MAL is one of the biggest anime fandom sample size so the scores and reviews here matter right?
| I feel like scores shouldn't really be taken too seriously, but reviews I think matter cause it's a justification as to why someone rated a certain anime the way they did. |
arcticmontysDec 3, 2019 5:48 PM
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| from a statistical standpoint, the more people you have in your sample size, the more accurate the data is, so yes its pretty important. obviously MAL ratings arent prefect representations of the opinions of the entire anime community as a whole but its definitely the best we got. |
| Mal scores are not that trustful. How come the most latest anime nowadays have high rating, Scores of those anime will become lower as time passes. Let's say for me those anime below year 2013 has more accurate scores than 2014-2019 anime. |
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| I'll concede the degrees to which it matters. [1] For people starting out, starting off with MAL's highest rated shows that sound to their taste is probably a good idea [2] The probability of you liking an anime on page N of the top rateddlist is higher than the probability of you liking an anime on page N+1, for the most part [3] If a series' score is really low (below a 6 or 7 in MAL terms), it's very unlikely you'll enjoy it. Things that don't make it matter so much. [1] The list has a recency bias. There's a lot of stuff at the top that was seasonally popular that people don't talk about as much some older shows. [2] Spam votes [3] There's better ways to decide what to watch. Looking up critically acclaimed works, seeing what's critically acclaimed in genres you like even more specifically, what a trusted reviewer of yours recommends, what studio/director was involved, what people say about the series so you can understand the appeal through osmosis, etc. So it kinda matters but I don't really rely on it. |
| Will in my opinion, sure scores are a good indication of what to expect of the show, but I think they are not true representation of what people think. So lets look at two of the top 10 list here, Koe no Katachi and 3-gatsu no Lion 2nd Season. These two have the same score even though Koe has half a million ratings and 3-gatsu has 74k ratings, they should not be equal. Also 3-gatsu gives another problem, I get why they separate seasons, but of course sequels will have the higher scores, only true fans will keep watching with the exception of the weirdos who hate watch but there is not many of those. Look at the Natsume Yuujinchou series, it is dominating the Shoujo list but the later seasons have less and less ratings, so that should not be a thing. Finally you will have the general love and hate of certain genres like the worshiping of anything Shonen and the hate on anything Isekai and/or Ecchi. As for Reviews, will I thinkon Mal nobody takes them to heart, like look at the highest liked review of FMA, the show has around 950k ratings but the review has 3150 likes, thats around 0.3% so it's hard to take them as a representation as will. And personally I barely look at them because it's one of the three, fans or haters, which is fine but they will be clearly biased, or people who are writing an Essay for their critical thinking class, and trying to be deep and meaningful like they are writing a review for the Mona Lisa while it is a an Ecchi show about a pervert Oniichan. Finally Anime is mainly catered towards Japan, here we barely compare to the numbers of Japanese watchers that pay for them. Lets be honest how many of hardcore watchers here watch anime 100% legally, like sure you are subbed to Netflix and Crunchy but still you will torrent some shows. |
| How can both reviews and scores matter on this site when they're so easily exploitable? Yeah...I don't think so |
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| All three choices are applicable on MAL. They do matter to an extent but also doesn't matter to an extent whereas sometimes you can't judge either i.e. which one will be more applicable of those two so sometimes some users don't know. I think you can add option 4 which is all of the 3 above. |
| Should I troll in the troll bait threads? It is kinda idiotic to be logical in the troll bait threads. Well, it will depend on my mood. |
| Sure, and OreGairu and Hyouka are pretty much Dragonball Z tier in terms of recognition. Also, more people have seen Danmachi, High School DxD, Charlotte and Chuunikoi than DBZ. Don't look at me, I'm just going with what MAL says. It's not representative of an accurate view of the entire anime community, not even close still, and there's some glaring ways that manifests and displays itself. Like the Dragonball Z thing. Fuck, if you want a real laugh, look at what the first Pokemon anime is just as viewed as according to MAL. I *doubt* more people have seen Eromanga Sensei than the original Pokemon anime, and I *really doubt* that Asterisk War is hot on its tail in terms of viewer count. Or, to highlight the disconnect, the fact that people here will invariably talk about mainstream audiences like they're an alien collective whenever topics like "What is a good gateway anime?" comes up, because, well, these people barely understand those audiences outside of the typical MAL userbase of wannabe reviewers, potential school shooters, and people who like to LARP like they're some coffee shop frequenting art aficionado and not just another lonely turbovirgin. Mainstream audiences - the *very* mainstream audiences - are heavily underrepresented on MAL. I don't even think this is up for debate. Is it a very large sample size? Sure, and that does (unfortunately) lend it some validity. But there's some pretty glaring things that make it not entirely reliable when it comes to certain things either. And you people underestimate just how ignorant normies tend to be of the broader spectrum of anime, like the guy I went to school with who thought he was into something unique and special for liking fucking Fairy Tail and made it a point to talk about that on Facebook as much as possible and - successfully - pitch it to the other battle shounen-only dweebs that it was some overlooked series that doesn't get enough attention. Ratings for more niche products are another big one, albeit that's hardly a MAL exclusive problem. Still doesn't make that info particularly useful to me in most cases. |
ManabanDec 3, 2019 11:09 PM
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Wharf said: Just because other people have better writing skills than you doesn't mean they're all "wannabe reviewers" They usually don't have better writing skills than me, but that's not really saying much of note because it's such a low hurdle to clear. What's probably more depressing is the fact that English isn't my native language and this is still the case far more often than not. Also, yes, I will refer to them as wannabe reviewers because the consensus amongst many reviewers on this site is incredibly myopic and I don't want to validate them as anything more if they follow that consensus too strictly. You're making it out like I'm anti-reviewer whenever my MAL clubs of 12000+ and 10000+ members each have sponsored non-Ecchi fan reviewers on this site before, and even sunk resources into developing promotional graphics for them. So, reality would dictate that I'm just not in favor of a consensus amongst prominent reviewers on this site that can be surmised in a fucking bingo card of mostly focusing on superficial aspects of the series like what audience they perceive it to be targeted towards and whether or not a character falls into a -dere achetype and using that perception to form reductive takes on the breadth of the cast as a whole. Wharf said: Also, "mass shooters". What the fuck? Are you some sort of NRA boomer trying to pin stuff on anime? I'm 23, and, again, not American. So I'm not in the NRA because that is a uniquely American way to try to delude reality. I suggest having an account on this site for more than 21 posts and a couple of months to see some of the absolutely evil shit people say on here sometimes. Also, frequent CE and CD more in particular. Lastly, because I'm pointing out that perception of a portion of this site's userbase doesn't suddenly mean I'm condemning anime as being the cause for them being that way. It's definitely a leap to say that I'm promoting as much. There's nothing to be ashamed of in being a virgin, especially in the case of somebody who doesn't actively seek out a relationship or sex to focus primarily on their work and school life like I'm currently doing. What is pretty shameful is the leniency at which people will toss that accusation around while trying to spew some sophist bile about how above it all they are. Which is a frequent behavior on AD that doesn't get mocked nearly enough, particularly towards Moe and Fanservice and its fans. Now, please, stop talking out of your ass about how wrong I am about everybody when you've got 21 posts to your name. I can't even get mad at how much you misconstrued my arguments because you have so little experience with this community that there is no way you could respond with anything else. |
ManabanDec 5, 2019 12:54 AM
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| Scores should never matter, unless you are just getting into anime. Remember, score will always be an opinion, not fact. Bots are only an issue if they cause actual problems to the website. Reviews shouldn't matter (Unless written well). Most reviews tend to be more biased rather than helpful. However, recommendations should matter. Which unfortunately, they're very very bad. |
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| I voted yes, but because the scores at least the ones I give matter (to me). I don't care about the scores given by the majority or minority of fans. Especially the scores of fandom obsessed anime watchers. Reason is because those people will not rate an anime based on how much they enjoyed it. But rate it based on whether it should be lower or higher than their favorites. |
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| As they say - 95% of people are idiots. So why should it matter? |
 There is such thing as shit taste. Only idiots think that every "work of art" should have the same value.  Persona anime are good. Deal with it. |
Wharf said: The guy calling everybody else turbovirgins and potential mass shooters with no evidence for any of them says "don't talk out of your ass".I would actually laugh if your comment wasn't so stupid Well, now I'm just starting to feel like I hit too close to home. |
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| depends what you are referring to. if you want to get an aggregate of what general audiences think, then sure - they matter. Do people liking something makes it objectively good - No. People disliking something does not make it objectively bad either. |
| https://combosmooth.itch.io/ - I make free-to-play browser games for PC and I sell pixel art animation here |
| I find YouTube's anime fandom to be more accurate. |
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| Scores will never matter no matter how big the sample size is because it is an indication of popularity, not an indication of quality. And the thing with popularity is that it changes over time, so a high score now will not necessarily mean it will have a high score 10 years down the line. And that's the biggest reason why saying MAL's score is relevant just because it has a big user base is invalid. If a show already has high scores, it gets more exposure to newer anime watchers and could essentially filter people who prefers one genre over another, making the whole community biased towards one type in the long run. Hence, the average score from the user base would be more of an indication of that specific community. |
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS. |
| I thought so... and then I saw Chyhayafuru's last season score.... |
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| I think with how much this has been talked about recently, I've repeated my opinion three or four times, but I guess I'll do so again here, especially as it's been refined so this will probably be the best I'll be able to phrase it for now. First of all, the general question "do MAL scores matter" is kind of broad. They matter to some people, so they matter in some sense. People answering "no" are just saying it doesn't matter to them. Which is fair if that's how you interpret the question. But do they matter in general? (idk why I'm so big on italics all of a sudden btw) You have to ask "for what purpose?" The following two purposes are the most talked about. 1. As indicators of quality? Obviously MAL is a popularity contest, but I would say the ratings are a "fair" indicator of very generalized quality. Thing is, there isn't much to compare them to. Reviews on YouTube, blogs etc. and awards maybe. But even those things tend to be popularity contests. If you're looking for a way to assess some objective measure of quality (if that even exists in a form distinct from popularity, which I'm on the fence about) then MAL is on par with the alternatives, possibly even better. There are a huge amount of shows in the lower ranges which are high quality works of art but too niche to reach higher scores. Many classics of anime are buried below shows which happened to appeal more to the majority. But they are the exceptions rather than the rule. 2. As a way of telling if you will like x anime? While a random person is more likely to enjoy a randomly picked anime from the top 100 compared to one from the top 100-200, the difference is probably not that much. Also, a low chance compared to a slightly lower chance isn't very useful. I'd say MAL ratings are poor for this purpose, compared with the alternatives. The problem is that MAL ratings represent the taste of someone who doesn't exist. They are an amalgamation of everyones taste, which is no ones taste. And there are much better alternatives to looking at MAL average scores, though they aren't as easy as looking at a number. But anyone whos been around for a little bit knows how easy it is to pick up recommendations which are suitable to their tastes from the general community. So do MAL scores matter? Well, moreso for purpose 1 than 2, but I'd say they matter well enough. There's the other factor though that really makes a difference. A higher MAL score means more people will watch a show. This gives ratings on the streaming sites and leads to potential merch being bought, and just increases online buzz so more people watch the show. I'd be interested to know how much a high MAL score is worth to an anime monetarily, because I bet if it were possible to work out it wouldn't be a small number. This directly impacts what anime get made, what anime get sequels, the type of anime that get funding etc. When you consider that last point in addition to others I can see no reasonable argument to say MAL don't matter. Of course they do. |
| “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Aggregate scoring is bad for the anime fandom |
YossaRedMage said: It's precisely because of this ambiguity that I've punted replying to this thread.First of all, the general question "do MAL scores matter" is kind of broad. They matter to some people, so they matter in some sense. People answering "no" are just saying it doesn't matter to them. Which is fair if that's how you interpret the question. But do they matter in general? (idk why I'm so big on italics all of a sudden btw) You have to ask "for what purpose?" YossaRedMage said: I'd say old shows getting buried by obscurity and low scores in a feedback loop is more the rule than the exception, but I'm in the "there isn't a single objective measure of quality" camp.There are a huge amount of shows in the lower ranges which are high quality works of art but too niche to reach higher scores. Many classics of anime are buried below shows which happened to appeal more to the majority. But they are the exceptions rather than the rule. YossaRedMage said: Yeah, genre is a far better thing to use to find stuff to watch. I guess one could try to use a combination of different criteria, but then one would have to weigh them in some way and it'd probably be less of a hassle just to do a quick genre skim for example.2. As a way of telling if you will like x anime? While a random person is more likely to enjoy a randomly picked anime from the top 100 compared to one from the top 100-200, the difference is probably not that much. Also, a low chance compared to a slightly lower chance isn't very useful. I'd say MAL ratings are poor for this purpose, compared with the alternatives. And for that matter, I'd say that picking from related show recommendations (i.e. "if you liked X then you might like Y") is probably a very viable place to start. YossaRedMage said: I want to say scores don't matter but unfortunately I can't help but think they do affect commercial viability in the way you've described.There's the other factor though that really makes a difference. A higher MAL score means more people will watch a show. This gives ratings on the streaming sites and leads to potential merch being bought, and just increases online buzz so more people watch the show. I'd be interested to know how much a high MAL score is worth to an anime monetarily, because I bet if it were possible to work out it wouldn't be a small number. This directly impacts what anime get made, what anime get sequels, the type of anime that get funding etc. When you consider that last point in addition to others I can see no reasonable argument to say MAL don't matter. Of course they do. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
Gendolfas said: Matter for what?.. To be used by some media, like news, or youtubers?.. Probably.. To be used by people to choosing what anime to watch?.. Probably as well.. Will it make people watch better or worse anime, though?.. Not really.. It will just make more popular shows even more popular, that's all.. I guess, it has it's pluses, for that people can talk about seasonal anime, more people sharing same things in anime community.. It kinda is better for socializing and monetary side of industry growing.. It kinda doesn't matter, though, for me personally that much, because I watch more anime for things I like, like characters, or feeling for some sorts of genre, or other things.. And really I'm not the only one, there is some percentage of people who prefer choosing by their tastes, or other things, not popularity.. So in the end, I guess scores are probably pretty important on broader spectrum, for community as a whole.. Better for socializing and monetary sides.. And how much scores are important to you - you decide by yourself, pretty much.. I agree with you, man. These numbers are useful to people, even if it's not everyone. For those that agree with how the overall average scores are, they will find them useful when deciding what watch. For those that don't care, they will watch a show regardless of the score it has, and so the 'unpopular' shows will still be getting viewed, too. I think it definitely helps when looking at seasonal anime, because those new shows try to make the best first impression that they can to gain more viewers. Even with the rampant bot problem, I still think the scores are fairly reflective of the general community consensus. Not everyone is going to agree with them, of course. But that doesn't mean that they are completely worthless. I certainly hope not, otherwise the stupid number of spreadsheets I've made from the data on this site are useless :'D |
ISOQuorra said: I agree with you, man. These numbers are useful to people, even if it's not everyone. For those that agree with how the overall average scores are, they will find them useful when deciding what watch. For those that don't care, they will watch a show regardless of the score it has, and so the 'unpopular' shows will still be getting viewed, too. I think it definitely helps when looking at seasonal anime, because those new shows try to make the best first impression that they can to gain more viewers. Even with the rampant bot problem, I still think the scores are fairly reflective of the general community consensus. Not everyone is going to agree with them, of course. But that doesn't mean that they are completely worthless. I certainly hope not, otherwise the stupid number of spreadsheets I've made from the data on this site are useless :'D Well, your spreadsheets are useful as far as you know yourself, what your results tell.. ;p Well, and what others see in them, maybe, as well, I guess.. Just do, what you consider meaningful yourself, man/girl.. ;p |
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