Sweet & Spicy Quarterly Review #2 | July – Sept 2021 | Sweet & Spicy

Sweet & Spicy Quarterly Review #2 | July – Sept 2021

Posted on October 2, 2021 by oona tempest Leave a comment

Another 3 months has passed, so it’s time for part two of our Quarterly Review series! 27th September marked our 6 month anniversary as a website, and, as we said in Quarterly Review #1, we’re completely blown away (again) by the love and support we’ve received.

In this review, we provide a breakdown of our viewership statistics and how they compare to last quarter, as well as some featured achievements for milestones we’re particularly proud of.

Then, we have a re-cap of all the reviews and other articles we posted in the last three months (in list-form, don’t worry, we won’t make you scroll through that much!), before finishing up the post with some aspirations moving forward.

If you’re someone who has supported us throughout this past quarter (and beyond!) then we’d like to take the chance to thank you for taking time to read what we have to say, and maybe even donating so we can pay for some of our expenses. Or, if you’re new here, then welcome! We hope you enjoy our reviews!

Achievements

Last quarter, we were astounded at how quickly interest in our website had grown. This quarter, the stats continued to skyrocket, although they are finally starting to plateau and growth is becoming more steady.

Our new ‘high scores’ for stats:

Lifetime views: 11,106
- Last quarter: 1,556 (~714% increase)
Most views in a month: 5,031
- Last quarter: 978 (~514% increase)

Most views in a week: 1,245
- Last quarter: 315 (~395% increase)
Most views in a day: 289
- Last quarter: 69 (~419% increase)

100 Twitter Followers

This quarter we hit our goal of 100 followers on Twitter! We celebrated by sharing the Top 10 reviews on our website, based on the total number of lifetime views for each post. This ranking has actually already changed, so maybe we’ll do something similar once we reach 200…

Click the image above to check out the post!

Note: Sweet & Spicy have social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit!

Jon’s Creator Showcase

We’re lucky enough to have been featured in the monthly ‘Jon’s Creator Showcase’ for three months now! This showcase is hosted each month by a different anime (or anime-adjacent) blogger, featuring an article or other form of content from each of the nominated creators alongside commentary by the host.

June 2021 – Mechanical Anime Reviews

For the June Showcase, Mechanical Anime Reviews featured our First Impressions of the Tears of Themis Closed Beta. They were incredibly positive with their feedback, particularly of the detailed information about the game and overall layout, and we’re honoured to have been included and receive such high praise.

You can check out the full post: here!

July 2021 – Art of Anime

In the July showcase, hosted by The Art of Anime, our game review of Mary Safro and Io Black’s indie otome game, ‘Dates & Wires‘, was featured. The Art of Anime also provided some incredibly kind feedback, even calling it their ‘favorite game blog post this month’.

You can check out the full post: here!

August 2021 – The Moyatorium

The August showcase was hosted by The Moyatorium, and featured our game review of CYBIRD’s mobile otome game, Ikemen Revolution. Based on the comments by the author, it sounds like we may have accidentally convinced them to play the game…

You can check out the full post: here!

Blerdy Otome Shoutout

Blerdy Otome included our review, ‘Pure-Hearted & Determined: Cancer Love Interests in Otome Games‘, in their post, ‘Blerdy Otome Monthly Recap – July 2021‘. Blerdy Otome is a blog that we look up to and inspired us to start writing our own reviews, so being featured was a huge honour!

You can check out the full post: here!

Website Update

This quarter, we finally managed to launch the new website update that we’ve had in the works since, well, before the original site launch back in March.

There are more improvements on the way, all designed to make it easier to browse our reviews and find the kind of content you’re looking for, but for now, we have new pages for News, Game Reviews, Character Reviews, Event Reviews, Zodiac Reviews, and NSFW Reviews.

In an unexpected bonus, this update has helped us to see what types of reviews people are searching for, as we can see how many times people view the different pages. This is great as we can prioritise writing reviews you’re more interested in reading!

Review Recap

We post new reviews every week on Saturdays at 3PM (AEST/UTC+10), and now Mondays at 3PM (AEST/UTC+10) as well, with a few bonuses here and there when we have the time. Below is a recap of all the reviews we posted in the months of July, August, and September…

July 2021

Highlights: In July, we started our Zodiac Reviews series with ‘Tricksters & Twins: Gemini Love Interests in Otome Games’, and debuted in anime reviews with our first impressions of, ‘Obey Me! The Anime’. We also posted a prototype for our current event reviews with our article on the ‘Clash of Passion’ story sets in Ikemen Sengoku.

Review of the Month

The most popular review we posted in July was the first post in our Zodiac Reviews series, ‘Tricksters & Twins: Gemini Love Interests in Otome Games’!

August 2021

Highlights: Continuing from the Clash of Passion Story Sale Review, we kept experimenting with event reviews, including, ‘Splashing Wet Showdown’ from Obey Me!, and the ‘Steamy & Sensual Premium Gacha’ from Ikemen Vampire. We also got to post our game review of ‘Tears of Themis’ after its full release, which continues to be one of our most-viewed posts on the site!

Review of the Month

It comes as no surprise to us that ‘Tears of Themis | Full Release | Game Review & Beginner’s Guide‘ was the most popular post in August! It continues to get views on a daily basis and, especially considering how much time was put into it, we’re happy that it’s been so well-received!

September 2021

Highlights: In September, we launched our new weekly series, ‘Current Events: Mobile Game Mondays’, as well as the ‘Community Spotlight’ series, where we interview and showcase the work of content creators in the otome community. We’ve also fine-tuned our event reviews and, with the new release of Ikemen Prince, we posted a ‘First Impressions’ of the latest addition to CYBIRD’s Ikemen Series…

Review of the Month

All of our Tears of Themis-related reviews have performed well in the view count, so it’s only natural that our event review for ‘Mysteries of the Lost Gold‘ was the most popular review in September!

Looking Foward

With two weekly posts (and often a third), we’re working hard to keep posting up-to-date information on otome games and their characters. We also started several new series this quarter, which we’ll continue to produce on an ongoing basis.

In terms of growth, we’re hoping to keep expanding our VIP Membership and rewards, and publish some of the many website updates we have in the works. There are also some other content ideas we’d like to pilot, but with so many series on the go (and not-so-many funds!), we may have to push them back until we have more time and/or money to work with.

Still, this post marks the end of our second quarter in operation, in other words, our 6-month anniversary! That’s not a lot of time and we’ve achieved far more than we expected in this mere half a year. Our focus, for now, is to continue experimenting with new ideas while maintaining our existing ones, and hopefully see just as much success in the months to come!

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to check out our reviews and support our site, whether it’s via the F2P method of sharing on social media, or the PTW version with a donation or monthly membership at our Ko-fi page. As always, we’re hugely grateful for your support, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality otome news & reviews~

Support Sweet & Spicy

~☆ Thank You to This Quarter’s Supporters! ☆~

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