¥10M+ Peak Months and '80% of Articles Tanked': Japan's Top Bloggers' Real Numbers
Hitode (peak of over ¥10M/month across all his sites), Kiguchi (¥500M cumulative — but Google updates swung his annual income from ¥30M to ¥100M and back to ¥30M), and Tsuzuki (¥1M/month within a year). A three-way conversation between top bloggers that lays out, in numbers, both the ceiling and the fragility of blog income.
This is a translation of the Japanese original. The Japanese version and cited primary sources are authoritative for all figures.
The numbers revealed in the conversation
| Speaker | Numbers |
|---|---|
| Hitode | Peak revenue across all sites combined: over ¥10M/month. Started as a side hustle while employed; runs multiple sites |
| Kiguchi | An 18-year blogging veteran (as of February 2023). Passed ¥500M in cumulative revenue in 2020. But Google updates swung his annual income from ¥30M → over ¥100M → back to ¥30M. “Around 80% of my articles dropped in rankings” |
| Tsuzuki | Reached ¥1M/month roughly one year after starting (detailed analysis here) |
It is a rare primary source in Japan: the “ceiling” and the “fragility” of blogging as a business model, sitting side by side in a single conversation.
The structure of the ceiling — Hitode’s ¥10M months
The crucial detail about Hitode’s peak monthly revenue is that it comes not from a single site but from multiple sites combined. Any one media property hits a ceiling set by search demand, but splitting into a portfolio of sites lets you stack additional ceilings on top. In the conversation, the winning formula he describes is not scale but personal brand.
- Build a position where “when people think of ◯◯, they think of you.” The ideal state is one where readers think, “I want recommendations from that person who knows Hakata inside out”
- Never reveal your money-making keywords (competitors will pile onto them immediately)
- Make your next move precisely when things are going well. When performance is strong, affiliate networks are far more willing to offer special rates if you ask
- Startup costs are just hosting and a domain. “It costs almost nothing” is blogging’s single biggest advantage
By contrast, he is cautious about expanding to YouTube — “outsourcing runs ¥10,000 per video, and you need at least 10 videos, so ¥100,000” — a cost structure too different to jump into casually. He compares the P&L structure of each medium with a cool head.
The structure of the fragility — Kiguchi’s wild swings
Kiguchi’s numbers are the starkest illustration of how unstable blog income can be. Even a veteran who has earned ¥500M cumulatively can see his annual income cut to less than a third by a single Google update. His testimony — “the psychological toll of falling from an income you’d already reached is heavy” — captures the essential risk of any search-traffic business.
The countermeasures he described: building assets on social media (get to 5,000 followers with posts consistently drawing 200–300 likes before scaling up content), and choosing the optimal medium for each genre. Getting off the single leg of search traffic is the conclusion of a ¥500M blogger.
Reading between the numbers
Blogging’s expected value is “high ceiling, extremely wide variance.” A ¥10M-a-month ceiling and an 80%-of-articles-tanked downside exist in the same market. This is not lottery-style luck; it is the consequence of revenue being subordinate to a single external variable: the search algorithm. Entering the market on the strength of “¥1M/month success stories” without understanding this structure is dangerous — read it together with Tsuzuki’s true story of dropping from #1 to #5 and losing essentially all traffic.
Personal brand is being rediscovered as the strongest SEO defense. “When people think of ◯◯, they think of you” generates branded searches, direct visits, and social traffic that no algorithm can take away. The more AI search spreads and devalues generic informational articles, the more the only demand left standing is “I want to hear what that person thinks.” Hitode’s strategy has turned out to double as a defense for the AI era.
Every one of the three survived by diversifying. Hitode with multiple sites, Kiguchi with social media assets, Tsuzuki with horizontal expansion while things were going well. Their playbooks differ, but the one thing they share completely is that none of them stayed dependent on a single revenue source. The fact that affiliate sites sell for only around 20 months of monthly profit shows the market has already priced in this fragility.
If you were to apply this yourself
- What transfers: “concentrate on the keywords that are earning,” “negotiate with affiliate networks when you’re doing well,” and “build social media assets in advance” are all actionable today. The low barrier to entry — roughly ¥1,000 a month in initial investment — is still intact
- The limits: Hitode’s and Kiguchi’s numbers include gains accumulated in an era when the SEO environment was more forgiving. Retracing the same path is difficult; anyone entering now needs to design from day one around a combination of AI search, social media, and community
Related reading
- A monthly breakdown of Tsuzuki Blog’s real data — the detailed version for one of this conversation’s participants
- A telecom affiliate site sold for ¥950K — the option of “selling while it’s still fragile”
- Pieter Levels and RemoteOK’s swings from $140K to $10K to $40K a month — the overseas version of search and platform dependence
Sources
This article summarizes and analyzes the public sources above. Please refer to the primary sources for details.