Do you try to rate "objectively" and what do you think of people who rate "objectively"?

AnimeLeviathan said:
For example an objective review of AOT:

"There are titans that attack humans, etc, etc". Instead of saying "The greatest part of AOT is its main plot, the titans" Or "The worst part of AOT is the characters."

Don't you think an "objective review" would be without words like "good" and "bad"?

Satyr_icon said:

Not necessarily. Take the CGI in AoT for instance. Sure, you can't objectively say it is good or bad. Maybe a professional animator could go on depth about it, but it's a hard task anyway.
However, imagine if the CGI glitches during production and Mappa didn't notice it, and the newest episode of AoT resembles a gameplay of Goat Simulator. Sure, one could still subjectively enjoy the result, whatever the reason, but still, from a production standpoint, it was objectively a bad thing to happen and a bad result.

Kaasfondue said:
No, facts don't care abour your feelings as they say. The only thing that's factual here is what happened in the production. Whether that's good or bad is an opinion. I imagine people who hate AoT would enjoy this and call it the greatest thing to ever happen to AoT. And they wouldn't be objectively wrong no matter how many people disagree.

Satyr_icon said:

As I said:
(...)from a production standpoint(...)
Viewers might like it as I said as well, but the high-ups from Mappa surely wouldn't be happy with the result.

AnimeLeviathan said:


Well I have a question for you. Do you think its possible for one to rate objectively?

AshleyNoirWhite said:
Yes. Quality in a lot of things can be measured. If it has plot holes or mis fittings in a story, that makes the story objectively worse than a story which is cohesive and well written.

inim said:
It's not without irony when two posters who claim to rate objectively (@AshleyNoirWhite and @Nirinbo) end up with ratings of 2/10 and 9/10 for the same show "Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso", respectively. Shouldn't those ratings be at least in the same ballpark for two "objective" raters?



Image: Two objective voters discussing during duckrabbit hunting season. Photo by Ludwig Wittgenstein, ca. 1920, colorized.

inim said:
It's not without irony when two posters who claim to rate objectively (@AshleyNoirWhite and @Nirinbo) end up with ratings of 2/10 and 9/10 for the same show "Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso", respectively. Shouldn't those ratings be at least in the same ballpark for two "objective" raters?



Image: Two objective voters discussing during duckrabbit hunting season. Photo by Ludwig Wittgenstein, ca. 1920, colorized.

Nirinbo said:
- With that said, some kind of objectivity does exist. Just because we didn't study cinematography or literature and we aren't that capable of understanding what makes a script or a directing good or bad, it doesn't mean that everything is subjective.
- "Some kind of objectivity" still doesn't mean that someone can give 100% objective ratings, but that they can get closer to this ideal objectivity by giving a higher weight to the few aspects of an anime that aren't subjective.

inim said:
Sorry if I misread your statement. But the point is "some kind of objective" is just a funny way to say "subjective". Because "mostly objective" has the same semantics as "mostly pregnant". I find it funny how so many people in this thread try to redefine the word "objective" in that sense.

Nirinbo said:

I don't think pregnancy is a good example, since a review based on sheer enjoyment is less objective than another backed up with solid arguments. I think fuzzy logic works better here: 100% subjectivity exists, 100% objectivity doesn't, middle ground does exist. If you mean that the middle ground is still subjectivity I can't argue, since it is just a matter of semantics and once again the opinion of an expert would clear our doubts.

inim said:
I think it depends on the subject matter the opinions discussed are about. Take for example the opinion of an expert on economics about future growth. Those guys take hard data and numbers as input, and usually are responsible people. Yet, they disagree among each other. Similar for graduates of movie and literature college, of course highly trained and experienced critics still disagree fundamentally about works of art.

Where I agree is that writing a movie/anime critic in a professional way, with observations separated from opinion and in the know of the mechanics of film making, yields better results. But not in the sense that their opinion is less subjective. It is, however, more transparent how they arrived at it. So they make it easier and more "objective" to disagree with their subjective conclusions.

Nirinbo said:

If experts largely disagree on something, that something is part of the sphere of subjectivity by definition; other things may still be assessed objectively. Talking about 3DCG, no expert would ever think that Houseki no Kuni looks worse than Ex-Arm.

inim said:
I'm afraid that isn't true. Everybody can count the frequency of cuts per minute which is objective, but whether the critic praises it as "fast paced" or condemns it as "unnerving" is completely subjective. And Land of the Lustrous vs. Ex-Arm: Who precisely is an "expert", and who are you to consider some opinions to be better than others. Isn't that just another iteration of the same problem, because your opinion about experts is any bit as subjective as any other human opinion? It's a slippery slope you enter here which ends in Wittgenstein hell. Trust me, been there done that. Vulgo: Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one, and they are all functionally equal.

Nirinbo said:

Yeah, I think we reached a standstill. I might challenge you to find even one expert who thinks Ex-Arm looks better than Houseki no Kuni, but on the other hand I cannot demonstrate that 100% of experts agree on this matter (even if it doesn't seem unlikely).

In any case, what really matters is that we understood each others' points of view.

AnimeLeviathan said:


Don't you think an "objective review" would be more describing the anime instead of rating it with words such as "bad" and "good"

For example an objective review of AOT:

"There are titans that attack humans, etc, etc". Instead of saying "The greatest part of AOT is its main plot, the titans" Or "The worst part of AOT is the characters."

Don't you think an "objective review" would be without words like "good" and "bad"?

Wouldn't you consider following other bias's a bias as well? Think about it. You are still using bias's, except this time translating another bias into a review that you made.

ohohohohohoho said:
i think there are four layers of significance when it comes to judging a creative work:

1) the context/circumstances of its creation, which includes how it was made, why it was made, what the popular taste is and how much it conforms, what social climate it was produced into (this is where our individual and cultural values come from to begin with, which is why we can say some creative works are "products of their time," or our interpretations of things change over time as values change).
2) the formal qualities of the work
3) the viewer's interpretation, taking 1 and 2 into consideration
4) the viewer's individual heartfelt reaction to and valuation of what they see

4 is the thing that cannot be debated. what a person values and finds beautiful is up to them, even if it may seem ridiculous to someone else.

2 and 1 however, are far more concrete. there can be variance in interpretations of meaning, but gross misjudgments about a circumstance or a formal element are typically quite clear. also, it is impossible for someone to hold two absolutely contradictory interpretations about what the formal elements mean, which would also imply that if two people disagree to the point of absolute contradiction about the formal elements' meaning, then one of them is making a bad judgment.

for example, take an anime like kemonozume. someone says "i don't like it (4) because the art is strange (2)." another may reply "well the art is strange on purpose (2). it's actually quite lame (4) that most art in the anime industry is restricted to these limited variations (1) of what's become standard and popular among fans in order to be palatable to a broad audience." the first viewer replies "that's a good point, but i still don't like it(4)." to which their insightful companion says "you're an idiot(3 + 4)." however, the first critic has a retort prepared for moments like this: "you're such an elitist (3+4)."

then a third viewer says "there's nothing strange about the art (2), it's absolutely typical of the anime industry standard (1)."

well clearly, this third person has a perspective that the majority of people would find bewildering. though perhaps with some difficulty, any person could make a broad assemblage of anime art and point to consistently (ab)used traits that kemonozume plainly ignores, while most anime apply some combination of them. there's still no sense in which this person is "objectively" wrong, because the issue at hand is actually their interpretation (3) based on 1 and 2. however, it's an interpretation MOST people wouldn't agree with, just based on the evidence. my point here is that we in fact do use evidence and have a sense of what are more or less compelling conclusions when it comes to interpreting anime. in other words, "subjective" doesn't really mean "can't be wrong" as many foolish people around here insist. we still don't know, also, whether this third viewer likes what they see or not (4), or how much so, which is the element of significance in a review that truly cannot be debated whatsoever.

i would also like to add that some people will think layer 1, the social/circumstantial layer is absolutely of no importance whatsoever in criticizing a creative work. however, i think these days, you will find that most people DO find 1 important, and a person who doesn't find 1 important will not have their opinion taken as seriously by other "serious" critics, for better or for worse. whether we take 1 as important or not is a matter of our own values and what we think about the purpose and functions of creative works in society, which comes from our education and experience regarding the matter. if two people disagree about the meaning of an anime and they don't agree on the significance of layer 1, it ca (and there's nothing silly or embarrassing about it if it does) result in a serious discussion. then it's "not about anime anymore," and people may come along and say things like "relax, it's just anime." but saying "it's just anime" is not a satisfying answer to the person who takes layer 1 as important, because "it's just anime" PRESUPPOSES 1 is not important, and there is no definitive reason 1 should not be taken as important. if there were, the argument wouldn't have happened in the first place. even people who agree layer 1 is important may not agree on the exact significance of it, the extent to which it's important, or why. it's unlikely that people who disagree on the importance of 1 will come to any reconciliation in the course of a brief internet forum discussion :,(

to use another example that will probably toast some peoples' oats (fill in the numbers yourself this time, if you wish):



a person who doesn't know anything about this image might look at it and say "this is a rather bizarrely stylized, erotic drawing of a child in a tub."

a more distinguished, so called "man of culture" might reply "actually, as far as anime goes, this style is quite typical and appealing, and this character is actually 598 years old according to the author of the source material, despite her appearance."

a third, yet more distinguished historian of anime and japanese erotica might come along and add "well, in the same way that toshio maeda adopted the use of tentacles in lieu of penises to skirt censorship law, this strategy of drawing a child but attributing to the character an age that doesn't quite suit their appearance, leaning on the excuse that 'anything can be true in a work of fantasy,' was conceived for much the same purpose. in this sense, we can say that the artist knows what he/she is drawing and is building a time-tested failsafe into it to prevent censorship and deflect moral criticism, on account of what is apparently depicted, that being a child's body."

from there we get into debates about the limits and functions of consciousness itself. can a person be aroused by a drawing without being aroused by the real life analog that the drawing is meant to evoke? or in other words, is lolicon actually different from pedophilia in terms of what the object of desire is? is being attracted to children immoral if desire is outside of one's control (in that case, who is in control of it? is desire purely instinctual, or learned? why do we desire all kinds of things that are unnatural, manmade? why do we seem to desire things all the more when society says we aren't supposed to?), or is it only bringing the fantasy to bear onto actual children that is immoral? do the images we're inundated with contribute in any way to the fantasies we are capable of conceiving? do they in any way shape our cultural beliefs and the limits of our thoughts? if not, then does that mean that there were lolicon (people aroused by drawings of "lolis") before lolicon (art featuring "lolis") was ever drawn, or did the invention of lolicon art and the explosion of its popularity coincide with the birth of the lolicon fan? do people like lolicon because it is popular, or is it popular because people like it, or is it some combination of those?

these sorts of questions about how images and symbols, the individual mind, and collective culture are related are extremely important to us, and we are inclined to believe that there are definitive answers to them. not only that, but they clearly guide how we interpret the significance and effects of creative works both on the whole, as well as on a case by case basis. we happen to disagree on them, based on our own limited, perspectival insights, but there is only one truth of the matter, though the truth may shift over time like consciousness itself. if art has no affect on reality, why do so many people consider it and try to wield it as a tool for political and social change, or for the elucidation of complex ideas more generally? if it does have an effect on reality, what kind of effect? is it a deterministic, or a merely potential effect? does it depend on the vigilance of the viewer? if we have to be careful about what we express in art, where can people be free to express their darkest and most taboo thoughts, those which occupy their conscience, and perhaps torment them, but which they would never act on in reality? are people free to express what they want in anime in the first place, given its role as a tightly constrained commodity?

tl;dr i do not rate objectively (which is, as many have said, not possible), but i try to take a broad view that considers 1-4.

ohohohohohoho said:
i think there are four layers of significance when it comes to judging a creative work:

1) the context/circumstances of its creation, which includes how it was made, why it was made, what the popular taste is and how much it conforms, what social climate it was produced into (this is where our individual and cultural values come from to begin with, which is why we can say some creative works are "products of their time," or our interpretations of things change over time as values change).
2) the formal qualities of the work
3) the viewer's interpretation, taking 1 and 2 into consideration
4) the viewer's individual heartfelt reaction to and valuation of what they see

4 is the thing that cannot be debated. what a person values and finds beautiful is up to them, even if it may seem ridiculous to someone else.

2 and 1 however, are far more concrete. there can be variance in interpretations of meaning, but gross misjudgments about a circumstance or a formal element are typically quite clear. also, it is impossible for someone to hold two absolutely contradictory interpretations about what the formal elements mean, which would also imply that if two people disagree to the point of absolute contradiction about the formal elements' meaning, then one of them is making a bad judgment.

for example, take an anime like kemonozume. someone says "i don't like it (4) because the art is strange (2)." another may reply "well the art is strange on purpose (2). it's actually quite lame (4) that most art in the anime industry is restricted to these limited variations (1) of what's become standard and popular among fans in order to be palatable to a broad audience." the first viewer replies "that's a good point, but i still don't like it(4)." to which their insightful companion says "you're an idiot(3 + 4)." however, the first critic has a retort prepared for moments like this: "you're such an elitist (3+4)."

then a third viewer says "there's nothing strange about the art (2), it's absolutely typical of the anime industry standard (1)."

well clearly, this third person has a perspective that the majority of people would find bewildering. though perhaps with some difficulty, any person could make a broad assemblage of anime art and point to consistently (ab)used traits that kemonozume plainly ignores, while most anime apply some combination of them. there's still no sense in which this person is "objectively" wrong, because the issue at hand is actually their interpretation (3) based on 1 and 2. however, it's an interpretation MOST people wouldn't agree with, just based on the evidence. my point here is that we in fact do use evidence and have a sense of what are more or less compelling conclusions when it comes to interpreting anime. in other words, "subjective" doesn't really mean "can't be wrong" as many foolish people around here insist. we still don't know, also, whether this third viewer likes what they see or not (4), or how much so, which is the element of significance in a review that truly cannot be debated whatsoever.

i would also like to add that some people will think layer 1, the social/circumstantial layer is absolutely of no importance whatsoever in criticizing a creative work. however, i think these days, you will find that most people DO find 1 important, and a person who doesn't find 1 important will not have their opinion taken as seriously by other "serious" critics, for better or for worse. whether we take 1 as important or not is a matter of our own values and what we think about the purpose and functions of creative works in society, which comes from our education and experience regarding the matter. if two people disagree about the meaning of an anime and they don't agree on the significance of layer 1, it ca (and there's nothing silly or embarrassing about it if it does) result in a serious discussion. then it's "not about anime anymore," and people may come along and say things like "relax, it's just anime." but saying "it's just anime" is not a satisfying answer to the person who takes layer 1 as important, because "it's just anime" PRESUPPOSES 1 is not important, and there is no definitive reason 1 should not be taken as important. if there were, the argument wouldn't have happened in the first place. even people who agree layer 1 is important may not agree on the exact significance of it, the extent to which it's important, or why. it's unlikely that people who disagree on the importance of 1 will come to any reconciliation in the course of a brief internet forum discussion :,(

to use another example that will probably toast some peoples' oats (fill in the numbers yourself this time, if you wish):



a person who doesn't know anything about this image might look at it and say "this is a rather bizarrely stylized, erotic drawing of a child in a tub."

a more distinguished, so called "man of culture" might reply "actually, as far as anime goes, this style is quite typical and appealing, and this character is actually 598 years old according to the author of the source material, despite her appearance."

a third, yet more distinguished historian of anime and japanese erotica might come along and add "well, in the same way that toshio maeda adopted the use of tentacles in lieu of penises to skirt censorship law, this strategy of drawing a child but attributing to the character an age that doesn't quite suit their appearance, leaning on the excuse that 'anything can be true in a work of fantasy,' was conceived for much the same purpose. in this sense, we can say that the artist knows what he/she is drawing and is building a time-tested failsafe into it to prevent censorship and deflect moral criticism, on account of what is apparently depicted, that being a child's body."

from there we get into debates about the limits and functions of consciousness itself. can a person be aroused by a drawing without being aroused by the real life analog that the drawing is meant to evoke? or in other words, is lolicon actually different from pedophilia in terms of what the object of desire is? is being attracted to children immoral if desire is outside of one's control (in that case, who is in control of it? is desire purely instinctual, or learned? why do we desire all kinds of things that are unnatural, manmade? why do we seem to desire things all the more when society says we aren't supposed to?), or is it only bringing the fantasy to bear onto actual children that is immoral? do the images we're inundated with contribute in any way to the fantasies we are capable of conceiving? do they in any way shape our cultural beliefs and the limits of our thoughts? if not, then does that mean that there were lolicon (people aroused by drawings of "lolis") before lolicon (art featuring "lolis") was ever drawn, or did the invention of lolicon art and the explosion of its popularity coincide with the birth of the lolicon fan? do people like lolicon because it is popular, or is it popular because people like it, or is it some combination of those?

these sorts of questions about how images and symbols, the individual mind, and collective culture are related are extremely important to us, and we are inclined to believe that there are definitive answers to them. not only that, but they clearly guide how we interpret the significance and effects of creative works both on the whole, as well as on a case by case basis. we happen to disagree on them, based on our own limited, perspectival insights, but there is only one truth of the matter, though the truth may shift over time like consciousness itself. if art has no affect on reality, why do so many people consider it and try to wield it as a tool for political and social change, or for the elucidation of complex ideas more generally? if it does have an effect on reality, what kind of effect? is it a deterministic, or a merely potential effect? does it depend on the vigilance of the viewer? if we have to be careful about what we express in art, where can people be free to express their darkest and most taboo thoughts, those which occupy their conscience, and perhaps torment them, but which they would never act on in reality? are people free to express what they want in anime in the first place, given its role as a tightly constrained commodity?

tl;dr i do not rate objectively (which is, as many have said, not possible), but i try to take a broad view that considers 1-4.

Justp94 said:
Way too many narcs on this site have an average cumulative rating in the 4s, 5s, and 6s for their lists. It's kind of pathetic they hate so many anime and only like a small amount. It's crazy they call themselves otakus.

taylormoo said:
While I try to be objective to the best of my abilities, I ultimately fail. Because in the end, even if a manga/anime has setbacks, if it truly moved me, then I'm giving it a good score. For example, I know Ao Haru Ride is not a manga without any flaws, but to me it's a masterpiece. It's one of those stories that lasted with me for a long time. My mind is still nagging me to give Devilman: Crybaby a 10/10, but I've settled at an 8 because I know it's not absolutely perfect. Either way, it depends on how I feel? This wasn't really an answer.

Justp94 said:
Way too many narcs on this site have an average cumulative rating in the 4s, 5s, and 6s for their lists. It's kind of pathetic they hate so many anime and only like a small amount. It's crazy they call themselves otakus.

AnimeLeviathan said:


I feel like im being called out... Are you calling me out?

Opticflash said:


Whoa... it looks like someone gave an average of over 8 for their anime, with about half of them being 9 or 10. I think that is way too generous.

Justp94 said:


Hahaha no, I just checked out your completed list, a lot of your ratings are somewhat legit/understandable.

I still don't understand why people don't drop anime they don't like though, like something they'd consider in the 1 - 5 range.

-Lofn- said:
Yeah, let me just use my predilection and stance on a subject matter that would surely not be huckstered.

Ratings are completely irrelevant, listen to the words people will and should give. A 4/10 score wouldn't speak any volumes regarding their criticism, be it biased or not. The important thing to remember, everyone will have their piece of mind onto something and that's fine. The important part is if it's impressionable, understandable, and convincing; whether you agree or not. At the end of the day, it is more important to scrutinize it however you like and there is nothing wrong about that. Everyone has their own angle, the best way I see opinions will always be like an ocular device; everyone sees the same thing, but the colors will be different for different lenses. Even the more polymaths will see things and understand things differently, and most definitely enjoy things differently.

Bottom line is, I just slap a score that I feel about the show and call it a day. No harm done, unless someone who is choleric and be mad about the score breathe from your neck, but that's not my problem.