| Let me explain: by benchmarking I mean rating everything comparatively, like measuring the quality of a specific anime or manga in terms of what do you consider good or bad in the media. I like to evaluate everything I watch and read on its own, but I think it's also useful if you have some specific parameters in mind. Let me give you some examples: "This anime isn't better than Bleach in what's trying to achieve, so it shouldn't be rated higher" or "this anime isn't worse than Darling in the FranXX, so it shouldn't be lower than that". What do you think of this method, do you use it to organize your list, or do you think differently about the media and prefer to analyze everything on its own merit? Give me your thoughts. |
  Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores To clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours |
| I think I know what you mean. For me, an 8 is anything I deem better than Welcome to the NHK!. Welcome to the NHK! is very very close to an 8 for me but there were a few things I didn't like about it which just bumped it down to a 7. So I use that as my benchmark. |
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| Well, yeah.. I think I have done something similar. |
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| I prefer to rate an anime on its own merit and not compare it to others, but then I kind of unintentionally make a benchmark for myself when I see it sitting beside other anime in which I've also rated the same. "Wait I rated this a 7, but rated this other anime a 7, but no doubt I thought this was better than that one? Huh??" I changed ALL my scores several times just because of this. Eventually I found a way to work around this by just giving myself decimal scores, which I put in list tags. So if I rate 2 anime as a 7/10 but in my head I'm thinking one is better than the other, then I can give one like a 7.2 and maybe the other a 7.8. You could say that I should just lower one to a 6 or raise the other to an 8, but then it conflicts with the anime in THOSE ranges and it all just falls like dominoes. |
  NYANPASU  5700XT |
| I'm not sure, but I think I don't compare anime to anime, but I make some comparisons about the aspects of the works. An example would be how different battle shounen try to do the same thing and which one I like more. |
| If you're a fanboy, please don't waste my time. Watch more movies, please. Kafka, Fu Xuan, Jingliu, Topaz and Huohuo. |
| I don't really compare anime on a wider spectrum, like you said with your examples, except in rarer cases where I'm trying to decide if an anime really deserves that 9 or (in even rarer cases-) 10 score. In those cases, I'll definitely at least try to think about if the anime in question measures up alongside the other 9s or 10s in my list. Which is actually where a lot of my 8s stand; they just didn't have that 'something' that made them worthy to sit among my higher scores, in my eyes. More generally, though, I've found I'm pretty comfortable with comparing anime of a similar concept, to each other. Like, for example, I compared Isekai Shokudou against Isekai Izakaya: Koto Aitheria no Izakaya Nobu, because they're both shows that were trying to do something with the whole 'normal restaurant in a another world' theme. Or how I compared K-On! with Bocchi the Rock!, or Idoly Pride against The Idolm@ster... shows that are obviously trying to do something at least a little similar, but maybe go about it in a different way. I try not to go too far with it, because oftentimes the two shows have totally different focal points in terms of characters, story, etc. But I always feel like it's a good starting point, where I can ask, "Did I feel as much of an impact from Idoly Pride's idols + story as I did from The Idolm@ster's?"- and then go from there. Sometimes though, a show completely shakes me to my core and forces me to rethink all of my scores all over again. That's when I start thinking "did this other anime even deserve the score I gave it in the first place?" and I'll change some scores around if I feel like I absolutely need to. |
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SaiteiDaOrette said: I think I know what you mean. For me, an 8 is anything I deem better than Welcome to the NHK!. Welcome to the NHK! is very very close to an 8 for me but there were a few things I didn't like about it which just bumped it down to a 7. So I use that as my benchmark. Yeah, but I feel like it's better to have more than one benchmark in the media, and maybe even sort them out by genre and theme sometimes. Like when you're evaluating a Music anime, you question yourself: ''is this better than K-On, if so how exactly, if not how exactly, how it diverges in terms of quality?'' And then you give your verdict. Or when you're watching something Psychological: ''is this better than Neon Genesis Evangelion...?'' And then you follow the same logical pattern for everything you watch. El001 said: I do, Ping Pong is my benchmark for a perfect 10/10. I feel like I have very clear in my mind what's a 10/10 for me as well, and that's why it's a very rare score for me to use so freely. BetaMaleUltra said: I prefer to rate an anime on its own merit and not compare it to others, but then I kind of unintentionally make a benchmark for myself when I see it sitting beside other anime in which I've also rated the same. "Wait I rated this a 7, but rated this other anime a 7, but no doubt I thought this was better than that one? Huh??" I changed ALL my scores several times just because of this. Eventually I found a way to work around this by just giving myself decimal scores, which I put in list tags. So if I rate 2 anime as a 7/10 but in my head I'm thinking one is better than the other, then I can give one like a 7.2 and maybe the other a 7.8. You could say that I should just lower one to a 6 or raise the other to an 8, but then it conflicts with the anime in THOSE ranges and it all just falls like dominoes. I have some very similar issues with my ratings, while I try to rate everything on its own, sometimes I change the scores, by a small margin, after giving an overview into my list. Like I sort them out by the score and compare them one by one to see if I'm being fair or not, and then I make up some sort of ranking in my mind. I still haven't found a way to avoid this tho, but it's not something that happens a lot anyway. Also I don't think it's all that wrong to do it. smoltulip said: I don't really compare anime on a wider spectrum, like you said with your examples, except in rarer cases where I'm trying to decide if an anime really deserves that 9 or (in even rarer cases-) 10 score. In those cases, I'll definitely at least try to think about if the anime in question measures up alongside the other 9s or 10s in my list. Which is actually where a lot of my 8s stand; they just didn't have that 'something' that made them worthy to sit among my higher scores, in my eyes. More generally, though, I've found I'm pretty comfortable with comparing anime of a similar concept, to each other. Like, for example, I compared Isekai Shokudou against Isekai Izakaya: Koto Aitheria no Izakaya Nobu, because they're both shows that were trying to do something with the whole 'normal restaurant in a another world' theme. Or how I compared K-On! with Bocchi the Rock!, or Idoly Pride against The Idolm@ster... shows that are obviously trying to do something at least a little similar, but maybe go about it in a different way. I try not to go too far with it, because oftentimes the two shows have totally different focal points in terms of characters, story, etc. But I always feel like it's a good starting point, where I can ask, "Did I feel as much of an impact from Idoly Pride's idols + story as I did from The Idolm@ster's?"- and then go from there. Sometimes though, a show completely shakes me to my core and forces me to rethink all of my scores all over again. That's when I start thinking "did this other anime even deserve the score I gave it in the first place?" and I'll change some scores around if I feel like I absolutely need to. I feel like this is pretty much what I said in one of the previous replies, yes, I think this is a good method, especially if you use different benchmarks for each genre and theme. It's almost like you're trying to bring some objectivity into your analysis, which goes a little beyond what you simply felt towards what you just watched or read. I mean this is not a new method anyway, I borrowed the term from the business lexicon because that's how companies also evaluate their own performances most of the time, and strive to be better with the analysis. |
Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores To clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours |
| no, and I think having so is wrong. the importance of every factor from sound design to story is purely dependent on the series. It's 100% a case by case thing. |
| Also available at: YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK8spdL1M_J-z0vO2C7jPLw Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AshPolygonsDo/videos Why You Should Watch Akudama Drive: https://youtu.be/Yw0r52wRjgA A Love Letter To Anime「AMV」: https://youtu.be/YQyqxFM2m9Q My referral code to a website/app that gives you free money (a few cents a day) by using a few megabytes of your internet for file sharing. We both get a bonus if you use my link: https://r.honeygain.me/ARSHIA7942 |
Sachyan said: I personally don't take genre into consideration when I rate things as I try not to overthink my ratings. If I enjoyed something, I enjoyed it!Yeah, but I feel like it's better to have more than one benchmark in the media, and maybe even sort them out by genre and theme sometimes. Like when you're evaluating a Music anime, you question yourself: ''is this better than K-On, if so how exactly, if not how exactly, how it diverges in terms of quality?'' And then you give your verdict. Or when you're watching something Psychological: ''is this better than Neon Genesis Evangelion...?'' And then you follow the same logical pattern for everything you watch. I mainly use the Welcome to the NHK! test if I'm torn between giving something a 7 or an 8. It happened to me recently when I completed Spy x Family Part 2. I asked myself, "would I rather watch this or Welcome to the NHK?". In the end, I thought I would rather watch Welcome to the NHK! so I gave Spy x Family Part 2 a 7. But I had preferred Spy x Family Part 2, I would've given it an 8. |
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| In some ways, yes that's true. Which one do I like or enjoy more? There are so may things to consider. It can't be just about the story, characters, sound or animation there has to be more so I also list down my priorities in term of the rating. Even if two shows having the same score, I also have another tier like high mid and low to determine their actual score weight. |
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Apolygon2 said: no, and I think having so is wrong. the importance of every factor from sound design to story is purely dependent on the series. It's 100% a case by case thing. I feel like they aren't really excluding methods tho, as you can use the benchmarking as a meta-analysis after evaluating everything on their own terms. SaiteiDaOrette said: Sachyan said: I personally don't take genre into consideration when I rate things as I try not to overthink my ratings. If I enjoyed something, I enjoyed it!Yeah, but I feel like it's better to have more than one benchmark in the media, and maybe even sort them out by genre and theme sometimes. Like when you're evaluating a Music anime, you question yourself: ''is this better than K-On, if so how exactly, if not how exactly, how it diverges in terms of quality?'' And then you give your verdict. Or when you're watching something Psychological: ''is this better than Neon Genesis Evangelion...?'' And then you follow the same logical pattern for everything you watch. I mainly use the Welcome to the NHK! test if I'm torn between giving something a 7 or an 8. It happened to me recently when I completed Spy x Family Part 2. I asked myself, "would I rather watch this or Welcome to the NHK?". In the end, I thought I would rather watch Welcome to the NHK! so I gave Spy x Family Part 2 a 7. But I had preferred Spy x Family Part 2, I would've given it an 8. Well, interesting system you got there, surely Welcome to the NHK left quite the impression on you haha. |
Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores To clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours |
VivaceRex said: In some ways, yes that's true. Which one do I like or enjoy more? There are so may things to consider. It can't be just about the story, characters, sound or animation there has to be more so I also list down my priorities in term of the rating. Even if two shows having the same score, I also have another tier like high mid and low to determine their actual score weight. That's true, that's why I used benchmarking and meta-analysis as examples of specific procedures you can apply after taking into account everything the anime or manga does on their own terms. I can agree with that, there's definitely more to each thing than just their characteristics and the enjoyment you get as a result. I mean, nobody is trying to make this a mathematical or statistical analysis, but I think it's also part of the fun to look at things that way. |
Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores To clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours |
| Yes, I do, but I only compare them with one question: which anime do I think is better. And even in this one simple regard, it is now harder and harder to rate as I watch more anime, so there's no way I'll dare try to compare "what are they trying to achieve" or something like that |
9cycle  cycle9 |
| I do. Any anime can be compared with another in terms of enjoyment, but it's a bit easier to compare their strengths and weaknesses when they're from the same genre. |
| Does it hold its own against works of classic literature like 100 Years of Solitude? No? Then it's not a 10. I do have some biased 10's but in my next list overhaul (whenever the fuck that is) that should change. |
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| I only have two hard benchmarks, though I like to call them the 'gatekeepers': something has to be clearly better than Death Note to become a 10, and something has to be better/worse than Claymore when differentiating between 7 and 6. I no longer know what it means to rate something 'on its own merits'. Literature builds upon itself. Knowing where certain tropes and clichés come from, identifying what something's parodying, or wondering if a certain character is a different interpretation of an earlier one from several decades ago: all of these and more necessitate some prerequisite knowledge about certain media and genres. You don't need to know everything just so you can understand one specific scene, but these situations will eventually add up and either contribute to or detract from your potential enjoyment. I naturally compare similar genres with each other. For example, I wouldn't be able to compare Nichijou and Lain, but I can certainly compare Nichijou and Azumanga Daioh. I'd leave comments for myself like "This made better use of comedic timing by slightly delaying the punchline", or "This show constantly utilized special effects to make certain scenes even funnier", or "I didn't like these two similar characters, but they're probably a necessary evil within the show to keep causing problems and creating comedic situations for the main cast to get involved into". To get a bit more specific, it'd also depend on what specific sub-genre I think the shows I'm comparing are. To continue with comedy, I thought both Plastic Neesan and Pop Team Epic were the most absurd comedies I'd ever seen. I call them 'Shitposting: the anime'. I have yet to see anything like the two and I still don't know what they are or what exactly they're trying to do, but I do know that they're similar, and from that point my only thought was "So which one made me laugh more?". I'm not forcing myself to think about these things all the time, it usually happens naturally. |
| I originally used smartphone isekai as the benchmark for the worst isekai thinking nothing could beat it and it's second season started airing only to refresh my memory on how bad it is. There's no way something could be worse than smartphone isekai. Well I was wrong. Iseleeve came out this season and was even worse trash. |
| I mean, can you even truly rate an anime on its own without ANY comparison? Sure we all did that with our very first anime i guess, but im pretty sure most people that take scoring halfway serious will change their score after watching a couple 100 more anime. Like, how can you know something is a 10/10 while disregarding the existence of all other anime. For that youd have to have the perfect story (for example) already in mind, which i find hard to believe. So yeah, in a sense i rate any anime against each other (and also other media such as movies, western cartoons,etc.). |
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Sachyan said: but that would defeat the whole point.I feel like they aren't really excluding methods tho, as you can use the benchmarking as a meta-analysis after evaluating everything on their own terms. can you give an example of doing both cause the way I understand what you are saying, it seem extremely pointless. |
| Also available at: YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK8spdL1M_J-z0vO2C7jPLw Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AshPolygonsDo/videos Why You Should Watch Akudama Drive: https://youtu.be/Yw0r52wRjgA A Love Letter To Anime「AMV」: https://youtu.be/YQyqxFM2m9Q My referral code to a website/app that gives you free money (a few cents a day) by using a few megabytes of your internet for file sharing. We both get a bonus if you use my link: https://r.honeygain.me/ARSHIA7942 |
BetaMaleUltra said: lmfaoooooo that's so damn relatable. Like once i remember i rated Inferno Cop almost 10/10. But then i questioned myself whether it really deserves the rating. Cuz it is a comedy show and acording to its genre, it is hella funny. But again, doesnt have a storyline and all that stuff. So if i rate it a 9 or a 10 does it mean Inferno Cop= AOT, FMAB, Death Note etc.????I prefer to rate an anime on its own merit and not compare it to others, but then I kind of unintentionally make a benchmark for myself when I see it sitting beside other anime in which I've also rated the same. "Wait I rated this a 7, but rated this other anime a 7, but no doubt I thought this was better than that one? Huh??" I changed ALL my scores several times just because of this. Eventually I found a way to work around this by just giving myself decimal scores, which I put in list tags. So if I rate 2 anime as a 7/10 but in my head I'm thinking one is better than the other, then I can give one like a 7.2 and maybe the other a 7.8. You could say that I should just lower one to a 6 or raise the other to an 8, but then it conflicts with the anime in THOSE ranges and it all just falls like dominoes. |
"The only ones who should kill, are those who are prepared to be killed." ~ Lelouch vi Britannia |
| I don't like rating Anime and I don't give a damn about Anime Ratings |
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BetaMaleUltra said: happened to me a couple of times too X_XI prefer to rate an anime on its own merit and not compare it to others, but then I kind of unintentionally make a benchmark for myself when I see it sitting beside other anime in which I've also rated the same. "Wait I rated this a 7, but rated this other anime a 7, but no doubt I thought this was better than that one? Huh??" I changed ALL my scores several times just because of this. to rank things on MAL nowadays I just use the scale and wording provided (ie. 4 - Bad) against my own biased ~feelings~ scale. you cannot argue with "bad"! is show ABC (scored "bad") objectively better than show XYZ (also scored "bad")? maybe. is it enough to raise it up to "5 - average"? no. it's bad! that's how i see it |
| Yes i do but mostly for ranking anime eg "okay, Kaiji is 2nd in my 2007 aoty list, Gundam 00 is 1st therefore 00 sits above Kaiji and every single anime in my all-time ranking" but not so much for rating bcoz for me, every anime is scored based on their own individual capacities like i can't put sth like SpyxFam in the same box as AoT. They're two very different shows so when it comes to scores i don't usually use it for benchmarking. The 8/10 i gave to SxF isn't the same as the 8/10 i gave AoT so even tho they have the same scores that doesn't mean they're at the same level. |
| Personally I think it is unfair to start comparing a manga or an anime with some other anime or manga . I personally judge everything on it's own, no matter if it is hentai , anime, manga or light novel or doujinshi . Let's take the anime/manga called Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu . Some people compared it with Komi san can't communicate which is wrong in my opinion because each of these two anime has something unique to make it different aka completely different experience so it wrong for me who I read and watch both of these projects to start saying Komi san has done better this compared to Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu so I must give it a 9 just because the other failed to do this as good as this anime/manga . (Forgive me if I misunderstood your question) |
on 
| Not so much. I tend to even scores to 6 or 5 now, and just give a 7 if it meant a little more to me than the other ones. |
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| My benchmarks are the anime I rated before in that same range. I'm watching Kuroko's Basketball now. So far (9 eps) it's been good, if it stays like that until the end I'm gonna give it a 7 or 8. Compared to the other anime with 7 or 8, how much did I enjoy it? Around the same level as Kaikyu! (8)? or weaker and closer to Food Wars (7). It helps to have similar anime, but since what count is the entertainment I get from it, even Violet Evergarden could be used as benchmark for Kuroko's in my system. |
| What you’re saying is essentially rating anime comparatively which is something I believe to be one of the best methods to rate anime, however, once you watch too many shows, this becomes a hassle and you’d have to improvise. My current rating method is a blend of comparative rating and tier system. I sort very similar anime (The ones that I enjoyed pretty much to the same extent) into groups and compare them. Saves a lot of time and let’s me avoid using arbitrary values such as ‘good’, ’bad’, ‘excellent’, etc. |
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| Yeah I pretty much rate my stuff exactly like this. After watching around 100 anime or something I had a good base and used the whole scale from 1 to 10 to rate all these shows. These days I have a rough estimate where I would put a show and after finishing it, I compare it to other stuff on my list for the final rating. |
| I usually compare it to how I feel about similar shows or shows that I gave around the same rating. So yes that method is a pretty big part of how I rate shows. And I think about how I feel about a show separately from other shows as well to get what I feel like it should be, basically those two factors combined are how I rate a show. If you have a very solid rating system maybe you could get away with not using comparisons but I like rating based on feeling more, and combining it with comparisons to make sure it's fair. |
Apolygon2 said: Sachyan said: but that would defeat the whole point.I feel like they aren't really excluding methods tho, as you can use the benchmarking as a meta-analysis after evaluating everything on their own terms. can you give an example of doing both cause the way I understand what you are saying, it seem extremely pointless. Your first analysis should take into account elements such as production, characters, story and enjoyment, mostly thinking about what is good or bad, that simple. After that you probably should be able to give a proper score, and then you keep this information in mind. You don't have to necessarily end the analysis in this step, as you can, after the score you think it fits the best to evaluate those aspects, make some sort of cross-evaluation and fit all of those previous aspects in a bigger picture. At this point you can select a benchmark for your analysis, be it something within the genre or theme or either something that you consider either a parameter of bad, average or good, provided that these parameters are close enough to your original score in terms of your rating scale. After that you can choose your own measures and cross-evaluate them with your original subject. That's how you build a ranking for example. If you have a 3x3, a top 10 or a top 20, or even a seasonal ranking, you probably do that intuitively. Normally this process don't alter the original score that much, in the end it might be only by a margin of -1 or +1. That being said, they aren't really excluding methods, more like subsequent process in your analysis. |
Grant me one hour on love's most sacred shores To clasp the bosom that my soul adores, Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours |
| No not at all, I don't really think too much about it. |
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| I try not to, but it probably happens whether I realize it or not. I know for a fact that I benchmark within the same series, i.e., I gave Season 1 a 7/10 and Season 2 was better, so Season 2 has to get at least a 7/10. |
| Yeah, basically. When I rate something, I consider more than just the score it deserves on its own. I also compare it to previous ratings so I can give it a score that feels right to me and matches my previous ratings. |
 
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| I don't think I have a benchmark that I compare anything I read or watch too, but I do sometimes bump somethings down if I see it's besides something that I particularly enjoyed more than it. But I don't really do that often because my ratings for anime/manga can change substantially depending on if I hate something in a series. If one thing happens in a show that I don't like enough, the score will plummet and it will be very hard for that series to recover most of the time so having a benchmark isn't something I've ever considered or found necessary. I use both anilist and mal as well, and I take anilist ratings less seriously sometimes. I have bunch of detailed rating metrics that are extremely stupid and usually go unused but they more or less average out the main score I give a series. |
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| Ig so. I do it in a more generalised way tho, like: "did I enjoy this anime more than most of the shows I've rated 7". |
| I use my bench which I stole from the park.. |
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