My digital artefact is Sasha’s Anime Wonderland, a blog on WordPress which I publish anime-related posts with. I also promote it on its Twitter and Instagram accounts.
I developed this project because I wanted to publish blog posts that promote notable lesser-known anime, Japanese voice actors and music to increase anime fans’ acknowledgment of them.
Based on my research on anime fans, I decided to write reviews/recommendations of lesser-known anime and Japanese music based on my experience and elaborate Japanese voice actors’ information and things that I learnt from watching those anime. I thought this would be useful for anime fans because they could read my reviews/recommendations and be encouraged to watch and listen to those anime and music that deserve more recognition. They could know the voice actors better instead of only referring to them as anime characters’ voices and gain insights into the anime I have recommended after reading my elaborative posts. My concept of analysing those aspects of Japanese entertainment was inspired by Rai’s Anime Blog and Honey’s Anime.
I decided to develop this project by publishing blog posts covering those aspects separately as they are quick, free and easy to create which abide by FIST.
Firstly, I published a post on news update and my thoughts on Japanese voice actor Ono Daisuke’s new mini-album “STARGAZER” which gained 2 likes and 3 comments from my university peers who are anime fans. Although they commented that the post is interesting and they want to see more, they didn’t engage much with it as it is undetailed. Therefore, I decided to publish in-depth reviews of different anime next.
I posted reviews of reverse harem anime Brothers Conflict and comedy anime Osomatsu-san which received more feedback from my peers. According to their comments, I learnt that my peers are able to gain insights into both anime and interested in watching the shows due to both reviews’ format of thorough analysis, quality research and visuals. This shows an improvement in audience engagement and that my users appreciate those lesser-known anime. Thus, I decided to maintain this format in my other posts.
Since one of my peers suggested that I maintain the original format of Japanese names instead of westernizing them and explain Japanese culture in my posts, I implemented her suggestion in my reviews and next few posts so my users can gain accurate information regarding Japanese culture.
During observing stage, I observed my peers and found out about their lack of knowledge of Japanese voice actor Ono Daisuke. Hence, I published a post covering the detailed information of Ono. I learnt that my peers are able to obtain deeper knowledge regarding him through the post’s thorough facts of him from various aspects.
I published reviews of Ono’s first and second albums based on my users’ favourable opinion from the poll results. I learnt that by taking one of my peers’ suggestion of elaborating the messages conveyed in Ono’s songs from feedback on my first album review and implementing it in my second album review, my users can understand the Japanese songs’ meaning better and appreciate the songs more.
Since my peers liked that they can gain insights into Osomatsu-san from my review, I published a post about things that I learnt from the anime. My peers can learn more about the life lesson and Japanese culture conveyed in the anime.
In conclusion, I analysed my users’ constructive and supportive feedback before modifying and iterating my blog posts format based on them during testing stage as my DA serves a social utility concentrating on fulfilment of users’ needs.
Sources:
Sasha's World 