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MAL is a fantastic site, an incredibly useful tool for cataloging anime and for its database features. There's other sites that offer a few of the same tools, but none of these are as efficient, elaborate, and easy to use as MAL. Probably what sets MAL apart from most other database and anime sites is not necessarily the quality of the site and the ease of use, but rather the focus on the community, something that is full of issues and problems to the point where sometimes, even browsing the site becomes a headache in itself.

But why?

There's a lot of reasons for why. Some of these reasons are glaring and obvious to anybody who has their eyes open and some of these will most likely cause reactions to reach critical butthurt levels.

Chances are, if this blog post makes you upset then you are a part of the problem.

Now, let's get going.

One of the largest and most inherent problems with MAL is with the rating system. The fact that most people are incapable of using a proper rating scale and think that every popular anime that they watched is a perfect 10/10. Case in point, Code Geass. An awful, terrible anime full of so many issues and problems that anybody with taste would be plenty able to point out why it is shit. Ironically, on MAL it has holds its position at #9 on the ratings with a 8.99 average. This is not due to the quality of the anime, but rather because it's easily accessible to children and people who are just getting into anime. It's a show that appeals to the casual and entry level audience, and because they don't have much exposure or experience with the anime medium and are incapable of recognizing cliches, tropes and bad (read: awful) writing, it gets rated extremely high by the vast majority of the people watching it. There is a huge problem here and it skews the ratings to the point where top ratings become useless.

Code Geass isn't the only example either, and anime like Steins;Gate, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Death Note, AnoHana, and Kara no Kyoukai can easily fill the description that I just provided to varying extents. I wouldn't go as far as to say these anime are bad like Code Geass, but they are definitely accessible to newcomers and are rated highly for that same reason.





It's not only the very top of the ratings that is the issue, but the ratings themselves are terrible. Due to score inflation and a prevalent case of bad taste, mediocre anime is rated up highly while the more overlooked titles are generally given low ratings and passed on by people for that reason. For example, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Why the heck does this only have a 7.84 rating when it's one of the best anime movies out there? Why does Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence only have a 7.96? Why does Texhnolyze have a 7.79 and Manabi Straight a 7.57? Contrast this with titles like Code Geass R2 at a 8.99, Steins;Gate at a 9.16, or AnoHana at 8.74 and it becomes very sad.

What the hell, MAL.

But it's not just bad taste, it's that people don't know how to use the rating scale.

No, a 8/10 is not "average" and a 7/10 is not "mediocre". That's not how a 10-point rating scale works and you should use it properly. I personally operate with a rating scale that has 5.60 as my mean rating, which is quite low but it's acceptable due to the masses of mediocre anime that I have seen. A 5/10 means that something is mediocre, a pass, but not necessarily bad. It can still be enjoyed at this rating. The very top section of the list, the 9s and 10s, should only be awarded to anime that truly amazed and stunned you, something that you can admit to liking without shame and enjoy again and again. It should be awarded to the top 5% of the anime you have seen, give or take, but not half of your list. Especially when you have seen a low number of titles, you aren't qualified to make the judgement on whether something truly is a masterpiece or not.

Personally I believe the best way to rate your anime is by conflating objective quality with personal enjoyment. Depending on your own rating criteria, you might choose only to rate based on one of these which is acceptable too, though some basic standards should still be enforced if you choose only to rate from enjoyment.





You also have the chuckling mongoloids who review anime after 1-3 episodes have been released of something currently airing, which is absolutely pointless and retarded as you can't pass proper judgement on an anime, much less review it, when only a couple episodes have aired. Everybody that does this is a moron and I encourage people to vote down all of those reviews that they see. I'm sure that most of them end up just doing it so that they can have the first or the second review and end up getting hits to their profile or something as a result of it.

In essence, it is attention-whoring at its finest.

There's more inherent problems than this, though. By and large, most of the people that make up the community are children with a tiny amount of anime watched that tend to obfuscate any intelligent material on the forums with their idiocy and narrow-minded opinions. They prevent any intelligent discussion or arguments from taking place because they take any opposing and conflicting opinions as something horrible and insulting. It's almost hilarious how defensive some people get.

It would be hard pointing out how many times I've seen people hate on or liking something just because they see other people doing it, simply because they want to fit in with the herd and follow along with the sheep mentality. These same people will almost exclusively watch current anime just so they can post in relevant threads and be "in" with the current anime scene, while concurrently dismissing any anime that's older simply because it's not pretty and HD. You are cutting yourself off from a lot of great anime by doing this and you should be smacked for it.

Goddamn, stop that.

Also, an anime is not bad just because it has cute girls in it. No, you horrendous troglodyte. Slice of life anime is wide and varied and encompasses a lot of different styles and shows and is more than just K-ON and Hidamari Sketch. Though, those two anime are not bad in any way either just because they lack death and gore and complex themes. This is not what defines a good anime and by following that mindset you come across as an ignorant kid that is talking out of his ass (or her ass, sorry ladies).

Seriously, get out with your gore and pseudo-psychological babble. Elfen Lied is a bigger pile of shit than almost anything out there.

That's probably it for what I can currently be assed to type about.

I love you MAL, but seriously, you have some major problems. Get that worked out, son. There's lots of great people on here too, often with good taste and intelligent opinions, but unfortunately this blog describes and details the vast majority of the website. It could probably extend into other anime sites and the anime community in general, which is a bit of a sad state for things.

Remember, guys, always trust in Veronin-sempai.



Disclaimer: Ranting and holding a negative and likely disagreeable opinion does not by default equate to trolling. I believe everything that is typed here, even though I am a jackass about it.