Report Ishitani's Profile

"Ninety percent of everything is crap." --(Science fiction author Theodore) Sturgeon's Law

"Ninety-NINE percent of anime is crap. But the other one percent makes up for it." --Ishitani's Specification

Ishitani is a fan of fantastic cinema and especially anime. He contributes to My Anime List in order to highlight excellent shows--the one percent that makes it all worthwhile--that not everyone knows about.

Ishitani offers the following information to help readers interpret his ratings and reviews.

Ishitani uses the full range of the rating scale, with an average near 5 and a standard deviation of about 2. This results in only a handful of shows being rated 1 or 10. This scheme clearly separates the treasure from the trash, but it may startle fans used to rating everything above average.

Ishitani won't waste time watching "ani-meh:" the ninety-nine percent of anime that's crap. This includes One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh, any series with filler episodes (or, heaven help us, filler arcs), and any property whose purpose is to sell toys to children.

Ishitani is a straight male who likes attractive women. If you take offense when a guy expresses appreciation for a female character's appearance, then you should not read his reviews. That said, Ishitani does look beyond the eye-candy. He notices if a show fails the Bechdel test. He is unimpressed by heroines whose chief character traits lie in the fronts of their blouses. He scorns shows that sexualize little girls. He disapproves of characters--no matter how cute--who are insane, stupid, fickle, or submissive. It disappoints him when an independent girl falls in love with an unremarkable male and turns into a doormat for his sake. It saddens him when a story introduces a plain but intelligent girl and then leaves her on the sidelines.

Like everyone, Ishitani has irrational affinities for certain things that color his opinion of art. He likes:
- Animation. Examples: Anime, Disney, Pixar, Aardman, Festival of Animation.
- Science fiction, especially if there's evidence that the writer did their homework. Examples: Planetes, Space Brothers
- Comedy. Examples: Elf Princess Rane, Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu
- Swords-and-sorcery fantasy. Example: Record of Lodoss War
- Appealing, competent, self-reliant female characters (see discussion above). Examples: Moana (Disney film of the same name); San (Princess Mononoke); Kagome (Inuyasha)
- Martial arts. Examples: Summer Wars, Samurai Champloo
- Antarctica. Example: A Place Further than the Universe
- Good music. Examples: Rahxephon, Iria: Zeiram the Animation
- Bright colors. Example: Gunbuster 2, SSSS.Dynazenon
- Wild imagination. Example: Flip Flappers
- Thoughtful world-building. Example: Royal Space Force - Wings of Honneamise

Ishitani has irrational dislikes as well:
- Worn-out tropes. Ishitani is tired of Ordinary High School Boys (TM), Live-In Magical Girlfriends (TM), Teenagers with Cosmic Powers They Can't Control (TM), Fetishy Maids (TM), Annoying Little Kids (TM), Busty Blonde American Girls (TM), Post-Apocalyptic Dystopias (TM), Schools of Magic (TM), and Unethical Experiments on Children (TM). He is bored to death with Modern-Day People Transported to Medieval Fantasy Worlds (TM).
- Horror. Ishitani reads the news, which is full of real horror. He won't spend his limited free time wallowing in fictional horror.
- Girly politics. Ishitani values genuine friendship and isn't interested in who is whose BFF this week.
- Unearned success. Ishitani notes that hitting the jackpot on your first spin is unrealistic. But even in a deliberately unrealistic fantasy, victories are meaningful only because of the effort it takes to win them. No struggle means no sense of accomplishment--and no point to the story.
- Unsatisfying endings. After investing unrecoverable hours of his life in a show, Ishitani doesn't want to feel crushed or bewildered afterward. Examples: Mahoromatic Season 2, Neon Genesis Evangelion (the reigning champion)
- Alteration of memories. Ishitani observes that most people don't forget important things, and that having characters do so without extraordinary justification is a sign of inferior storytelling.
- Obtrusive incidental music. Ishitani believes that if you notice the incidental music, then the incidental music is bad.
- Characters who ruin everything by failing to communicate basic information. Ishitani suspects that this is a device for padding a thin story, which wastes the viewer's valuable time.

All of the above should give you a solid background to interpret Ishitani's ratings and reviews of over 400 shows across many years of watching anime.

Thanks for reading, and happy viewing!