Believe me when I say I know I'm far from perfect at reviewing.
Take the other day as an example. I was confident, after proof reading numerous times and even using a spell checker that one of my latest reviews wouldn't have any errors when I used a grammar checker.
In the first sentence, I had repeated 'the', and I'd also misspelled the same word twice... even though the spell checker I used didn't pick it up. I died a little inside. With all the typos and slips I make, it's a miracle my reviews are readable.
I dread to think how many other errors I'll encounter as I go through the process of using a grammar checker AND re-reading everything. I'm truly afraid.
If you have any advice, feel free to drop me a line. I'll listen/read. I'd much rather that than have the usual 'mass-negative' treatment. It doesn't bother me so much now - I'm used to it - but seeing lots of unhelpfuls doesn't help me improve.
My reviewing style tends to be all over the place. Sometimes I've used structure, sometimes I've simply rambled and other times I've turned what I originally intended to be forum posts into forum post/review hybrids.
Since my reviews tend to turn out far too long and lack focus if I let myself ramble, I now try to use structure as much as possible.
One other thing: review ratings. For some reason, around 75% of my votes go the opposite way I intend them to, and I'm not joking. If I find a review helpful, my vote counts as unhelpful, and vice versa. Since there's obviously bug in existence - confirmed by my friend - it makes me wonder how honest review ratings actually are, what with dup accounts designed for review +1ing and/or -1ing and all...
Reviewing 2 & Scoring:
In the future, the odd review aside, I'm going to put anything resembling a review without structure in my mini-review thread on the forum and, when I have the motivation, I'll go down the structured route with a proper review attempt.
If you're interested, my scoring system is as follows:
10/10 - Masterpiece. Anything I give this score to is worth owning, no matter what the price. 9/10 - This rating means there are a few flaws that stop me giving a perfect score. 8/10 - One or two serious flaws are present. Still worth owning, though. 7/10 - When I go this low, whatever I rated has lots of problems. This rating usually means the anime in question is probably only worth watching once. 6/10 - Although I have dropped a few anime I've given 7/10, I usually rate 6/10 and below when dropping.
Friendship & Love:
For some odd reason, people keep adding me to their friend lists. They don't say anything; they just add me. Most of the 'adds' are 13-year-old girls.
Let me make this very clear: I DON'T LIKE 13-YEAR-OLD GIRLS! THEY ANNOY THE FUCK OUT OF ME!! LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!!!!! JUST BECAUSE I LIKE FINAL FANTASY DOESN'T MEAN I WANT A KINGDOM HEARTS CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!
If you're intent on befriending me, at least start up a conversation. How the hell can we be friends if we don't speak? What, are we supposed to share some psychic, above words relationship or something?
I'm not into the whole 'get 100 friends!' thing. And, if you are, we aren't going to get along. It's a sad but very true fact.
By all means, strike up a conversation with me. I may be an anti-social dick but, from time to time, I like the odd paragraph exchange. Just don't expect me to allow you to be my 'friend' without us talking a bit.
...Basically, show me love or bugger off. It's that simple.
General Rambling:
||~Aionic Tonic~||
I started using the name 'Aion' after watching the anime Chrono Crusade. Back when I watched the anime weekly, I loved the series to bits and found Aion to be a fascinating villain, his ability to control others without getting himself dirty leaving me in awe.
'Aionic' replaced Aion back during my FFXI days. At the time I was busy making stuff via alchemy, a potion was involved and 'Aionic Tonic' entered my head. A boring but true story - I wish my name choice had more interesting reasoning behind it!
Just admit it; you'd go gay for Aion. Even though he's a devil, he managed to get his tongue in the mouth of a nun, and I'm willing to bet money that you haven't given your body to God.
As for me personally, I have a dry sense of humour, I'm lazy, I'm awkward and I can generally be a pain in the arse. If you think I'm a bit of a dick then fear not; you aren't alone in the world.
I got into anime when I was around 13-14; not sure when exactly. My first anime series was Star Ocean EX (based on the 1st CD of Star Ocean 2), the result being me ending up VERY disappointed by the experience. However, EX did get me interested in anime and resulted in me watching .hack//SIGN; a vastly superior anime series. I haven't looked back since, downloading and buying a lot of anime over the years.
Yes, Claude; you're the lead in a bastardization of Star Ocean 2. On the plus side, at least you no longer run like a stereotypical gay man. That's something, I guess.
My favourite anime is the brilliant series known as Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. Not having read the novel prior to viewing it and, as a result, not having any book>anime adaptation expectations, it blew me away. The story, combined with the stunningly artistic visuals, made me unable to do anything other than move Death Note down to second in my top ten. Also, on a Gankutsuou related note, I've collected the entire series on DVD (plus the art box) and read the 1250 page novel since finishing the series.
These days I don't watch much. I have a huge backlog but lack the motivation to go through it. I make an effort from time to time to watch some of it, but the number of DVDs only ever increases due to how much I buy.
I also read manga. The amount I've read isn't huge, yet I own something like 400+ volumes. Most of the time, I'm too lazy to read anything. I'm working on getting my manga day count up to half of my anime number.
Does this image make you feel nostalgic? If so, congratulations - you're a Narutard. Go give my manga review a +1.
My other love is the RPG genre, or more specifically PS1 & PS2 RPGs. Final Fantasy VII got me into the genre back when I was somewhere between 9-11 years old, most likely closer to 9 than to 11. I found the gameplay to be stunning back then, me not having played a game that offers the player such freedom before. The feeling of astonishment when I got onto the world map for the first time, after believing the entire game would be restricted to Midgar... magical. It's still to this the day my favourite game and will probably always be my favourite.
After Final Fantasy VII made the RPG genre popular in Europe, we got a lot of RPGs we most likely wouldn't have seen in the UK. I was lucky enough to pick up classics like Breath of Fire III, Grandia, Star Ocean 2, Suikoden II, The Legend of Dragoon, Wild Arms and many more when they first came out. Such wonderful memories... It's just a shame I've become an over-critical bastard since my younger days, unable to enjoy most things without getting annoyed over flaws. Why couldn't I have remained a child forever!?
I'm so fond of Grandia because of its mature humour, clearly.
Sadly, I don't enjoy playing RPGs as much as I used to, finding myself collecting them rather than actually playing them. (The same can be said of anime and manga.) I've purchased so many over recent years, the vast majority coming from eBay, and I've barely played any of them. I don't know what happened to the drive I had when I was younger, it just seems to have vanished as I've aged. It's rather depressing that I can't even find the required motivation to replay FFVII these days...
Talking of my collection, my NTSC PS1 collection of RPGs is pretty good: Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden II, Tales of Destiny, Tales of Destiny II, Lunar: SSS, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, Arc the Lad Collection, Persona 2, Vanguard Bandits and many other less rare titles. Quite impressive, for someone living in the UK.
... I'm going to stop here. I hope that was enough info for people interested/bored enough to read my rubbish. :D
Unfortunately 14 Days does not have any of those characters. It is Onizuka alone interacting with a new group of people. The new cast isn't as good as the old, but it has only been like 15 chapters, so obviously that is going to be the case.
As for the review, I really have no clue why its rated so well right now. I have a few theories as to why it could be though. First, since it is a fairly obscure title the only people who are reading it are people who genuinely want to get some info on the show, rather than people who have just heard of it. Also the fact that its not very well known could help to avoid the fanboys or haters that will just instantly give you a not helpful if they don't agree with the score you gave it.
A shorter review also could have helped out. Sometimes when I look at a long review I get overwhelmed and bored before I even start reading it. I'm looking for a short, quick, easy to read review that just hits on a few key points from the anime/manga, and maybe that's what other people are looking for too. It's only a matter of time before the negative votes start coming anyways. My other review was at like 20/21 at one point, but as you can see, it is no longer even close to that percentage. I also had one at like 13/15 and then it dropped to like 14/26 or something before I just deleted it. It's hard to avoid the not helpfuls forever, but I seem to get lucky in the beginning.
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with long reviews as long as they're not too long. Some reviewers go on long rants and somewhat miss the point of reviewing, which is to give your thoughts on the anime/manga and persuade the reader to read/watch what you're reviewing.
I don't do torrents... Black Jack is actually the only anime I've paid to watch. I all around just don't trust torrents.
I used to have a butt-load of reviews but the majority of them were deleted, now I only have 3 as you can see.
Don't bother with the manga or the TV series. The manga has a style that's hard to take seriously, and I know that I shouldn't be dissin' on it because it was made by the "God of manga" but it's very hard to take seriously, plus it's expensive. The newer TV one however is just plain childish. Don't both with it at all. It's boring and a bit too kid friendly.
And don't feel discouraged. I'm sure there are others out there who likes your reviews as well. Just keep tryin' at it!
It's funny that you remember me from that! I'm sure you have more love than me though because you write far more reviews than I do. I've only written 3.
I heard about Black Jack a long time ago at an anime club. A friend told me about it and I got curious about it. I hunted through every website possible trying to find it, but I ended up buying it from iTunes for only $15.
I know how the review thing goes. Whenever my reviews are getting horridly low ratings, I simply delete. Hence why I only have 3 reviews.
I've seen the original Black Jack OVA and some episodes of the newer Black Jack series. The newer one stays more true to the Tezuka style and doesn't have on-screen surgeries, but in my opnion, it's not nearly as good as the OVA.
Keep on writing reviews, I actually think they are pretty good!
Hello there, I read your review for Black Jack. It's good to know that people are still watching that series, it's definitely a rare underrated worth-watching anime. Great review!
Yeah I was quite disappointed when I first found out that 14 Days was a side story rather than a continuation, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable now. Unfortunately I haven't read GTO in a while so I can't really give a good comparison to the original. I'm definitely enjoying it so far though.
Oh wow, I didn't even check to see that KKOW was already finished. The site I use to read a lot of my manga has been releasing a chapter a week or so for the past few months, so I just figured it was still ongoing. So disregard what I said. I'm just an idiot.
Oh man, that really sucks that you already started to buy it. Well hopefully it gets picked up again at some point. Yeah the GTO anime wasn't quite up to the quality of the manga, but I still feel they did a very good job. Except for the ending which was a little disappointing. I'm really hoping that GTO: Shonan 14 Days does well, and maybe they think about making an OVA or two based on it.
The art and plot for Kyou Kara Ore Wa definitely remind me of SJG. If only one episode has been subbed, then I might be better off just going for the manga from the start. It seems to be getting fairly regular chapter releases which is nice.
30,000 profile views eh? I'm beating that now and I've only made about 5 topics in my time.
Most females? I think it's more of a case of joking half of the time and the other half is due to the fact girls are for comfortable to just say 'Oh that girl's hot'. Not in the sense that they find the girl sexually attractive but they can see why. Like how girls can just call another girl pretty without batting an eyelash, yet if a guy called another guy handsome it might raise some eyebrows.
I saw you around the forums alot, me being the friendly person that I am stumbled upon your process while I was surfing through the steaming pile of crap that we so fondly refer to as General Discussion and decided that you intrigued me enough to warrant a message.
And yes, the lesbian avatar obviously was the turning point for me.
Not as much as I have an issue with that bloody nudge button that I seem to have a habit of hitting when I don't mean to. But yeah, luckily I have that turned off.
A fellow fan of the wonderful and ever so convenient MSN?
God damn it. I can't get into anything at the moment. Watched the first episode of Code Geass earlier since I thought a highly regarded and popular series would re-ignite my passion, and even though all the right elements are there--great animation, fapworthy females, plenty of bloody violence--it left little impression on me. Maybe Gankutsuou's resplendence has spoiled anime for me. I wonder if I'll ever be that dazzled by a cartoon again.
I couldn't possibly be racist so I've downloaded the gg fansubs version of Aoi Bunagku. It seems they're behind, or maybe their release is the HD version, as they've only subbed one episode at this point. But that's fine with me; it means I can follow their release and don't have to catch up. And their stuff is always well seeded, so I assume they do decent translations. Maybe.
Somehow I have managed to keep up with Kimi no Todoke. I can't decide whether I like it or not. On the one hand, Sawako is so sweet that I can't help but like her; on the other, it's total shoujo mush and it makes me feel nauseous. I like the manly chick and her slutty sidekick, though, not least for the much needed dramatic tension they're providing. If the show was nothing but Sawako and whatshisname blushing and shit, I'd be dropping it.
Well that sucks. I guess I'm glad I never started it. I would hate getting cut off pretty close to the end. Hopefully it gets picked up again, but if poor sales were part of the problem, then it doesn't seem very likely.
Thanks for checking out my review. You are correct. I have not read the manga. It's good to hear from someone that has actually read it, because you definitely helped explain a few of the problems. When I saw that the manga was 267 chapters long and there were only 5 OVAs, I figured there were going to be some pacing/story problems. You seemed to confirm my suspicions that they rushed the story, and had to leave quite a few things out. I definitely plan on reading the manga at some point, because the OVA's showed that the story had potential if they just dedicated more time to it.
The manga doesn't seem to have a review. Maybe you should write one up for that. It is always nice to have a review for both the anime and manga, since they usually have quite a few differences.
