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I was asked to give a brief interview to a Chinese anime site (here, in English and translated into Chinese); below is the interview for those interested:
Q1: how many time do you watch anime and comic per week? It was said all anime site admins are real otaku and stay at home for the whole day.
Unfortunately, I'm usually too busy with the site to actually spend much time watching anime or reading manga, although in the past I read and watched plenty. I do however play games regularly.
My tastes in anime and manga don't really overlap very much with the content of the site (that is to say I like titles which aren't incredibly popular or don't make good articles), so it's sort of irrelevant - I am just here to provide the coverage the audience seeks.
Q2: do you feel a lot pressure as you are the admin of the world largest anime blog? How do you deal with the comments that offend you?
It's more a matter of applying self-discipline than it is a matter of feeling external pressure.
Generally I just ignore the less pleasant comments (which are to be expected on the Internet), although when dealing with purely abusive users or ones who are plainly malign we do resort to moderation. The major objects of moderation are actually repetitive memes - if left unchecked users begin to repeat them indiscriminately in every post, which can lead to huge amounts of idiotic and meaningless "comments." It's best to nip them in the bud and so encourage diversity, originality and actual content.
Q3: someone says that 80% of animations are selling MOE, there're too many stories happen in school, what do you think about it? Will all animations be 3d 10 years later?
I do agree with the criticism of the "moe boom." By concentrating exclusively on fans who will endlessly consume the same moe titles they are sacrificing any possibility of mainstream appeal, which is necessary to bring in new consumers. K-ON! may be a high quality moe anime, but it is impossible to imagine it gaining success beyond the "otaku market" as is quite possible with a title like Ghost in the Shell.
And personally I have little interest in stories set in schools - if that's what the market demands, then so be it, but I think a diversity of narratives would expand the appeal of anime.
3D "anime" animation could be rather revolutionary. The top anime games currently have better visual quality than many anime, and this quality is only going to improve. 3D CG of this quality is vastly cheaper to produce than traditional animation or even CG illustrations, so it is easy to imagine the barrier to entry into the "anime" market lowering to doujin levels - MikuMiku Dance is an early example of a free toolkit which allows anyone to create 3D animated anime.
Higher visual quality in toolkits and professional tools could see anime production becoming an order of magnitude less labour intensive, allowing anime to be produced much more cheaply, allowing more titles to be released with less risk.
Q4:do you play games(except gal game) in part time ? Do you think Ps or xbox will be the main platform of games and games will disappear from pc?
I play a lot of games. It seems this generation will be a narrow victory for the PS3, although Sony may not be in good condition for the next generation.
PC gaming has pretty much been destroyed - niche titles and genres unsuitable for consoles will persist, but mainstream titles now almost exclusively exist as poor ports of console titles, so I can't say I am very positive about PC gaming at this stage. As long as Microsoft controls both Windows and the Xbox I doubt we'll see much growth in mainstream PC gaming.
Q5:lot of Chinese college student (mostly freshman) feel free in college and lose theirselves in mmorpg or animations, is that happen in your country too? Could you say something to them or give them some advise?
I used to play MMORPGs "hardcore," so I understand the appeal of MMORPGs completely.
I think virtual worlds are as legitimate a form of entertainment and social interaction as real interactions, and essentially no more or less illusory and unproductive than the kind of mainstream consumer pastimes which media and governments rarely criticise. The reaction against them, especially in illiberal places such as China and Korea, owes more to their novelty and generational differences than to any inherent problem with the games themselves.
However, they can be problematically addictive for weak-willed people, just as gambling or alcohol can become major problems for some despite being manageable for most who indulge in them.
As to how to approach such games, it is helpful to recall the inscription on the temple to Apollo at Delphi - "Nothing in excess."
Q6: The traffic of your site must be very big, so you must have a strong server, how do you support the money of the Internet and the server? Just from Ads? Tell us an interesting story of your site or your server?
Yes, the site now spans 3-4 servers, some being quite powerful. The site is supported exclusively by advertising at this stage.
The servers tend to suffer some crippling technical problem every other month, so there are lots of boring technical tales of these problems, and not too much which stands out as being interesting, unfortunately.
