1 Short project summary

My digital artefact is a Connecting anime otaku foreigners with Japanese anime. I developed this project because I wanted to make Anime otaku foreigners know Japanese anime more. I found there are many foreigners who love Japanese anime, and they post their cosplay photos on Twitter. Also, many events related to Japanese anime are held globally such as SMASH Sydney Manga & Anime Show. This fact made me change my previous project to this project because the previous version which was for international illustrators to connect Japanese anime did not catch my targets. 

Based on my Twitter research, I decided to provide information on limited Japanese anime events and cosplayers because there are many international Twitter accounts that are about Japanese anime, and some of them are official accounts that have many followers. In addition, foreigners who tweet about Japanese anime seem to miss some information. That is why I decided to share that Japanese anime news with Anime otaku foreigners. I thought this would be useful for my targets because they can get the information in English. So I decided to develop this project by collecting limited Japanese anime information, checking its trends, and delivering picked information to foreigners on Twitter.

2 Analysis of important learning moments

First I made a Twitter account for International illustrators. With the account, I shared Japanese Illustrators with English translations to show them to foreigners. I’ve got responses by the illustrators who I shared to say thanks for sharing to me.

However, my project was not enough to say it was in the right way because my tweets could not catch the right targets. To correct targets, I decided to change my project to connect anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese anime. After changing to a new project, I created another account which calls Reddit where foreigners discuss Japanese to look for topics attracting foreigners.

Also, I checked the video which is from Japan’s broadcasting organisation, and they make the introduction videos for foreigners.

So I checked the movies to see how Japan is introduced globally.

After starting my new project, I’ve got meaningful responses by my audience, and my Twitter impressions which are from Twitter analytics increased by changing my project content.

Those comments and Twitter analytics were enough to demonstrate that the new project was better. To get many impressions, I tried to retweet of official accounts, and this my actions were the way of connecting success. In addition, I made a BETA video that has 3 minutes and I took more than 3 hours to create it.

What I learned through this project was from the concept of FIST which is fast, inexpensive, simple, and tiny. It was always my guide to run my project especially “tiny” is one of my themes so that I decided to change my project details. Also, the lecture of LINE Webtoon was really helpful because the lecture showed me how advanced the digital tools work and how they get attention. As my summarise, I learned the importance of using digital tools, the skills of analysing targets and organizing all of them.

Sources

SMASH Sydney Manga & Anime Show< https://smash.org.au&gt;

My Project Pitch< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_P1uKzthw&feature=youtu.be&gt;

Official Twitter account of Anime Matsuri< https://twitter.com/AnimeMatsuri&gt;

NHK Japanology from YouTube< https://youtu.be/dpRbCGItD5E >

My Project BETA < https://youtu.be/HwRivwA0rMI >

LINE Webtoon from YouTube < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7agHWASUzNw&feature=youtu.be >

This blog post is about reflecting on my project which is Connecting Anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese Anime in terms of making and what I have changed since I have posted the second reflecting blog post.

Although it has been only 3 weeks since I have posted the second reflecting blog post, I have changed the way to tweets a little bit. Previously, I tweet that I chose interesting topics with related hashtags. I do not say the way was incorrect ways but it was weak to get many impressions. So I decided to use the official accounts when I retweet because official accounts have many followers.

In addition, I tried to find topics that relate to Halloween because this Making term has Halloween and there were many topics with it. I know everyone is interested in Halloween and many Japanese companies have special events such as sweets companies, limited character collaboration cafes, and fast food companies. Also, many people post their cosplay with Halloween so I shared them with hashtags.

At the same time, there are many discussions on Reddit and they are talking about the Japanese Halloween. Some people put the link to YouTube which introduces Japanese Halloween cosplay parades. The parade is introduced in English so that many foreigners can get information about what Japanese Halloween is like that.

This platform always gives clues to me when I am struggling with Tweet ideas. Also, I really rely on this platform because I can hear the actual voice of foreigners who love Japan. That is why I keep using this when I run my project.

Since I have changed my previous project to this one, I have been looking for topics, events, as well as trends to stimulate my targets. Unfortunately, I could say not all of my tweets reached my audience and got many followers. However, I am confident to say that what I have done is right way, and this is just the beginning of the whole of my project at the moment. So I never stop to seek the skills which gain many reactions, search trends and study the effects of providing skills.

This blog post is about reflecting on my project which is Connecting Anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese Anime in terms of prototyping and what I have changed since I have posted the first reflecting blog post.

When I started my project, I decided that I was doing Connecting International Illustrators with Japanese Anime however I realized that the project would not achieve. As the reason, I found my project was too wide and that information that I shared was not for my targets through I was keeping to spread my cues.

When I realized the critical point, I was wondering what kind of information could work for my targets, and what type of information is needed by my targets. 

Thinking of these two points, I found a new project which is Connecting Anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese Anime. I know there are many anime lovers in the world and they like to enjoy cosplay. I saw many anime otaku foreigners post their cosplay tweets on the Twitter feed. 

However, those people seem to miss specific news about Japanese anime such as special events held in Japan, goods items sold on the Internet, and the stories behind the anime. That is why I thought if I provide that information that is not familiar with foreigners, my Twitter information would be helpful. Through this thinking process, I was sure my new project would achieve.

Adding to checking with Twitter, I created the account for Reddit where foreigners discuss Japan to get what kind of information attracting foreigners.

When I looked at this website, I realized how Japan is famous and many foreigners are interested in it again.

Once I remade my project, I searched anime cosplayers on Twitter and I shared them. At the same time, I looked for the collaborated cafes which are kind of pop-up cafes and providing menus with their design.

To find those limited collaborated cafe, I checked the page about summary of anime collaborated cafe on the Internet.

That information is written in Japanese so I choose some events and translated to English when I post on Twitter. Also when I found Japanese is talking about the collaborated cafe, I retweet with English translation to introduce as an actual voice throughout the experience.

Focusing on Twitter impressions which is one of my aims to make my project success, it hugely increased than the previous project. This Twitter analytics demonstrated to me that my new project was on the narrow way and the right way.

I am sure this new project should be all right but I still have to keep tweeting that attracting my targets, and gathering many followers, which are new challenges for the next step. Even so, I could say my Connecting Anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese Anime project is enough to clear at the Prototyping step.

I decided to make Connecting anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese anime especially places that relate to anime and collaborated events, which addresses the problem of difficulties to get the information for Otaku foreigners who don’t speak Japanese. For my users, I decided to use Twitter to produce information about Japanese anime. I realised that there are many anime lovers in the world but they can’t get information due to language. Most of anime information is announced in Japanese so I decided to share them in English.

At the beginning, I set up the Twitter which is about Japanese anime, so I’m sharing cosplayers who are anime Otaku foreigners and some events that are held in Japan.

Also, to get information what foreigners want to know, I created the account for Reddit where foreigners discuss about Japan, and check what is atracting them. Once I tweet or retweet, my users react them and they leave comments which demonstrate to me that my project works.

To analyse my account in detail, I always check the Twitter Analytics. It tells me how many people engaged and what kind of information was successful. Also, my followers are foreigners which is good to see my project works. However, there are challenges that I have to consider. I need more engagements, impressions, and followers.

At the end of this BETA, I have to explain why I changed my project. The previous pitch was saying my project was connecting International illustrators with Japanese anime. However, I realised there is no information that works for foreigners which meant my project couldn’t achieve. So I was thinking what kind of information does need for foreigners, and I tried to make my project on the narrow way. That’s why I decided to do Connecting anime Otaku foreigners with Japanese anime.

My project which is Connecting International Illustrators with Japanese Anime has started since the lecture BCM114 has begun. At this lecture, I have met many aspects that I didn’t  know. At the beginning of this lecture, two new terms came to me. #FEFO which is Fail Early, Fail Often and #FIST which is Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny. These new keywords are shown me how I control my project to make a correct way to achieve my goal. So when I came up with my project overview, I always kept them up on my mind. Also, I could get a skill to create gifs and memes by myself. Until I took this subject, I didn’t know how to create them and tweet my opinion with the #bcm114 cause of my background. 

However, my skills, and ideas to create original gifs and memes has developed as I saw other students twitter feed. In addition, the lectures gave me clues to conduct my project. For example, the existence of Webtoon because I have not heard it before, but I realised it has become popular in the world, and it is very progressed platforms. Similarly, I was surprised that it is possible to visualise how our bcm students make a connection on Twitter with the #bcm114. When I saw the mapping, I experienced what making media is and how connecting others on the Internet. Not only surprised or gained new things, but I was also happy to hear that Asian countries are like a new culture called Asianization. This is related to my project as it introduced that Japan is familiar with Anime and Manga so I was confident that my project would be effective. 

When I started my project pitch, I searched what kind of issues or problems are there for Japanese Anime. As I expected, the shortage of illustrators who have high skills to draw was come up as a result. On the other hand, I faced a serious problem with it. This is one Tweet from the article I read. There is another problem that animation illustrators are overworked behind the situation of lack of illustrators.

When I delved into the problem, I could find the reason why it happened the lack of illustrators. As I mentioned in my pitch, it requires the skills to reproduce details such as landscape and sweets by hand.

So I tried to make a strategy how I find the people having high skills to do it efficiently and one result came up in my mind. That is using SNS especially Twitter. On this the Internet society, I cannot find other ways to make my project successful without SNS. Also, BCM114 lecture shown me how important SNS is. The biggest reason that I choose Twitter is the influence and diffusive power. The Week 3 lecture demonstrated me that Twitter has those big features so I decided to use it. First of all, I searched the terms “fanartanime” on the search box and many foreigners tweeted their artwork which is based on Japanese anime character basically. So I could check how foreigners are interested in Japanese anime and they have high skills to reproduce the characters.

After I checked that there are many foreigners interested in Japanese anime, I considered how I connect them with Japanese anime with using Twitter. The answer I derived is making a Twitter list which has only illustrators from Japan basically. The reason why I chose Japanese illustrators is that I would like to spread how Japanese illustrators have high skills to draw before gathering international illustrators. If I start to find international illustrators directly, it is difficult to introduce Japanese anime to them. So before taking the step, I decided to introduce Japanese illustrators to make my project efficiently. 

To find Japanese illustrators on Twitter, I use another website which is Pixiv. Pixiv is a Japanese online community for artists and there are many people who have a Twitter account. When I search the term “Twitter” on Pixiv, many artworks come up with its creators’ information, and I choose some of them and put them into my Twitter list. So I always see illustrators on my list.

However, there is another problem. As you can see, they tweet in Japanese so international illustrators cannot understand what the artwork is about. So I retweet with my comment which is a translation of its illustrator. By doing this, I make it possible that foreigners understand what it wants to say. I do this translations retweet every day, and when I retweet one artwork, I put some hashtag such as #japaneseillustrator, #illustrator, and #artwork, which enables everyone who is interested in illustration find my translation retweet.

I will keep finding illustrators and retweets, and then I would start to find international illustrators and connect them with Japanese Anime.

This is my process at the moment and my plan.

My project for BCM114 digital artefact pitch is Connecting International Illustrators with Japanese Anime. Now Japanese anime has been popular and I can say it is one of the cultures in the global.

However, there are some issues and I focus on one of them. That is lack of illustrators who have high drawing skills. So I am introducing the way of how I connect international illustrators. To do it, I use Instagram and Twitter because they have the “#fanartanime” in which people post their drawing of characters.

At the end of my pitch video, I mentioned how my project relevant to my users and myself.  I can say my users are interested in Japanese anime so my project can attract them. Also, my aim at uni is gaining the skills to make media and analyse Japanese entertainment industry so this project will be my first experience.

Firstly, I’ve heard that BCM114 is relevant to BCM112 but I haven’t done the subject unfortunately. However, I’m interested in digital media society and making media so I’ve decided to take this subject.

When I was thinking about my project, I came up one big object in my mind, which is Japanese pop-culture such as anime, manga, and J-POP. So I want to work on SMASH Sydney Manga & Anime Show.

In addition, Tokyo in Japan has chosen to host the Olympics next year. So I’m sure Japanese pop culture has been popular already but the people who are interested in Japan will be increased.

Not only this, one miserable incident was happened at a Japanese animation company in Kyoto last month. The incident was reported all over the world and many donations went to the company.

Through these facts, I’m feeling like I would like to share Japanese pop culture especially Japanese anime and manga to make more awareness. As usual, there are some problems with Japanese pop culture so I would like to consider some problems with my digital media skills.