Sanzzo: ¥100 million cumulative from a side-hustle blog — stacking over ¥20 million in six months on top of ¥3.77M/month, across multiple sites

Checking the math behind ¥100 million cumulative

Self-reported blogger revenue is hard to verify. What’s unusual about Sanzzo’s case (real name Tomomasa Yoshioka, born 1976) is that multiple primary sources from different points in time remain, and they’re internally consistent with each other.

An interview published in August 2019 by Sanctuary Books’ web magazine mentions his May 2019 monthly income of ¥3.77 million, cumulative revenue of ¥70–80 million, and 7 sites under operation. On his own blog “Maksun,” he later announced that cumulative revenue passed ¥100 million in February 2020. Lining these two up: over roughly 9 months, cumulative revenue grew by ¥20–30 million, nearly matching his stated range of “keeping ¥3–4 million a month.” Numbers from separate outlets, at separate points in time, don’t contradict each other on a monthly-revenue basis.

The disclosed timeline

Current monthly income sits in the ¥3–4 million range. On Maksun’s “Blogger Rankings,” he places himself at “ozeki” (a sumo rank near the top), listing estimated monthly income of ¥3–4 million and estimated annual income of ¥36–48 million.

Not a single-blog story

The first thing to grasp in this case is that ¥100 million isn’t the output of one site. By 2019 he had 7 sites, and has since added genre-distant media: camping food (“Veranda Meshi,” March 2020) and meal delivery (“Oishii Takushoku,” March 2022).

In the interview, Sanzzo describes his day job as marketing/advertising at a major company, calls himself a “neo-window-seat employee,” and says his effort split is “roughly 2:8, main job to side hustle.” That’s roughly 80% of his discretionary capacity, split across running multiple media properties, while staying employed.

Running 7 sites isn’t explainable by article output alone. It’s not realistic for one person to track search rankings, ad inventory, and deal negotiations for 7 media properties simultaneously; at some point the actual job becomes “deciding which site to work on.” This is a constraint common to any operator holding a cross-genre portfolio. The cost of a multi-site strategy isn’t server bills, it’s decision bandwidth.

The tide turned in the latter half of 2019

The stretch from ¥70–80 million cumulative (May 2019) to ¥100 million (February 2020) isn’t a simple extension of the trend line. Three moves that reshaped the revenue structure overlap within that 9-month window.

Launching the “Maksun” online community (August 2019). Affiliate and AdSense revenue moves with search rankings, next month’s sales shift when rankings shift. A paid community is monthly-subscription revenue, moving a slice of income outside the reach of the search engine. What matters isn’t the amount itself, but adding one revenue stream with different volatility drivers.

Expanding into a genre-distant media property (March 2020, Veranda Meshi). His previous core focus had been blogging/affiliate theory, teaching “how to earn.” Camping food is about as far from that as you can get. Holding 7 sites within a single genre still exposes all of them to the same algorithm swings simultaneously, splitting genres lowers that correlation. And it launches from Instagram, meaning the acquisition channel itself isn’t search.

Incorporating (June 2020). Four months after passing ¥100 million cumulative, he incorporated. The sequencing matters, incorporation didn’t create the revenue. The scale of revenue demanded incorporation.

Read this way, the turning point was less “the moment revenue spiked” than the moment he stopped receiving spiking revenue through a single channel.

What was actually working

A portfolio removes the traffic ceiling. Any single media property has a search-demand ceiling. Lining up genre-distinct sites lets that ceiling add up additively. Seven sites reads as a deliberate choice of “run several mid-sized properties” over “grow one large one.”

The content topic and the revenue topic are the same. He writes about how to earn from blogging, and delivers his community and books to that same readership. His own track record becomes the product’s pitch, so marketing cost approaches structural zero. Publishing his cumulative revenue functions as part of his own acquisition engine.

His day job’s skills transfer directly. Marketing/advertising is his profession, so there’s no relearning required on the side-hustle side. His interview partner, Makrin, is also a marketer at a foreign company. The common thread between the two isn’t genre, it’s professional skill.

A long time horizon. Started June 2013, crossed ¥100 million in February 2020, roughly 6 years and 8 months. Averaged out, that’s about ¥15 million a year, not a short-term spike by any measure.

Points to read the numbers carefully around

• Everything here is self-reported. No confirmation of supporting documents — bank transfer screenshots, financial statements — has been found. What’s verifiable is only that figures from multiple outlets and points in time don’t contradict each other, not an independent audit of the actual amounts.
• Cumulative and monthly income are different metrics. ¥100 million is nearly 7 years of cumulative earnings, not current annual revenue.
• Per-site breakdown isn’t disclosed. Which of the 7 sites accounts for the bulk of revenue is never shown. The possibility that the real picture is “7 sites, heavily dependent on one” can’t be ruled out.
• With search as the primary battleground, exposure to algorithm swings is unavoidable. The community and books act as a buffer, but neither substitutes for the core business at scale.

What’s reproducible, and what isn’t

Reproducible: the design of diversifying revenue sources by genre and channel, and the sequencing of investing in additional sites and subscription models once revenue has grown. In particular, “choose low-correlation genres” is a decision that requires no capital.

The harder parts to reproduce start with his 2013 entry timing. He built 7 years of article assets during a period when individual blogs could still capture search rankings relatively easily. His day job being in marketing is another. And there’s the structural advantage of the blogging-theory genre itself. A ¥100 million track record becomes, by itself, persuasive material for his community and his books. That loop, where the achievement itself sells the next product, can only be run by the person who built the achievement. A newcomer entering the same genre later can’t stand at the entrance to that loop.

Related reading

• Over ¥10 million at peak, and “80% of our articles dropped” — three top bloggers reveal the light and dark sides in one conversation — the upside ceiling of running multiple sites, and the downside where an algorithm update sinks 80% of them.
• ¥7.5 million/month running a rental-space business — a different-category case that started as a side hustle and scaled by adding locations.