Since the first post on March 7th I have now reached 100 posts with over 8000 views from more countries than I can count. Thank-you everyone, especially my Japanese audience who, continue to make up the biggest group; however, I must also give a special mention to the Russian readers who make up the third biggest source (see table below). Amazing! In terms of posts, those which include a personal element seem to be the best received - the most popular by a long way was the post about Japanese identity and my own sense of Japaneseness, written in the context of Ishiguro's Nobel Prize for literature. However, things are not always predictable: the post on manga bad-boy Crayon Shin-chan is the second most popular - go figure! Now if only I could tell which post was most popular in which country - that would be interesting. As I said in the 50th post, the blog is a labour of love, a learning experience with the added fun of opening up the stats page to see which country is top for the week and what post is popular. Feedback, suggestions, and ideas are always welcome - use the message box on the right to tell me where you want the blog to go from here: it's in your hands!
TOP SEVEN BLOG POSTS (views)
- Nobel Prize Winner Kazuo Ishiguro: Japanese or not Japanese? (231)
- Crayon Shin-Chan: The Bad Boy of Japanese Manga (166)
- Fireworks, Deceased Spirits, and Teruteru-bōzu (114)
- Rain, Snails, and Japanese Animal Names (84)
- The "Japanese is difficult" myth (75)
- Wagyu, Matsuzaka Beef, and Kobe Beef: What's the Difference? (71)
- The New Sex-Crime Revisions and Chikan (66)