| Most of the time I don't really care about reviews because they are quite subjective the person who is writing the review is of course basing it on THEIR experience and taste. I don't think reviews can ever be objective there will be some bias in every review. I search some stuff up just enough to make sure it's something that I can fairly enjoy and it's just enough to entertain me most of the time those animes tend to get a 1/10 on the reviews. |
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| I consider all reviews as essentially opinions. Some are obviously just people wanting to vent on shows they did not like, and often the rating only reflects how pissed off they are at the moment. Luckily it is easy to see when that is the case and just ignore the review. However some are really good reads, and can be helpful even if I don't end up agreeing with how the reviewer felt about the show. I like it when people are able to point out something I had missed about a well-written show or share a point of view I had not considered. |
| Slice of Life 4 Life. |
Aguuus said: Another thing that is ruined by the sole fact of belonging to MAL * slow applause * The first thing I notice is that you are doing what you are criticizing, only see the bad side of the reviews, and it is not that I try to explain to you that a review is going to be the same written in MAL or anywhere else to share it, what In particular, this is his reception system and that is what makes you doubt your constructivity? I guess you understood me wrong, probably i didn't explain correctly what my "issue" is if you will. I was particularly talking about the TOP reviews with scores of "1-4" and how a really high percentage of the animes have them. I have no problem with a well constructed, unbiased and well thought out review. Now you can see this thread as a "rant" that's fine. I was simply sharing my thoughts about a particular thing and asked how others feel about it, that's all. I didn't make this tread to have any debates. |
GodMilkkApr 24, 2018 7:38 AM
Clebardman said: I went through the top "60" to thing what the hell OP was ranting about. I think @Polyphemus might want to join. I can't say I agree with him all the time, but its clear looking at his reviews that he puts thoughts into them and isn't trolling. Did it occur to you, @GodMilkk, that it might be his genuine opinion on the show? And that this review earned 700 likes because of its content and not just the rating it gives to the show? I never said that i view this reviews as a "troll". Having an opinion is fine but when writing a review you should not be "influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." This is what it means to be objective and unbiased towards something. Also it's important to analize every important aspect of an anime, if you want the review to be considered well-made. Let me give you an example. The anime we are both talking about is "Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2". Now the review made by Polyphemus only truly reviews the story and characters nothing more. Which is not what a proper review should be. If you're going to waste an hour to write a review at least make it right. Half of it was constructive criticism-(ish) the other half was just plain anger and emotion put into it. You're supposed to review an anime as a whole not only the story or characters. What about the voice actors or the cinematography, editing or sound? Was the animation as a whole well made(the CGI for example)? Now i'm not a big fan of Code Geass but considering the first season was made 2007, just by evaluating the technical elements which i listed, you can't give it a 1. Even if the story and characters are complete and utter "crap". I mean you can but it will be illogical even ridiculous or simply put it would be a bad review. I'm not saying you should go into detail about this things but if you want to give an anime a score of 1 you should take those elements in consideration. So i don't think his review deserves 700 "likes" or the score of 1. But hey this is, i guess just my "opinion" which is all it comes down to, right? |
GodMilkkApr 24, 2018 7:55 AM
Hey_Taka-tin_Hey said: I honestly prefer them short and to the point. Follow the format provided by MAL. It works. If you type a dissertation on the hidden meanings of a show, I'm sorry. Maybe it makes you appear smarter, but you've already lost me. I understand the issue but it's unfair on the other hand. The format provided by MAL is completely voluntary and if people want to use it I'm okay with that but it adds a rigid structure to the text and that's the least I want for a tool that allows me to freely express my thoughts and ramble about the show. And either way there is no correlation between making long reviews and trying to appear smarter. In fact some short ones may give this vibe a lot more. |
| Well, I write reviews so of course I like them, mines are pretty lame anyways but hey. I like reading them for the opinion of others, but of course when it comes to see if x anime is worth watching or not I search for reviews of people who have relatively similar preferences as mine. |
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| "I have been using MAL for a long time" >Joined April 23rs 2018 R U sure bout dat? |
| @GodMilkk i'll have to disagree here. There's no "points for efforts" in entertainment. If I liked an ugly anime more than a beautiful anime, there's no reason for me to rate the ugly anime lower. If Polyphemus felt the show wasn't redeemable in any way because of the points he mentionned, I don't see why he should be forced to give a bonus point because the colors are pretty. Some anime I like have cheap animation that makes the comedy work better than 10/10 animation would. How do I "objectively" rate this? I also find it strange how complaints are ALWAYS about reviews giving bad scores, when the site is literally full of "10/10 I liked the OP and ED, the animation is 10/10 especially the backgrounds. AND THE FEELS! If you like drama and mistery like me, watch it!" |
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| I pay very, very little mind to them on the whole because I just kind of stopped caring. I still do partly wish we could have more harem/ecchi reviewers who actually take the time to talk about these elements more than banal shit like "this fails as a harem because it has a beta MC" or whatever dumb shit that not only fails to take the whole harem aspect into account just solely to focus on a single character within the harem or just doesn't allot any kind of flexibility to things like characterization and is therefore hardly anything even remotely constructive or worthwhile (hint: the line of thought shouldn't fucking be "is the harem MC a beta" but it should be "how does the harem MC being a beta benefit or hurt the harem aspects of the series in question," and that's not even just a thing exclusive to harems but it's a pretty fucking basic way of trying to be constructive with criticism and not just complaining about things not fitting into your taste and articulating things in a guise meant to fool stupid people that it's a legit criticism - and even if you did that, it still wouldn't exactly be balanced or rational considering you're completely neglecting other aspects of the harem in your assessment, like idk, the actual fucking harem, just to focus solely on the MC, but w/e. Top 5 reviewer by MAL's standards, amirite? People try to approach these series critically and that's good and fine and all, but not enough people do so with their fucking reviews sometimes and it pisses me off because it means we've accepted dumb shit like that as a good way of trying to critically assess the quality of a series. Of course that makes me want to fucking vomit.) I would like to write reviews just to focus mostly on that area to the best of my ability, but last couple of times I've tried I never really felt like I lived up to a good standard that I should try to uphold myself when it came to trying to talk about other areas and so I just gave up since I don't have the time to run into walls trying to better myself between irl responsibilities and clubwork on this site taking more importance to me. Ironic considering how much I bitch about reviews, but ye, I don't think I possess the needed skillsets in certain areas to be a reviewer I can be satisfied with myself either and I'm aware that if I tried writing more of my own I'd have a lot of shortcomings. But outside of that area? I usually don't even give a fuck. I don't use reviews for any sort of consumer guidance and mostly as an after-thing for anything I'm especially interested in and want to read more about. So most of the reviews I've read are either related to harem and ecchi or any non-harem ecchi series that I have some sort of specific or distinct way of feeling towards that makes me interested enough in hearing the thoughts of others on it. People could sit there and discuss something like, idk, Madoka Magic with me all day, and I very likely wouldn't care to talk about it much nor would I care about their thoughts on it because I don't care much about that series and I don't care that much about dark, edgy Mahou Shoujo stuff. Reviews function the same way to me, more or less. |
ManabanApr 24, 2018 9:40 AM
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| I check my affinity with the reviewer and if it is 50% + I trust it despite the lack of proper criticism. If I see a well written negative review of a show from someone with low affinity I will keep it in mind but give less weight than the superficial one from someone with high affinity. If you use reviews as recommendation as to watch a show or not I think the affinity with the reviewers counts more than their writing. Constructive criticism is wasted on MAL reviews anyway since they are reviews written by fans. |
zalApr 24, 2018 9:51 AM
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Clebardman said: @GodMilkk i'll have to disagree here. There's no "points for efforts" in entertainment. If I liked an ugly anime more than a beautiful anime, there's no reason for me to rate the ugly anime lower. If Polyphemus felt the show wasn't redeemable in any way because of the points he mentionned, I don't see why he should be forced to give a bonus point because the colors are pretty. Some anime I like have cheap animation that makes the comedy work better than 10/10 animation would. How do I "objectively" rate this? I also find it strange how complaints are ALWAYS about reviews giving bad scores, when the site is literally full of "10/10 I liked the OP and ED, the animation is 10/10 especially the backgrounds. AND THE FEELS! If you like drama and mistery like me, watch it!" "Points for efforts"? "Because the colors are pretty"? What are you talking about? First off of everything i said all you decided to pick on is about the animation. That's funny. I NEVER said that "beautiful" animation SHOULD be scored higher. I said it SHOULD be put into account when you're reviewing an ANIME. So the animation is nothing more then colors and doesn't influence the enjoyment of an anime? "There's no reason for me to rate the ugly anime lower". I have watched animes with a good story but lousy animation or editing or voice acting which were was bringing the quality of the anime. Which brings your enjoyment of it down, lower enjoyment=lower score. "Some anime I like have cheap animation that makes the comedy work better than 10/10 animation would." That "cheap" animation you're talking about that works better for the anime is called "unique", exactly because it makes the anime better. Why are you even bringing "beautiful" or "ugly" i never talked about this, your presumption of what i meant is wrong. A "beautiful" animation doesn't necessary mean better. I agree. How do you "objectively" rate it? You did in your comment, that's how: "The animation wasn't necessary beautiful, but it was unique in the sence that it made the comedy work better". So after all you agree that animation does matter? What about voice acting, cinematography, editing or sound? Isn't it all those thing that make a great anime? Are you going to tell me that you haven't watched an anime that lacks one of them and you felt that with a better for example voicing or sound it would make the anime even better? So by your logic it means that if an anime has great technical elements, they should be ignored? I don't understand why are you defending someone who didn't bring enough good points as to why the anime deserved a 1. Half of the review is bashing the main character because he makes mistakes even though he is a genius. The author of the review mixes up the word "genius" with" omnipotent" and" pre-eminent". Being a genius doesn't mean you can't make mistakes. It means having "great and rare natural ability or skill". And in a lot of animes there is a battle between geniues and one is bound to lose, which means one is bound to make a mistake or simply get bested by the other person, which the author of the review cannot except apparently. This is only one of the many wrong things the person who wrote the review made. Even tho i agree that on a first glance it's seems like he knows what he is talking about, especially if he has a bit of intelligence. And who says intelligent people can't be wrong? It's not about how Polyphemus feels, it's about giving good enough arguments, as to why you're scoring something with a 1. Only because it "seems" there are a lot of arguments, doesn't mean they are good ones or even logical. In the end all is pointless, nothing will change. I didn't mean to make it a big deal. I wasn't "ranting" i was giving my impressions about something and asked if others let reviews decide what they should watch. That's it. I didn't say i demand change to be made or nothing of the sort. In the end if you still disagree, then let's just agree to disagree, we can't all share the same views about things. |
Magnif-Steiner said: "I have been using MAL for a long time" >Joined April 23rs 2018 R U sure bout dat? "You understand that to be able to search anime in MAL you don't have to register, right? Only because i registered today doesn't mean it's my first day on MAL. I use it to only search anime so until now i didn't find any point of registering. Even tho i think i did register a while back but i didn't use the profile because i didn't find it necessary." |
| Just because I don't agree with every review doesn't mean I'm not interested in reading what people have to think. You can take other people's opinions seriously and still disagree with them, you know. |
| It's me "GodMilkk" That's my other account i found it. Shame on you for doubting me :D. Should i use my old acc or the new one? Because apparently if you have registered recently people think you're not "legit". |
simonephone said: Just because I don't agree with every review doesn't mean I'm not interested in reading what people have to think. You can take other people's opinions seriously and still disagree with them, you know. I know. Thanks for the life advice. but i can't take someone serious if they give a "1" to a decent anime, without even giving good arguments as to why it deserves the lowest scoring. |
Hey_Taka-tin_Hey said: jal90 said: I want for a tool that allows me to freely express my thoughts and ramble about the show. Yeah, that's precisely what I don't want to see. People rambling about stuff. I honestly ain't got the time for that shit, give me what I need to know in a succinct manner, or don't even bother trying. But that is just my personal opinion. Other people will have their own views, I was simply stating what I like. Fair, of course. I just wanted to state that there is no higher pretension in making longer texts and/or not adjusting to the predetermined format. |
| Reviews aren't the most important part of the site, but I do write some myself (I've written 3 so far, the first one being really amateur and biased, lol) If you do depend on other's opinions to watch an anime, it's best to read ones without spoilers and are similar in score to most other reviews to get a general consensus It's also good to check if the review is between 500 and 1250 words so it's more of a walk in the park to read, and make sure the person has made several other reviews that have decent reception as well But really, we're plagued with crappy reviews. Lots of them I would rather ask someone in a chat group or discord server about an anime rather than read a MAL review, because you'll get a more apparent and probably better and shorter summary of what they think (for now at least. i just write reviews to improve my writing skills, as well as see if i do help someone at some point) |
| It depends. I find a review helpful if they the anime is overrated and his/her score is low. |
| All weebs creatures of the galaxy, hear this message. Those of you who listen will not be struck by western animation. You will no longer know hunger, nor pain. Your Anime have come to lead you now. Our strength shall serve as a luminous sun toward which all intelligence may blossom. And the impervious shelter beneath which you will prosper. However, for those who refuse our offer and cling to their western animation ways… For you, there will be great wrath. |
GodMilkk said: simonephone said: Just because I don't agree with every review doesn't mean I'm not interested in reading what people have to think. You can take other people's opinions seriously and still disagree with them, you know. I know. Thanks for the life advice. but i can't take someone serious if they give a "1" to a decent anime, without even giving good arguments as to why it deserves the lowest scoring. I specifically picked animation from your previous post because it CAN be somehow objectively measured, on technical aspects like framerate, anatomy, and difficulty/ambition. Now seeing how you claim that rating Code Geass S2 1 should be forbidden because it is "objectively (it's implied here) a decent anime... I think you're just confusing "objectively" and "in my opinion" tbh |
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Clebardman said: GodMilkk said: I know. Thanks for the life advice. but i can't take someone serious if they give a "1" to a decent anime, without even giving good arguments as to why it deserves the lowest scoring. I specifically picked animation from your previous post because it CAN be somehow objectively measured, on technical aspects like framerate, anatomy, and difficulty/ambition. Now seeing how you claim that rating Code Geass S2 1 should be forbidden because it is "objectively (it's implied here) a decent anime... I think you're just confusing "objectively" and "in my opinion" tbh I replied to another person's comment, where i said i "can't take someone who gives a 1 to a decent anime". I was talking in general. Nothing is implied here because i wasn't even talking about Code Geass with this person. In our discussion tho i did explain "objectively" by giving facts and logical reasonings, which you pretty much ignored and decided to reply to a comment of mine with wasn't even meant for you. Ah fuck it. You're arguing for the sake of arguing. Ego is a big thing, it is. Anyway have a good day/night. |
GodMilkk said: Clebardman said: I went through the top "60" to thing what the hell OP was ranting about. I think @Polyphemus might want to join. I can't say I agree with him all the time, but its clear looking at his reviews that he puts thoughts into them and isn't trolling. Did it occur to you, @GodMilkk, that it might be his genuine opinion on the show? And that this review earned 700 likes because of its content and not just the rating it gives to the show? I never said that i view this reviews as a "troll". Having an opinion is fine but when writing a review you should not be "influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." This is what it means to be objective and unbiased towards something. Also it's important to analize every important aspect of an anime, if you want the review to be considered well-made. Let me give you an example. The anime we are both talking about is "Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2". Now the review made by Polyphemus only truly reviews the story and characters nothing more. Which is not what a proper review should be. If you're going to waste an hour to write a review at least make it right. Half of it was constructive criticism-(ish) the other half was just plain anger and emotion put into it. You're supposed to review an anime as a whole not only the story or characters. What about the voice actors or the cinematography, editing or sound? Was the animation as a whole well made(the CGI for example)? Now i'm not a big fan of Code Geass but considering the first season was made 2007, just by evaluating the technical elements which i listed, you can't give it a 1. Even if the story and characters are complete and utter "crap". I mean you can but it will be illogical even ridiculous or simply put it would be a bad review. I'm not saying you should go into detail about this things but if you want to give an anime a score of 1 you should take those elements in consideration. So i don't think his review deserves 700 "likes" or the score of 1. But hey this is, i guess just my "opinion" which is all it comes down to, right? How can you not be influenced by personal opinions, what? But this is exactly what reviews are, expression of your PERSONAL opinion and experience with the piece of media/product/whatever you might be reviewing. It's about liking or not liking the story, characters and everything in it, how it was constructed and such. Aside from some real plotholes, incosistencies or quality of animation, there is little you can judge objectively, and whether you consider it good or not is your opinion. Also earlier on you mention 'boring' as not good in a review, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Being boring is one of the worst sins entertainment media can commit and it should always be mentioned. Of course, explaining why that is the case, what led to it is necessary, but it's still legit criticism. As for technical aspects I agree they should be mentioned and evaluated if possible, because I believe a lot of people care for it, even if the reviewer doesn't. Especially in anime with lot of action, ecchi, or other mostly visual treats. Still, that doesn't mean every aspect should be treated equally and having decent animation doesn't prevent one from giving the lowest rating (or the opposite, an anime with mediocre animation/artstyle can still get the highest rating). Otherwise, there would be almost no anime 'deserving' of the extreme scores. They don't mean 'nothing was good' or 'everything was perfect'. It's about anime as a whole being bad, unappealing, not recommendable and such. Anime that is unenjoyable, boring, has horrible and unlikeable characters isn't in any way saved by good animation. The rating should try and measure quality of experience one had with the show, and as such things that didn't matter much in the end (good animation not really making your time any less bad, or inconsistent animation not preventing you for loving a show) shouldn't elevate or reduce the score. Long story short, IMO anime rated 1 can definitely have some small aspects that weren't total trash. Then again, I do not think that particular Code Geass review is any good, in fact it's trash. As you said, it doesn't mention half of the aspects of the show, but some of the stuff in there is outright untrue, and other heavily biased/generalized but whatever really. I don't think you look right at what and how reviews are supposed to be, but I definitely agree that you should take reviews on mal, or most importantly - their number of votes and appearance on main page, with a grain of salt. It's common fact that great majority of people vote solely on whether or not they agree with the score, and not on how well it's written, if they read it at all. It's especially obvious with the most popular and controversial anime. |
ImaishiApr 24, 2018 11:30 AM
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BadAssPanda98 said: I see what you mean, I rarely read reviews. I finished DevilMan: Crybaby and just happen to scoll down to see a 1 rated review that was entirely too long and complained about the arabic letters in the backround that were incoherent. The entire review was options without facts to back it up. I hopped over to their profile and they watched like 10 shows and joined like three months ago. It's just annoying because I think if i had seen what that review said about the show before watching it, I wouldn't have watched it. what does the account age say and the shows watched say anything about one's opinion? also why would you just read the review that gave it a 1 but not the ones that gave it a 10 |
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Imaishi said: GodMilkk said: I never said that i view this reviews as a "troll". Having an opinion is fine but when writing a review you should not be "influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." This is what it means to be objective and unbiased towards something. Also it's important to analize every important aspect of an anime, if you want the review to be considered well-made. Let me give you an example. The anime we are both talking about is "Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2". Now the review made by Polyphemus only truly reviews the story and characters nothing more. Which is not what a proper review should be. If you're going to waste an hour to write a review at least make it right. Half of it was constructive criticism-(ish) the other half was just plain anger and emotion put into it. You're supposed to review an anime as a whole not only the story or characters. What about the voice actors or the cinematography, editing or sound? Was the animation as a whole well made(the CGI for example)? Now i'm not a big fan of Code Geass but considering the first season was made 2007, just by evaluating the technical elements which i listed, you can't give it a 1. Even if the story and characters are complete and utter "crap". I mean you can but it will be illogical even ridiculous or simply put it would be a bad review. I'm not saying you should go into detail about this things but if you want to give an anime a score of 1 you should take those elements in consideration. So i don't think his review deserves 700 "likes" or the score of 1. But hey this is, i guess just my "opinion" which is all it comes down to, right? How can you not be influenced by personal opinions, what? But this is exactly what reviews are, expression of your PERSONAL opinion and experience with the piece of media/product/whatever you might be reviewing. It's about liking or not liking the story, characters and everything in it, how it was constructed and such. Aside from some real plotholes, incosistencies or quality of animation, there is little you can judge objectively, and whether you consider it good or not is your opinion. Also earlier on you mention 'boring' as not good in a review, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Being boring is one of the worst sins entertainment media can commit and it should always be mentioned. Of course, explaining why that is the case, what led to it is necessary, but it's still legit criticism. As for technical aspects I agree they should be mentioned and evaluated if possible, because I believe a lot of people care for it, even if the reviewer doesn't. Especially in anime with lot of action, ecchi, or other mostly visual treats. Still, that doesn't mean every aspect should be treated equally and having decent animation doesn't prevent one from giving the lowest rating (or the opposite, an anime with mediocre animation/artstyle can still get the highest rating). Otherwise, there would be almost no anime 'deserving' of the extreme scores. They don't mean 'nothing was good' or 'everything was perfect'. It's about anime as a whole being bad, unappealing, not recommendable and such. Anime that is unenjoyable, boring, has horrible and unlikeable characters isn't in any way saved by good animation. The rating should try and measure quality of experience one had with the show, and as such things that didn't matter much in the end (good animation not really making your time any less bad, or inconsistent animation not preventing you for loving a show) shouldn't elevate or reduce the score. Long story short, IMO anime rated 1 can definitely have some small aspects that weren't total trash. Then again, I do not think that particular Code Geass review is any good, in fact it's trash. As you said, it doesn't mention half of the aspects of the show, but some of the stuff in there is outright untrue, and other heavily biased/generalized but whatever really. I don't think you look right at what and how reviews are supposed to be, but I definitely agree that you should take reviews on mal, or most importantly - their number of votes and appearance on main page, with a grain of salt. It's common fact that great majority of people vote solely on whether or not they agree with the score, and not on how well it's written, if they read it at all. It's especially obvious with the most popular and controversial anime. "How can you not be influenced by personal opinions, what?" "in considering and representing facts" Not in general, that would make no sense :D. "Also earlier on you mention 'boring' as not good in a review, and I wholeheartedly disagree" I said, saying something was boring is not a constructive criticism unless you explain logically as to what exactly you find boring etc. Maybe i didn't make my self clear if so, it's my mistake. So i agree with you. Even though what can be boring for one may be very enjoyable for others. That's why i said that you can't just use "boring" without any reasoning, because that can be very subjective. "having decent animation doesn't prevent from giving the lowest rating" Again, i didn't say only animation can sway a score, i gave 4 more elements that should be considered, especially if they are really good in the given anime. " The rating should try and measure quality of experience one had with the show, and as such things that didn't matter much in the end (good animation not really making your time any less bad, or inconsistent animation not preventing you for loving a show) shouldn't elevate or reduce the score. Long story short, IMO anime rated 1 can definitely have some small aspects that weren't total trash." I agree. Just animation shouldn't elevate a score of a trash anime, unless it was some revolutionary shit :D. In my opinion tho, animes with a score of "1" should be lacking in almost every aspect. Because there are a nine numbers between 1 and 10, which i think are a lot for a scoring. I would give an anime 1 point if it has a really good animation + nice editing or cinematography. But this is indeed just a personal thing. I want to tell you that, my only issue was about giving an obviously decent anime a "1", when the given anime didn't have any major plot holes and had a decent story (which can still be subjective, i agree) AND (important and) the person who gave a "1" was biased and didn't bring any good arguments to support his score. That's all i truly meant to say in this thread and to ask what others think. I felt i should explain this to you because i actually agree with pretty much everything you said but maybe you didn't understand me that well considering what you wrote. That's fine tho, thank you for sharing you thoughts on the subject. |
GodMilkkApr 24, 2018 12:06 PM
Imaishi said: How can you not be influenced by personal opinions, what? But this is exactly what reviews are, expression of your PERSONAL opinion and experience with the piece of media/product/whatever you might be reviewing. It's about liking or not liking the story, characters and everything in it, how it was constructed and such. Aside from some real plotholes, incosistencies or quality of animation, there is little you can judge objectively, and whether you consider it good or not is your opinion. Ye, but you can still try to mitigate your own biases for a reasonable and rational take on a series that's open to fair discourse, rather than every review being walled up behind "it's just a personal opinion" and letting the individual take become so all encompassing that it becomes moot to discuss it further, which is kind of what this sounds like when you emphasize it so much. There's a difference between a criticism and a complaint, and it's more fundamental than just "it's an opinion being expressed" and should be distinguished as such for a reason. In the case of this kind of analysis, "supported by facts" is usually going to mean substantiated with evidence of the text to support an interpretation - this kind of analysis is still abstract and not concrete, but interpretations can be supported with things being supported from the source series that's being discussed. That's the basis, and the metrics of which you form an interpretation of aren't necessarily rooted in how you personally feel as much as what makes good writing - and those things can be criticized for as much and discussed to try and hammer out a better metric or standard by which quality is being interpreted. If it's all just a personal opinion, well...it doesn't matter, we just hold onto our own interpretations because we cannot technically be wrong or an opinion cannot be articulated or substantiated than our own because it's all relative to us to individuals. Like, for example, the sort of issue I prodded at with an aspect of ZephSilver's Absolute Duo review in my post above in this thread - the difference between disliking a character for being a beta MC, and asserting that the series fails at something it sets out for because of as much. The latter should be substantiated with a "why," whereas the former is something much more relative and personal and thus not a claim as subject to scrutiny. Essentially, not appealing to an individual is not necessarily the shortcoming of a show or an aspect of the show - so if we were to follow ZephSilver's assertion about "why Absolute Duo fails as a harem" then we're just railroading the harem genre into only being "good harems" if the MC is not timid or meek at the prospect of dealing with women on a holistic level. It's inflexible and entirely nonconstructive - essentially railroading how a specific role can or can not be portrayed lest it fail - yet it's being projected as a shortcoming for the series itself. It doesn't examine why that characterization makes the series worse, go into the "why it's bad" - it's just "it's bad" and, even more egregiously, asserting that anything that shares such an aspect fails as well. If I were to approach that as a mere personal opinion, then it's moot to express this issue with the review. That's the implication of asserting that everything is just a personal opinion - things being treated as objective assertions in why an aspect to a series is something wrong with the series cannot fairly be challenged because I have to assume subjectivity and relativism even though the wording and way they communicated the idea very, very clearly expresses otherwise by how they worded it. So nah. Not everything is being treated as a personal opinion at all, and it's extremely presumptive to assume such. "I don't like beta MCs" and "The series fails for having a beta MC" are two different assertions entirely. Imaishi said: Also earlier on you mention 'boring' as not good in a review, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Being boring is one of the worst sins entertainment media can commit and it should always be mentioned. Of course, explaining why that is the case, what led to it is necessary, but it's still legit criticism. Oh, absolutely not. Boring is far too relative to be a good criticism, it's much more of a complaint than anything because what one finds boring might be one somebody finds entertaining. For example, here are people I know who got tired of harem/ecchi tropes almost instantly but I've yet to tire of them to any degree whatsoever and I genuinely do continue to take pleasure and enjoyment in seeing them. Neither they nor myself is necessarily wrong there, because it's being approached as me continuing to take entertainment in them whereas they find it dull at that point. It's fair for somebody to feel that way, but not in a rational way centered around interpreting the quality of a series, just in a way more centered around who we are as people and what our tastes are. Now, change it up a bit - instead of just finding the use of tropes to be dull, assert the case as the series being actively worse for being too formulaic and lacking in innovation. It's no longer being treated as relative there. It's not just "eh, these kind of tropes are boring" - it's "this series is being poorly written for using these tropes." There is a huge difference between those two assertions and we have to approach them separately. So I won't be considering "I found it boring" to be a legit criticism anytime soon. Technically, sure, but it's not useful and can't really be discussed in the context of interpreting the quality of the series itself, and instead it's just all about the individual making the claim. Nothing really comes from it, aside from consumer guidance that's not really accessible outside of this site where I can just go check my affinity to the reviewer. Imaishi said: Still, that doesn't mean every aspect should be treated equally and having decent animation doesn't prevent one from giving the lowest rating (or the opposite, an anime with mediocre animation/artstyle can still get the highest rating). Otherwise, there would be almost no anime 'deserving' of the extreme scores. They don't mean 'nothing was good' or 'everything was perfect'. It's about anime as a whole being bad, unappealing, not recommendable and such. Anime that is unenjoyable, boring, has horrible and unlikeable characters isn't in any way saved by good animation. The rating should try and measure quality of experience one had with the show, and as such things that didn't matter much in the end (good animation not really making your time any less bad, or inconsistent animation not preventing you for loving a show) shouldn't elevate or reduce the score. So, if there's nothing deserving of an extreme score, then so be it, nothing deserves extreme scores and that's that. Not exactly seeking to be slaves to the rating system, it's really just to be able to give a surface level idea of what the idea of what the content of the review is. Hell, personally I wouldn't mind if it we removed scores from the review process all together on this site, but I digress. If I'm going to try to put myself in that position of writing a review of, say, Haruhi - a series I primarily hate because of how much I found the characters to either be extremely unlikable or dull and on a holistic level have no other major issues with it - and I try to assert everything I'm saying as the only reason something is getting a 1/10 or so without taking in the whole picture into consideration just because I'm allowed to have personal biases, then people are going to easily be able to identify that I'm hopelessly over-exaggerating and thus my review is going to be treated as much lesser for it. And it's completely fair of them to do so, not just because they differ, but because of how I'm approaching assessing the quality of the series is narrow-minded by focusing in on one aspect and not really being balanced or rational. In regards to that single aspect to that series, would I be the conducting myself in such a way that fits the adjectives ending off my last paragraph? Maybe not, not inherently at least. But there's more to the show than just that aspect, and if I were to only discuss that aspect when discussing things in the kinds of ways I described above, then there's a reason it'd be totally fair game for people to dismiss my review on such a basis. This more or less happens naturally and it does so for a reason. And if you're approaching things like @zal and, hypothetically at least, you and I had high affinity - you might find my Haruhi review I described above useful to you. But is that because I actually wrote a good review on the series, or is it because we're just generally aligned in how we feel about a series on a personal level? |
ManabanApr 24, 2018 1:20 PM
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Manaban said: One can find a review useful for both cases. Usually the drastic reviews just bashing an anime come from people who aligned with the reviewer's feeling on the series. And if you're approaching things like @zal and, hypothetically at least, you and I had high affinity - you might find my Haruhi review I described above useful to you. But is that because I actually wrote a good review on the series, or is it because we're just generally aligned in how we feel about a series on a personal level? I believe reviewers with the most helpful reviews (Zephsilver, Veronin, Literaturenerd, Archaeon etc) usually have high rated reviews not only because they align with some readers but their consistent quality/insight of their reviews pushes them above the others. So in that regard I do think that quality in the long run gets recognized to a degree. My affinity example was for recommendation purposes not for deciding which are good reviews, nor for which ones to rate as helpful. In terms of what show I might like, I think that alignment counts more than the quality of the review. |
zalApr 24, 2018 1:48 PM
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Manaban said: Ye, but you can still try to mitigate your own biases for a reasonable and rational take on a series that's open to fair discourse, rather than every review being walled up behind "it's just a personal opinion" and letting the individual take become so all encompassing that it becomes moot to discuss it further, which is kind of what this sounds like when you emphasize it so much. There's a difference between a criticism and a complaint, and it's more fundamental than just "it's an opinion being expressed" and should be distinguished as such for a reason. In the case of this kind of analysis, "supported by facts" is usually going to mean substantiated with evidence of the text to support an interpretation - this kind of analysis is still abstract and not concrete, but interpretations can be supported with things being supported from the source series that's being discussed. That's the basis, and the metrics of which you form an interpretation of aren't necessarily rooted in how you personally feel as much as what makes good writing - and those things can be criticized for as much and discussed to try and hammer out a better metric or standard by which quality is being interpreted. If it's all just a personal opinion, well...it doesn't matter, we just hold onto our own interpretations because we cannot technically be wrong or an opinion cannot be articulated or substantiated than our own because it's all relative to us to individuals. Like, for example, the sort of issue I prodded at with an aspect of ZephSilver's Absolute Duo review in my post above in this thread - the difference between disliking a character for being a beta MC, and asserting that the series fails at something it sets out for because of as much. The latter should be substantiated with a "why," whereas the former is something much more relative and personal and thus not a claim as subject to scrutiny. Essentially, not appealing to an individual is not necessarily the shortcoming of a show or an aspect of the show - so if we were to follow ZephSilver's assertion about "why Absolute Duo fails as a harem" then we're just railroading the harem genre into only being "good harems" if the MC is not timid or meek at the prospect of dealing with women on a holistic level. It's inflexible and entirely nonconstructive - essentially railroading how a specific role can or can not be portrayed lest it fail - yet it's being projected as a shortcoming for the series itself. It doesn't examine why that characterization makes the series worse, go into the "why it's bad" - it's just "it's bad" and, even more egregiously, asserting that anything that shares such an aspect fails as well. If I were to approach that as a mere personal opinion, then it's moot to express this issue with the review. That's the implication of asserting that everything is just a personal opinion - things being treated as objective assertions in why an aspect to a series is something wrong with the series cannot fairly be challenged because I have to assume subjectivity and relativism even though the wording and way they communicated the idea very, very clearly expresses otherwise by how they worded it. So nah. Not everything is being treated as a personal opinion at all, and it's extremely presumptive to assume such. "I don't like beta MCs" I didn't really mean to go for anything as liberal as you are free to say whatever without backing or explaining anything and that reviews (or opinions in general) can't be questioned or criticized. It's just that the reviews in their very nature are opinions, and the whole notion that reviews 'shouldn't be incluenced by personal opinions' is stupid and impossible to achieve. Personal feelings or 'good writing' being the basis are basically intertwined because there isn't any universal standard for what makes good writing, a good character or most other aspects you could divide a storytelling medium into. I don't believe you need to explicitly state and stress that it's you who personally dislikes a particular thing or considers it bad, because it's still an individual's interpretation and I see no reason to take one statement as 'stating a fact' unless they themselves imply it. Of course, the reviewer should always try and elaborate further on why a particular characteristic is positive or negative, because that always makes the review more helpful and explanatory, and something like 'beta mc' (which by the way is to me one of the most triggering things in anime communities as of late, the whole 'beta' is such a huge meme I would never take a review using the word seriously) definitely doesn't communicate much. The thing is, you could go and break things up like this forever, and at some point, when no further explanation is provided, you just have to accept things as the reviewer's standard their basing things on. To explain what I mean, let me use an example. One might state in their review that a character is bland, lacking in strong personality traits, indecisive and in general being pushed into stuff by plot and other characters. To me that is enough, I know what that's about and probably agree because I also think such characters suck. Still, not everyone has to feel that way and they might question why would that be negative, for which further explanation could be provided, let's say that it makes characters not feel like real people or hard to care for, which once again could be questioned by another person as to why should characters feel real to begin with, etc. Universal standards for things like this just do not really exist and one should just accept that criticism isn't really infallible and a particular piece of it doesn't have to work for everybody. I personally have pretty strict standards for characters, especially the protagonists, but on the other hand I really can't get behind most of criticism regarding stuff like 'plot holes' or deus ex machina and often do not care for them happening. I never felt fantastical stuff needs straight rules, consistency and limits. Heck, I would even go as far as saying I love stuff like this being vague, I love a crazy and exciting deus ex machina, and as such most criticism of Code Geass in this matter just doesn't work for me. As for boring, I might have worded myself poorly, as the word boring itself is definitely not constructive and doesn't convey much, but together with explaining why one felt this way, it definitely is constructive or at the very least useful to a person seeking enjoyment from the reviewed anime. In general I think it's good to provide an opinion of how engaging something is. I don't think a review can lose anything from having it included. For the last part, if a score isn't deserved by anything, then it has no place in a rating system, as it can never be used. As such, their meaning should be changed because otherwise they are useless. I'm only saying one shouldn't treat the '1's and '10's as some sort of 0 and 100% because it's not only useless, it's not even suggested by MAL. 10 is described as 'masterpiece' and not 'perfect' for a reason. But whatever really, discussing the numerical system is just no good and kinda useless in here, I've been on MAL long enough not to care much about the numbers, aside from a few people whose taste and scoring I understand. What I meant is just that there is huge freedom as in how you're treating particular aspects of the show in relation to each other and how much each of them contributes to your opinion of the show and mentioned numerical score. Often times it stems from the nature of the show itself, as art isn't created with all aspects given equal effort or importance in achieving its goal, and as such its pointless to treat them as such. I never said it's okay to focus entirely on one aspect of the show, and not mention the others. It's just OP was implying it's not okay to describe something as bad when it had good parts. |
ImaishiApr 24, 2018 3:37 PM
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| I usually read reviews if I'm not sure about starting a show, but I don't take them too seriously. Sometimes what I'll do is look for the review that isn't a 10 or a ridiculously low number like 2 or 3 so that it's more balanced. Everyone ranks things on a different scale... for example a 3 to someone may mean a 6 to me. Unfortunately, a lot of reviews that surge to the top will either be blind-love or a hate-review. |
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| They are okay. Though if the review is done by someone like Archaeon or Veronin I will definitely pay attention to it. People like that do it very well. Have good taste and keep it concise. But you are right about one thing. There will always be that one negative review that is usually upvoted due it being a low score. Doesn't even matter if the review barely makes any decent points or is misinformed. I mean look at the top negative review for Shokugeki no Souma and Koe no katachi. Shit is goofy as fuck. |
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| Do reviews factor in at all for a show's average? Or an average review score? There are some shows I could review if I wanted. BirdyTheMighty said: I read it. Pretty good review IMO. With pretty terrible stuff it's best to be straight to the point although longer reviews of these shows can be good when funny(though that's pretty rare).I read them sometimes for the lulz, especially if the anime has a really low score. I submitted only 1 review myself, and that was for Citrus (which is a piece of shit imo). GodMilkk said: The anime we are both talking about is "Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2". Now the review made by Polyphemus only truly reviews the story and characters nothing more. Which is not what a proper review should be. If you're going to waste an hour to write a review at least make it right. Half of it was constructive criticism-(ish) the other half was just plain anger and emotion put into it. You're supposed to review an anime as a whole not only the story or characters. What about the voice actors or the cinematography, editing or sound? Was the animation as a whole well made(the CGI for example)? Now i'm not a big fan of Code Geass but considering the first season was made 2007, just by evaluating the technical elements which i listed, you can't give it a 1. Even if the story and characters are complete and utter "crap". I mean you can but it will be illogical even ridiculous or simply put it would be a bad review. I'm not saying you should go into detail about this things but if you want to give an anime a score of 1 you should take those elements in consideration. So i don't think his review deserves 700 "likes" or the score of 1. But hey this is, i guess just my "opinion" which is all it comes down to, right? Agreed. This reminded me that there is no longer any option to vote "Not Helpful" on reviews and I think it probably used to take into account the ratio of helpful vs not helpful votes. Ie if that review had 50% or more votes for Not Helpful it wouldn't be a top review anymore. |
| If an anime with over an 8 average, as a top helpful review that says 5 or lower, I assume that that anime is controversial. https://myanimelist.net/anime/30/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion?q=neon Top reviewer for Neon actually attacks it's fans. |
The anime community in a nutshell.  |
| Some are ok, some are not so okay. Kind of a mixed bag. The main difference between reviews here and on somewhere like Metacritic for example is that people from the latter get paid to say stupid shit :) |
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GodMilkk said: So do you guys take the reviews serious? Do you decide if you should watch an anime depending on the score of the review? Do you share my view on them like i do? I find what you're saying interesting, realy. now, I never care about reviews of 1-5 score because, if I'm not gonna like an anime doesn't matter, I usualy look for scores from 7 to 10 to know what to expect, If I happen to like. I say that, but I usually NEVER look at review before watching an anime (exept some very rare cases)because it's how 1 guy felt about the anime and since everybody has different taste doesn't realy matter but when I kind of agree and/or it made me laugh(watch top review of eromanga sensei or black clover pretty good) I upvote but realy there are very few animes for whom reviews I'm interested in and it's animes I hated and/or found shit, cause real reviews BORE me to DEATH(I mean people trying to look objectively or even saying why they love it) wearas as I said earlier black clover and eromanga sensei's top reviews for example I enjoyed reading and they made me laugh and these kind of reviews, I like |
ZehennagelApr 24, 2018 5:46 PM
KuuhakuDesu said: Another question for the active users: Do you care about threads made by recent created accounts, with only 1 forum post, that doesn't even have a title that describes it and is so badly written and formatted? Do you share my view on them like i do? if what he says is correct I think he never created an acount to begin with thats why. |
it wasn't it was a mistake that you won't or are less likely to reproduce again in the future, same for me and people who will see this they are less likely to make this mistake. you helped the world get better congratulation! |
| Most reviews are just people being way too critical. Like seriously, if you wanna criticize an anime, that's completely fine, but can't you do it in an impartial/unbiased way? Yes, reviews are subjective, but at least try to explore some of the positive aspects, instead of only focusing on all the parts you hate. So with this being said, I do look at the reviews when it comes to coming across an anime I'm interested in + have never heard about before, but I try to find the ones where people aren't overly salty, or even overly ecstatic as well. Just as the saying goes, too much of anything is bad. |
 ♔ caught in the wonder ♔ |
| Like them, if they support my opinion. Otherwise they are trash |
| I cared about mal reviews back on 2011. Now I watch some trailers and pvs if I wanna watch an anime. Whenever I try to read a review I get instant brain cancer. I rarely find an good explanatory review for what the anime is about. 90% of reviews are people bashing or overpraising. |
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| Reviews are just opinions of people who watched anime and have (or at least they think so) something to say about it. Even if you take them seriously, they aren't there to tell you to watch anime or not, but rather what to expect from it so you don't get disappointed. Personally I'm more interested in review after watching anime and not before. This way I can see what other thought about it and compare it with my experiences. Occasionally I'll add my review too. |
JustAnotherShiroApr 25, 2018 12:21 AM
| Reviews are personal opinions of a reviewer that has no relevance or value to me... + most MAL reviews are ridiculous and just aimed to criticize specific shows/genre. It's basically just as what you said @GodMilkk |
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| I don't take reviews seriously, because I known most part of them aren't really reviews giving low scores because they didn't enjoy. The things you said are accurate, I agree with you. So even for having low score review I watch the anime anyway. |
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| I just read them for fun since many are troll reviews. However sometimes I wonder what others think about an anime I watched so to know that I read reviews too. |
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