世論 What Japan Thinks

As promised, and in the spirit of Xmas/Hanukkah/Festivus/we-respect-Jesus-in-a-Buddhist-sort-of-way, here are reviews of the blogs that didn’t make the cut for the First Annual (perhaps) Japan Blog of the Year Awards, roughly in the order that they were nominated. Reviews of the candidates will take place after voting finishes. Please remember to vote, and remember that all commenters on that thread will be eligible for a drawing for a small prize!

Neojaponisme: Reading this blog makes my brain hurt, but in a good way. I also suspect that there is some great underlying in-joke behind the site, but I just can’t quite see it. However, there’s one great article on the front page about concrete facades that you see everywhere in Japan, and which I dislike intensely, so it was interesting to learn how they came to be and how they are seen.

Japankino: It’s in German and it’s about Japanese film. Sadly, that’s as much as I can tell you about it!

News.3Yen.com: I love Taro’s use of Photoshop on the stories, and I did think that the whale hats were an example of that, but it does seem to be real! A quirky look at the lighter side of Japan. This blog always seems to be under the radar for some reason, and I feel it should be more popular than it appears to be. Maybe it’s just that I don’t see it popping up in the Google searches that I do?

Once Upon A Tokyo: A personal blog of an English teacher working in a Tokyo school, mostly featuring stories on strange or fun items found in Japan.

VOTING IS NOW COMPLETE! Update: 25th December. Thank you everyone, and I’ll be contacting the winners individually and posting reviews all the candidates. Thanks again for all the votes, and I hope you all enjoyed the friendly competition, and you’ve all found a new blog or three to read.

I’ve totted up the nominations from both the comments sections and email, and after a complex process involving lots of beer and a dartboard, I’ve come up with the following nominations for each category. Winners in each category will be awarded some yet to be decided goods with the upcoming new What Japan Thinks logo on them, once I get round to setting up a Cafe Press shop. If anyone wishes to donate any more stash in return for some publicity, please get in touch!

To encourage you all to vote, I’ll also be giving away similar logoed gifts to randomly-selected posters, so post your thoughts on the candidates, or on who you think should be there, and I’ll select one (or perhaps more) commenter at random and contact them via their email address. Voting will be open until midnight on Christmas Eve (or so) and the winners announced on Christmas Day, assuming I don’t stuff myself too silly on turkey-effect tofu steaks…

Thanks to everyone who nominated, and there’s a few blogs new to me here and in the nominations that I’ll write short reviews of this week.

Thanks for all your nominations by mail and in the comments for the previous post! This evening I’ll tot up the nominations and come up with the top five in each category:

Best serious blog on Japan
Best humourous (or look at the lighter side) blog on Japan
Best culture blog on Japan
Best technology blog on Japan
Best personal blog on Japan

So, if you haven’t nominated yet, please do so soon. Note that I will be offering prizes to the winners of each category.

It’s coming to the end of the year, so let’s have a vote to find out who my readers think are worthy of winning the first annual Japan Blog of the Year competition. First, I need to gather nominations. From today until Monday 17th December 2007, please either leave a comment here or email me at the usual address with up to three nominations in the following categories:

Best serious blog on Japan
Best humourous (or look at the lighter side) blog on Japan
Best culture blog on Japan
Best technology blog on Japan
Best personal blog on Japan

I’ll add all up the nominations then put it to the vote. I discover a new blog about every other week, so please share your favourites in the comments for us all to enjoy. The plan will be to select the top four or five from each category and put them to a public vote. To encourage you all to nominate yourself, I’ll try to publish reviews of as many of the nominees as possible, even if they don’t make it to the final round. Also feel free to nominate one blog in more than one category, and any language is acceptable.

Note: I reserve the right to reject nominations from sites with under 10 posts this year, adult sites (Danny Choo and Japan Sugoi are about my limit), mainly subscription sites, or other sites with objectionable content.