Not every blog author thirsts for fame and accolades on the Internet. In fact, this month’s interviewee started out as the mysterious Author of Ani-Nouto, a blog shrouded in mystery and suspense! Unlike other bloggers who power themselves with the scraps of enthusiasm thrown at their feet by commenters, Pete has no problem truly blogging for himself, and saying what he really feels. Why not check out his blog and challenge yourself to start your own blog to counter his arguments with your own well-oiled scholarly essays?
Deep Thought Questions
I’m sure many readers wonder why your blog has comments disabled. Considering your previous blog had comments enabled, what made you decide to turn comments off on Ani-nouto?
The main blog had a long history of having the comments on and off, so it’s not really just one act of switching them off for Ani-nouto. Currently, the anonymous comments are disabled at LiveJournal, which is probably the worst of both worlds, because it forces people to register. But the fact that someone went into the trouble of registering a LiveJournal account only because they wanted to comment on my (fairly insignificant) blog makes me realize that a strong desire to comment exists, so I see where the question comes from.
Nonetheless, while I acknowledge the concept, and it works admirably at places like Hop Step Jump, I evaluate the balance between the positives and negatives of having comments towards the negatives. The negatives are: spam, security implications such as SQL injection, abusive comments, and perceived responsibility of the Ani-nouto for the content of comments. An administrator must delete bad comments, but then what is left undeleted gains a tacit approval. I do not want that. The positives are: not many. Hop Step Jump sometimes receives a good comment from David Ma or Craig Callhoun, but the problem is it is a tough work fostering such commenters. I don’t know where Jeff Lawson finds good commenters, and I do not see myself getting them. Therefore, comments give me lots of negatives for essentially no positives.
Blogs are cheap these days. For instance, I don’t pay anything to host Ani-nouto. So if you want to comment, get a blog, post your comment, and link. This works for Instapundit.com, so why not for Ani-nouto?
You’ve mentioned before that you feel the anime blogosphere is still a young confederacy. How do you see the community evolving in the next few years as anime continues to become more mainstream?
I don’t really know. My instinct is to look at pre-existing Web sites and blogs and think that as anime blogosphere grows it would emulate that. But I know it’s fallacious. The anime blogosphere is just as old as the technical or political ones, but it clearly is smaller. For example, we have not seen an anime megablog yet. Even AoMM (now DbD) is very, very small by comparison with Daily Kos or LGF: an explicit link from Jason gives about 180 visits. So, we in anime blogging are on a different trajectory, which seems to involve a large number small blogs.
As anime enters the mainstream, however you define it, it does not seem to change the nature of anime blogging; it just increases the number of small blogs. I think the anime blog authors tried to create some cohesion recently (e.g. group writing at THAT and the astroturfing for ef are examples), but what form it is going to take is difficult to predict.
Which do you prefer: blogging about anime series or blogging about what other anime bloggers have said/done?
Inasmuch this question assumes no other kind of blogging, I think it’s a false dichotomy. I blog in order to discuss what I see, this is what I enjoy. To get any discussion going it is necessary to have the prime material, a personal interpretation of shared experience of anime. However, I hate reviews as commonly practiced, either summary or episodic. They are too formal, too repetitive. Now if Steven den Beste writes that Bottle Fairy is a story of an autistic girl, that is interesting and I wish to comment on that. That is where my propensity to quote other bloggers comes from.
I have to add to this that when Ani-nouto started, I wanted to define it in a way that was different from anyone else. It was very apparent that I would not be able to post episode summaries thicker than Random Curiosity, thin-slice a season more thoroughly than Jason Miao, or come with a thought more profound than Jeff Lawson’s. So, to fill a perceived niche, I consciously tried to emulate Instapundit. The logic was, Anime Nano only shows you summaries, but does not add any clever commentary. Needless to say, it was a failure, but some of that style sticks to Ani-nouto today and makes me look like someone who likes to blog about other blogs too much.
As someone who rarely reads manga, do you feel that this policy enhances your anime watching experience? Has an anime series ever inspired you to go back and check out the manga?
The answers are no and yes, in that order. When I saw Azumanga Daioh, I bought both the original manga and and the ADV release. But it happened only once. I do not do it to stay unspoiled and/or unsoiled, however. Anime simply offers more of what I appreciate, such as music and movements. One of the best moments of Lucky Star for me is when Konata slaps her feet together while reading. The motion is so incredibly fluid; it’s the Kyoto Animation supremacy moment. You cannot find it in manga.
Quick Shots
Did anyone ever participate in your Netflix chainmail disc experiment?
Sorry to disappoint, but nothing came out of it.
Has anything changed for you since you went from sorta-anonymous to not-really-anonymous?
Not really. I was happy when Jason formally outed me because it ended the ambiguous situation and allowed me to link freely between numerous online services, such as the main blog at LJ, Mugshot, ANN MyAnime, Google Reader and so on. But aside from making me more comfortable with linking, it did not change anything.
Please compare picking which anime episodes you watch first to eating taiyaki.
There’s little in common, because I cannot tell ahead of time which parts are better. If I knew, I’d save a bit of money on DVDs. So, picking episodes is an inexact science.
Favorite anime blog besides your own?
This is a tough question, because I like Hop Step Jump and Chizumatic equally. For the purpose of the answer I’ll go with Hop Step Jump because Chizumatic often diverges outside of anime, so perhaps it’s not so much an anime blog.
Best part about blogging?
When someone finds what I write interesting and writes something interesting in reply. For example, Jonathan Tappan explained to me once the way merge occurs in Figure 17.
Worst part about blogging?
Obsession with stats, visits, popularity. In a way, it’s the inverse of the best part, trying to reach more interesting people, by wrong means.
When are you and Hinano going to band together and form a Russian Blogging Empire?
I don’t think it’s going to happen. And in any case, there may be only one emperor. Russians experimented with having two, back in 1690s; it was an abject failure. I don’t want Hinano banishing me into a monastery.
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10 Comments
My winning streak has stopped! I admit defeat this time Kabitzin!! *goes back to the hyperbolic time chamber*
Haha, ani-noto is on my blogroll, and I do like to read it when I can relate to the subject matter. I honestly hate how the comments are turned off! (Would you have guessed?) One time Author wrote a reply to one of my posts through his blog and I really had no idea what to do. I lost sleep that night (jk).
Really, if you
stalkhang out around AB IRC a lot, you would have found out the ani-nouto writer’s identity at some point. I definitely respect the ability to write without feedback though. I do try to keep in mind that I started my blog purely for myself, but now I practically live off the interaction. I grew to like it, and now it’s what keeps me going.Megablogs? I dunno, I think RC and Danny Choo could easily be considered huge blogs. If you’ve actually heard of how much traffic they get, it’s pretty scary. The majority of the community consists of small blogs though, and I think it should stay that way. It’s just more fun!
Woo another Sea Slugs interview! Yay!
It’s fun to hear a bit from the more reclusive side of the aniblogosphere. I gotta say though, those turned off comments really bugs me. D=
When I read something interesting I like to let the author know, or to bounce a few ideas back and forth in the comment sections. Unlike e-mail, leaving a comment integrates into the browsing experience, rather than interrupting it.
Also, I’d agree with Totali that RC and DC represent the comparatively high traffic anime blogs, with numbers that are comparable to many middle-to-large tech blogs. Admittedly though, the community is significantly smaller. Fewer net readers means the community can only support a few large blogs, and even the big ones aren’t that big.
Anyway, good fun interview. I want moar!
BUT I LOVE BLOGGING ABOUT OTHER BLOGS. Because I’m not an anime blogger, I’m an anime culture blogger, see?
Despite what he thinks, Author aka Zxxxxxx’s blog is rather well-liked by us. It’s a tsundere thing, where despite all the scoldings and snide remarks, if we get just a link, there’ll be some satisfaction.
As for his request for commenters to just get a blog and link, what if they are angry ones who refuse to refer traffic to him for the principle of it?
I don’t know how he found it, but back when I started Mr. Zaitcev was the first commenter of my blog, which was pretty damn unknown at the time (which makes sense :P). By his willingness to critique my posts and my setup, I think he’s been a main help on me continuing to have that passion to write. And it constantly helps drive me to become a better writer, even if current results aren’t as great as they could be. :P
I wasn’t miffed by his no comments policy for Ani-nouto (maybe because I could comment on his LJ when he had that as his main anime blog, even though it wasn’t really), but I wanted to know why he decided to do what he did. Now that I know, I kinda feel a bit sad for not being motivated enough to write a response to what he states, even though other bloggers have. For someone who (I feel) doesn’t write a lot of words when he posts, I’d like to think he makes me think and care about things more than I probably would otherwise. So he’s been helpful to me. :P
“My winning streak has stopped!”
Beautiful success? :3
Weirdly, I’m still kind of irritated at Author’s no-comments policy, mostly because of my own laziness. Yes, I could email him (which was how I figured out Author’s identity when he was still technically anonymous: I sent an email as a substitute for a comment, with my blog URL in the signature, and not ten minutes later Zaitcev was talking about my blog in IRC), but it’s a lot more trouble to establish context and even just to load up the email client (or site, for web-based), than to reply with a comment.
And posting on my own blog with a single “Author wrote this, and I have no idea what he’s talking about” is a mite less substantial than I’d like, since sometimes I don’t have anything else I want to add other than “please elaborate”.
Therefore, I figure that if Author doesn’t want my comments, he’s not going to get my comments.
Having said that, I do appreciate Ani-Nouto for being one of the more, well, literate blogs out there, and it’s one of the blogs I visit every day. I seldom (come to think of it, almost never) agree with him, but that’s only due to matters of individual taste.
I’ve always thought that the disabled comments thing was detrimental to a blog’s success but ani-nouto has done pretty well regardless. Nevertheless, looking at the comments here there’s a fair few of us who would make proper use of it…I can understand Author’s POV in regards to trolls, spams and the like though. If you want to get decent commenting you have to 1. install some sort of anti-spam measure and 2. take into account the fact that people can really lay into what you write, possibly misunderstanding what you wrote in the first place. The number of times I’ve had visitors comment on a phrase I threw into a post without a second thought, to the exclusion of the main point I was trying to make! Blog commenting is a double edged sword so it’s great to hear from the likes of Author who have a well-explained alternate stance.
He has filled something of a niche though – commentary on the blogosphere’s community is interesting in itself (especially when you’re too lazy to join IRC like I am), but sadly under-represented so I’d like to see Author keeping up the good work.
*banishes him into a monestary
kanjiwaru~.
I’ll be honest, the only time I ever wanted to comment on aninote is when he bitched about some post that either me or JP wrote – I can’t honestly remember.
I have to admit, I get a thrill whenever I see something I wrote linked to and/or quoted. This applies even if the quoter is just making fun of what I said.
Totali: Mwahaha, I look forward to your training episodes. I had a good idea of Author’s identity prior to Jason’s revelation, but the mystery of it was rather unique. I also post because I love to talk about anime, but it’s not as fun for me if no one talks back.
Orion: I feel the same way about comments! One thing I will concede, however, is that you usually get longer and better-constructed responses in emails and blog posts than you do in comments. A lot of times, comments end up just being a single sentence. I find it highly amusing that Pete’s interviews generated the comments with the longest average length out of all the interviews so far =D.
tj han: I know exactly what you mean, because he wouldn’t be reading your blogs if he didn’t like them (in spite of his criticisms). Tsundere commenters… don’t think I’m leaving this comment because I like you… I thought I was on a different blog.
TheBigN: When I first visited his site, I was a bit annoyed at the lack of comments, and the “comments off” text seemed to mock me. I was like Totali, up all night, sweating in bed wondering what to do. Ok maybe not… Anyway, after hearing his responses, it really made me think about the merits of not having comments. It’s not for me, but the way he addressed it made me come to appreciate his views on something I saw as very one-way.
DKellis: Having comments enabled makes it easier for the reader, and having comments off can make it easier for the administrator. Perhaps requiring communication through blogs, email, and IRC is a bit of an initial filter, to select responses from readers who feel strongly enough to contact the author privately.
Martin: It can be quite a bit of work filtering comments, and event hough most spam never makes it on our page, I am constantly trolling through our spam log to rescue false positives (unfortunately it happens more often than I would like). I never really thought of commenting as a double-edged sword, but I now have a better understanding of why someone could reasonably wish to have comments disabled. Pete definitely has a bit of a niche with his blogosphere commentary, as you usually don’t see quoting and responding to posts about non-controversial topics.
Hinano: There can only be one emperor.
I’ll do something to kill the “Comments are off” thing, together with enabling the “by Author” attribution, when I get around to touching the templates again.
Having a post mentioned by ani-nouto was undoubtedly the crowning moment of my anime blogging career.
Ok, I lied – being promoted from ‘Other Resources’ to ‘Anime Blogs’ in the Sea Slugs! blogroll was The Win and making Mentar spray coke all over his monitor was pretty sw33t too.
But that Nanoha TV vs DVD post has been really popular, visit stats-wise, for some mysterious reason.