| It's become a running joke here that every show has an average mal score of a 7. But why 7? Is it simply because MAL uses the adjective 'Good' for the 7 bucket and people take that literally, so a 7 means good. Is it a chicken or the egg situation where most shows have a 7 rating already, so users just go with what the average scores is and don't bother rating themselves. Is this the natural flaw of a 1-10 scoring system? I've also noticed that newer anime are getting higher scores lately. A lot of seasonal shows start at 8 or close to it now. Do you think 8 will become the new MAL standard? |
| It's the same phenomenon as when you call someone "nice" because you don't know what else to say about them. Obviously most people are "nice"; if they weren't, they'd be assholes and you wouldn't be talking to them. Calling someone "nice" isn't even a real compliment, it's just that you don't know or care enough about them to give them more specific compliments. In the same way, giving a show a 7 ("good", according to MAL) just means that you didn't hate it but you don't feel strongly about it one way or the other. You watched it, but it didn't leave a very strong impression either way. Normally shows like this should be given a 5 because, when the rating is out of 10, 5 is average. But 7 is closer to 8, and 8/10 is where a "good" show starts to become a "great" show. So a 7 show would be closer to that line than a 6. And if you give a show a 6, you're basically saying there's no chance of it crossing that line. Thus, giving a show a 5 is basically the same as saying you didn't like it much. |
| 90% of the the internet's problems come from people treating fictional people like they're real and real people like they're fictional. |
| Obviously because 7 is the objectively coolest number between 1 and 10. You can put every number into some sort of logic: Straight numbers, multiplied with 3, half of 10. The only number that doesnt fit in is 7. 7 is like the edgy kid in every class that watches Naruto and Evangelion 7 is fcking us |
| I'd think it's because a rating doesn't count if the user has seen less than 1/4 of the show (I believe). So most high/mid scores will be from completed users, and the lower scores will be people who dropped the show earlier and therefore they don't count towards the average score? Although I'm terrible at math so I can't figure out why the number is 7 and not 6. 6 feels more like it should be the number from averaging out all the good scores (5-10), right? Again, I'm terrible at math, so I'm sure that what I just said makes absolutely zero sense, right? |
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dertasso said: Obviously because 7 is the objectively coolest number between 1 and 10. You can put every number into some sort of logic: Straight numbers, multiplied with 3, half of 10. The only number that doesnt fit in is 7. 7 is like the edgy kid in every class that watches Naruto and Evangelion 7 is fcking us Hell yeah, 7 is the coolest number out there. |
| Because people seek out things they think they like, so chances they find something enjoyable to watch are better than the chances of them not liking a show. 5 doesn't necessarily mean being the average. It sits between a 1 (awful) and a 10 (awesome). Assuming most people rate anime by enjoyment, a 5 would mean one feels indifferent about (not particularly enjoyable, but not painful to sit through either). Combined with people looking for anime to watch they expect to like, it makes sense scores lean more towards a 7 than a 5 for most people. |
| 1) Sample size bias. People are more likely to watch a show they like and therefore score it more highly than average. 2) School system ratings. A lot of people grew up with under 50% being a failure and have appropriated that system to their scoring of anime (50% = 5/10 in this case). As such, their new average is between 5 and 10. My guess. |
| The average anime on MAL has an average score of 6.8 while the average user has an average score of 7.2. Considering how close these two numbers are it makes sense that with the way the bell curves work anime tend to be rated right around what people tend to rate. In terms of why 7 is the preferred rating of most MAL users I think it is just that most people feel more comfortable with the top half of the scale so anime scores are skewed towards the top. There's still enough people who use the whole scale to balance that out, though, and so you end up with most anime being rated around a 7. |
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| No idea. My most common score is 6 (about 25% of my scores), then 7 (20% of my scores) and then 8s and 5s make about 15% of my scores each. My mean average is 5.87, which is lower than the average so I guess most people score as 7 what I score as 6 and so on. On a side note, I would love if MAL upgraded to a 1-20 score system. |
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| Because the vast majority find it to be a 7? Let me put this way. A number can be too little to convey a complex series of views towards an anime. What 7 is to one person, is totally different to another person. I guarantee you that there are people who think 7 = dogshit, and to another, 7 means 25 paragraphs of meaning why it's good in its own right. Plus, what 7 is to one show, might be a different 7 to another show. |
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| The global mean score on MAL is 6.50 so of course you'll see a lot 6s and 7s. AniMarter said: 2) School system ratings. A lot of people grew up with under 50% being a failure and have appropriated that system to their scoring of anime (50% = 5/10 in this case). As such, their new average is between 5 and 10. In the US school system, a passing grade may be as high as 60% or 70%, so for these people 6 or 7 is probably their idea of average rating. |
| Because most titles that are at least decent for most people will always have more fans than detractors. With this in consideration, naturally almost everything that is at least decent for most people is going to be scored above 7. |
| i rate things 7 because i liked it. if i rated an anime a 5, that usually means it was bland and boring |
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| A lot of people don't use the lower ends of the scale so naturally, what is deemed "average" is shifted towards 7. And as someone pointed out, the average mal user score is ~7 that's also why those comments of "A MAL score of 6/7 are good scores" are partially flawed, because rather than indicating good/fine as per mal rankings, they more indicate average/below average |
 'On-Hold' is another way for a completionist to say 'Dropped' |
| Imagine a newcomer joining MAL and finding out that countless shitty isekai have a mean score around 7.00, whereas every popularly acclaimed anime stands above 8.00. He will start to think that 7/10=as good as those shitty isekai and 8/10=the bare minimum required to be decent, fuelling the cycle of inflated scores. Who started this trend? The school rating system, in which only a small handful of students fails the year (=grades below 60%). You can clearly notice that a 3/5 isn't perceived as negatively as a 5/10, even though they should be equivalent (3/5 = 5/10 & 6/10, if you can only use whole numbers). |
| The American and Canadian grading systems use 7 as an average score, most people find most anime to be average and most people on the site are from these countries, this is why scores tend to move towards a 7. |
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| I guess most people misunderstand a rating system and treat it like a grading system. Grade it like school does with 7 being average, 6 being barely passing and 5 and lower being various degrees of failing. |
| I believe it could be because there's been a little higher number of viewers lately, I think, that cause it. Many like it, many says it's okay and just a small few might hate it to give it like a 1-4 score. This could easily give a score of 7 in average. I think. |
| "You only realize the real value of something you discarded when you get the chance to pick it up again." - Rudeus Greyrat |
| Idk, I think 7 score is to worth watching and I have no problems |
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| Because 7 is halfway between 1 & 10. Edit: It actually isnt. The real reason is because MAL impose linguistic symmetry on something which for most people is asymmetric (we filter our selections). Option 1: Use half the scale and have a 7 average Option 2: Use the whole scale and ignore MALs descriptions for each bucket (or define your own). |
-rojazu-May 25, 2021 7:49 AM
| Bleach is best consumed with your ears open and your eyes closed. |
| Cause legend says when 10000 animes are rated in the 7s the most powerful dragon Malnron will appear before the mal community and grant each user two wishes |
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| There was already a thread about this a while back. It actually doesn't have much to do with people's ratings, it's got to do with MAL's bot system. If a show had nothing but 1s it would be impossible for it to be 1.00, it would be something like 1.72. Same for if a show had nothing but 10s, it wouldn't be a 10.00, it would be something like 9.88. The scores are sort of balanced to be around 7, that I know of. People not using the 1-10 scale doesn't help with that, but even if they did, the bot system will average them out to around 7 anyway. |
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| Even though the anime has a score of only 7, I'll still watch it... |
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| One factor why 7 could be a pretty common number since some school grading system style raters claim 7=bad/average while the harsher claim 7=good/high quality. So I think it just mixes but who knows |
 ManWild |
| It's because of the magical properties of 7, and the symbolism associated with it. All things in the universe converge towards the Holy Heptad. |
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| it's a self-perpetuating problem, people watch 'bland' looking anime that is rated ~7 and find the conclusion that 7 is for anime that is not good but not bad |
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| Because 7 is a very based number. It's the gate Olympiacos ultras use. |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
| People are stupider than you might think. Once upon a time, when the world was still belived to be round, "average" was a 5/10. For me it still is. I can tell you why my scores veer more towards a 7 than a 5 however. In my case it's just that anime have gotten that "good", which is what a 7 means. |
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| I mean, a score of 7 does mean “good” though. You could use other synonyms for “good,” but a 7 is certainly not “amazing” or “atrocious” overall, if we're using the 1-10 rating scale correctly. 7 is more or less somewhere between “decently good” to “great” when factoring in all the pros and cons of the anime. As for why anime scores tend to trend towards a 7, I think it's because many anime tend to be proficient in some aspects, while lacking in others. It's not too often that an anime excels at almost everything, or sucks at almost everything. |
| Being someone who uses 7 as the average, I think it is because 7 is the average number between 5 and 10 considering that, in a logic, any number below 5 (even 5) is BAD. And 7 is the "average of the good." So since a lot of people have that thought (that anything that is rated lower than 5 should be rated that way because it should be bad), this is why any "decent" anime is rated 7.00 to 7.99. |
| Because there are less people that rate it higher and most people who don't think a show is good just stop watching it and move on to something else. |
| "The name's Gambit. Remember it." -Gambit "X-Men '97"  |
| It's more like 6.5 or so... Anyway, why wouldn't ratings be trending towards some specific rating? People are more similar than they are different, and many if the same things appeal to them. Seems some people are bothered by that, but those people are ver silly and should be ignored. |
on 
Gween_Gween said: yea thats pretty much the reason... People give high scores to shows that they are incapable of understanding the appeal of just to fit in |
| Most people for whatever reason use 7 as the "average score" eventhough it's literally 2 notches above average on the the scale. There's some kinda preconceived notion that anything below a 7 can be considered "bad" which just isn't the case. Its like thinking a game that's got a score below a 70/100 is automatically complete shit. And I don't think that's entirely fair. To me complete shit would be borderline unplayable, and its the same kinda situation here. I think most anime are competent enough and should be around a 5 or 6 and anything lower should just be reserved for the absolute ass tier stuff. I'm talking Big Order levels of ass or worse. But I don't think it's always fair to write off a 5 or 6 and people should be less afraid to use them. |
| As explained by various users in various ways on various occasions, a "5" is probably a sound approximation of the "average" of all the anime in existence. Neither you, nor I, and possibly no one out there, have literally watched all the anime in existence which are archived on MAL. While a "5" might be the theoretical "average" of all the anime in existence, a "7" is a closer approximation of the "average" of all the anime I actually watch. Because I, and I gather many other folks as well, are not watching an equal amount of anime that we like or think we'll like beforehand as we are anime that we dislike or think we'll dislike beforehand. We're watching a significantly higher percentage of anime we like and expect to like to some degree. So why would the score reflect a false situation as if we were just selecting anime to watch by spinning a wheel of chance with a blindfold on? |
WatchTillTandavaJan 9, 2022 7:17 PM
| It has nothing to do with the way people give out scores--people generally try out the things they are most likely to enjoy so it stands to reason that they have a favorable opinion of what they choose more often than not. It's really more a matter of people misconstruing what "average" means. To suggest that the average score for the entries on this site should be closer to 5.5 assumes that people choose to watch/read something without considering whether it interests them or not, which is clearly a faulty assumption. The people who are most likely to give something a low score simply choose not to watch/read it and thus don't contribute to its rating, which means a higher portion of scores are from people who did like it. |
 A society which fails to uphold empathy as its foremost guiding principle is doomed to ignore or even defend the exploitation of its most vulnerable members. |
| Average means neither good nor bad, something which left such a weak impact on you it's unlikely you will remember anything at all about it after some time passes. As unremarkable as plain water. One doesn't watch series like that on purpose(I assume) Simple as that. If your mean is 7 or above it just means you know what you like and consistently watch things that appeal to your taste and will be remembered for some reason or another |
| it's like in monopoly, dice most likely end up on a 7. Mid throw, sufficient to go forward but not enough to keep you to land on St James Place for the 3rd time in a row and give money at your cousin. |
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| I think it's because 7 means a lot of things to a lot of people. You could say that it's great, good, okay, subpar - it really depends on the person. |
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