AW, IW and the state of J-pop blogging

Hello Project performers scorch 'Bomb Girl,' January 2008, in Yokohama.

Time for a closer look at the J-pop blogging and writing universe. American Wota has offered a profound statement along these lines at:

http://www.americanwota.com/2008/05/self-criticism-session-may-2008/

Radreview elaborates at:

http://bloggerparty.com/aw_iw_j_pop_and_a_clash_of_cultures

Bottom line is that the Japanese idol-music universe is plenty big enough to accommodate endless commentary, speculation, criticism and self-reflection -- much less the even larger vistas of fiction, doramas and Japanese TV, which is walled off from America for the most part, anyway. It is a worthwhile discussion.

Another factor afoot here is that my comments to AW and IW posts are being blocked; i.e. "your comment is being evaluated" or language to that effect. That means, in essense, your comment will likely not see the light of day. My feeling is that such blatant censorship weakens a site enormously.

It's just ridiculous for any blogsite to block comments from anyone. I have removed one or two comments if really brutal language is used (I do have a lot of younger people hitting my posts), and I will never screen comments. It weakens content and discourages creativity.

That could be one reason behind the slowdown in AW and IW traffic as alluded to in the first link above. Further, some kind of virus has found its way to AW and IW; every time I visit AW's home page I get an ominous "Threat Detected" sign flashed on my screen. Something is infecting AW and IW, and it's not all high-tech glitches. And, my fresh AVG 8.0 can't seen to solve it. Oh, well, just another reason to look elsewhere for an adequate news source for J-pop and ancillary art forms.

I'm just trying to figure out what has happened.

This is Radicalipton signing off -- for now.