"Nothing deserves a 10/10" "Objectively good doesn't exist"

EndlessMaria said:
If I really fucking love a show I will rate it 10/10. I don't care what others say.

orz_anime_seiei said:


you should care. Otherwise, nobody will like you.

Lunilah said:
Subjective and Objective go hand in hand when reviewing something whether you're aware of/acknowledge it or not. Even if you're just using an objective tool to look at something more critically, it's still your subjective interpretation as it's the tool that is objective not you.

"Nothing deserves a 10/10" - Saying this, literally, implies you're disregarding either how you personally feel or subjectivity in general, which is a very arrogant position as there can be no end all be all critic.

"Objectively good doesn't exist" - When this is said in literal disregard for objectivity it's a statement derived from delusion, a just as arrogant but far more insulting position to me as it questions basic intelligence rather than being simply wrong.

I find the former to be much easier to work with in someone as they already have the mindset of wanting to be right, whereas the latter doesn't care at all with most conversations becoming stonewalled. While i have no 10/10s, that isn't because i don't think any of the shows i've watched don't deserve it, just that i haven't found MINE yet.

Perfection is in the eyes of the beholder.

orz_anime_seiei said:
Being well-liked pays off. When you are liked, people are more likely to give in to you, they are more likely to admit you are right and easier to accept your arguments when you want to convince them of something. Although the majority of people say that we can not influence whether or not someone likes us or not, psychological research confirms that certain behaviors and stimuli arouse more sympathy in us than others. Sympathy and respect are components of interpersonal attractiveness, which tells you if people are receiving you positively.

An example of psychological mechanisms in the sphere of being liked may be the halo effect (halo), which consists in the fact that attractive people attribute positive character traits. The same applies to the transfer of feelings relating to a given person to the proposal she is forwarding. Thanks to Robert Cialdini's research, we know that if your client likes you, he will less often question your product. By taking care of your image and how others perceive you, you can influence whether you are liked.

EndlessMaria said:

That makes sense, but it's really not that easy at all.

Lunilah said:
Do you want people to agree with you because they like you or because you're right? Do people who can't separate their feelings and intellectual honesty matter outside of your existing friends group? If you're not craving a need for other peoples approval then i wouldn't worry about it.

goathead said:
What I don't get are people who are giving mostly 4 or 5's to the shows they are watching. I see that pretty often since I'm here. I mean it looks like they don't like what they are watching, and I'm asking myself "What is the point in watching anime in that case if it's so bad?" I mean I like watching anime, I give mostly 8, often 9,cause I like what I see. If a show manages to move me emotionally or keeps me occupied for some time after I watched it, I give it even a 10. Not necessarily because it is the best show of all, but because it is for me. I mean I'm not a trained reviewer and I listen to my stomach when it comes to notes.

tenltd said:
"Nothing deserves a 10/10" is a silly phrase. If you give your favourite shows a 9/10 because nothing is perfect, then your 9/10 effectively becomes a 9/9 since it's the highest number on your personal scale.

"Objectively good doesn't exist" is true though. Like, if someone unironically liked Mars of Destruction, how are you going to prove them wrong? You can convince them to change their mind, but that won't make it an objectively bad show.

Pullman said:
You probably don't, we just have different ideas of average. Most things are always gonna be average, but if you like something even average can provide a lot of enjoyment, so it isn't a bad thing. An average cold beer after a hard day of work is still gonna be great every single time, just like an average anime from a genre I love will always be a pleasure to watch.

You'll give a show like that an 8, I'll give it a 5 or 6. After all, that's what our statistical average scores are. Mine just happens to align with the actual meaning of the scores as defined by MAL, while yours doesn't, because it differentiates less between how much you enjoyed something since you only use 3-4 different scores on a 10 point scale. Different rating system, same amount of enjoyment gained, different numbers to represent it. That's all that scores are after all, numbers. Don't mistake numbers with the actual enjoyment people feel.

You don't get a monopoly on enjoyment just because you refuse to rate below 8. That's now how it works. I probably enjoy my 6s at least as much as you do your 8s, because on your list 8 is a below average score, while my 6s are above average.

Nurguburu said:
@goathead "I don't get are people who are giving mostly 4 or 5's to the shows they are watching". That's called opinion. Anyway, bad shows can be fun to watch. Also, 5 is average, not bad, not good. Your mean score is 8.75, you don't need the scores in the first place.

Akhdas said:
Is this another way of saying 'If you don't like it don't watch it' type of deal? Which is a completely broken argument because you have to watch it to determine whether you like it therefore giving it the score. Unless humans have precognitive ability to judge something without using them which i find that hard to believe.

goathead said:
What I don't get are people who are giving mostly 4 or 5's to the shows they are watching.

goathead said:
"What is the point in watching anime in that case if it's so bad?"

fiadh said:


Nah, even assessing a show using these guideposts, you're not getting an objective assessment. True objectivity literally cannot exist within art, because everyone's approaching it from a different angle. Human beings are not objective by nature, so unless we relinquish all critiquing rights to robots (who, lacking subjectivity, would miss the point more often than not) we can't approach true objectivity in art.

For example, I am an artist. When I watched the currently airing second season of One Punch Man, I was apalled by not only the lazy, almost slideshow-like animation but the truly amateurish level of the colouring and use of lighting/composition in a lot of the frames. Knowing what I know about colour, how to use it, and the way textures and light interact, my critique of the animation was pretty damning.
For someone who doesn't have that backdrop of experience, though? Who knows, the animation might look good. Maybe they think like, idk, the lines look smooth or something. There are definitely a lot of people who don't think it's anywhere near as egregiously, offensively bad as I do.

Your other examples are all subjective, too. Characters? We can't be objective about that, whether a character and their arc resonates with someone is deeply personal. Even a character that many think is terribly written can, for someone else, be extremely relatable and compelling if their own personal backstory makes them compatible with the character.

Aastra343 said:
I don't think art can be objectively analyzed through a rating scale, because there is no such thing as inherently good. "Good" is a trait subjectively plastered onto things, depending on one's traits, tastes, interests, culture, media exposure, upbringing, prior experiences and so on. Sure, there are common conceptions about the quality of a work, but even that is arbitrary, affected by a people's culture and history, as well as their media. There isn't objectively good and bad art, but art that appeals to you or repels you. Sometimes rubbing you the wrong way is the whole point of a work's existence, some might appreciate it, others may not. So yeah, some people may think there's no such thing as a 10/10 because they value certain aspects of works more, others may feel like anything they enjoy is a 10/10.

fiadh said:
True objectivity literally cannot exist within art, because everyone's approaching it from a different angle.

scratchedone said:
It's very subjective.. I just think we might allow ourselves to give a 10/10 to those ones we felt extremely touched after the contact with them (what may persevere for days, months or years). That's why I believe NOTHING is a 10/10 *forever* because we can change the way we feel about something in some point in our future... so what is now, may not to be then anymore.
The discussion about "nothing deserves a 10/10" is kind of it: nothing will deserve 'cause simply we don't remain forever in a state of mind about that, in the present moment we don't experience that delight we felt.

In "Objectively good doesn't exist", I see a very extreme way of thinking. I stand by my comment on the sentence above.
I don't know if it just me, but some animes I've watched years ago don't have the same effect on me rn. Back then I'd tell you how much they were the best stories ever created, and how I'd give a maximum review to them. However, I wouldn't do it again now. I don't think they are really "THAT GOOD", so the review would be medium. I enjoyed them, I respect how I felt, they were WHOA very good. REALLY good. Just aren't anymore.

RogertheShrubber said:
I could go on for pages about objectivity but won't because I have no energy to do so and nobody gives a shit anyway, just know there are excellent chances you the reader are misusing the term.

The 10/10 comment is a bit more interesting as I am a person who gives out very few tens, zero in fact as of the time of this post (although a few have come close). However this is not because I feel as though the "perfect" anime could not exist (notwithstanding the dubious nature of such a statement) but rather because from the larger context of film as a medium I have yet to find an anime which can be compared to the better examples of film. Note that this is merely a choice in conventions as I could just as reasonably rate anime as a separate medium entirely, the best of which would receive 10's but this of course would lead to a difference in scale between the mediums and I would prefer to avoid this if possible.