| Neither. MAL likes bad shows and most reviews are trolling like the ones that call Erased or One Punch Man the worst shows ever because it gives them hipster points. |
| I don't give a shit about reviews. I give a shit for scores sometimes. |
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| I don't look at MAL reviews but typically whenever I look for reviews for something I care mainly about the overall ratings. Taking a look at how many 5 stars there are compared to 1 stars for example on amazon products. So, rating. I might read a few top/recent/1-star reviews to get a idea as well though so, reviews have a partial importance. |
 “Don’t just mindlessly judge people as you please.” – Rin Okumura “Your past shouldn’t stop you from achieving your goals and dreams.” – Rin Okumura |
| Given that the MAL scoring system is broken beyond belief, I'll be far more likely to pay attention to the content of a review than its most-likely-skewed score. |
 This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
| Don't give a shit bout either, and I don't read or listen to reviews lol |
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| I gotta be an informed viewer who weighs the pros and cons from every source, so I use both |
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| Rating, but that's only coz I can't be bothered to look at reviews. Anything lower than 7 is usually shit anyway and anything above 8 is pretty good most of the time. |
| Rating. Given how generous the community is with ratings, anything lower than 7ish is most likely something I shouldn't waste my time watching. May still watch if it's short though, or if it's a polarizing show I may read some reviews before deciding. |
| Would have to go with review. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I won't watch it just because the person gave it a bad review. It just give me more to go on, kinda like reading the summary but more. As for the score... it holds no validity for me. Maybe if it scored a 5 or 8. |
| I find ratings useful to have a general idea of the anime quality. Obviously, it doesn't mean that much, but I can tell you that I'm probably never going to watch anything with a mean score of less than 7 and If I have to pick between two anime series, I may pick the one with the highest rating (like a 7.55 VS a 8.35, kind of a huge difference). Still, usually, I only look at the reviews and try to find 1-2 legitimate ones (not written by trolls or people that want to sell the anime, etc). My goal is to gather some information about it and then, take a decision. That's about it ^^ |
| I don't really care about either. Usually the most important is recommendation from some similar anime that I already watched and like. Then I check the pictures to see the visual style. If the character design is something like Clannad I would simply not watch it, no matter what. The final decision I make after I read synopsis. |
| It's always good to assess different points of view regarding any piece of media. Take in alternate experiences of what you've already seen and come to understand another individual's take on a particular show. I don't see how or why it should inherently influence your opinion on a title, so this question's a bit odd to say the least. At least it's better than "OMG loli" threads. I suppose if I had to answer the question: Reviews. The quality of the review is always in question. However, ratings are simply trivial numbers attached to shows that display nothing other than "This man liked this show". There's nothing to assess from that. |
| Look on myanimelist just to know if the anime is not shit, then watch. (usually animes with rating under 7 are not good) |
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| Rating easily, simple and straightforward based on a large sample. Review on the other hand, lot more subjective, and only selected few out there that can actually write a good review. |
| Usually I don't really care because I watch airing anime anyway but IMO the scores of the top 5-10 reviews are usually a better gauge of quality compared to the ratings and I said this many times |
Mapplesauce said: BeBackinaSec said: None. I am not some mindless sheep to be swayed by such insignificant things. So if the rating of a show is 3.8, all of the reviews are jokes or have awful scores, you wouldn't be swayed at all, not even taking the show with a slight grain of salt? Half the time the reviews are superior to the ratings, and vice versa, so I just use a combination of both. As an example: All of the reviews for the first season of Toaru are positive, yet the score is a bit low (relative to MAL's standards). I heavily disliked Toaru's writing, so the rating makes more sense for that show. At the same same, at least back then SAO had a generally high rating but all of the reviews essentially called it dogshit, which it was. I'll mostly just go with the general opinion on the show as a whole I've seen in the anime community. Heh, not everything is for everyone. For instance, despite having high reviews and ratings, I know I will never like Monogatari and Tatami Galaxy. If you've been watching long enough, you get a general idea of what you like and ratings and reviews become irrelevant. |
| Ratings. Reviews only state the opinion of a few people. The rating, while it doesn't go into detail, states the opinion of the majority. Being someone who does in fact still and can enjoy 'casual level' anime, using the rating as my decision to watch or not works fine. Not that it's the only thing I check though. |
| Review... more insightful and complete |
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| If I had to choose, probably reviews. A lot of MAL reviews are crap, but those found on other websites can be great insight on what to expect from the series, as well as making me want to discover new things about shows I've already watched/am watching. Ratings on the other hand, I've liked a lot of anime that would be considered "low rated" by MAL users (IE: anything lower than a 7.5), both past and present. So yeah. In general though, I usually go into new shows blind, but sometimes general opinion from word of mouth may influence me to pick up a show, whether or not the opinion was positive or not. |
| Both ratings and reviews affect my opinion. I think they complement each other to give a better idea of the anime. |
| I don't use either. If it's a genre I like and the description or PV is interesting, I'll watch it. mouvite said: Rating is more important before I watch an anime. Reviews are more important when I finish watching it. A good review can sometimes slightly change my opinion about a show for better or worse, because it may point out some aspects I haven't noticed before. I rarely read reviews before watching because I don't want them to affect my opinion before I see the anime for myself. I agree with the reviews! I always save them for after. I don't want to be too biased going in. But that's hard to do most of the time seeing as the reason I'm watching something is because I heard about it from someone else. |
| Rating's do tell alot as far as I'm concerned. Most If not all reviews are trash there are those though that show's some accuracy to a certain degree. But those things are just a handful.If your not convinced by the rating then reviews come into play. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| Ratings and reviews both matter. For example, a person can be harsh with a number rating but also give their reason with their review. Both exist and complement each other. |
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| If I were to choose, precisely it will be reviews. Rating taking so many scores from many users. Some of them even scored 10 out of 10 just because its fun to them. |
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BeBackinaSec said: Mapplesauce said: So if the rating of a show is 3.8, all of the reviews are jokes or have awful scores, you wouldn't be swayed at all, not even taking the show with a slight grain of salt? Half the time the reviews are superior to the ratings, and vice versa, so I just use a combination of both. As an example: All of the reviews for the first season of Toaru are positive, yet the score is a bit low (relative to MAL's standards). I heavily disliked Toaru's writing, so the rating makes more sense for that show. At the same same, at least back then SAO had a generally high rating but all of the reviews essentially called it dogshit, which it was. I'll mostly just go with the general opinion on the show as a whole I've seen in the anime community. Heh, not everything is for everyone. For instance, despite having high reviews and ratings, I know I will never like Monogatari and Tatami Galaxy. If you've been watching long enough, you get a general idea of what you like and ratings and reviews become irrelevant. No offense, but isn't that being a bit close minded? I don't really see how you can 100% say you won't enjoy those shows despite not seeing a single episode. There are several shows I've watched that I thought I wouldn't like that much but turned out to be my favorites. |
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Mapplesauce said: BeBackinaSec said: Heh, not everything is for everyone. For instance, despite having high reviews and ratings, I know I will never like Monogatari and Tatami Galaxy. If you've been watching long enough, you get a general idea of what you like and ratings and reviews become irrelevant. No offense, but isn't that being a bit close minded? I don't really see how you can 100% say you won't enjoy those shows despite not seeing a single episode. There are several shows I've watched that I thought I wouldn't like that much but turned out to be my favorites. I've watched over 1k shows. I think I have the right to say I know what I like. No offense. |
| A few reviews I've seen are pretty accurate of a given series but the sample size for the rating is large enough to give a better indicator on whether on not a series is worth watching. |
| Big Order (TV):great anime or greatest anime? |
| I wont even bother with a show if it's in the thousands of obscurity level and theres not even a single positive review of it |
 Freddy Nicholas said: have control, be yourself, god is dead |
| Ratings are just numbers. They don't mean anything. I care far more for reviews. There people express their opinions, explore the anime and show you its good sides and bad sides. It's far more interesting. |
| WEAPONS - My blog, for reviews of music, anime, books, and other things |
| Here's a funny little promise Xinil made 10 years ago that sounds a bit like what you're talking about. http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=32 He said that he will implement a system to average the scores of the reviews. He said this back when there were not many reviews. Even in 2008, two years after he said this, there were only around 2000 reviews in the database while now there are over 200k. He said he would implement it "when there are more reviews". |
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| Definitely the rating, although I'll still watch something that is a low score depending on genre and story. |
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| None of the above. Never trust anyone to do something when you can do it better yourself. |
| "Laws exist only for those who cannot live without clinging onto them." -Souske Aizen "Bleach"  |
| None! and all thanks to the wonderful MAL community that we all respect and love. -Mastergold |
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| rating because rating was made by all watcher. and review was made by the watcher who can explain their enjoyment. not everyone can do it (mainly because of poor engrish language skill or not have free time to write the review). so I prefer rating in general |
| None. Reviews are garbage and usually written by people who barely seen enough anime of the same genres same with Rating. if i want to know how the anime is im just gonna watch it not listen to someone elses opinion ;p |
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HiatusXHiatus said: Your name is the best :DThere were some anime that the rating and review contradict each others. On one hand we have high rating but bad reviews. On the other hand, we have low rating but rather good reviews. I'll take ERASED and Ergo Proxy for example : ERASED (Boku Dake ga Inai Machi) Rating : 8.76 Review : (4, 3, 8, 5) = 5 average Ergo Proxy Rating : 8.04 Review : (9, 9, 9, 8) = 8.75 average So which one affect your opinion more : Rating or Review ? edited : add "both of them to the option" First I pay attention to the rating and after this I look sometimes at a review to convince myself. |
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