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Question: when people rate anime, why do they consider 4 & 5 "Bad"?

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Jul 27, 2024 11:05 AM
#1

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Jun 2022
163
Usually when to go to an anime's recommended section, there are those who recommend it and those who don't. something weird is sometimes when they don't recommend it, they give it a 4 or 5, (especially when 5 isn't even called bad on this site).

Is it because of rating system differences? (I usually consider 3 the start of bad, and 4 has redeeming qualities that save it from being "bad" yet not "good".)
Jul 27, 2024 11:13 AM
#2

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Sep 2016
20864
Perhaps because it's below the average anime score of 6.5 and anything below average is considered bad by the majority.
Jul 27, 2024 11:15 AM
#3
lagom
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Jan 2009
106924
6 is whats considered mid or average score here for the most part
Jul 27, 2024 11:16 AM
#4

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Dec 2015
9595
Can't answer for others, whenever I rate an anime here, everything which goes below 5 is a negative rating from me. 5-6 is simply average/decent, while everything above 6 is a positive rating.
Jul 27, 2024 11:23 AM
#5

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May 2024
1559
4 for me is an anime which usually starts off strong but plateaus as time goes on. I do consider anime I give a 4 to "bad" because of how inconsistent they are. On the other hand 5 for me just means mediocre/mid. I usually give it to anime I'll forget in about a week or so after finishing and don't leave much of an impression on me. Both these ratings I consider "bad" ratings due to how little I care about the anime I give it to. 6 and above include anime I actually care for.
Jul 27, 2024 11:24 AM
#6
๐Ÿ… Tomato ๐Ÿ…

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Feb 2020
121637
Everyone have their own rating system. For me, 3-5 shows are more or less bad, 6 is average.
Jul 27, 2024 12:45 PM
#7

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Jul 2013
12185
Do ratings even matter btw? Because I think they do not matter very much. Correct me if I am wrong.
Here is my Pixiv account of my hentai drawings.....

https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/104739065

Here is my blog....

https://theendofindustrialcivilization.blogspot.com/?m=1
Jul 27, 2024 12:47 PM
#8

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Jun 2024
1826
Because, according to Mal, a 4/10 is considered bad.
Jul 27, 2024 3:35 PM
#9
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Oct 2020
101
Where I live in schools they used to use 5 to score a test as not sufficient, thus making it a bad score. 6 is sufficient
Jul 27, 2024 3:39 PM

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Jul 2021
10311
Because 7 is the average.
5 is really just the highest of the dropped.
Anti-aliasing enthusiast
Jul 27, 2024 4:49 PM
โ™ก( โ€ขเฅขโ—ก-เฅข)โœงห–ยฐ โ™ก

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Dec 2014
21039
Because 4 is literally bad in MAL score.

While 5 is Average, it also means mediocre here, and normally no one enjoys something mediocre so therefore 5 can also be considered bad.



(ใฃโ—”โ—กโ—”)ใฃ ๐“˜ ๐”€๐“ฒ๐“ผ๐“ฑ ๐”‚๐“ธ๐“พ ๐“ช๐“ต๐“ต ๐“ฑ๐“ช๐“ฟ๐“ฎ ๐“ช ๐”€๐“ธ๐“ท๐“ญ๐“ฎ๐“ป๐“ฏ๐“พ๐“ต ๐“ญ๐“ช๐”‚ ♥
Jul 27, 2024 7:13 PM

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Jun 2022
163
Reply to JaniSIr
Because 7 is the average.
5 is really just the highest of the dropped.
@JaniSIr
JaniSIr said:
Because 7 is the average.


I never think of 7 as average. for me, 5 is average while 7 is Good (but the highest score not in favorites)
Jul 27, 2024 7:36 PM
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Apr 2022
1544
i just consider 5.5 as the real average, so it's 4=bad, 5=a bit bad, 6=a bit good and 7=good to me
Jul 27, 2024 7:43 PM

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Sep 2018
14182
Generally people avoid recommending what they deem average since so much titles they watch are higher in quality. Kind of similar with gaming.
Jul 27, 2024 7:46 PM
แ•™(โ‡€โ€ธโ†ผโ€ถ)แ•—

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Aug 2014
8687
Because on the MAL rating system it says "(4) Bad".
Jul 27, 2024 9:30 PM

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Jul 2021
10311
Reply to cvbnm07
@JaniSIr
JaniSIr said:
Because 7 is the average.


I never think of 7 as average. for me, 5 is average while 7 is Good (but the highest score not in favorites)
@cvbnm07 But that is the site wide average. It's like 6.something, so I rounded it up mildly.
There is barely anything below 6, and anything below 5 is literally just a meme.
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Jul 28, 2024 4:05 AM
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Mar 2023
603
It depends what their rating system if for me 5 means decent and 4 means mediocre
Jul 28, 2024 9:39 AM

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Sep 2016
20864
Reply to JaniSIr
@cvbnm07 But that is the site wide average. It's like 6.something, so I rounded it up mildly.
There is barely anything below 6, and anything below 5 is literally just a meme.
JaniSIr said:
But that is the site wide average. It's like 6.something, so I rounded it up mildly.
There is barely anything below 6, and anything below 5 is literally just a meme.

Just adding some database numbers to this, right now:
  • the median anime score is 6.52
  • there are 13368 eligible anime in the score ranking
  • there are 3887 anime below score 6 (29%)
  • there are 668 anime below score 5 (5%)
Jul 28, 2024 11:21 AM
Call me Oniichan

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Jan 2007
1901
Most people I inspect have 95+% of their ratings at 5 and higher. They will have 500 shows in their list, but only a few rated 4 or lower.
They are afraid of using the full 1-10 scale for various reasons:
- sheep mentality (bad shows have an average of 5-7, so they conform to that weird standard)
- they're young and impressionable, so everything they watch seems at least "decent" which leads to their scores being inflated
- subconcious coping mechanism (they're afraid of admitting to themselves that their hobby, watching anime, is not as great as they're trying to convince themselves to be)
- more retarded reasoning that cannot be logically explained
Jul 28, 2024 11:21 AM

Online
Jan 2009
15933
It depends on the person. Personally, I only watch titles that interest me in the first place, so if a title turns too stupid or boring to me, I'd rather drop it than go through it. Hence why the ones that I manage to go through start at 6 "fine", because everything below would have been dropped. It's also easier to work on a five star system for me, so from the ones who were interesting enough to not get dropped, 1 star would be 6, 2 stars would be 7, 3 stars would be 8, 4 stars would be 9 and 5 stars would be 10. Hence why my average score is around 8
Jul 28, 2024 4:02 PM

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Jul 2013
12185
Because 4 to 5 is a really low rating? Isn't that obvious?
Here is my Pixiv account of my hentai drawings.....

https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/104739065

Here is my blog....

https://theendofindustrialcivilization.blogspot.com/?m=1
Jul 28, 2024 4:16 PM

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Sep 2019
3768
Yeah rating system differences. Not everyone has the same mindset, shocking I know.
Jul 31, 2024 4:54 PM

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Aug 2022
624
It depends on a person's rating system. Personally, I agree with you that a 5/10 is average.

I feel like there is a tendency among MAL users to use a "6 to 10 scale" - anything rated below "7" is average at best.

Now as to why exactly, probably it has to do with folks applying the standards of your typical school grading system, "where a 7 would be a C, 6 a D, and anything below that a failing grade."
Aug 1, 2024 1:08 AM

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Mar 2021
6622
If I give an anime a 4 or 5, there are usually some enjoyable aspects, but it did more things I disliked than liked.
"Molly Ringwald" out right now - check my Linktree!


Aug 1, 2024 6:21 AM

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Apr 2018
123
I think is because, silly enough, people make a 5 what it should be a 4 (or maybe that's how I see it). People often think that something being mid is automatically bad, when actually is just a "meh" or an average, this is pretty significant to me as when something I consider a 4 and then a 5 walk around some thin line that makes me say "okay, at least it had that grace", but I won't blame people if they really also don't care about anime or manga that they disliked on the first place to follow a system of punctuations. That and the fact people aren't usually that harsh on what they watch or read. But whatever the reason, everyone has their own metrics and that's just how it is
Aug 1, 2024 6:52 AM

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Jan 2023
928
I go by school-type numbers.
With a 6 you are approved. With a 5 no.
So 6 is the "minimum" positive grade.

Anyway, like absolutely everything, it is very personal.
For me, 10, 9 and 8 are animes that I liked a lot or more.
7 that I liked.
6 which was acceptable to watch.
5 or less means I didn't like it.
Aug 1, 2024 7:21 AM
Magical Girl

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Jan 2020
653
it depends on someones taste if I recommend something I deem as rather....."bad" or "average". sometimes I DO recommend anime that I personally don't like just because someone else might enjoy it even though I don't.... it's rare, but it happens.

the other answer is that I personally use a 10-point-rating-system as the site itself suggests as well. since I am generally an anime-lover and I'm rather picky with my choices on what to watch, my list preferably consists of higher rated anime and not those that I think are trash....although yes, they exist as well. but usually if I don't like something I don't even bother with finishing this series and just drop it instead
Aug 1, 2024 9:10 AM

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May 2021
5022
cvbnm07 said:
Usually when to go to an anime's recommended section, there are those who recommend it and those who don't. something weird is sometimes when they don't recommend it, they give it a 4 or 5, (especially when 5 isn't even called bad on this site).

Is it because of rating system differences? (I usually consider 3 the start of bad, and 4 has redeeming qualities that save it from being "bad" yet not "good".)

To me 4 is bad, 5 depends, a dropped 5 isn't that bad but rather just not my things, a completed 5 on the other hand is bad cuz it means i stopped enjoying it as i was watching

As for the "recommended" "not recommended" i assume you're reffering to reviews?

I personally don't think the rating has to define wether something is recommended or not, but i'll get into that later, i'm going out now
Aug 2, 2024 3:37 AM

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May 2021
5022
For recommended/notrecommended, the 3 scores that are a mixxed batch for me are 5, 7, and 8 depending on different reasoning behind the rating, is it something i completed and am disappointed by or did i drop it from lack of interest? Do i have other seasons to compare it to? How much did the redeaming qualities and it's flaws effect my enjoyment? Is it just something i find fun but not particularly impactful?

I'm not realy sure how to explain things further so i'll just leave some revies as examples for whoever can be bothered to read them lol you can let me know if this makes sense to you or not ๐Ÿ˜…

- 5
The Boy And The Heron
Monster

- 7
Dororo (1969)
Kagami no Kojou
Baccano!

- 8
Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Digimon Tamers
Berserk
The Count Of Monte Cristo
Aug 3, 2024 10:53 PM

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Jun 2022
163
Reply to Nivo3041
I think is because, silly enough, people make a 5 what it should be a 4 (or maybe that's how I see it). People often think that something being mid is automatically bad, when actually is just a "meh" or an average, this is pretty significant to me as when something I consider a 4 and then a 5 walk around some thin line that makes me say "okay, at least it had that grace", but I won't blame people if they really also don't care about anime or manga that they disliked on the first place to follow a system of punctuations. That and the fact people aren't usually that harsh on what they watch or read. But whatever the reason, everyone has their own metrics and that's just how it is
Nivo3041 said:
as when something I consider a 4 and then a 5 walk around some thin line that makes me say "okay, at least it had that grace"


Honestly, same. for me, "Bad" starts at 3

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