Archive for January, 2007
Objectivity, and the role of “bias” in review writing
January 28th, 2007 | 
Author: So, it’s Sunday night and Roger Federer has just won the first slam (of what should be four) of the season. And I’m sitting in front of my computer trying to invent something to write about. See, I made this promise in my first post in this new blog to update weekly, and I only function properly if things are done regularly. So, earlier I chose Sunday night to be the weekly appointment for writing these entries. The problem: I have nothing to write about.
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What the hell am I doing, writing an anime blog?
We want to put ourselves on the map. Personally, I don’t see the point in hiding our ambition, our desire to be respected writers on anime and other facets of Japanese culture and establish a reputation for our site among fans of anime and Japanese culture as a reputable source for information and recommendations. It requires good writing, good taste and a positive culture and attitude to get a review site like ours to be recognized. That goes without saying and, in my opinion we have that. But, it also requires something more… a given amount of flexibility and willingness to adapt to the current climate of the internet which is constantly growing and evolving, as well as a readiness to trial new things. That’s what I’ve tried to put on the table during my time at The Nihon Review and it’s lead to ideas like the Live Action section, the Imageboard and several other small changes around the place (a lot of which is still too far in its infancy to call a success or failure, although some recent plot twists are giving me reason to be optimistic that those decisions were the correct ones). (By the way, I’m not claiming credit for all these ideas… eg, the Live Action section was DarkKanti’s idea from memory).