First of all, thank you for your help.
I ask this question because I find the Japanese internet community a bit difficult to find an ‘entry point’. For example, if I want to find fan opinions and views on a certain work (like manga, games, books, movies) in English, I can just search on reddit, twitter or YouTube and see a lot of fans posting their opinions. It’s also easy to find discussions on general topics (such as news, politics, sports, history) by searching directly.
I don’t know if it is due to my Japanese is not good enough, but I find it hard to find a place where Japanese speakers express their real personal opinions about something by simply searching the name. I’ve tried Twitter, but if I search directly for the name of a work, all I find is official content, and the few personal opinions are very official and formal. I guess many people prefer to use code words and don’t like to be searched by strangers? And I’ve heard that people are more likely to post their real opinions on anonymous forums? But I personally feel very confused and puzzled by anonymous forums.
I’m hoping to find some general guides on how to search online for a Japanese internet community for a certain topic. But if generalizations are too difficult to give an opinion on, then I’m particularly interested in the following topics: Japanese video games, Japanese visual novels, Japanese visual art before the 20th century, 20th century Japanese history, classical Japanese literature (especially poetry), TV drama, contemporary global politics, and lgbt+ culture and lives in Japan.
For any of these topics, is there a good online community where I can easily find people’s opinions and reivews? thank you very much.
4 comments
2chan
Twitter is your friend, and also mixi is a good source of fan groups for games and manga.
edit:
Dokushometer is good for book reviews [https://bookmeter.com/](https://bookmeter.com/)
>if I search directly for the name of a work
Use #abbreviation for the title, character name or the name of the author
>nd I’ve heard that people are more likely to post their real opinions on anonymous forums?
Twitter is anonymous, and yes only Mori and Aso can get away with speaking their mind in public with their names attached.
>But I personally feel very confused and puzzled by anonymous forums.
Do you mean 5ch confuses you? If so it’s because people use abbreviations
Whatever your interest, there’s probably a blog site about it. Here’s an index to get you started: [http://2ch-c.net/?p=site](http://2ch-c.net/?p=site)
Just pick something that interests you. Be sure to use a popup dictionary like Yomichan, if you don’t already. It can’t always help you, but it’s at least enough to navigate around the sites.
A lot of these blog sites will repost comments from 5ch, but be sure to scroll down far enough to read the blog’s own comment section. Sometimes there will also be links back to the 5ch threads, if you’re looking to do some more reading.
Also here’s some boards to get you started on 5ch: [http://egg.5ch.net/](http://egg.5ch.net/) and [http://egg.5ch.net/kakolog_servers.html](http://egg.5ch.net/kakolog_servers.html) for even more.
The only online community in Japan I use if I want to see people’s opinions is either 5ch or Twitter. I don’t think there’s the Japanese equivalent of Reddit, sadly. Imo 5ch is a bit more similar to Reddit as there’s actually a thread, like a subreddit, dedicated for a particular person, game, novel, etc. and you can easily see people’s opinions on things like you’re scrolling down a Reddit thread, less of a personal place, focusing more on discussion. But the thing is 5ch is also the closest to 4chan, so people in Japan tend to post opinions more on Twitter nowadays. But I still find 5ch to be useful. I think Twitter is the only and biggest online place to go if you want to see more levelheaded opinions in Japan. Basically It’s become like a more popular and polite version of 5ch.