hontou ni sou omou?

Cory of Renegade Anime Blog poses the interesting question of whether anime blog aggregators operating on ‘closed garden’ (blogsuki) versus ‘open acceptance’ (animenano) principles result in less episode summary/reviews and more editorial posts being showcased. Based on the data presented, the answer is somewhat inconclusive. He renews his call for less episode summaries/reviews and more editorials as well as more commenting and trackbacks. Meanwhile Michael of anime|otaku proposes economic and psychological reasons for the continued dominance of the episode summary/review style of anime blogging.

This post examines some research design issues related to Cory’s initial line of enquiry before considering the normative assumptions and prescription that underlies the study. It goes on to suggest an additional reason for the popularity of the episode summary/review style.

New Wine in Old Bottles?

First, how different are the populations of blogs aggregated by blogsuki and animenano? Certainly the former hosts a smaller number of blogs (46) in contrast to the latter (117). However, there is also a high degree of overlap between the two with 37 blogs aggregated both by blogsuki (80% of blogsuki population) and animenano (31% of animenano population). [It will be interesting to run a similar analysis, if only for a control, based on the same taxonomy and time series on the posts on the animeblogger antenna (the parent domain which also hosts Renegade and anime|otaku) which aggregates content from 227 blogs.]

One clear difference resulting from blogsuki’s closed architecture and Animenano’s register yourself open architecture is that the blogs aggregated by the latter tend to be older; Jason Miao has expressed an explicit preference for a "time requirement". Here, my superficial impression is that many of the older blogs started out with mainly episode summary/reviews posts but a few have converted to mainly/mostly editorial-style posts. Contrast Jeff Lawson’s nowhere anime blog with hop! step! jump! or moyism’s life line by line with zero thoughts. In contrast, Memento and Random Curiosity have resolutely remained episode-based in their posts.

Analysis Good, Summary Bad?

Second, what is the normative assumption of Cory’s prescription of less episode summary, more editorial? It seems that what is valued is commentary, insight and analysis, not to say wit, passion and a sense of fun? Are these characteristics that are only found in editorials and not episode posts? Are this categorical distinction conflating the container with the content? Personally I would say that Cinnamon Ass, Karmaburn and Sea Slugs! (all using predominantly episode-based style) display all the best of the above qualities. Thus is the categorization of posts as episode summary/review on one end of the spectrum and editorial on the other a useful one? [As my profs in charge of the methodology courses might say: "Hmmm... you might need to adjust your coding frame a bit."]

In addition, even if we accept the notion that summary and commentary are mutually exclusive within one post, the idea that commentary > summary is also a contested one. The very existence of summaries with a representative set of screencaps has affected my personal style. I often feel liberated to not have to give a balanced summary or screencaps as I can just link to the work done by Omni et al and can concentrate on celebrating/highlighting particular characters or situations. Omni’s initial decision to retire caused me considerable anxiety as did the Dreamhost hiccups: was on the verge of asking Maestro if the whole AB.net should be backed up at Kneecap or Cheyenne Mountain.

Anime in the Blog: Stand Alone Complex

Summaries are extremely useful for giving a flavour of the series; they’ve influenced me to pick up a series sometimes and not in others. Even when I don’t feel motivated enough to pick up a series, summaries have served as very useful references in cases I remain interested in what’s happening but not enough to watch the whole thing (e.g. blood+). Bloggers may not always refer to each other because perhaps having to do a literature review with every post might be a tad too close to writing a dissertation rather than a short quip. At the beginning of seasons, I also like to check what different people are saying and taking the variance of opinion: is there a body of independently formed consensus that coalesces around series x or y?

To add to Michael’s economic and psychological reasons, there is a strong structural support for the continued dominance of episode summary/reviews: [raw and, sometimes less regularly, fansubbed] anime is released week-by-week on an episode-by-episode basis. Blogging it while it is "hot" often stems from that passionate desire to put one’s thoughts about the new thang out there. It may not simply be the desire to do something "easy" (and there’s nothing simple about writing a witty summary and review) but also to do something "current".

The episode post format looks set to remain dominant, but this approach contains a lot of variety with different bloggers operationalizing its broad format very differently e.g. to reinforce the [Otome/Haruhi/Kanon] hegemony of the season, or to bang the drum to highlight less popular series, or to cheer for a character/fetish they are supporting etc. While I have considerable sympathy with the desire for more variety in blogging styles but perhaps it might be more effective to inspire others by example; the proof is often in the pudding. In the end, it’s the anime blogging and not the blogging about anime blogging which is what this community is about. [So sayeth the pot to the kettle.]