A PSA to my fellow MAL anime reviewers

CodeBlazeFate said:


So basically, a lot of the MCs are different and of varying quality, but it's mainly the harem that's full of stock fruits (typical tsundere, typical kuudere, etc.)?

flannan said:

There are exactly two typical tsundere in these casts: the straight-laced japanese girl in Masou Gakuen (who is deliciously unhappy to be in borderline-hentai), and the White Cat from Rokudenashi, who makes a nice contrast to the MC. Well, I guess Asterisk female lead is one too, which makes three. Just because I described them with well-known words doesn't mean they are necessarily stock characters.
There is also only one kuudere among the listed characters, in Rokudenashi. Unusually for her type, she is very violent.

Speaking of tropes, I think there is another comparison. The MC gets challenged to a duel on the first day:
In Bahamut, because the princess wants to silence (as in "kill") the MC who knows too much. They talk it out later.
In Hundred, because the MC got into an argument with the commander, and she believes in might makes right. Impressed by his fighting ability, the commander becomes a lot friendlier.
In Asterisk, because the MC has seen the tsundere undressed, and she feels that requires a duel to let off steam.
In Rokudenashi, because the MC would not do his job as a teacher, and the heroine has ran out of options (it's damn hard to influence a teacher that wants to be fired!).

In the other three shows, there is no duel on the first day.

CodeBlazeFate said:
Ah, that asinine "don't like don't watch" argument that physically doesn't make sense in context since you're saying don't watch something you already watched and didn't like. Hell, it's such a bad argument that I can easily apply this argument to you: don't like my rant, don't read my rant. See what happens when that argument is used?

scruffs said:
@CodeBlazeFate I read through the whole thread and I have to say your message is not very clear in your OP. At first i thought it was some high level bait. But reviewing comes with the territory. As in you should really be expecting harsh backlash from fanboys/girls, especially with the review you wrote.


I would understand if it's a calm negative review and someone tells you to kys. But again that comes with the territory. The second you post an opinion, your opening yourself up for criticism. And the more aggressive your tone the more aggression you'll receive.



The don't like; don't watch argument is pretty pointless if you're talking to a pirate but to someone who pays for most if not all anime it makes sense. Why would somebody waste their time and money on an anime they don't like. Only to contribute to that anime getting a second season or for more of that type of anime to be made. Ultimately i think you're better off encouraging people to watch anime you think is good than to discourage people from watching "bad" anime.

CodeBlazeFate said:
Honestly, what I wanted was for entertainment and characters that weren't infuriating cardboard cutouts. For most part, it didn't deliver on either and instead proved that it even had ideas that it didn't capitalize well on, making it extra disappointing when I wasn't even that hyped to begin with. Also, Hand Shakers doesn't have any real merit (besides maybe music if that's to your liking) other than the fact that with the amount of problems it has in almost every single aspect of an audiovisual medium of animation, you can have a goddamn field day with any aspect, whether it be narrative, editing, animation, cinematography, character writing, etc. since it's so goddamn bad that I'd argue that no other anime has such a sense volume of errors.

CodeBlazeFate said:
Honestly, if they want to judge our reviews based on content, then they should actually read it instead of making knee jerk judgements about it and the people who agree with the opinion that the one person does not agree with. If they read my review and gave me backlash because they didn't like the tone or they have legitimate points about the show that they disagree with me with, that's fine, that I can expect. What I don't expect is for someone to make a refiewnsomely for the sake of saying "critics or the community is wrong and silly and pathetic for hating/liking this show".

Because they argument is only there to shut people up and it makes so sense semantically, that's why it's such a dumb and pointless argument. Also, it's so bad that I can easily apply their own logic against them.

*Spoilers for Akashic Records. Don't watch this fucking show; it is offensively bad and trite as sin*

OtakuDaikun said:


I'm not saying I'd sing its praises or anything. I just thought that the art style was kinda cool and the idea of a constantly moving camera is neat, thought it did end up quite sloppy. It would have made for a great short film at an expo or something.

scruffs said:


Diehard fanboys/girls will react irrationally to their shows getting critiqued. Regardless of what the review says, this is a known fact and should be expected.

Like the other thing i said people will react appropriately to your tone.
Taken from your own review


This comes of as very aggressive and that's at the beginning of your review. So that's already leaving a bad taste in people's mouth. And tbh i stopped reading after 3 paragraphs just because how negative it sounded.

I don't think you're seeing it from the dl;dw perspective it's not an debate ender. The debate rarely ends there. But rather people who say this don't always have a lot of time to watch anime, pay for most/everything they watch, or they genuinely don't care about the technical/philosophical aspects of anime and just watch for the bouncing oppai/pantsu shots.

CodeBlazeFate said:
The reason dl;dr isn't an effective debate ended is because it's such a bad argument that instead of shutting your opponent up, you give them a leg to stand on and continue the debate when you just want themes shut up.

Hence why I made it perfectly clear that the tone of the review was going to be negative (though I probably should've made that happen in the first paragraph rather than right before re actual review portion). Again, knee jerk reactions are silly no matter what, but st that rate they can just post a comment rather than just review it by saying "these idiots don't understand jack, this show is obviously *inseet judgement here* and only now I'll begin explaining why, in very minute detail because I just wanted to refute them personally". It's a waste of time at that rate since that actually requires more time. Even if they only care about watching an anime for such shallow reasons, if they just say "you guys don't like it because you expected and wanted to hate it because you saw what genre it is", then all they'll get is a verbal smack in the face by people who are more than willing to force a proper explanation down their throat.

scruffs said:


1. And dl;dw (really should be changed to don't like; drop it) is also the reason people are considered elitist (part of the reason reviewers/users get backlash) because instead of looking for higher quality anime. They'll watch a 12+ episode series they stopped liking after an episode or two. Sometimes knowing in advance that there are elements they don't enjoy in it (such as cgi or fanservice). And i get that no work of art is immune to criticism but continuing to watch a series that wasn't even targeted at you (not you specifically but you know what i mean) and doing so routinely just seems unhealthy and unreasonable. and really what can you say to someone stubborn like that? Other than, just stop watching if it was that bad?

2. Yes you really need to work on making points clearer, it took me about 3 (mobile pages) to figure out what this thread was about.

At first i thought it was about how anime is recycled garbage. And like i said in an earlier post encourage people to watch "better" anime to overshadow "bad" anime.

2a. And yeah knee jerk reactions are dumb but at the same time you are intentionally being antagonistic with this review. idk if you made this thread out of frustration because too many are sending you hate. But you're a reviewer and you have strong opinions so you really should be surprised that you get backlash.

metadata said:
Certainly art that is creative, original and inspires would be my minimum requirements for art, but judging anime as art beyond one of aesthetics and thrill, is asking a tad much.

metadata said:
Then again, anime probably shouldn't be judged as a medium of expression, for the reasons I did address: it simply doesn't intend to be. it's entertainment for those looking for simple entertainment, and not a medium for authors to express their visions (if those in the anime industry even have those). Much like western shows, books... anything really.

metadata said:
But utter artistic creativity, is in fact too high a standard for the current industry.

jal90 said:

Just the fact that you place aesthetics as something we should go beyond of instead of something with value as an expressive and communicative tool speaks volumes about how reliable you are as a critic.


You are not making any sense here so I assume you want to talk about creativity instead of expression. Anime shows things to the viewer, therefore it expresses, regardless if it's for the purpose of shallow entertainment or high concept artistry.


I'd like to ask you about your experience on cinema to make such a bold statement in your first paragraph, because seeing that you haven't even touched the works of Ghibli, Satoshi Kon, Yuasa, Shinkai, etc. and you have barely scratched the surface of experimental/indie anime I don't know if I should take your stances on the standards of artistic creativity in media seriously.

metadata said:


1. I never said aesthetics don't have value. Simply that it doesn't interest or inspire me much, in terms of writing.

2. And where have I said it didn't? I merely stated the difference in goals, criticising neither.

3. again, where did I say that this goes for all anime? I'm simply saying that in general, most studios aim to entertain, rather than to express visions, etc. which I relate to art. And I know I still have to watch a lot of pieces, but those are a small percentage of the shows coming out regardlessly.

Honestly tho, I think you're reading my post with too negative a tone, because I didn't offer much critique. I simply stated how the goals of most anime lack the critique, and motivation to thinking that I enjoy in art and literature. I never said they were bad, or uncreative, simply that the creativity is in different aspects, which are not the aspects I'm looking for.

CodeBlazeFate said:
Knee jerk reactions do come in the territory

but there generally comprised of one person walking up to the comments and telling him to piss off or give some kind of reason as to why the reviewer shouldn't have watched it or anything just to defend the show's pride.

I made it pretty clear by paragraph 3 that it's about people who criticize others (community or reviewers) for hating a show and therefore either being hateful for the sake of it or having absurd standards. I could've tackled or better but if anyone made it to the end and assumed that all I was saying was "unoriginal LN shows suck and should die" then that's the fault of the reader even more so that the presenter.

All of these are perfectly reasonable reasons for someone to still make a review about the show and call it tired trash that he hates, regardless of the bscklash he might receive.

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never... try to put the author "in his place," making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.

metadata said:
However much I like considering writing and cinema a form of art, it has long lost it's meaning as an expressive medium, rather focussing now on sensationalism in the form of action and tragedy.

Certainly art that is creative, original and inspires would be my minimum requirements for art, but judging anime as art beyond one of aesthetics and thrill, is asking a tad much.

To even go a step further: I, as a critique, don't give a damn for story complexity, which seems to be so popular among many critiques.

What in the end matters ... so it gets ignored.

Creativity in that aspect... zilch in the end.

Then again, anime probably shouldn't be judged as a medium of expression, for the reasons I did address: it simply doesn't intend to be.

scruffs said:
1. And dl;dw (really should be changed to don't like; drop it) is also the reason people are considered elitist (part of the reason reviewers/users get backlash) because instead of looking for higher quality anime. ... Other than, just stop watching if it was that bad?

2. Yes you really need to work on making points clearer, it took me about 3 (mobile pages) to figure out what this thread was about.

At first i thought it was about how anime is recycled garbage. And like i said in an earlier post encourage people to watch "better" anime to overshadow "bad" anime.

Fvlminatvs said:
This is an absolutely enormous thread already. There are things on the first page that I want to respond to that are no longer really germane so I'll be sticking to the fifth page for my comments.


Yeah, they do. You got to make sure that you aren't making knee-jerk reactions yourself.

I feel you, bro. I've had a rough two weeks. I got into three arguments over the weekend with people who didn't understand what I was saying here on MAL. When I went back and reread my comments, I discovered that perhaps I should have written my comments better to make sure I was understood. I also should have put my emotions into check. Yeah, my interlocutors still ticked me off a bit but I probably should have written those comments completely differently.


It's been said before but people tend to defend their tastes. Why?

People are afraid of being seen as stupid. It's funny, because they don't seem to realize that everyone has guilty pleasures, everyone likes things that can be collectively agreed on to suck. I've said it elsewhere--I like bad B-movie science-fiction, like Ice Pirates. That movie is terrible and utterly stupid. Am I stupid for liking it? I don't think so.

The problem comes in when people like something and don't think it's stupid or bad. Then, all of a sudden, you're trashing a part of themselves. They can't step outside of their opinions, get some perspective, and perhaps see the flaws in the object you're critiquing. They can't separate themselves from their taste. It's like you're attacking them, personally.

Frankly, that's their psychological and intellectual problem, not yours.


Are you talking about your first post or a review you wrote? If you're talking about your post, well, you could have sat back and thought long and hard and edited the post before putting it up there. Your tone is something that will be attacked as much as your argument.

Well, that is partly your problem. Rewrite to have a more neutral tone next time? Granted, that's a rhetorical problem and it helps to persuade but doesn't help prove. Rhetoric is the bastard younger brother of logic and tends more toward sophistry than proving anything. However, you have to know your audience, too and frankly, most of them use the bottom three tiers of Graham's hierarchy and can't really achieve the top three. Heck, most people would see someone perform the bottom three during an argument against someone who could pull of the top three and would think the former triumphed over the latter.



Interestingly enough, though, you aren't actually succeeding at refuting anything yourself in your first post. You're raving about how "we" are perceived. Who is this "we?" Does anyone else identify themselves as part of this collective "we" or have you assumed the membership of others regardless as to how they identify themselves?

Secondly, these people "defending" their shows--are they utilizing any sort of unifying argument for you to refute? If so, focus on that and check your emotions at the door. Be cool and logical, not angry and vindictive. I run afoul of this myself--something gets me worked up and I write or speak and my arguments start collapsing due to emotions getting in my way. Lack of organization and clear, concise communication of ideas often causes your argument to meander, focus on the wrong things, and ultimately digress. Calm down first, then return to the argument later.

Finally, consider if you will even be able to reach anyone whatsoever. If so many people on here are going to ad hominem write you off as an "elitist snob" so as to dismiss your argument without engaging it (or worse, without actually reading what you write), perhaps this isn't the venue for that sort of thing.


To this I will respond with rule #6 on constructive criticism and book reviewing by novelist John Updike, from the introduction to his essay collection, Picked-Up Pieces:

These are excellent guidelines for reviewing an anime as well. If you cannot abide by these guidelines for a specific show, perhaps you don't want to write that review. Your criticism of a show should always tend towards being constructive and sympathetic. If a show fails, why did it fail? If it is bad, why is it bad? Could it have been salvaged? How?

I'll reiterate a point here that Updike makes:
Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind.

This is precisely what you are doing with your reviews, here, if your original post is any indication.

Believe me, I think that anime is pretty stagnant right now. I'm right there with you, man. I'm not happy that light novels are awfully written and many of them have cliched, unsalvageable story lines adapted into anime for easy cash-grabs. At the same time, I should not see myself as a guardian of new or old (or in-between) anime. And besides, anime has stagnated before--the super robot genre was utterly blase by the 1980s and the late 1990s saw the real robot genre stagnate as well. Both of those genres were killed by what you are complaining about with the magical school light novels--the cash-grab mentality.

And frankly, the mecha genres needed to take it on the chin. It's because of 1) oversaturation followed by 2) collapse of the mecha toy market that we've gotten few non-Gundam mecha franchises since the mid-1990s. Those we've gotten (Macross Plus, Escaflowne, Gurren Lagaan) are for the most part exemplary instead of cheap attempts to sell toys.

@metadata EDIT: I hope this doesn't come off as though I'm teaming up with @Jal9 against you or something. I was writing this at the same time you were and he makes some of the same points I do... just with more brevity. I guess his soul is wittier than mine.




I agree with most of the points you make in this entire paragraph. However, I feel it is too pessimistic. I believe a lot of what has happened has to do with the economy more than anything else--nobody wants to take risks. Hollywood has often gone through periods of stagnation before--those led to renaissances like when Coppola, Spielberg, Peckinpah, Allen, Milius, etc., birthed the American New Wave of cinema. There are still arthouse and drama being produced. It's just harder to find because of the over-saturation of the mediocre.

Same goes with anime.


Here's where I disagree. In effect, you're giving anime a sort of critical handicap. You give a handicap to individuals that you severely outclass--for example, were I to play Michael Jordan in basketball, the only way I'd stand a chance would be for me to have to only score a single basket the entire game to win, while he'd have to score 200 points. By giving anime this critical handicap, you are denying it's capability as a medium.

The works of directors like Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Oshii, or writers like Urobuchi Gen, I think, demonstrate this position you've taken as false.


You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I don't necessarily disagree. Frankly, complexity of story is sometimes most definitely a negative, since some stories can become tremendously convoluted. However, please don't mistake complexity for depth (which I think most people do).

I don't believe there is such a thing as "2deep4u." I do, however, believe in people who are intellectually lazy as all hell.


Yes!


YES!


This and what follows is an utter condemnation of anime as a medium. And boy, ouch, it must burn.

There are anime out there that are just as profound and creative as any other work of art you can imagine. Granted, not on the level of, perhaps, Milton's Paradise Lost, but then again, Milton ripped off a great many of his predecessors. He just had some extremely pretty words that enabled him to do some awesome stuff with his themes.

How is anime any different from any other medium? There is definitely some art being produced. Is any of it on the level of, say, Kubrick or Coppola? Only time will tell. The reason I go back and rewatch older movies and shows like the original Ghost in the Shell or Evangelion is because I keep finding new things every time I watch them--just like when I watch 2001: A Space Odyssey or Apocalypse Now. Maybe in 10 years, I'll feel the same way about 5 Centimeters Per Second.


You've been saying some decent stuff here, so I'm going to comment on what you've been saying most recently (as of my writing this).

Your first point is valid, except (and I know I am opening up a can of worms, here) I try to be objective.

Let me explain. I grade papers all the time. I use rubrics, standards, and other measurements designed to lessen my own subjective response to the paper and make myself more objective. You do not want your teacher, instructor, or professor being subjective on your paper but instead want them to tackle it as objectively as possible.

I try to do the same with any book or anime I'd review. I have a checklist of things to consider while reading/watching. There are some things that I've watched that I hated (like Darren Aronofsky's Pi) but still tried to rate as fairly as possible (I'm able to acknowledge it as a brilliant work despite my emotional response to it).

The reason to do this could be to see why something is successful. Sometimes, I'll sit through something and try to figure out why it works for some people but not for me. I gave Clannad a shot, dropped it but I want to go back to it to try to understand it even if I was bored to tears. I want to understand it.

I guess that is the difference between my approach and most other peoples' approaches. Even if I don't like it, I want to see why it either succeeded or failed.


Your assessment is spot-on. It keeps getting hijacked a bit by interlocutors, though, who distract the OP with ad hominem, straw man, and other arguments, and that doesn't help. I wouldn't blame the OP entirely.


Serious question here, I am not being facetious: What do you suggest he do when his interlocutors say that the anime he suggests are "trash" in response? I do want to know what you think his response should be.

Symphyon said:

In all complete honesty that just goes a bit against about what a reviewer is supposed to be I guess, unless I got that wrong.

For a lot of people Youjo Senki can be considered a good series (hell even myself can say it's good for reasons) but others can go and think otherwise. I think what matters is that rather than looking at the rating alone, you can either ask the person why they didn't liked said series or if they have some sort of blog/review available to read within context, maybe you can disagree with it but I think that's the most... approachable thing, I guess.

Not trying to argue but these are my two cents.

Symphyon said:

I'm not really saying that you should agree with him at all but at the end I just wanted to point that out. To me as long as said person doesn't tell me shit to the point of going on a personal level (even though I wouldn't have done nothing, unless its different) I'm fine tbh.

CodeBlazeFate said:
The reason dl;dr isn't an effective debate ended is because it's such a bad argument that instead of shutting your opponent up, you give them a leg to stand on and continue the debate when you just want themes shut up.

metadata said:
However much I like considering writing and cinema a form of art, it has long lost it's meaning as an expressive medium, rather focussing now on sensationalism in the form of action and tragedy. It's a form of entertainment, and when people enjoy shows that follow a certain pattern, or shows that don't go much beyond aestheticism, or thrill, those shows will get made. Creativity is not the factor for a show to be good or respectable. It's the popularity that matters, an the big sack of cash that the producers get at the end of the day.

Certainly art that is creative, original and inspires would be my minimum requirements for art, but judging anime as art beyond one of aesthetics and thrill, is asking a tad much. To even go a step further: I, as a critique, don't give a damn for story complexity, which seems to be so popular among many critiques. What in the end matters is what I learn from a medium, through self-reflection, mostly. If an author spells things out I will get annoyed. Mostly because they can make mistakes out of lack of research - happens a lot, but people tend not to be studied enough themselves to notice, so it gets ignored.

Creativity in that aspect, doesn't per se have to be in defying tropes or doing things differently, but could very well mean exploring a topic much deeper, or presenting things in such a way that they allow the reader/viewer to interpret it differently. But honestly, how many children and political intrigues fantasy characters had, doesn't interest me a damn, if it teaches me zilch in the end.

Then again, anime probably shouldn't be judged as a medium of expression, for the reasons I did address: it simply doesn't intend to be. it's entertainment for those looking for simple entertainment, and not a medium for authors to express their visions (if those in the anime industry even have those). Much like western shows, books... anything really.

If you're looking for art and creativity, you have to go out of your way for it, or look at more specific aspects of shows. (f.e. direction, music, voice acting... spotting those little details, if that aligns with your interest. I enjoy inspecting the direction, though I've had a lack of time to keep with that). Some shows will have nothing interesting to offer in those aspects tho. At that point, maybe we can consider the show shit.

But utter artistic creativity, is in fact too high a standard for the current industry.

SpamuraiSensei said:
I went ahead and browsed some of the anime series you rated.

Even universally loved anime such as Youjo Senki - You give toxic ratings for. A 3 bro? come on.

If your tastes don't align with that of the average reviewer then what worth are they? =/

SpamuraiSensei said:
That's perfectly fine. Maybe people agree with his points and will flock to what he reviews.

But I won't be one of them. I don't like how he laces his words with venom and our tastes simply do not align on multiple anime.

I prefer more of an objective approach.

flannan said:

At the heart of the dl;dr argument there are three ideas:
1) Can a person who hates ecchi really give a proper evaluation to an ecchi anime?
Too often I see these people go overly emotional in their hating, and lose sight even of the parts that they normally should be able to evaluate. To say nothing of actually knowing what makes a good ecchi and how pantyshots in Najika Blitz Tactics suck compared to Strike Witches.

2) We don't really want your emotional evaluation, like "this show is so damn bad". You're not our twin brother, we will see the show differently.
If "this show is so damn bad" is all you have to say, don't bother reviewing.
Instead, tell us what is actually wrong, and what is right in this show. "The show touched a lot of serious themes, but did not go into detail on any of them, making me feel cheated" is something we want to hear. "It was interesting to see these simplified archetypes of heroines colliding with harsh reality" is something we want to hear.
In particular, we want to hear about the parts that define the genre for us. Were the fights cool? Were the women hot? Was the friendship heartwarming? Was the mystery complicated?

3) Your complaining that the show is exactly what we want to watch does not lend any credibility to your review.
In fact, it makes us think the reviewer must be crazy: how can one hate that a show is full of girls? Girls are the best thing in the world, after all.
Double crazy points for complaining the show is supposed to appeal to people like me.

P.S. "you" here is a generic "you". I did not actually read any of your, @CodeBlazeFate , reviews to evaluate how useful they are.

CodeBlazeFate said:

1. I don't hate ecchi/fan service if I don't it down well. Hell, I have Keijo a 7 since it embraced its fan service absurdity without being just a trope-ridden show. It was absurd and over the top and with character I enjoyed.

CodeBlazeFate said:
*I'm only tackling the parts addressing me and I don't exactly know how to only keep those parts in the quote*

 As long as the number of beginnings, like [quote=CodeBlazeFate message=51223025] is the same as number of endings like [/quote], it will work fine.

CodeBlazeFate said:
All of these are perfectly reasonable reasons for someone to still make a review about the show and call it tired trash that he hates, regardless of the bscklash he might receive.

What if this is one of the first of this type of show the critic has seen (like me; excluding Ass War season 2, this is the 3rd show of this type that I've seen)?

CodeBlazeFate said:
What if there just aware of the tropes from other sources and see them quite frequently in each of these few kinds of anime they've seen?

CodeBlazeFate said:
What if the person is against dropping shows?

CodeBlazeFate said:
What if they've seen so many of these shows but find a few that are way better or way worse than most of these?

CodeBlazeFate said:
Even still, it's a terrible argument that is hypocritical.

1. I don't hate ecchi/fan service if I don't it down well. Hell, I have Keijo a 7 since it embraced its fan service absurdity without being just a trope-ridden show. It was absurd and over the top and with character I enjoyed.

2. You really only read the very, very top part, don't you? For the generic you side of things,they go into pretty good detail explaining why a show is bad rather than saying "it sucks and I hate it". Sure, a lot of them will say "trope reliance that I hate", but they could also have an issue with how the plot went, how awful certain characters are, and how abysmal the production values are. Not only have I done that a few times in those cases as well that you argue about, but so have my friends (who all fall into the same category). For the me side of things, let's just say that my review of this show also went into plenty of detail on why the show sucked for me on a visual and writing level, and that there were ways for the story to have been so much better in my eyes.

3. We don't hate these shows because it's girls. We hate them because all some of them do is pander without effort in our eyes and waste good concepts. If a show would cater to you guys but have decent characters and do things to make us excited without wasting a good concept on a bad or trite story with bsd or trite characters (see: both seasons of Code Geass, Gurren Lagann to a lesser extent, Zeta Gundam to a much, much lesser extent, 00 to some extent), then for most part, we would still like it about as much as you guys do (sometimes less, sometimes more). Also,not checking a source (in this case, a review) to see if that holds any water? For shame. If you did, you would see that none of what I said in the review after the preamble fell into any of your 3 points, and a lot of these reviews don't either, once you look deep enough to see that they're often way more than just "I don't like these tropes or how reliant this show is on them".

flannan said:

I repeat. I did not actually read any of your, @CodeBlazeFate , reviews to evaluate how useful they are. Not even the very top. My reply is entirely generic. And I do not care.

2. Did you honestly evaluate all these variables, or did you let your hatred get the better of you and slandered even the good parts?
Also, I have no idea why so many people care about production values until the show actually starts looking bad.

3. "waste good concepts"?! I hate you snobbish reviewers because you make it sound like a premise cannot be reused to make a different show.
Sure, SAO wasn't a grimdark gorefest like Mirai Nikki. And that's okay, because it was something different (and better, in my opinion). Log Horizon, Overlord and Grimgar caught up to other aspects of MMORPGs SAO left unexplored.
And that's the way it should be! Good works stand on the shoulders of other good works, and enable even more good works to flourish.

"without effort"?! There is a lot of effort involved in making a good show. Hell, even making a single good ecchi shot is beyond my ability. To say nothing of engaging story for an adventure or a hurricane of jokes for a comedy. Just because the author did not focus on your favorite part, does not mean there is no effort in there.

But in the end, what you said in point 3 means "I want all shows to pander to me". Sorry, even if you are a highly stereotypical otaku like me, you will not get this situation. There would always be shows that obviously work well for other people but don't work for you. I don't think any story should be good in all possible aspects, and demanding that from all anime is just ridiculous.

Manaban said:

I feel like this is misinterpreting the point he was trying to make. I don't think he was speaking of you specifically, for starters, but the idea I think he has behind it is something I know pretty well as an ecchifag myself and can actually agree with, albeit I think the issue goes beyond what he described it as here as well.

With ecchi specifically, there are 3 types of reviews (4 if we separate negativity and positive responses entirely) that comprise what feels like 99.999% of the entire pool to choose from, none of which seem particularly helpful to somebody like me - the first being the kind he brought up, being negative reviews that come across very heavily as if they made up their mind beforehand because of a dislike of the genre with common characteristics being complaining about the ecchi even existing within an ecchi anime to begin with or blaming this sort of thing for the downfall of the anime or just outright what your friend LIQ seems to do in his reviews, which both often come across as unreasonable as well as demeaning and disconnected from the audience, making them useless in anything except maybe circle-jerking over it with other people who hate it to such an extent. The second being overly positive reviews that exist ostensibly for the purpose of counter-acting the first type of review, which are often much more poorly written and still fail to expound on anything relevant to us, only there to say "Hey, look, it's not all negative!!!" I'm sure you're familiar with these types of reviews because they're not exclusive to ecchistuffs, and the various reasons why they come up short. Or the rarest of the three, well-written reviews that expound on their thoughts well but still feel so disconnected from the audience that form the backbone of why these shows continue to exist that they're still just useless.

The only review I've seen be well-written and felt completely connected to me as an audience member is is HaXXspetten's review of the TLR:D manga. Other than that, it's really really easy to group up the bulk of ecchi reviews into one of those three categories.

So with that said, why should somebody like me or Flannan care about any of these reviews to begin with when they're so often largely irrelevant to us as viewers? Even with the best of them, being the third group, there's nothing new to be said and no new insight to be gained on our end, often just "Oh, hey, maybe people who aren't really that into ecchi can enjoy this as well for these reasons" if it's a positive review and nothing new to be added if it's a negative review. Useless. Useless useless useless useless.

So what do you suggest be done, other than just sort of dl;dr reviews that clearly don't serve any purpose for you whatsoever? Not even exclusive to this specific genre, but reviews that are often largely irrelevant to what you seek from a product whatever those things you seek may be? It's not being used as an argument, it's just outright skipping past it without really doing anything with it in general.

Discussion needs a commonly agreed upon standard to thrive - if I were to praise a show for the tits and you were to dislike it for the characterization, then there isn't much that we can have in the way of discussion because at the heart of what we're talking about are two entirely separate entities. However, if I were to praise a show for its characterization and you were to disagree with my assessment of its characterization, then we could talk about it and share our takes and perspectives and maybe walk away from it with some sort of insight. The former case is when dl;dr is relevant, albeit it doesn't need to be stated in the discussion itself as much as just a catalyst for walking away from a discussion in general.

myengisbad said:
this thread became fucking popular

great for me the first 2 eps of kakegurui will be aired live now http://twitcasting.tv/kakegurui_anime/

kurapika-chu said:
I'm just a bit confused on OP's complaint. OP, could you clarify what you mean? Are you upset that anime's that you believe are poorly made get better ratings or more praise than you deem appropriate?

In that case, take comfort in the fact that you don't have to watch anime that you don't enjoy, and that different people have different tastes. Person A may like an anime that person B absolutely hates, and while the quality of something does have some objectivity, it is mostly subjective.

If something that you personally dislike becomes popular or gains praise, it's okay to be frustrated, but it's not okay to lash out at the people who like a certain anime.

Aside from that, I'm sorry that your frustrated, but I hope that you can try to forget about that and just enjoy shows for what they give and ignore shows for what they don't.

:)

CodeBlazeFate said:
Honestly, neither even constitute as my main argument. They were just the backdrop the the ultimate picture of what I was trying to say whilst countering the usual knee jerk response people have about critics attacking their LN adaptations. I failed to see that more original anime were already being made and that there were a few of these LN anime that did take risks and try to not just be "another of its kind", which is the same problem that mecha had back in the day.

I'm not lashing our at people who like a certain anime: I'm lashing out at people who act like assholes about critics or the community dissing an anime they like and acting like we're either foolish or unreasonable here. That was what I was mainly criticizing. I was just using people who did this for LN anime as the main example given that it was the except of an LN adaptation review.

kurapika-chu said:
I'm just a bit confused on OP's complaint. OP, could you clarify what you mean? Are you upset that anime's that you believe are poorly made get better ratings or more praise than you deem appropriate?

In that case, take comfort in the fact that you don't have to watch anime that you don't enjoy, and that different people have different tastes. Person A may like an anime that person B absolutely hates, and while the quality of something does have some objectivity, it is mostly subjective.

If something that you personally dislike becomes popular or gains praise, it's okay to be frustrated, but it's not okay to lash out at the people who like a certain anime.

Aside from that, I'm sorry that your frustrated, but I hope that you can try to forget about that and just enjoy shows for what they give and ignore shows for what they don't.

:)

scruffs said:


1. Can you link me the berserk and kabaneri review? I wanna see just how they handled reviewing those anime.

2. Can you blame them, Talking about generic anime was a big component of this thread after all.

3a. "What if this is one of the first of this type of show the critic has seen (like me; excluding Ass War season 2, this is the 3rd show of this type that I've seen)?"

Was the experience with that anime satisfactory? Do you believe that further attempts at finding a better anime in that genre is worth sifting though all the bad ones?

3b. "What if there just aware of the tropes from other sources and see them quite frequently in each of these few kinds of anime they've seen?"

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying say on this one. But what exactly is wrong or right with tropes?

3c. "What if the person is against dropping shows?"

I disagree with the no drop policy the most but that's because I've paid for or legally streamed almost everything on my list. And to me, it seems kinda ridiculous to contribute to something I don't consider worthwhile anymore. When i could be spending that on something I'd want another season of.

3d. "What if the person felt passionately her he had something he wanted to say about it even early about why he/she didn't like the show?"

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.

3e. "What if they've seen so many of these shows but find a few hat are way better or way worse than most of these?"

Out of all these, this is the most reasonable but only if they give some statistical proof that there is signs of over saturation.

You've been saying some decent stuff here, so I'm going to comment on what you've been saying most recently (as of my writing this).

Your first point is valid, except (and I know I am opening up a can of worms, here) I try to be objective.

Let me explain. I grade papers all the time. I use rubrics, standards, and other measurements designed to lessen my own subjective response to the paper and make myself more objective. You do not want your teacher, instructor, or professor being subjective on your paper but instead want them to tackle it as objectively as possible.

I try to do the same with any book or anime I'd review. I have a checklist of things to consider while reading/watching. There are some things that I've watched that I hated (like Darren Aronofsky's Pi) but still tried to rate as fairly as possible (I'm able to acknowledge it as a brilliant work despite my emotional response to it).

The reason to do this could be to see why something is successful. Sometimes, I'll sit through something and try to figure out why it works for some people but not for me. I gave Clannad a shot, dropped it but I want to go back to it to try to understand it even if I was bored to tears. I want to understand it.

I guess that is the difference between my approach and most other peoples' approaches. Even if I don't like it, I want to see why it either succeeded or failed.

2. Yes you really need to work on making points clearer, it took me about 3 (mobile pages) to figure out what this thread was about.

Your assessment is spot-on. It keeps getting hijacked a bit by interlocutors, though, who distract the OP with ad hominem, straw man, and other arguments, and that doesn't help. I wouldn't blame the OP entirely.

At first i thought it was about how anime is recycled garbage. And like i said in an earlier post encourage people to watch "better" anime to overshadow "bad" anime.

Serious question here, I am not being facetious: What do you suggest he do when his interlocutors say that the anime he suggests are "trash" in response? I do want to know what you think his response should be.

CodeBlazeFate said:
It's not for evaluating usefulness: it's for seeing if these points directly apply to me in this situation and to a lesser extent, others in that kind of situation as well.

I acknowledged that there were parts in certain arcs that I liked and that there were good ideas that I'd expanded upon, could've worked really well (and I spent a lot of time explaining how). I utterly despise the show but I didn't let that cloud my judgement all that much. Sure, there were moments I said sort of killed the show for me early on but I still gave credit where I saw something worth crediting.

It's not that at all. A show can waste a good concept by plaguing it with bad characters, a rushed or poorly thought or storyline, or anything that prevents the concept from being used to its full potential while keeping the integrity of the story in tact. Izetta wasted a good concept on my opinion because the story already had a few blemishes in the first half but it's second half tanked horribly. This show wasted concepts by hardly expanding upon them and rushing through everything, when they could've let the nature of those scenarios flow naturally (or attempt to do so) and then the first half of the show could've worked better, with certain alterations (cut out the rape scene, take out character monologues about why they're doing what they're doing, give more room for more characters in the first arc to do something in order to allow the second arc to capitalize on that and lead to a grander payoff during that second arc). SAO wasted its concept by havingbad characters, abysmal time skips (leading to bad pacing), a truck load of plot holes, and having a game that even from a gaming standpoint is actually a terrible game regardless of whether or not it was a death trap. I know that many stories can use similar concepts and pull them off well, but that doesn't mean we can't bemoan those that we feel don't capitalize well enough on those opportunities.

CodeBlazeFate said:
We care about production values because studios care about production values. If a show looks bad or had limited or bad animation (or bad editing), then we are going to explain why. If a show is very well directed and edited and looks great (as well as having well done animation that hardly repeats itself), then we are going praise it as wel. I mean, people die doing this kind of work so why should we acknowledge it? Why shouldn't we care about the visual side of things?

CodeBlazeFate said:
It takes enough effort to write a story in order to effectively have it acknowledge as a story. It takes more effort to tighten up a script and make it so it's characters aren't one-dimensional, or even really flesh out a concept. If it tends to fall on a certain formula or certain archetypes all the time and not do a thing else with what it has presented itself, then not enough effort was made to make the story good (even for certain members of the target audience). It could be due to a number of reasons that we are unaware of, but regardless, the product will suffer.

CodeBlazeFate said:
I'm not demanding that all anime have perfect stories (hell, that's nothing more than a pipe dream). All I said was that more of them need to at least try and get or if s comfort zone, do more than just have a different premise to a certain type of show to make it distinct. Maybe throw a twist in that works, maybe okay around with or subvert tropes, present s character one way and make a good effort to Kane that character largely different from what we initially saw him/her as (for example, developing a typical tsundere to be something more). Didn't mean a story will automatically be great or good, but those efforts will at least be acknowledged.