Those of you who write anime reviews, what is the most challenging part about it?

I write the odd review from time to time and operate on an overview philosophy. I am not looking to discuss specifics concerning an anime, but instead focus on what can be expected from it in a broader sense. I'll touch on some of the core themes and dynamics present in the anime, a brief consideration of how the animation and writing present throughout, and close with my own opinion, kept on the shorter side, on whether or not I would care to recommend the title to others.

I do like to read through some of the more involved reviews every now and again for titles I have entertained the idea of watching at some point, and some of those are entertaining and/or very informative concerning some of the background information of a title's production, but I personally prefer to keep things dry, somewhat vague as to not reveal too much of the content, and otherwise clear and concise.

I rarely write reviews, but what I have written has been getting more and more positively received, which I would like to assume is because I'm getting better at writing them. I tend to double purpose them for a gags, or a random videos for my youtube channel sometimes, so I can justify making them more often.

I would say the hardest part is... well.... being good at writing.

Making it engaging to read, hitting all the essential parts, but not making it too long, building a cohesive narrative that feels like a connected piece, instead of just a jumble of random sections. It was about half way through when I realized splitting the reviews into sections of "story, animation, music and so on" is a horrible idea when it comes to writing a genuinely good review.

Writing a good review, or a good script, or even a good story follows very similar principles.

I used to write a lot of reviews, but now I just record audio reviews instead. Spoilers can still be an issue there and I avoid them unless they're necessary for reviewing the anime in which case I warn the audio about the spoilers so they can choose to continue or not.

I think my most challenging part is just remembering all the important parts of the show. Sometimes I'll record a review and feel like I don't have much to say then later remember more that I should have talked about. MAL also doesn't like people editing their review after the fact since people used to use it as an exploit to keep their review relevant throughout the release of a seasonal anime which made it hard for new reviews to get seen.

@APolygons2 I mean, the review guidelines on this website literally recommends splitting reviews into sections on story, animation, characters, music, etc. I've been making sure I follow them every time. I will say I am definitely not like the people who didn't listen to the part of the guidelines that say to not write "This is my first review, so please forgive any mistakes."

There are several notable challenging parts about writing an anime review. Like you said, there is the problem of deciding whether to include something in your review or not depending on whether it qualifies as a spoiler or not. Also, setting the level for your review is a problem faced by many. Like whether you want to finish it in 1 line or write an entire novel; whether you want to be casual and funny or you want to be deeply philosophical; everything should be planned out before. But for certain anime, it becomes really difficult to write structured reviews.

For me though, a thing that often makes me re-think before writing a review is whether people are gonna read it or not. Because if they do not read it then the whole review becomes kind of pointless. Another point is that if i decide to review the anime before i even start watching it, then i cannot enjoy the anime. i just watch it from a critic point of view.

nice forum topic tho ^_^

Keeping it short and clear. While still making it pleasant and interesting to read. Basically, "being good at writing," as @APolygons2 put it.

It usually takes a long time for me to organize my thoughts and put them into words, but even then it often turns out rambling and unfocused. When I cut it down or make it punchier, it can lose detail and need clarification again. Worse, it can turn out really dry and boring. It's a constant push and pull between the two sides for me.

As for spoilers, I've never got into that problem so far. Likely because I tend not to talk about the story in detail anyway. It's not too difficult to keep it vague when I do have to talk about it.

@Peach_Main I literally didn't even know review guidelines existed until you mentioned now and I looked at it. and Imma tell you, literally NO ONE follows these, neither the mods nor the users. They remove troll or overly insulting reviews and stuff, but everything else they tell you not to do, is not something that they actually care about, like at all.



Then the review guild lines are giving you bad advice. Writing in sections is boring, and goes against everything that makes any type of writing interesting.

Just talking about each section on it's own feels like a book report you give to your teacher, it does the job, but your highschool book report is never an actual good piece of writing, it's just fluff. I used to write in sections too while ignoring all the advice and things that I just wrote. let me just give you an example.

Compare this: https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=440183

To this: https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=522907

And tell me which one you found to be more engaging to read.

@perseii I sometimes find myself being too thorough in describing the story in my own words when giving my thoughts on it in my reviews. I've debated with myself on whether or not to stick with it or not, and I chose to stick with it for the sake of having the review be detailed and have clarification.