set up an episodic blog was so that I could have references to episodes if I ever wanted to go watch them again. There are so many other things I could go into, but that would probably be too much for this interview!
Quick Shots
What’s your stance on childhood promises? Good gamble, or pointless source of angst?
As far as I’m concerned, childhood promises are a myth. I don’t understand how all of these characters actually remember what they said when they were little kids!
You’re putting up an anime “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” parody. Which anime character do you cast as the Mac, and which do you cast as the PC?
Ah geez, that’s a hard one. There are so many good clumsy/refined character pairings. I guess the first thing that comes to mind for me would be Ren and Miu from DearS.
On average, how long does it take you to finish a post (counting watching the episode, getting the caps, writing it all, etc.)?
On average it takes about an hour. It might take a bit longer if the episode I am covering is more dialog driven.
Favorite anime blog besides your own?
Ex Fansubber Hitorigoto would definitely be my favorite blog, because Hinano also likes love comedies and her posts are really fun to read. My second favorite blog would the the High Color Times, because aurabolt runs one of the most unique anime blogs around. Besides that, his blog is named after a Base Ball Bear album. I mean how leet is that?
Best part about blogging?
I would have to say that it’s interacting with the community, on my blog and off. Finding out that I come up first on Google for “pink elephant rice cooker” is pretty cool too, though.
Worst part about blogging?
Those conflicting thoughts of wanting to reply to everyone, but being hesitant to reply to the random guy who comes to my site to ask where to download anime….then ending up trolling on my own blog because of it.
What romantic comedy tactic do you wish worked in real life?
If the “running into the girl and seeing her panties” tactic actually worked, that would be pretty sweet.
11 Comments
You know, I was wondering why Totali was suddenly asking me just yesterday if my blog was named after the album or the song. Oh well, that made a nice surprise.
Already said this on the IRC channel, but that sashimi image makes a nice touch with this interview. Can’t quite explain why though, it just is. :V
Oh, and I laughed at this: “Subculture’s post isn’t up so the episode must have not come out.” Now I’m curious who’s the person who said this quote full of win.
Great post, and a nice encouragement for new bloggers like myself.
I can definitely vouch for the “not all readers leave comments”. I found this blog through a random Google search a couple years back, and have been a regular reader ever since, but until recently I almost never posted comments.
Understanding Japanese is definitely a huge benefit when you’re anxiously waiting to watch a new episode. Having to wait for some group to sub it before you can watch must be torture. D=
“…I come up first on Google for ‘pink elephant rice cooker’…”
Hmm…looks like you’ve been dethroned. I tried the seach out and Subculture is only coming in second. ;_;
I honestly laughed when I am quoted as being famous for liking green hair lolis. I guess in a way, it’s kinda right. hahaha.
oh well, it does take anything to be readable, huh?
Yes, I also realized that I no longer appear first on google for that….I’m pissed! I need to start a campaign to change that or something.
Again, thank you Kabitzin for giving me the chance to be interviewed by Sea Slugs! and making the interview more entertaining then I could have imagined.
…and now I need to head to class. x)
I like your point about editorials/episode summaries. My preference is in writing editorials since I felt that the majority of anime blogs were like that and that format would make it easier for me to feel forced to write, which takes the enjoyment out of it for me. :P
And I love the 3 tips to bloggers starting out. :3
aurabolt: I remember that! To think he was actually doing research for his responses! So studious and diligent; it is clear that University slacker life has not yet corrupted him. Soon…
0rion: I’m glad you thought so! Ender and I tried to pick someone who was newer to the blogging community this time. Totali did a really great job of illustrating some of the subtler aspects of building up a high-quality blog quickly without burning out. The community is a really important part of blogging, and Totali’s networking skills are rather impressive =D.
Impz: I think you may be the only anime blogger who has an entire webpage devoted to making comics about you. You are like the Idol of the anime blogging world. When does your CD come out?
Totali: orz I also noticed that your site didn’t come up first, but I didn’t want to mention it in case it was just a momentary glitch. I’m doing my part by making sure to link to your site with the exact phrase, so perhaps if you write some more rice cooker posts you can reclaim your crown =). Thanks again for taking the time to give such thoughtful responses!!!
TheBigN: You do bring up a good point, and for some people that pressure takes some of the fun out of it. However, if you like to post very often, I think episode summaries are a great way to build up a large body of work with a pre-defined direction. I will admit that editorials do tend to be much flashier and inspire more commentary.
YES BASE BALL BEAR IS l33t.
Oh the irony.
This post took over the first result for “pink elephant rice cooker” and relegated Totali to third place ;_;
“However, if you like to post very often, I think episode summaries are a great way to build up a large body of work with a pre-defined direction.”
In this case, it helps that I don’t like to post often I guess. :P
I actually have no problem with editorial type blogs at all, and several of them are on my blogroll. I have my own reasons for doing episodic posts, but there shouldn’t be anything keeping anyone from writing how they like! Everyone has their preferences, and I like to read both kinds.
Shirukii, omg you’re right. That’s it, I am starting a major Airantou campaign as soon as I can!
@ Shirukii
LOL, I just noticed that. Now how’s that for a kick in the pants.
Kind of like how Warren Buffett’s stock predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies, you created a link to an obscure Google search query and then became the top ranked result for it. xD
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