Whoa.

300 articles?!!

To all my long time readers, all my new readers, and anyone who just happened to stumble across my geeky corner of the internet, I have 4 strong words to say to each and every one of you: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

How Did We Even Get to 300 Articles?

I started this blog in 2008 and didn’t really do much with it. But around 2012/2013, I decided to commit myself heart and soul into JapanThis! despite having a readership of 0. Mrs. JapanThis thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy, too. And my vast readership of 0 didn’t give a shit.

But the Word Started Getting Out

But slowly, a person here and a person there accidentally ended up here every once in a while. Those of you who remember the early days might even recall that I was originally trying to publish a new article every day Monday through Friday or something stupid like that. I eventually gave that up so I could focus on more research intensive articles. From there, the blog slowly just sorta took on a life of its own.

A lot of people start blogs and get really into them, only to abandon them to the search engines because, well, let’s face it, they’re time consuming. Other people just run out of things to say[i]. Lots of people come to Japan for a few years, get into it, and blog or make videos about pop culture and food and “my life as a gaijin[ii].” Some of them have tens of thousands of subscribers, which is pretty amazing, honestly. And all of that is good and well. The internet is truly vast and infinite. And everyone’s 100% entitled to their slice of it.

If You’re Gonna Go, Go Deep. Go Hardcore.

But I like to go deep. I like to go hardcore. This is something I learned from the music world. It’s just how I roll. And that’s not attractive to a lot of people. Hell, I meet a lot of people who fucking can’t stand history of any kind the way I fucking can’t stand math. Soooooo, writing a blog about Japanese history is a hard enough sell as it is. But that’s just it. I don’t just write about Japanese history, I use the etymology of place names of one city as an excuse to explore individual neighborhoods of that one city. Talk about obscure! In Japanese, this site wouldn’t be anything special. But in English, this is some hardcore niche subject matter we’re dealing with. It’s a tough sell any way you look at it.

And that’s why I had to make this post in the first place. That’s also why I had to open with a “thank you” that was truly from the bottom of my heart.

100% － Labor of Love

I used to say – I think I also said it when I hit my 200^th article – that this blog is a labor of love; this is my passion for the subject matter, and I would continue writing it even if I only had 5 readers or even 0 readers. Upon reaching this 300^th post (and let’s be honest, there are actually more than that if we include pages), I think I feel differently now.

Yes, this is 100% still a labor of love.

Yes, I think I would continue anyways.

But without you, dear reader, JapanThis! would be a hollow shell of what it is now. I mean that. Every time I get a new subscriber or follower or a new comment, it reminds me that I have to not just maintain the status quō of this blog. I have to constantly strive to go deeper, go harder, and push myself to do more rigorous research, write more creatively, and think of more ways to express my passion for the deeper side of Japanese culture and attract more people － more people like you － who share that passion.

Earlier, I used the term “my corner of the internet.” But the internet isn’t private. You don’t have to knock on the door to come into JapanThis!. You can just come in. It’s a party up in here. It’s a nerdy/geeky party, but it’s a party nonetheless. After 300 articles fueled by your enthusiasm, I think it’s safe to say that for us Japanese History Nerds, JapanThis! isn’t “my corner of the internet,” it’s “our corner of the internet.”

Before I close out this post. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that there have been a few people out there on social media who have consistently done a lot to share what I do here with the rest of the world. I owe them a lot of gratitude and am humbled by their constant willingness to help promote JapanThis!. If you don’t already follow them, I think you should[iii]. They’re not just good people, but they all share the same common interests that have brought you and me together.

In descending order of how long their names are (cuz it look perdy):

• Samurai Archives
• Rekishi no Tabi
• Anthony Davis
• Toranosuke V
• Alex Shiroki
• Ako Sensei
• JCastle

To everyone who’s ever given me a retweet or share, thanks you to you too. You’ve helped get me here. And I love you too. If you’ve shared me a lot and I haven’t noticed, but you think you belong on this list, hit me up privately, OK?

And lastly, I finish every article asking for support. I know this is annoying. And I believe that just reading JapanThis! is support and I thank you for that. Please don’t forget sharing on Facebook or Twitter because that really gets the message out there.

Here’s to the next goal: 400 articles!!

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[i] But if there’s one thing I did right when deciding to focus on this blog, I said that it would be focused on the etymology of Tōkyō place names, a topic I considered more or less endless, but could focus on any other aspect of Japanese culture and history – more on the history side, of course.
[ii] Not only one of the most tedious topics for those of us who’ve been here for a long time, but one that perpetuates the use of the outdated term 外人 gaijin outsiders (a term considered discriminatory or rude and usually banned by the media) for foreigners because, surprise! Foreigners use this term about themselves when not speaking Japanese and those who can’t speak Japanese don’t know any better. But this is a debate that would be better in an izakaya over a coupla beers.
[iii] They all have various social media accounts; I’m providing the links to what I consider their most active public accounts. Obviously, I’m not going to send you to their personal Facefook pages lol.