Hello, Fellow AniBlog Tourney Voters
My name is Bradley, and I want to make a deal. This is probably the first time we’ve met, since I’m new around here. I’ve been writing about anime on and off for roughly five years, but I started the blog in late January because I wanted to write without the formal constrictions of reviews. I consider her a work-in-progress, since I’m still looking for my “voice,” what to write about, and what people find interesting to read.
And that’s where you come in, because honestly, I’m not in this contest to win it. I’d consider it a great injustice if I did- there are a lot of other blogs out there that are much better than mine. And as someone who’s also voting in the tournament, I’m pretty sure you make your decision in a similar manner to my own: quick and dirty. Is the website design off-putting? Does he write about anything that interests me? Does the blog creep me out? How many sentences can I stand to read? Are the posts too long? Too short? Are there too many pictures? Too few? We’re all Goldilocks here, and any blog is very, very lucky to get to the point where it’s actually read. And that’s okay: there’s a lot of Internet out there. Your time is valuable.
My proposition is this: it’s not terribly important to me that you vote for me. It’d be nice if you did, but all that would happen if I win this round is I’d get a nice ego stroking. Instead, I want feedback. Even if you didn’t read another post on my blog, I want to know why you dismissed me. Or maybe you like what y0u see- I’d like to know why.
In exchange, if you own a blog, I’ll give the same thing: I’ll tell you exactly what I think of it. If you don’t, well, I’ll tell that you’re an awesome person, and I’m very grateful you took the time to help.
Oh, and don’t bother to be gentle. See you in the comments.
PS: If you got this far, here are some hand-picked posts for your reading pleasure:
- Stop Having Fun: Why Anime Fans Should (Kinda) Stop Mocking Bad Anime
- I know many of you have seen Future Diary, and I recently wrote a post on why I find it so unsatisfying: Rage Against the Machina
- I’ve also been blogging the new Lupin III TV show. Here’s episode one and here’s episode two.
Those Damn Cartoons! 
Your multi anime posts reviews should be really broken up, it’s excessively long with this narrow theme you have going on …. I read the MS 8th team review since well that show is super duperly awesome sauce .. and you’re writing is pretty clean and flows well enough =) keep up the good work … good thing you dropped okami san sooner than i did lol .. such trash
I suspect “I like your website design” is the compliment folks give when they don’t know what else to compliment, but… I like your website’s design. The writing really needs work, though. I recommend reading more stuff, especially professional reviews for not-anime, and make it a goal to write longer, more in-depth posts.
Well, I have just found your blog within the last hour or so. From what I have read so far(3-4 posts) I enjoy reading what you are writing. Of course you would like to know why I think this way. I will attempt to explain. I tend to enjoy blogs that have less episode recap posts and more editorial posts. What I look for in editorial posts and episode reviews are connections to some concept that is reflected outside of the show. This is what I see in your blog. So I am interested and I will most likely check back later. Sorry that probably wasn’t the best explanation. Have fun during the tourney.
Then you’ve probably the right place. Thanks for the feedback!
I think you’ve got a neat little blog. I can’t think of much else to say, other than that your analytical writing style makes it hard to gulp down longer posts, so like the others, I recommend you cut the weekly series into several posts. You could do more series reviews, like you do at THEM, because there aren’t enough blogs out there that have posts about pre-2007 anime.
I’ve been thinking about writing more about older anime, since I flit around watching whatever catches my interest all the time. Thanks for the feedback.
Post-wise, separating posts by anime is a good start. Makes the post less cluttered, more content to read, each post is more self-contained. When you talk about multiple anime in one post there is this sense of ‘rushing’ ,i.e. you seem to rush to finish the post and upload ASAP. Longer posts thus become tl;dr at times. Series reviews are a great idea as well.
Design wise, the blog is using a default wordpress.com design (I know) but I question the choice of this particular theme.
You’re right, when I get to the end of a Weekly Press, I’ve usually been writing for about an hour and a half, and I’m kinda tired, but I’m almost done, and this last series isn’t very interesting, and I want to play some Dota 2 now, and oh hey fuck it.
Not exactly my thought process, but close.
I’ve been reading your site off and on for awhile- you’re linked at every blog I do read regularly- but you’ve never hooked me, for whatever reason. And I actually can’t think of why. Just one of those arbitrary things of taste. But you’ve got a lot of respect from for doing this crazy thing for so long.
I discovered your blog about a month ago and have been an avid since then. The only problem I have is what people have mentioned above. It is rather “hard”, or annoying, to read, as it is not very pleasing for the eye. This is a combination of the theme, lack of pictures and longer posts.
When it comes to your writing though, I love it. Love it all ❤
The polka dots were a bad idea, man.
Cute blog, by the way. You would fit in so well at THEM- we also love Aria and Natsume Yuujinchou. It has been ages since I’ve seen Aria, so maybe I should give it another viewing.
Twenty minutes after thinking that thought, browsing Right Stuf and Amazon for cheap DVDs, and meandering through YouTube soaking up OP music, I remembered I have to finish this post. Damn Internet.
Going by your title, you wouldn’t happen to be Norwegian, would you?
You think so? Thanks 🙂 (and regarding Aria, that has happened to me too…)
Close! Sweden it is.
I too believe that you should consider changing the blog’s theme.
Consider it considered.
Harem and ecchi are usually outside of my interests in anime, so I’d love it if you spent more time explaining what it is you liked about something. So for example, you mention that Nyarko-san episode 2, was better than the first episode because it was funnier. While I know humor is an innately personal, I’d love it if you try to explain more about why you think that is.
As for my blog’s theme, in my defense, I just took whatever theme looked best, was free, and wasn’t used by any of the other blogs I’d read. It’s supposed to be a placeholder until I make my own with CSS over the summer. I am growing kinda attached to the cheery peach shade, though.
Thanks for responding! I am still having trouble adjusting to a set of guidelines when making weekly anime posts (the first few months were massive 500+ word summaries of the episodes that didn’t offer much and took way too long to write). I had decided to go with a brief list-like style that I took from AnimeNewsNetwork’s review summaries, where they post the pros and cons. I definitely should consider making my posts a bit longer; thank you for pointing it out.
I liked the post on “MST3K” and how it’s changed the way we look at entertainment. I miss the days when we could genuinely like something. Now you had better be ironic, and make fun of the show in SOME WAY. I understand there’s bad anime out there, and the reviews should not sugar coat it. But instead of just making fun of the show, people should explain why it’s bad. Do tell me how my blog is by the way!
Thanks for the feedback! As for your blog, I think you need to try writing in a more formal style. A conversational style is fine for an Internet blog, but I think you need to formalize your writing more, make it less “as it comes out” and more structured. Use more paragraphs. Etc.
Thanks for the constructive criticism. I actually try to avoid that. My update pages have that tone in them, but all my reviews avoid it I thought? Anyway I’ll definitely keep this in mine. Thanks again.
Don’t listen to the people above me. Long posts are not a negative. Separating out the weekly recaps will definitely be better for discovery purposes, but if the format works for you as a writer- giving you an impetus to write -then I hesitate to tell you to do otherwise. What’s most important is that you keep the content coming. Also, your design is clean and allows for an easy read. A lot of bloggers don’t understand what width of text does for readability (too wide makes it harder to follow; that’s design 101).
As far as your writing goes: it’s excellent. Far above the aniblog norm. Your insight is sharp and I’ve already decided that I care about what you have to say regarding any particular anime. Finding you just justified the aniblog tourney’s existence in my eyes. You’ve got a new subscriber… well, it looks like you’ve just gained a lot more than that.
I was able to subscribe through a plugin for firefox, but I suggest that you make it easier for your visitors to subscribe to your blog via an RSS feed. There should be widgets available for you to use in the wordpress dashboard.
I hope you’ll come to visit our site someday!
You are actually the first “new” blog that I took time to read simply because of that tone of voice you have chosen for this post. So yeah, keep it up? Since this is actually a pretty neat blog.
Good luck with the tourney and thanks to this post I am voting for you
good luck… 🙂 just voted for you 🙂
I don’t know if this is mentioned or not but for future purposes or even during the tournament, you’ll need to make your site more convenient for browsing purposes. The search bar is there and that’s great but you might need to put in things like: latest comments on posts, archives, categories and sub categories easily accessible for anyone who wants to browse the site (I know that some don’t know what they want to search for, they just search until something interesting appears). The site so far is really simple but being new, it’s a good start. Your writing is interesting but I hate scrolling on and on and on to see what you’ve written. Maybe I’m just saying nonsense because 1) I don’t know anything technical about sites and 2) I can be really stupid sometimes ^^;
I wish you the best of luck in the tourney and a long-lasting, fun-filled site ;D The site I write for was in a similar situation with yours regarding how young the site was and the first tourney held really helped it out and developed it into what it is today ^^ I’m sure it will have a similar effect for you too
Hi there, just thought I’d let you know I voted for your blog over you competitor mainly because, even if you don’t believe you’ve found your voice yet, I really love your writing style- it’s very hmm, welcoming without seeming too informal, messy and unstructured.
The only improvement I could offer would be to make your homepage a little more exciting to look at, especially as one of the first criteria I’m using to judge blogs in this is how interesting the blog looks itself, (and I’m sure that’s the case for many others too) but, I can’t fault your writing and that’s, ultimately, what counts at the end of the day!
Good luck with the rest of the tournament!
Hi there, just thought I’d let you know that I voted for your blog over your competitor’s, mainly because, even though you think you’re yet to find your voice, I really love your writing style, it’s, hmm, welcoming without seeming too informal, messy and unstructured. The only improvement I could offer would be to make your blog look a little bit more exciting, especially as one of the main criteria I’m using to judge blogs in this tournament is how interesting they look, (and I’m sure that’s the case for many others too) but, I can’t fault your writing, and that’s what really counts at the end of the day!
Good luck with the rest of the tournament!
I’ve no problem with the layout of your blog. This kind of width is good enough, and the font is decently-sized to make reading easy. As for your posts, I like your earnest tone, which is becoming somewhat of a commodity among anime bloggers. So many people make an effort to puff out their chests in an attempt to be funny, so it’s refreshing to read someone who’s simply sincere in his writing.
To be specific, I liked how you wrote your Rage Against the Machina post and your issues with Future Diary, which is an anime I’m not even watching. A lesser blogger would diss the show, and a bad blogger would diss fans of the show on top of it. But you did neither. You just spoke your mind, without putting on airs. And that’s great.
You have my vote, and good luck!
Oh gosh, sorry I spammed your page a little- my computer fritzed out, I thought I’d lost the first comment so re-wrote and re-posted it a second time! Turns out it was posted the first time after all, how embarrasing…
Between you and your antagonist was very hard to chose because you both have good blogs. If I must point out something that might take out votes from you, that’d be the few images in a long post. Otherwise your writing style is elegant and whimsical at times and your template is sth different and refreshing 🙂