The First Post - part 2

I’d like to convince people, as well as myself, that I chose to orchestrate the first murder of this blog on April 1st so I could turn around and claim it was all in jest and, after months of keeping up the pretence, I could point my finger and give you all a Nelson. I’m not that clever, the truth be told and I had no idea I’d so miss satisfying my Thalian muse (or should that be Melpomenean?) on a regular basis that the urge to resurrect Japanmanship would, eventually, be too much to resist. So here we are.

Apart from forcing myself to write on a regular basis there are some other considerations which led me to this disappointing turnaround. The greasy, dirty satisfaction that only comes from overeating junk food or internet fame is actually quite additive, and if I am ever to have my magnum opus published it would help if I have a continued presence and a readership that could be a potential market. It’s no good telling a publisher I once had a fairly well-read blog for only a few months, I’d imagine.

What has been happening in the intervening months? Pretty much the same week the blog died its first ignoble death CRAM Magazine republished two of my articles (here). There has been little action from the magazine since, which is a shame as it looked quite a nice idea. I wrote and got published two articles on Gamasutra (here part 1 and here part the next), collating previously posted information on how and why to work in the Japanese game industry into an almost coherent two-parter.

Kind sites like GameSetWatch and FuckedGaijin as well as various other blogs have kindly posted about and vaguely lamented the discontinuing of Japanmanship, as well as provide links to posts while it was still going. On top of that, of course, I have to thank, and frankly apologise, to the many of you who left supporting comments on the previous posts.

So what can you expect from this resurrection? One reason I had stopped in the first place was a sense of burnout, precipitated by my compulsion to post regularly, whether I had something to write about or, as was often the case, not. This time around I will take a much more relaxed approach, only posting when I have something to write about and damn the frequency. But to offset this I have given the site a new look, which I am sure a lot of you will complain about. Blame CSS! I just chose an existing template and changed the graphics as any piddling about in CSS code is guaranteed to fuck up the layout beyond repair and raise my blood pressure a few notches. That said, looking at it now, I already hate the new design and may change it again at some time in the future.

I’ll try, but can’t promise completely, to lay off the negativity a bit. I know bitching about Japan is fun, but it isn’t fair, necessarily. Cries of “why don’t you just go home if you don’t like it there” would have been entirely justified reading back some older posts. That isn’t to say there won’t be some piss taken out of going on, but I’d ask you to remember it will mostly be tongue in cheek.

So let’s get this whole sorry affair behind us, ignore the past few months and just pretend nothing has happened.

23 comments:

  1. I never took you out of my RSS reader. It's good to have your back and posting.

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  2. Welcome back, JC. It's good to read you again.

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  3. Great to see that this blog is back! I never removed this blog from my RSS reader in an somewhat idiotic attempt as if that might bring the blog back.

    Now, however, I see that it actually worked! (Or, more probable, it didn't and the reason for bringing back the blog were actually those that you gave in the post and not the fact that the bookmark wasn't removed by me, but its a nice illusion).

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  4. Ditto on not taking you out of my feed reader... what a nice little surprise, and cheers JC at deciding to start writing again. :)

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  5. Welcome back! Nice to see I can move your feed from Dead links to Bloggers again!

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  6. I discovered your blog a few months ago, while reading those articles on Gamasutra and I had fun reading more than a few of your posts.
    I'm glad to see your blog will be active once again!!!

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  7. I love RSS readers!

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  8. We obviously didnt believe this was the end of your blog as I also never removed you from my RSS reader and I chucked out lots of stuff!

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  9. Man, am I /that/ predictable... :(

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  10. YES!!! I can't believe this! I never took you out of my RSS reader either...

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  11. Hooray for RSS! I think we've ALL learned a valuable lesson here. ^_^

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  12. Brilliant! I never took you off my rss reader as well. Also, i love your blogs new look. keep posting, will read. :)

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  13. good old google reader! Glad you are posting again, keep up the crackin' work!

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  14. FUck Yes YOU are BACK!

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  15. Sooooo great. You are back. I'm so glad I didn't remove your blog from my reader.

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  16. Nice to have you back, JC!

    I just came back to look at an old post, and what do I see? several new posts!!!

    Thanks for bringing it back.

    Jason

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  17. Huzzah, the JC is back :D

    I never added you to my RSS feed since I don't use that new fangled stuff... Yet. But I did check back now and then in a vain hope that you'd post again but it slipped my mind for a while. Then I see your name in a comment on another site and check back on the blog and lo! New posts galore. It's good to have you back JC. If I knew where to send it I'd send you some english Cheddar and chirstmas chutney ;)

    P

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  18. Even after you shot down my theory of your "last post" being an April Fools joke, I never lost hope that you'd someday return. I am happy to have clicked on my old bookmark today and found that you have in fact returned to posting again. This is great! I really enjoy your posts, being both a programmer/gamer myself, and also having a Japanese wife, I find we have lots in common. I look forward to many new insights.

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  19. I'm so glad to see you're back! Maybe it's weird that I haven't written a comment about your return until now, but I was so sure you had shut down, that I didn't look at your feed in Google reader, although I too hoped you'd be back one day.

    I'm so glad you decided to come back! I see I have a lot of reading to do, i.e. from sep 30 until now :P

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  20. Btw, don't lay off the negativity. ;) Those posts are fun!

    Besides, any intelligent reader can read between the lines. You could have left anytime you wanted, and still can, but you choose to stay.

    We all need to vent our feelings, be it to our friends or a blog. Your way of venting is to write some funny posts on a blog. We appreciate it! :)

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    ReplyDelete