#relatively new to tumblr and posting in general so its not exactly in my expertise

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umm screenshot redraw or something,,

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Why You Probably Think Nezumi’s Hair Looks Silly

(and why it’s probably not as bad as you think it is)

In the past I’ve written a few anime analysis posts with varying degrees of seriousness. My last post along these lines was not the most lighthearted read, but fortunately, this time around, I spontaneously got an idea for a less serious topic to write about. I managed to keep up with the anime JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR right on the tail end of its release, which I believe was crucial to my ultimate enjoyment of this series. What I did not manage to do was predict that Nezumi would end up my favorite character (although I’m certainly not complaining, given, for one, how much inspiration his narrative has given me for analytical posts such as this one).

Like most other viewers, I comfortably got to know Nezumi over the course of the story, but when the episode that focuses on his backstory rolled around, I was not sufficiently prepared for the most dramatic reveal of all!!: his true... hairstyle?

As usual, an obligatory warning for spoilers under the cut.

Let’s face it, the assumption that, under all of that armor, Nezumi is just a plain grey-haired anime boy is completely reasonable based on what we see of him i the first eleven episodes. Sure, we see that the armor on his head is shaped rather oddly, but -- I don’t know about you, but I merely assumed that its sole function was to provide a visual pun in reference to his zodiac animal and ability: the protruding portions are shaped like rodent ears, and match nicely with what I would guess is an ear cover shaped like a computer mouse (haha -- because of Hundred Click, and because he’s a rat). Alas, how very wrong I was, because it turns out, that part is actually --

...A HAIR PROTECTOR?

Okay, back up for a minute. What’s the deal with this?

As it is without the fwooshes (as I affectionately call the longer, flowing, reminiscent-of-rodent-ears portion of Nezumi’s hairstyle), short, solid-colored hair is a pretty typical style for any generic anime character, and based on what we can see when Nezumi is wearing his very stylish armor, we don’t really have any reason to think to ourselves, “Oh yeah, I bet his hair totally fwooshes out under those rat ears,” because we’ve never really seen it before -- or, if we have, characters with simple, short hair like you’d see on a normal person are much, MUCH more common. So, since that’s the basis of information we have to refer to, that’s what we conclude, and we never really give it a second thought until finally, in the very last episode, we see Nezumi in his civilian garb, and his hair, is in fact, very much not normal.

(Granted, there are slight visual indications of the presence of the fwooshes even when Nezumi is wearing his armor, or even the hooded sweatshirt he dons in the ending animation, but since we don’t have the expectation that there’s any ornamentation there to begin with, they are very easy to miss. That’s how the human brain works -- we tend not to notice things that we don’t expect to be there. This is effectively supported by one of my favorite studies of all time, which involves an animal whose close relative also participates in the Juni Taisen.)

Because Nezumi’s hairstyle is highly unusual and blatantly contradicts our expectations, it’s a big surprise when it’s finally revealed. From what I can tell based on the posts that were floating around on Tumblr, as well as other platforms, on the same day that the final episode of JUNI TAISEN was released, the overall response was one of shock. I recall reading the consensus that Nezumi’s hairstyle was thought of as “silly” (heck, I even said out loud to myself as I was watching the episode, in spite of how emotionally attached I was starting to get to him, “that looks stupid!”) and I distinctly remember reading a post that simply told Nezumi to “get a new haircut.” Again, given our previous assumptions and conclusions, this reaction is understandable. For eleven episodes prior, we got used to seeing Nezumi in cool-looking warrior armor, which, despite his meek disposition, makes him look strong and capable in battle on the outside. Hence, the flowing, delicate, arguably more feminine silhouette given by his everyday appearance is incredibly incongruous.

As anyone who has seen KADO: The Right Answer (another of my favorite anime to analyze, so shameless plug here) can certainly argue, properly executed surprises evoke a strong emotional response from the audience, and the artists behind JUNI TAISEN definitely did not design Nezumi thinking that the audience wouldn’t be at least a little bit surprised when they grew intimately familiar with an armor-clad Warrior of the Rat who was then revealed to be a normal schoolboy with strangely fwooshy hair in his everyday life. Hence, the pronounced and highly specific emotional reaction the audience experiences upon this reveal was evoked intentionally. However, the function of this response changes depending on your particular experience of the series.

The anime JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR is based on a one-shot manga released in January 2015 titled “The One Wish That Must Be Granted, and the Ninety-Nine That Can Be Done Without,” which, as you can probably guess from the shared name, encompasses what is essentially the exact same story retold in the twelfth episode of the JUNI TAISEN anime; hence, JUNI TAISEN functions as a sequel to the original manga, despite taking place beforehand from a chronological standpoint. As a result, the original manga is all about Nezumi; the readers have no previous experience to refer to when first diving in -- not even any background on the function of JUNI TAISEN in its dystopian society, or who any of the other characters are. In this case, Nezumi’s hairstyle does not exactly function as a surprise due to this lack of background. Instead, the added visual interest of Nezumi’s hair fwooshes make him less plain and more interesting to the reader. With normal hair, he would just be another main character anime schoolboy, and, because of his lack of other redeeming or heroic qualities (which makes him such an intriguing character in the narrative of a battle royale), there would not be much about him to make him memorable to the reader. (What he does have going for him is that his plainness and his general ambivalence towards the high school experience makes him particularly relatable to anyone who has also gone through that sort of thing.) Perhaps, in the case of the original manga, Nezumi’s hair was indeed simply an attention-grabbing visual quirk added mostly as a shoutout to his signature animal, the rat.

On the other hand, the JUNI TAISEN anime seems to be written under the assumption that the viewer is not already familiar with the original one-shot manga, hence the surprised reaction to Nezumi’s hairstyle reveal. This response adds some emotional interest and investment to an episode that would otherwise start out in a rather mundane fashion, and probably have the viewer thinking not much other than “Okay, here we go with yet another character introduction. I wonder what he’s going to wish for? Maybe, instead of watching, I’ll space out for the duration of the episode wondering what I would wish for.” This would be in stark contrast to the backstories of some of the other warriors, which tickled our emotions by making us feel for them to varying degrees. However, by instantly giving the audience a new, unexpected cue for a pronounced emotional response, Nezumi’s character design makes the viewers more emotionally vulnerable in preparation for the figurative roller coaster that is the twelfth episode. One of the major factors in my falling in love with Nezumi was the poignant expertise and effectiveness with which the narrative of “The One Wish That Must Be Granted, and the Ninety-Nine That Can Be Done Without” was composed to evoke very particular and measured emotional responses in the audience. We feel our pulses quicken as Nezumi frantically deliberates about which of his ninety-nine wishes would be the best one; our hearts sink when we witness Nezumi cry for the first time, begging that his one desire is to forget his experience of 139-plus horrifically violent deaths; and finally, we feel catharsis when Nezumi shows us his first smile, as though there was nothing more he ever wanted in the world.

Now, if the viewer was spacing out throughout this whole episode, none of this would have anywhere near as much of an emotional impact. Hence, as silly as it might look, the “surprise” factor behind Nezumi’s unusual hairstyle is actually critical for ensuring not only that the viewer is paying attention, but also that their emotions are activated and prepared to be fully invested in the story -- a necessity to experience full satisfaction at its deceptively meaningful conclusion.

And once you’ve recovered from that shock, maybe you’ll be like me and start to think that Nezumi’s hair actually looks kind of pretty.

That’s all I have for today on that subject! I hope you enjoyed reading this much more lighthearted analysis post. If you find this type of writing particularly interesting, feel free to take a look at some of my other anime analysis posts you may like. A few of them are linked in various places throughout this post, but here they all are in chronological order for your convenience:

 Why I Love Nezumi (and the ending to JUNI TAISEN in general)

 The Meaning of Meaninglessness in JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR and KADO: The Right Answer

Deus Ex Machina in KADO: The Right Answer, part 1

Deus Ex Machina in KADO: The Right Answer, part 2: Yaha-kui zaShunina as the Tragic Hero

*slaps roof of KADO* this bad boy can fit so much meaningful dialogue in it

JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR: Remember to Die

You can also find all of these by browsing through the “anime analysis” tag on my blog.

Additionally, my ask box is always open if you have any questions, want me to clarify something, have an idea about anything else you want me to write about, or if you just want to give me an excuse to gush about Nezumi for a little while!

[firdaussyazwani]

Social Fortress in SEO, A Digestible Guide

Any competent digital marketer will tell you that building a presence on social media is crucial to success. But did you know that you can use these online profiles not only to generate exposure for your brand, but also to improve your site’s rankings on SERPs?

In SEO, this is called a social fortress. It’s a relatively simple but effective technique that could give your SEO efforts a much-needed boost. If you’re curious about this strategy and want to learn more about how you can use it to your advantage, read on!

  But first, what exactly is a social fortress?

Cambridge Dictionary defines the word fortress as “a large, strong building or group of buildings that can be defended from attack.” And a social fortress is exactly that: it’s a fortified structure that serves as a foundation for your brand’s online presence and digital reputation.

In simpler terms, a social fortress is a collection of social properties for your brand. These properties may include:

Facebook pages

Twitter accounts

Instagram profiles

LinkedIn pages

YouTube channels

Google profiles

Other social platforms

  Social fortresses make use of the above-mentioned platforms to generate trust for your website. Why is this so effective? For one, the websites above are all high-authority pages, meaning both Google and internet end-users place a lot of trust in them.

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  Do social fortresses still work for SEO?

Many argue that with the introduction of the nofollow link attribute, social fortresses stopped sending link juice to money sites. Furthermore, social fortresses are considered user-generated-content (UGC), which is one of the lowest quality links. As UGC is easily obtainable, it further dilutes the authority that these links possess.

Therefore, this makes social fortresses ineffective and a waste of time due to the combination of both the nofollow tag and its nature.

  The benefits of having a solid social fortress

When you create profiles for your brand on websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like, you’re essentially putting yourself in a position to benefit from the power of such platforms. Here’s what I think are some of the SEO benefits of building a solid social fortress:

  Builds trust in Google’s eyes

Social platforms generate lots of traffic and have great SEO metrics, to begin with. With many SEOs trying to get themselves on top of search engines, it is commonly said that Google favours businesses more as compared to affiliate websites (usually run by SEOs).

Businesses will normally create social media accounts for themselves. As a result, any backlink that originates from these properties is a step closer to making your website look like a proper business. By increasing your website’s trust in Google’s eyes, your website is likely to be treated as if its higher quality, improving your keyword rankings.

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  Increased brand awareness

Your social fortress will serve as the foundation of your online presence. The more avenues you exploit to get your brand out there, the more people you’ll eventually reach. This will indirectly improve your website’s SEO as there will be more people visiting your website. More visitors are a sign of a quality website that Google favours, and thus helps with your SEO.

  Free high-authority backlinks to your site

High-authority backlinks are increasingly hard to get these days, more so if we’re talking about getting them at no cost! Taking advantage of your social fortress helps you create high-quality links to your website without having to do lots of spending and outreach.

Although most of these links are labeled as nofollow, these platforms provide your website with trust and authority. As Google is moving towards Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthy (EAT) metrics, having a social fortress will help you in addressing these metrics.

  More visibility and digital trust

Brands that have active and value-adding pages are more likely to be seen as legitimate industry leaders than those who only have a website. As many marketers may know, the Rule of 7 dictates that consumers will only buy something from you after seeing or hearing from you 7 times.

After these 7 touchpoints, one of the ways your audience will try to get in contact with you is through your website. Browsing your site, submitting forms, and making purchases on your website are user-based metrics that have been known to improve keyword rankings.

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  Protect your brand’s reputation

Creating a variety of social media profiles and building pages for your business will give you a lot of protection from negative PR. Due to the authority these social websites have, it is easier to get these pages to rank for your brand’s name.

Securing the first page of the SERP for your brand keywords protects you from any negative attacks that you may receive. These attacks ruin your brand’s credibility and therefore may affect your bottom line!

  Syndicate your content

With a social fortress, you can automatically syndicate your content to them. This means that whenever you upload a blog post, you may choose to automatically publish it to your social fortress. This gets more eyes on your content and therefore generates more traffic to your website!

Furthermore, automatically syndicated content will help your pages get indexed faster. As this is done using RSS feeds, there will be a statement before/after the content that states the origin of the content.

Search engines crawl these links and attribute the content back to your website, helping you get your context indexed much much faster!

If you’re not automatically syndicating your content, do remember to include a link back to your website so that interested readers are able to view it at its source!

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  Building your SEO Social Fortress

Ready to build your social fortress? Follow the steps below.

  Create and verify your accounts.

The first step is to make a list of the social accounts you plan to make. Decide what name you’re using (you should obviously use your brand’s name) and make it consistent across all platforms. Don’t forget to verify your accounts!

Here are some of the platforms that I include in my own social fortresses:

Instagram

Youtube

Facebook

Twitter

Gravatar

Pinterest

Diigo

Tumblr

Reddit

About.me

Blogger

  Brand the pages and keep them updated

Next, customise the profiles to reflect your branding. Update the bio pages, descriptions, and profile and banner images as needed. Make sure that the accounts accurately reflect your brand and that your contact details and company info are easily accessible. Keep everything consistent with what you have on your website.

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  Connect the accounts

Link these accounts to each other. Facebook has fields that you can fill out with your Instagram handle, for example. YouTube has similar fields for you to connect most of your handles too.

As most of the platforms above have similar features, you should connect as many accounts together as possible. Connecting these accounts builds a connection with one another and tells Google that you’re a legitimate business.

Any trust and authoritative metrics from each platform are also stacked together before being passed to your website.

  Post content and engage

If you’re active on social media, sharing your new posts with your followers helps generate some traffic and user signals.

If you’re not active on social media, you should set up automatic content syndication so that your posts will automatically be shared to these platforms. I use IFTTT for this.

  Have a set activity schedule

Similar to SEO, you should regularly publish new content to keep your website fresh. This improves your website’s crawl budget and you’ll create topical relevance for yourself. With topical relevance, it makes it easier for you to rank newer content!

Therefore, for you to maximise the benefits of your social fortress, you also have to put in the effort to keep your profiles active. The more active the page is, the more traffic it gets. And the more traffic and engagement you get on your socials, the greater the SEO benefit they will eventually bring to your website.

  Conclusion

Although many may argue that social fortresses or domain authority stacking have stopped working, there’s really no harm in setting it up for yourself. If you still need data before making your decision to implement a social fortress, here’s Matt Diggity’s test on it.

However, whether you’re a business, doing client SEO, or are an affiliate, making your website look like a normal business will help.

It is known that Google has over 200 factors that affect keyword rankings. Some are confirmed by Google, some have been tested for correlation, while many others are still speculation.

Before doing anything in SEO, you should always ask yourself, does doing this look natural? Do businesses build and connect their social media profiles? Well, at least, I believe they do.

If you liked this post, do join my SEO Telegram Channel where I share my thoughts on the latest news, updates, and knowledge bombs!

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source https://firdaussyazwani.com/seo/social-fortress