May 17th, 2014
Why I don't write MAL reviews
Anime Relations: JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken (TV)
I've never written a review on MAL.
I came to this realization awhile ago, and it initially struck me as somewhat odd. I'm no stranger to expressing my thoughts through the written word, and in fact during my early years I actually got paid to write reviews (for video games, not anime—though still, the two seem similar in concept). So I've come to ask myself why it is that I don't write reviews on MAL.
One thing inherent in any repeatable or iterative process is that what you measure becomes what you optimize for, for better or for worse. In the case of MAL reviews, the only metric that you can measure is the number of "helpful" or "unhelpful" votes.
The utilization of these "upvote" and "downvote" functions is a point of contention for some, and it is a subject that I don't wish to debate. I myself don't use them heavily, except in cases where I feel a review actually served its purpose, which in my opinion is informing me of whether or not I would enjoy a certain work that I have not yet viewed. However, my observation uniformly is that the reviews which tend to bubble to the top are those which express the least controversial views, and ironically the majority of the ratings tend to come from users who have already reviewed the work in question. In a sense, when one sets about the task of writing a MAL review which is to be the most "helpful" rated one, the task that one undertakes is to express the "correct" viewpoint, rather than one's own viewpoint. And that is something that I fundamentally cannot agree with.
Another issue I have with the review format completely apart from the voting mechanism that governs which reviews appear on the main page stems from the fact that the form itself is inherently limiting. I believe strongly that writing is not just a means of communicating, but a means of discovery. I would write even if I had no readers, because the act of writing things out forces me to articulate my own ideas in a cogent manner, and frequently in the process of doing this, new ideas and concepts emerge. That, for me, is the truly interesting part of the writing process (and it's also why I am so willing to "discard" things that I've written; the majority of the forum posts that I write never actually get posted).
The end result of this "discovery" process is that the thing that the point that I set out to make and the point that I actually make frequently end up being different, which is fundamentally disruptive to the review process. To provide a bit of an example, I'll refer to a forum post I made in the QD discussion group here on MAL: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1170829#msg30802865
At the outset, I began writing intending to make one point: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Vol 1 Phantom Blood was a good story that I enjoyed reading. The prompt quite literally could have been "write a review for JJBA vol 1."
However, very quickly in I realized that the post I was making was fundamentally not one that was specifically about JJBA: Phantom Blood. It was certainly related to JJBA, but it was more a post about melodrama, leveraging JJBA as an example. And in the end, I think the part of the post that I found most interesting isn't what I concluded about JJBA, but what I concluded about tumblr's anime fandom. When I started writing that post, I didn't know that tumblr was so fond of melodrama in their anime/visual novels. Now I do.
If I had written this post with the mentality of a typical reviewer on MAL, I would have shifted gears after the first couple paragraphs and began discussing the visuals, or the sound design, or the plot, or characters—thereby short-circuiting the more detailed discussion regarding the subject of melodrama. (As an aside, I fundamentally dislike the idea of "rubric"-based reviews that evaluate on the basis of various categories, especially for a medium such as anime—it inherently rewards formulaic storytelling while penalizing those that attempt to break the mold or approach storytelling in an unconventional manner.)
Would writing a "review" of JJBA vol 1 been a bad thing? Certainly not. But it wouldn't have led me down the same path of discovery, and it wouldn't have been as fun for me to write.
I tend to do two kinds of writing on forums such as MAL. The first of these is subject-based gushing (e.g. "let me tell you why I love Full Metal Panic") which is inherently self-indulgent. The second is meandering unconstrained contemplation. In order me to write a "review," I feel that I would have to take the former and package it up and try to pass it off as being more cerebral than it really is.
Returning to the original point of why I don't write reviews on MAL, I really don't see the need. Yes, I under-utilize the review function on MAL. But fundamentally, the fact that I don't utilize this function does not infringe on my ability to express myself, as other venues exist for me to articulate my thoughts on various anime and manga—if anything, expressing myself outside of the review format gives me greater freedom to express myself.
At the same time, I understand that limitations (such as those imposed by the review format) can be a good thing. And when it comes to creative endeavors, I do abide by the belief that limitations tend to make things better. However, for me, analytical writing (such as one would find in reviews or most of my posts on forums such as MAL) is not a creative medium; it's a tool for contemplation and, to a lesser extent, communication.
There may come a time when my view on the MAL review function changes. But until then, I'll continue to be happy with expressing myself in other venues like discussion forums and direct communication with individual users, which has seemed to work pretty well so far.
I came to this realization awhile ago, and it initially struck me as somewhat odd. I'm no stranger to expressing my thoughts through the written word, and in fact during my early years I actually got paid to write reviews (for video games, not anime—though still, the two seem similar in concept). So I've come to ask myself why it is that I don't write reviews on MAL.
One thing inherent in any repeatable or iterative process is that what you measure becomes what you optimize for, for better or for worse. In the case of MAL reviews, the only metric that you can measure is the number of "helpful" or "unhelpful" votes.
The utilization of these "upvote" and "downvote" functions is a point of contention for some, and it is a subject that I don't wish to debate. I myself don't use them heavily, except in cases where I feel a review actually served its purpose, which in my opinion is informing me of whether or not I would enjoy a certain work that I have not yet viewed. However, my observation uniformly is that the reviews which tend to bubble to the top are those which express the least controversial views, and ironically the majority of the ratings tend to come from users who have already reviewed the work in question. In a sense, when one sets about the task of writing a MAL review which is to be the most "helpful" rated one, the task that one undertakes is to express the "correct" viewpoint, rather than one's own viewpoint. And that is something that I fundamentally cannot agree with.
Another issue I have with the review format completely apart from the voting mechanism that governs which reviews appear on the main page stems from the fact that the form itself is inherently limiting. I believe strongly that writing is not just a means of communicating, but a means of discovery. I would write even if I had no readers, because the act of writing things out forces me to articulate my own ideas in a cogent manner, and frequently in the process of doing this, new ideas and concepts emerge. That, for me, is the truly interesting part of the writing process (and it's also why I am so willing to "discard" things that I've written; the majority of the forum posts that I write never actually get posted).
The end result of this "discovery" process is that the thing that the point that I set out to make and the point that I actually make frequently end up being different, which is fundamentally disruptive to the review process. To provide a bit of an example, I'll refer to a forum post I made in the QD discussion group here on MAL: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1170829#msg30802865
At the outset, I began writing intending to make one point: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Vol 1 Phantom Blood was a good story that I enjoyed reading. The prompt quite literally could have been "write a review for JJBA vol 1."
However, very quickly in I realized that the post I was making was fundamentally not one that was specifically about JJBA: Phantom Blood. It was certainly related to JJBA, but it was more a post about melodrama, leveraging JJBA as an example. And in the end, I think the part of the post that I found most interesting isn't what I concluded about JJBA, but what I concluded about tumblr's anime fandom. When I started writing that post, I didn't know that tumblr was so fond of melodrama in their anime/visual novels. Now I do.
If I had written this post with the mentality of a typical reviewer on MAL, I would have shifted gears after the first couple paragraphs and began discussing the visuals, or the sound design, or the plot, or characters—thereby short-circuiting the more detailed discussion regarding the subject of melodrama. (As an aside, I fundamentally dislike the idea of "rubric"-based reviews that evaluate on the basis of various categories, especially for a medium such as anime—it inherently rewards formulaic storytelling while penalizing those that attempt to break the mold or approach storytelling in an unconventional manner.)
Would writing a "review" of JJBA vol 1 been a bad thing? Certainly not. But it wouldn't have led me down the same path of discovery, and it wouldn't have been as fun for me to write.
I tend to do two kinds of writing on forums such as MAL. The first of these is subject-based gushing (e.g. "let me tell you why I love Full Metal Panic") which is inherently self-indulgent. The second is meandering unconstrained contemplation. In order me to write a "review," I feel that I would have to take the former and package it up and try to pass it off as being more cerebral than it really is.
Returning to the original point of why I don't write reviews on MAL, I really don't see the need. Yes, I under-utilize the review function on MAL. But fundamentally, the fact that I don't utilize this function does not infringe on my ability to express myself, as other venues exist for me to articulate my thoughts on various anime and manga—if anything, expressing myself outside of the review format gives me greater freedom to express myself.
At the same time, I understand that limitations (such as those imposed by the review format) can be a good thing. And when it comes to creative endeavors, I do abide by the belief that limitations tend to make things better. However, for me, analytical writing (such as one would find in reviews or most of my posts on forums such as MAL) is not a creative medium; it's a tool for contemplation and, to a lesser extent, communication.
There may come a time when my view on the MAL review function changes. But until then, I'll continue to be happy with expressing myself in other venues like discussion forums and direct communication with individual users, which has seemed to work pretty well so far.
Posted by Kuiper | May 17, 2014 8:45 PM | 1 comments