Blog Carnival: Reflections on Animanga Blogs
The blog carnival is in town again and this time it’s all about bloggers reflecting on what they like (and don’t like) reading in the animanga blogosphere. Foxy Lady Ayame came up with the idea in light of the anitourney, and she asked a lot of interesting questions, so I knew I had to join in with my own thoughts!
What do you like to read and for what reasons? (reviews, commentaries, editorials)
I read a lot of different types of blogs, so there’s not one specific style I enjoy way more than another. When it comes to reviews, I like reading ones that are both for series I’ve seen and haven’t. When it comes to reviews for series I haven’t seen, I read them to see if the series is something I should maybe check out at one point. As for why I read reviews for series that I have seen, it’s simply just to see (and judge) other peoples thoughts on a series.
If I had to pick one post style that interests me the most, it’s editorials. It’s interesting to see an author’s thought on a certain topic, and I like these types of posts because they often encourage the most discussion in the comment section. You also don’t usually need to have seen a specific episode or series to get the point, so that tends to make me even more encouraged to read it.
And last and sorta least, I also dabble in reading episodics. Considering there’s several episodic blogs out there, I’ll only bother reading one of these if the post is presenting in an interesting manner. By that, I mean it could either be the author’s writing or just what they choose to focus on that interests me to read their post. Most of the episodic blogs I follow write relatively short posts for each episode because they choose to only talk about the parts they thought were interesting, as opposed to other bloggers who talk about every little thing, and that often can come across just as one long summary post…
What do you do when you stumble across a new blog?
I love finding new blogs all the time. I now use google reader to stay updated with blog’s new posts, so I regularly find new blogs to follow and add to my never ending list on my reader. When I find a new blog I look at the titles of the posts and simply read the ones that interest me.
The title is the main thing for me considering it’ll be what will determine whether I bother to read the post or not. If it’s just “Sword Art Online Episode 4″, I might still check it out if those are the only type of posts the blog offers, but I’m less interested to do so. Anyway, I mostly read at least two posts to see if the blog is something worthwhile. To put it simply, if the author writes posts (no matter what they’re about) that are interesting, I’m sold enough to add it to my reader.
If I end up liking the blog, I then look more at some of the past posts, about me page, and blogroll. I usually look for a twitter link because I like to follow them if they have an account.
What must a good animanga blog have and do?
This was probably the question that intrigued me most, since I can’t even find a coherent answer to it. Layout surprisingly doesn’t play that big a part in it for me (except, for the record, I’m not too big a fan of newspaper themes). I feel most of it probably has to do with the blogger’s voice.
If the author can make a post sound interesting no matter the topic, then that’s what makes a good blog. Of course that’s vague, but there’s not much that can be said besides that fact that some bloggers manage to write in such a way that their post is more entertaining than another.
Frequency of posts also plays a part, but as long as at least one post is written every two weeks, I’m satisfied. Based on my own frequency, I’m aware I can’t be too picky about this…An interaction with the readers is important, too. I’m less inclined to care for a blog if the comments don’t get replies.
What blogging behaviors annoy us (anonymously of course)?
- Saying “hello/hi/welcome/etc” at the beginning of all your posts
- Posts that aren’t broken up into proper paragraphs (sometimes I see paragraphs with 800 words in them, and I can’t be bothered to even try to read it.)
- Summaries instead of any actual content (I don’t need to be told what happened in the episode I just watched. I want to hear your thoughts.)
- Boring post titles (I’m a victim of this, but I’m trying to improve. Also, even if you have an episodic blog, you can still use a snappy title, like how Feal87 or Draggle does it.)
- Catch-up posts (if you’re three weeks behind on an anime you’re blogging, just skip over the weeks you missed and write only a post for the newest episode.)
- Low-quality images (I’m not asking for HD, but just make sure it doesn’t look like your images are from a streaming site where you print-screened and cropped the image to put in your post.)
You’re a master with images in posts, Lostty.
And on that note, “Low-quality images (I’m not asking for HD, but just make sure it doesn’t look like your images are from a streaming site where you print-screened and cropped the image to put in your post.)”
Ouch. Since I don’t download anime to my computer, there aren’t too many other options available to me (lord knows I don’t have the finances to actually buy the DVDs/BDs for everything I review)…well, I hope at least that it doesn’t look *too* bad. >_<
I think that's a nice way of saying what makes an animanga blog good. I don't mind objectivity (heck, I actually like it), and I don't mind some summary (as long as it's not *instead* of thoughts, like you said), but I want to feel like I'm reading something that was written by another human being who thinks about the things they post on.
One last thing, and this is me looking for advice. How would you come up with less boring title for a series review? That's always been a little tricky for me, because I don't want to change it into something else like "Hidan no Aria: The Cancer Killing Anime (and Me)" because then people won't know that it's a *review*. Using subtitles is really difficult for me, though, because my reviews tend to cover most aspects of the series, so it's not like I could say "Hidan no Aria Review: The Plot That Makes No Sense" (because I'd be talking about other things in addition to the plot). So, what would you do to make a review post title more interesting (or do you think it's unnecessary for reviews)?
John Sato´s latest post ..Blogrolls: Economy or Dating?
[Reply]
lostty Reply:
August 18th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Took me forever to figure out the images to use in this post, so thank you for appreciating it!
And as for your own blog, I actually didn’t notice that your imags were stream quality, I was really just implying the ones that are very pixelated with the watermark of the site in the corner (which I have seen). So you’re fine with what you’re doing.
Often people try to hard to sound like someone or to just sound differently from how they actually are, in cases like that, it’s really hard to be interested in the writer’s work. It just sounds insincere.
I guess I shouldn’t start making exceptions to my own comments, but if you notice my review posts, they tend to be an extremely straight forward title. I guess it’s true that most people would feel unsure on what you were actually writing with an ambiguous title for a review, especially since you say you cover all aspects of a series. Unless your review were to focus on one prominent aspect or theme, I wouldn’t really see any benefit of putting a more interesting title.
[Reply]
I definitely agree with you about being more interested in editorial posts. I tend not to watch currently-running anime, so I usually don’t read the good portion of anime blogs that review series episode by episode. I think I care less about the look of the blog than many others do – as long as the writing is creative and engaging that’s more important to me deciding to follow a blog than because it uses a lot of pictures, so I’m glad that you agree. And of course since I write about shojo anime and manga I love finding a great shojo blog, and will often immediately comment on (or at least like) a post to show my support.
[Reply]
lostty Reply:
September 2nd, 2012 at 9:05 am
People often forget that no matter how much you dress up the exterior, if you can’t deliver any substance, it’s almost pointless. The amount of Shojo blog’s out there aren’t that numerous, so I understand the need to support one another. Having a network like that is a wonderful thing.
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B-but I do printscreen and copy all my posts! :’(
P.S. Interesting post titles sure is a rule that I have been wilfully violating for the past three years… will you read my Sword Mart on Limes 4 post, now that I changed the title? >_>
Mushyrulez´s latest post ..Fetal Anime Syndrome – An In-Depth Review
[Reply]
lostty Reply:
September 2nd, 2012 at 9:16 am
You’re blog is fabulous Mushy!
As long as you never stop using ms paint, like with your steins;gate posts (http://onewdesign.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/steinsgate-16-sadface.jpg?w=950), I’ll be happy.
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“I’m a victim of this, but I’m trying to improve”
I am the biggest victim of that sadly. It is always hard for me to come up with a snappy title (and one that express the post accurately), so I just go with the safe and bland approach. Hopefully, the content inside is not the same.
[Reply]
lostty Reply:
September 2nd, 2012 at 9:19 am
Your content is great! And I find that titles are one of the most difficult things to come up with, too. After spending 5 hours writing a post and then you have to come up with a title. It’s hard!
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