Update: 12/12/2023 10:22pm
For anyone who still cares, yes, I do plan on writing a final public review, if only for the sake of my own personal sanity and emotional closure. Not to sound intentionally stupid, but I want to complete my "character arc,” in a sense. I want to leave it feeling like if there was any progression here whatsoever, then there was also a conclusion. Update: 9/24/2023 11:02am
Last year, on August 1st, site administration unveiled an overhaul to the MAL review system. The fundamental elements of this overhaul were rolled back shortly after being implemented due to overwhelming community backlash, but it seems this August they sought to revive their past errs in policy, imposing on the community some similarly demoralizing changes. The big “I quit” post I wrote in reaction to last year’s changes (which is still posted below) already does a good job detailing my thoughts on the new ones, but this is only natural, considering both sets of changes attack dedicated MAL reviewers in the same fashion.
To quote my post from last August: “No one who writes reviews seriously or with any semblance of effort does so solely out of a desire for blind self-satisfaction. They do it to reach others and to show themselves, and removing any competitive means of reaching the top fundamentally destroys any reason to expend effort. This notion that anyone would be as genuinely satisfied with themselves seeing their review on the front page based on a partially random algorithm…as they would had they actually earned their place among the top four in a free marketplace of ideas is completely dystopian and psychotic to me.”
The point which this “Diverse Perspectives, Diverse Voices” drivel firefractal talks about in their system update post has always missed and will always continue to miss, is that usernames which you see frequently appearing on the front page were not always usernames which MAL users frequently saw appearing on front pages. The “SingleH” profile, for example, did not have nearly seven hundred thousands clicks on MAL as soon as it was registered; the “SingleH” profile first had to put itself out there, be unpopular, fail, be unheard of, and only eventually work its way up the competitive food chain, improve, earn itself an audience, and become—after expending much time and effort—a username which regularly appeared on the front page of many seasonal review sections. By refusing to play, by refusing to compete, by simply whining, flipping the table, scattering the pieces, and hoping for admins and algorithms to hand you your participation trophy, you’re alienating anyone who worked their asses off in earlier stages of the game and who won the recognition which they won before you even really tried.
There always remains a chance, that just like last year, these new changes will simply be reversed and competition will simply be reinstated sometime soon. However, sitting around waiting for that to happen, at least from my perspective, seems to make less and less sense as time goes on. These people are obviously much more committed in their fight to shape and break MAL than MAL’s users are in actively fighting against them, and with how dramatically my life has been changing, that now includes me too. I can no longer publicly self-immolate and make a big deal in protest, because as I’ve discussed endlessly in all my recent reviews, I just don’t have the time anymore. Being SingleH, fortunately or unfortunately, is no longer the biggest concern in my life, so while I’d obviously prefer to “move on” on my own terms instead of being chased away by horrid policy, I also have to face reality, and the reality is this. Those in charge of MAL seem dogmatically determined to go in the wrong direction, and I’m no longer at a station in my life where I have the time or the energy to take the role of rebel-rouser.
Over these past few years, the success I’ve found has turned SingleH into a very public profile, but, at the end of the day, this is still my profile. Slowly and sadly abandoning seasonal reviews due to these changes will have no sway on me continuing to use and update my MAL page, because while this insane year of life may’ve left my anime consumption rate looking like a fucking stock market crash, I've loved this medium far too much to sit back and allow it to exit my life completely. I insist till death do us part, be that sooner or be it later. Recently deleted front-page reviews (Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man) are posted in my MAL Blog.
Humanity loses this round.
Update: 9/2/22 10:09pm here in Dallas -- The alcohol is surely warping my memory to some probably insignificant extent, but, from where I’m standing, the newly implemented algorithm which filtered reviews in such a manner that obscured dissent and ignored the raw, competitive votes, only lasted a few days. Yes, the top reviewers page is still gone, and the hideously ugly and stupid Facebook reaction emoji shit is still in order, but the change that fundamentally mattered, the removal of legitimate competition, was redacted in what seemed like only a matter of days. As mentioned in the “I quit” message, I have contact with people inside MAL, and feelings are optimistic that the current state of things is to be somewhat permanent. The only real, major difference at this point is that top four has simply become top three, which, if anything, ironically, makes things much more competitive than they ever were, because now there will be one less spot on the board to go around. Indeed, I myself have had many of my fourth place reviews now taken off the front page for this very reason. However, whether my main, fundamental grievance was addressed or not, the honest truth is that I probably would’ve rescinded my decision to quit either way.
The first and most obvious reason is that I simply cannot stick to my principles and be a serious adult when I’m this low and this desperate. I need fucking help, because nothing about this is sustainable. I recently said to a coworker, “It’s not funny anymore.” And I think that summed it up pretty nicely. I could always laugh at my misery; I’ve always had a surprisingly masculine, self-deprecating sense of stand-up comedy style humor where, no matter how dark things got, there was always that perfect Holocaust joke hanging right there in front of me. But now it’s not funny anymore. The second reason is the uncharacteristically sappy one, and that is the fact you fucking assholes legitimately inspired me to continue. It’s seemingly gone back to normal now, but the beginning of August was characterized completely by beautiful souls flooding my comment section and private messages with well-wishes, praise, and admiration. You made me feel so deeply validated and even more grateful than I already was, and you made me feel like there were real, flesh-and-blood humans who would feel badly about my departure. So thank you. The continuation of SingleH will have been in part sponsored and brought to screen by your kindness and devotion.
Before the site changes went live, there was a few weeks during the build-up where I was—I must confess—honestly fucking glad. I was relieved that I could finally let this all go and reclaim my wasted time, but now I see how profoundly miscalculated these feelings were. Someone left a comment more or less recently saying something to the effect of, “Gosh, I don’t know how you do this. If I were you, I’d have to develop video games or something just to blow off all this creative spirit and imagination and whatever,” and I didn’t really understand what they were saying. But now I do. Now I get it. I need this. I need the outlet. I really tried letting MAL’s bullshit rape me back in line, but I’m afraid, as it seems, the digital won’t let me go. Yeah, yeah…I’ll pay. When tomorrow, tomorrow comes today.
SingleH loves you. <3
I used to write fairly popular reviews, but, now that the mods have killed reviews by removing competition and therefore any reason to expend effort, I’ve quit.
I still haven’t finished polishing my profile after the recent updates, but, now that reviewing is dead, and now that traffic to my and every other reviewer’s page will die off, it doesn’t matter. For those few who for some reason still care, though, I’ll leave this text for now and take it down when I’m finally done. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly referred to this profile as my comprehensive suicide note, so I feel obliged to finish it.
Writing reviews I was proud of and earning recognition I thought I deserved, both positive and negative, reinvigorated a sense of purpose and drive within me I thought was long dead, and now that it’s all been ripped out from under me, I wonder how quickly and violently I’ll spiral downward, especially now that the alcohol is so much more out of control than it’s ever been. I like to tell myself I’ll be able to move past this, but I don’t know. I think I just need to cry some more.
In the words of my friend, “Gosh, that AOT s4p2 review section is nothing but positive reviews…The integrity of the review system is non-existent now.” As much as I or other reasonable people may be inclined to repudiate implementations such as this, the truth is that, in all likelihood, enough people will probably be fine with the new system. The more out-of-touch with humanity that technocratic decision-makers become, the less hopeful I feel regarding these sorts of mistakes ever being reversed. YouTube removing dislikes; Facebook committing to the metaverse; literally the entire video game industry (at least as far as an outside observer such as myself can tell) which seemingly continues to do the exact opposite of what all the players want, to the point where I've literally been sent videos of presenters at conventions casting aspersions at their live audiences who are dissatisfied with the projects on display; similarly Disney, and, more broadly speaking, Hollywood producers who also seem to churn out things everyone hates and who actively argue with and demonize their own audiences on Twitter. I'm sure whatever corporate husk is ultimately in charge of MAL is of a comparable mindset, and these changes are here to stay—forever, no matter how loud the opposition is.
Trying to dismiss and discredit the current state of the reviewing community on MAL in an attempt to justify these changes just makes you look sad. Over the course of the last six months especially, the mods have been extremely diligent about punishing cheaters who use bots and sock accounts to boost their numbers. Anyone who has a personal following or a consistent record of high “Helpful” counts did not cheat these things into existence. They worked for months—or in my case years—with little recognition, purely to improve their craft and slowly but surely earn a reputation like real adult men and women. No one who writes reviews seriously or with any semblance of effort does so solely out of a desire for blind self-satisfaction. They do it to reach others and to show themselves, and removing any competitive means of reaching the top fundamentally destroys any reason to expend effort. This notion that anyone would be as genuinely satisfied with themselves seeing their review on the front page based on a partially random algorithm that filters out all dissenting opinion as they would had they actually earned their place among the top four in a free marketplace of ideas is completely dystopian and psychotic to me. “If you’ve got a problem with the world, change yourself. If that’s a problem, close your eyes, shut your mouth, and live like a hermit.” -Motoko Kusanagi. If you get no attention, and you’re sick of those who do, then write your own reviews. Prove your own arguments. Galvanize support. Fight back. Don’t just go bitching and moaning to Mommy and Daddy, who I guess in this case are the MAL mods. The removal of competition is something only a privileged, sheltered, immature child would desire.
As of time of writing, I have eleven friends on MAL. Over the past five years, I’ve denied hundreds of friend requests, but I’ve also not denied hundreds of friend requests, and I think it’s about time I went and accepted them. My philosophy toward friends on MAL has always been super autistic and dumb, where I only accepted the select few people who I could think of as “true” friends—whatever that means—but now that people won’t be able to find me by way of my front page reviews, I’m going to be much more open to accepting friend requests casually. And who knows? I may even send some friend requests myself. I’m probably just desperate for people not to forget about me. Pathetic, isn’t it?
Speaking of pathetic, if there’s anyone reading this who actually supports these changes, then—I’m sorry—I must say you are a miserable coward who I have no respect for. You are a contemptible product of the so-called “participation trophy generation” for whom I feel nothing but sorrow. You have never expended or risked anything to achieve any goal, nor have you ever achieved the feeling of anticipation one feels when awaiting the results of a competition for which they tried so hard, nor, of course, any sense of righteous pride in self-betterment. You will never work hard or achieve anything online or in real life, and you will continue to pat yourself on the back for handouts and happenstance which you input nothing to affect, all the while wondering why it is you find it so difficult to feel fulfilled or become recognized. You weak, timid losers will never comprehend the competitive spirit of humanity, nor its utility in realizing the great advancements and glories of our long history, and you will insistently dismiss anyone who does as a “clout chaser” or some other bizarre and meaningless zoomer phrase in a desperate struggle to diminish the commitment, work ethic, and achievement within them which you so obviously envy. From the bottom of my heart, I sincerely pity you small-minded, jealous little children. >Change your fucking tampons, holy shit. Stop taking this so seriously! You’re just writing reviews on an anime site. Get over it! It’s not the end of the world.
Yes, it’s not the end of the world, but it's the end of something I was passionate about and put great effort into. Taking something like that away from anyone is going to be terrible for them. Trying to make distinctions between which passions qualify as legitimate and which passions qualify as "lol fake internet points rat racer touch grass xd epic meme bro" just makes you come across as an insecure teenager. Taking away anyone’s reason to try at anything will make them feel empty, no matter what passion they applied themselves to. You bitter, ugly people will never understand this.
I’ve canceled my MAL Supporter subscription, and I will not be renewing it when it expires. I encourage everyone else to do the same. I personally have too much here to leave, but I encourage everyone who can to leave MAL entirely and migrate to other anime sites in protest.
Thank you to everyone who has ever loved or hated anything I’ve written. I’m serious. Thank you all so much. Receiving this much hate and support has been so fulfilling and fun. I feel so grateful and lucky to have been in this position for even a second. I wish I could hug every single one of you. Well…okay, maybe not the smelly ones lol. Maybe take a shower first…
SingleH loves you. <3
Here's the download link: https://files.catbox.moe/wp0xcl.jpg
Below is a friendly reminder that just because I was too busy to comb through the last two episodes doesn't mean they weren't just as embarrassing.
This review was posted on December 12th, 2019, and murdered on January 8th, 2020. It had 108 Helpful votes at the time and was in first place. The ultimate reason given for its deletion was that it was too creative. The mod who deleted it, and who tried to delete many more, has since left the team. I have reposted the review below. Thank you for visiting its cemetery.
This is not a review of Psycho-Pass 3. No. This is a story, the story of a man. A man named Tow Ubukata.
In light of the continuous offenses on seemingly all fronts of this man’s involvement with the anime industry, many are legitimately wondering why staffers continue to hire him on as a writer. Not to be facetious or rhetorical, but seriously, why hire someone who’s writing has simply never been well received critically? Because critical reception isn’t what brings in the benjamins. Tow Ubukata is not just an anime guy. He’s a multimedia creative who’s made no shortage of money for no shortage of light novel publications, manga magazines, video game publishers, and even the producers of feature films. While his big debut and long-time claim to fame, Black Season, was only acclaimed as the amateur novel it was and only recognized thanks to Kadokawa’s Young Novelist Sneaker Award which it won, he continued keeping himself relevant with work on cult classic video games like Shenmue and more serious, less pulpy works soon after like Tenchi Meisatsu, a historical period-piece about Jōkyō Era calendar making. However, his biggest claim to relevancy within the industry—if not within the community itself—was actually his column in Newtype Magazine, A Gambler’s Life. A Gambler’s Life was a long-running comedy strip which kept the audience up with his personal life while also being something of a stand-up comedy piece about his day-to-day and the wittiness he found therein. Now, this modest column was nothing on the level of the multimillion dollar vlogging channels you see all over YouTube nowadays, but it also wasn’t obscure, and even if the actual community didn’t find it endearing or entertaining, the industry players at large saw it as a confidence inspiring PR move. It’s like how job interviewers this day in age are beginning to recommend applicants have a social media presence. The social status of prospective employees is obviously irrelevant to the job at hand, but proof of their sociability can place more confidence in their employers who now have the option to hire someone with a resume which extends beyond the monotonous and often overstated piece of paper which was once the only genuine article. And Japanese companies eat this kind of stuff up all the time. In fact, Production IG specifically has fallen victim to this ignorant misconception of the relevancy of public figures to such an extent, they willingly paid out of their own pocket to hire the dying artist, Marty Friedman, to preform the ending theme for B: The Beginning after considering the fact the project was made in association with Netflix, an American company with a Western audience. It’s crazy, and Tow Ubukata is just one of the many who get to ride the coattails of their own preconceived social perceptions—whether or not they still exist, or whether they died back in ’96 after the world at large forgot about this nobody who got a big head once after winning an amateur award against a bunch of highschoolers this one time. It’s the same reason we’re being inundated with isekai all over again. It’s not like people actually want more isekai. It’s the fact Re:Zero proved the prospective earnings of the genre in 2016 after the original Sword Art Online isekai boom was thought to have long since died out, but the production cycles for all these Re:Zero-pushed adaptations took years to realize, so only now are we getting hit with the brunt of it, the brunt of a marketing ploy three years late for a genre cash-in inspired by the success of an anime which was only as successful as it was BECAUSE IT BROKE ALL THOSE TROPES. It’s irony in its most tangible extreme, and it’s why Tow Ubukata can write for the likes of Production IG despite being a widely known hack amongst actual fans, and despite the point I’ve been holding onto for a minute now, beating his wife. I’m legally obligated to tell you the judge dropped his domestic violence charges, but I’m also morally obligated to tell you he did so only because his wife didn’t want to press charges in fear of further jeopardizing their marriage, not because the poor woman actually redacted her initial claims to the police. After all, as Donald Trump proved with the 2016 American Presidential Election, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
But, unfortunately, there is such thing as bad writing. Tow Ubukata had once said in an interview he believed a portion of individual human psychology could only be exactly understood through the act of gambling, and the analogy he used regarded games like roulette. He feels the draw of such games is the fact the player has to decide how much to put down even before the game begins, and only after that do they have the privilege to think about a possibility at victory. To him, taking that initial responsibility for what you can afford is very bold and honorable. While I myself agree with his analysis of the game, I find it more reasonable to attribute that “responsibility” to simple thrill. You’re not putting your money on black so you can feel good about yourself when proudly forking over your cash when the ball lands on red. You’re putting your money on black so you get the adrenaline rush of not knowing where the ball will land, and doubly for the serotonin spike within that victory should the odds be ever in your favor. But disagreements be as they may, this is actually kind of a phycological goldmine. If this is how romanticized of a viewpoint this man has on the world and human action, it no longer stands as a surprise he writes characters the way he does. A needlessly enigmatic shadow-villain with the scripting and design sensibilities of a fourteen year old would be hella cool if you held on to the belief their initial plans paying off somewhere down the line validated their character—whether or not they were actually developed into human beings or characterized at all along the way, and despite all the time of your’s they wasted spouting mysterious codifications you had no reason or wherewithal to care about or become invested in other than the blanket reassurance that they sounded cool. And it’s that attempt at looking or sounding vaguely cool that Ubukata has defined himself with since the dawn of his career. Even the man’s so-called name, Tow Ubukata, is a pointless pseudonym he instated because all cool authors have a pen name, right? Looking back at all his work scripting for video games, his character writing is some of the most blatantly self-insertable I’ve ever seen. Chaos Legion is the creme of the chuunibyo indulgent crop, and while Shenmue is beloved by many people, Ryo just IS Ubukata before he let his hair grow out. The idea Ubukata’s personal fanboyisms can be traced as deeply as his influence over things as detached from the actual script at hand as character designs might be endearing if he was, lets say, talented, but the fact his works are so bad leave developments as boldfaced as this looking little more than juvenile and embarrassing. If you want to know his thought process behind his first mass-market success, Mardock Scramble, look no further than said designs therein. He stated in consideration of the action sequences, should the work ever find itself being animated (which it did), he was aways at odds with the dilemma of bangs. He thought if a character's hair was long enough, their face would get covered by their bangs, and by hiding their face, a sense of mystique could be brought about by the viewer not knowing what emotions the character is feeling. On the other hand, he worried—shockingly out loud, without shame or self-awareness—if the villain's emotions were completely visible, they’d lose their quote-unquote mystique, so he simply couldn’t give them short hair. In light of such cringeworthy notes, his quote, “if it’s written in a way so each staff member can interpret the text their own way, work can't be done,” stops sounding like the objectivist preachings of a craftsman and starts sounding more like the self-serious whines of a man-child clinging so tightly to his own predisposed concepts as to look like a baby getting potentially robbed of his precious pacifier.
You see, this obsession with the stereotypical “cool” is not something I derived from that gambling story or the pre-teen shlock that is Mardock Scramble, but something I derived from his actual life. The anecdote regarding his interpretation of gambling was a good segue which just happened to give insight into the eyes of a man clearly interpreting reality in something of a different and interesting way than your average joe, but what came before his bold and honorable gambling and wife beating was his birth. Tow Ubukata is Japanese, but he was raised prior to his highschool years in Singapore, and later Nepal. All the while, though, despite attributing his authorship of an edgy story the likes of the aforementioned Mardock Scramble to the quote-unquote feelings of frustration and resignation felt by his generation, he very diligently and traditionally practiced honing his skills with speaking and writing in his native language, and he apparently did so far more than he studied Malay, Mandarin, or Nepali because he felt a great amount of pride keeping his Japanese heritage alive within himself. This personal study was where he sparked his passion for writing, but when he finally returned to his homeland as a young man, he was shocked and self-admittedly terrified by the concept of katsuji-banare. Katsuji-banare was what—for lack of a better term—Japanese boomers who resented the millennial generation for their disinterest in literature used to refer to the phenomenon of their collective doing so. To Ubukata, the ubiquitousness of this phrase was a bad omen warning all novelists—especially amateur novelists such as himself—they would soon find themselves and their work out of demand. In light of these discouraging developments (which never came true and were obviously just the insecurities of pretentious academic elites), he decided to put his writing career on hold and use his exposure from the Sneaker Award to instead get into the video game and anime industry, scenes he thought more viable and future-proof. When put into this perspective, it makes no shortage of sense a man who pursued a field of work solely on the back of job security paranoia would take to the trends like a kite in the wind, because what else would seeing the success of overly indulgent video game schlock do to a creator—a creator so already ostentatiously sure of his own ability as to drop out of university the second he won an amateur award and received ANY recognition beyond himself he is, indeed, talented—than reassure them that’s exactly what the consumers are out to spend their money on, and moreover, that’s exactly what they should spend the remainder of their career churning out. After all, even after getting serious with his first apparently critically accepted work, Tenchi Meisatsu, Ubukata was still writing for the likes of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.
Tow Ubukata’s self-proclaimed inspiration to even write fiction in the first place was an occasion on which he lied to his friend about his apparent understanding of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and it’s alleged Christian symbolism when he was completely unfamiliar with the religion on all levels. Earth-shatteringly ironic given his found success with something as confusingly vapid in it’s attempted religious symbolism as Le Chevalier D’Eon years later, but this explains a lot, and now that I’ve laid a historical foundation for you to profile this man of your own accord, so does everything else I’ve typed here. Mamoru Oshii was able to write Angel’s Egg not because he had a pang of wild inspiration, but because his parents were Christian zealots who inundated him with their religion until it was engraved in his very bones, only for him to grow up a realist, realize all religion is horse shit, and then spend years of his young adult life grappling with the crushing nihilistic realization the egg is, indeed, empty. Chiaki Konaka was able to write Serial Experiments Lain not because he thought computers were super dope and smoked a bunch of weed one time, but because he programmed games, websites, and forum bases before half the Earth knew what the internet even was, let alone tried to use it. Tow Ubukata’s Le Chevalier D’Eon was a nonsensical clusterfuck of retarded assholes yelling and screaming at each other, because he was too busy slave driving the Production IG staff into getting the fabric details on the character’s clothing right to worry about the pile of still unfinished theming and scripting haunting the story’s core. His Psycho-Pass 2 was a masturbatory concept fetish forcing a pseudo intellectual writer’s power play upon an audience too smart not to see it’s inconsistencies and illogicalities, because the production cycle was fucked sideways and instead of using his limited time to write a modest story sound enough to hold the series over on behalf of the main team who was making a movie, he pestered the main team to death—now disrupting the movie’s already shaky production cycle as well—to ask the series’ actual writer, Urobuchi Gen, what he was allowed and not allowed to do with all his cool concepts for the soul purpose of executing said masturbation with cyberpunk ideation he could never dream of coming up with on his own rights. His Ghost in the Shell: Arise was an otherwise innocuous—if criminally boring and artless—installment to a franchise which has set every bar in the medium of animation as high as it is at some point in it’s history which was lampooned all the same for misunderstanding not only what previous, more competent, creative staff had used in the past to hit those bars so damn high with the series’ potential in the first place, but for disrespecting the very foundation they’d setup only to deliver a version of his own making so unceremoniously not bad as to be offensively heinous by any comparison. However, what makes such bastardizations truly deplorable are the terribly misguided reasons he was made able to do so in the first place. He was able to write for Le Chevalier D’Eon, because his work with Shenmue, which—remember—was a video game so seated in his own male power fantasies it’s main protagonist was designed to look exactly like him, had convinced President Ishikawa and his producers who were already assured by Ubukata’s deceiving community presence he could write a historical adaptation, even if seated in incest fetishes, inaccurate historical timelines, and symbolism so non-sequitur as to be comedic. He was able to write for Psycho-Pass 2, because his work with Mardock Scramble, which—remember—was a cyberpunk whose crowning conceptual jewel was a talking rat who was actually the Architect from The Matrix Revolutions, had convinced President Ishikawa and his producers who were already assured by Ubukata’s deceiving community presence he could replace a writer ninety times his caliber on a project he didn’t even have a part in building. He was able to write for Ghost in the Shell: Arise, because his work with Fafner in the Blue Sky, which—remember—was an Eva Clone IG paid for to cash in on the Evangelion craze but cared about it’s production and reception so little they outsourced every frame of it to their subsidiary studio Xebec, had convinced President Ishikawa and his producers who were already assured by Ubukata’s deceiving community presence he could write something at all meaningful to carry on the franchise’s already dying legacy now standing as little more than a hollow specter of it's past self, a once-great intellectual property merely sustaining itself on prestige it no longer deserves. And what’s he doing now? Butchering Osamu Dazai’s epoch defining piece of literature into a superpowered anime action spectacle set to dubstep and further eviscerating Production IG’s beloved and beautiful Psycho-Pass, devoting an industry crowning display of modern animation production prowess to a plot delving into the aftershocks felt by a country shifting from isolationism to immigration, despite the fact said country was established such that having it do so betrays the entire fucking intelligence of it’s institution and—more importantly—even after poor Makoto Fukami already proved with Sinners of the System he could very well handle the franchise without Urobuchi Gen around to make it a true masterpiece and most certainly without this hack around either to desecrate yet another god damn season, even when its back in the hands of the godly animation staff who birthed it.
Thank you for reading.
Citation Notice: Everything I stated in this piece except for my adjectives and their friends was throughly verified fact and, in many cases, even paraphrased direct quotations. Unfortunately, as I recently learned, posting links in MAL reviews is grounds for it to be taken down…for some reason, probably to quell bot spam. However, I’d feel like a poser without in some way citing my sources, so please know I heavily consulted the following for my review.
- Anime News Network // dot com // English
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction // dot com // English
- Tow Ubukata’s Personal Website // dot jp // Japanese
- Newtype USA Magazine // physical copy // English
- J’Lit Books from Japan // dot jp // English
- Media Arts Database // dot jp // Japanese
- Otaku USA Magazine // physical scan // English
My Personal Anime & Manga Rating System
Something may be called objectively bad if it is flawed on a technical level. Take the following:
-Bad animation. Off-model key frames, disjoint or missing in-betweens, overuse of stills, poorly integrated CG animation, etc.
-Bad writing. Logical fallacies like plot holes or contradictory character motivations, disorganized pacing, insufficient exposition, etc.
-Bad directing. Unintelligible, confusing visual direction or incoherent editing. (This could arguably include directing which relies entirely on uninspired conventions.)
-Bad sound direction. Poor timing, erratic audio mixing, unfit sound effects, jarring integration of music, etc.
-Bad art direction. Dimensionless, under-detailed, or stylistically incongruous background art.
-Poor theming. Themes are the decision of the storyteller, but the storyteller has to make sure their art reflects these values consistently & in a way the audience can reasonably be expected to infer through implications, subtleties, thematic dialogue or narration, etc.
Something is subjectively bad if its flaws are a matter of your personal opinion. This includes but is not limited to the following:
-You think it’s boring.
-You think the art style is ugly.
-You think the premise is dumb.
-You dislike the directing style.
-You dislike the characters or disagree with the themes.
-You simply dislike the genre.
The more technical aspects listed earlier may be called objectively bad or objectively good, but artistic, cinematic, & thematic choices of stylization or presentation, as well as every facet of genre preference, may not be.
Something should be called a major factor if it pervades and can be cited consistently throughout the work.
Something should be called a minor factor if it can only be cited by cherry-picking isolated incidents throughout the work.
One: A One disgusts my most basic sensibilities & usually embodies a larger issue I have with the medium as a whole. A damning & downright offensive example of the worst this culture has to offer. Two: A Two is of such poor quality, it is impossible to take seriously or feel immersed in at all. A Two is objectively bad in a major way, & it is so shamelessly shoddy & soulless, I cannot respect it on any level. Three: A Three, much like a Two, is of such poor quality, it is impossible to take seriously or feel immersed in at all. However, while they are also objectively bad in a major way, a Three was actually made with some genuine thought or effort. It undoubtedly failed, but it actually tried on some level. If nothing else, I can at least respect it for that. Four: A Four is subjectively bad, & therefore impossible for me to enjoy. A Four is a work for which I am not the target audience, & that’s totally fine. Nevertheless, I cannot give these works a positive score in good faith when I simply didn’t like them. A Four may also be objectively bad to a certain degree, but if so, only in minor ways. Five: A Five is objectively bad in a major way & deserves to be a Three. However, a Five is also subjectively good in an equally major way & therefore deserves a non-negative score. I enjoy them, but I’m not so blind nor so biased as to pretend they’re actually high-quality. Fives can usually be characterized in one of two ways: a striking, memorable work which had clear ambition, heart, & soul, but little technique or expertise to actually craft something decent or excuse its glaring flaws, or a work which was just pure, unforgettable shlock. I know most people consider Five to be the “average” score, but I choose to interpret it as the literal intersection between the “good” & the “bad.” Six: A Six is comprehensively competent enough for me to treat with respect & view seriously. While a Six may have certain objectively bad elements of little significance, these elements are either minor enough to not consistently interrupt my immersion or so completely overshadowed by what makes the work both objectively & subjectively good as to be relatively trivial. A Six is great, & while it isn’t masterful enough to be totally immersive, a Six is my baseline of enjoyment & quality, the point at which I’m finally able to engage with the entertainment in front of me. Seven: Anime & manga I consider Honorable Mentions to My Favorites List. A Seven is an extremely high-quality anime or manga which I was sincerely invested in, or which I simply must recognize as masterful. Due to minor subjective flaws, or perhaps even extremely minor objective flaws, they could not achieve the absolute immersion required by My Favorites List. A Seven is a work which can elicit enough genuine & instinctive emotional investment out of me, you’d think it would reach My Favorites List, but during which I can nevertheless catch my attention fading, if only for my flaws as a consumer as opposed to its flaws as a creative work. Eight, Nine, & Ten: Anime & manga on My Favorites List. Without any objective or subjective flaws worthy of speech, I feel an uninterrupted immersion which allows me to truly care about the work in question, & this feeling is what defines My Favorites List. These are works of art I have in mind so often, they genuinely & meaningfully influence my real life. I can connect with & care for their characters as if they were people; I can internalize their themes as if they were life lessons; I can fully realize & appreciate their concepts & fantasies; & I can treat the stories they tell with the seriousness & gravitas I could afford to nonfiction. My Favorites List is spread across three rating levels so I can freely delineate between the very subtle & diverse ways in which these works resonate with me.
- My reviews do not follow this rating system. Applying such a personalized rating system to public reviews would be ridiculous.
- A score given to an anime I'm currently Watching is just a prediction, but a score given to a manga I'm currently Reading is a solid rating.
- To guarantee the integrity of my scores and My Rating System, I cannot score anything I've Dropped higher than a Four.
- An anime entry On-Hold is a non-scored show I’ve finished which I’m considering for My Favorites List, but a manga entry On-Hold is actually on-hold: something I’m not exactly keeping up with, but something which I still haven’t actually dropped.
- I try my best to write something in the tags for every entry on my Anime List & Manga List, but for obvious reasons, there’s often not much to say about Twos and Threes. All I really have to say about them is they’re bad. If an entry’s Tags end with an ellipsis, then the writing is continued in the Tags of the series’ next installment.
My Complete & Precise Favorites List
Despite being labeled “My Complete & Precise Favorites List,” this list is far from complete. If you want to get a full picture of all the anime I love, I encourage you to scroll through the Sevens on my Anime List to see the Honorable Mentions. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
1. 10_Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
2. 10_Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG
3. 10_Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
4. 9.9_Texhnolyze
5. 9.9_Jin-Roh
6. 9.9_The Sky Crawlers
7. 9.9_Mobile Police Patlabor 2 The Movie
8. 9.8_Ghost in the Shell
9. 9.8_Angel’s Egg
10. 9.7_Mobile Police Patlabor The Movie
11. 9.7_Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise
12. 9.6_Tamako Love Story
13. 9.6_K-On! The Movie
14. 9.6_Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai
15. 9.5_Ping Pong: The Animation
16. 9.4_Shinseiki Evangelion
17. 9.4_Eden of the East
18. 9.3_Made in Abyss
19. 9.3_Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul
20. 9.3_Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
21. 9.2_The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
22. 9.2_Hyouka
23. 9.2_Kara no Kyoukai I: Fukan Fūkei
24. 9.1_FLCL
25. 9.1_Mind Game
26. 9.1_Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
27. 9.0_Shinseiki Evangelion: THE END OF EVANGELION
28. 8.9_Cowboy Bebop
29. 8.9_K-On!!
30. 8.8_Kill la Kill
31. 8.8_Space☆Dandy 2nd Season
32. 8.8_Samurai Champloo
33. 8.8_Space☆Dandy
34. 8.7_Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
35. 8.7_K-On!
36. 8.6_Psycho-Pass
37. 8.6_Fate/Zero 2nd Season
38. 8.6_Fate/Zero
39. 8.5_March comes in like a lion 2nd Season
40. 8.5_March comes in like a lion
41. 8.5_Casshern Sins
42. 8.5_Koe no Katachi
43. 8.4_Bakemonogatari
44. 8.4_The Tatami Galaxy
45. 8.4_The Eccentric Family
46. 8.4_Tokyo Godfathers
47. 8.4_The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
48. 8.4_The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2009)
49. 8.3_ACCA: Jusan-ku Kansatsu-ka
50. 8.3_House of Five Leaves
51. 8.3_ACCA: Jusan-ku Kansatsu-ka - Regards
52. 8.2_Mushishi
53. 8.2_Mushishi Zoku Shou
54. 8.2_Mushishi Zoku Shou 2nd Season
55. 8.2_Mushishi Zoku Shou: Odoro no Michi
56. 8.2_Liz and the Blue Bird
57. 8.2_Girls’ Last Tour
58. 8.2_Yokohama Shopping Log
59. 8.1_Windy Tales
60. 8.1_Tamako Market
61. 8.1_Aria The Origination
62. 8.1_Omoide Poroporo
63. 8.1_Alps no Shoujo Heidi
64. 8.0_Flowers of Evil
65. 8.0_Hibike! Euphonium
66. 8.0_Land of the Lustrous
67. 8.0_Kizumonogatari I: Tekketsu-hen
68. 8.0_Kizumonogatari II: Nekketsu-hen
69. 8.0_Kizumonogatari III: Reiketsu-hen
70. 8.0_Gakuen Mokushiroku HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD
71. 7.9_Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer
72. 7.9_Aim for the Top! Gunbuster
73. 7.8_The Wind Rises
74. 7.8_Porco Rosso
75. 7.7_Metropolis
76. 7.7_Redline
77. 7.7_Night is Short, Walk on Girl
78. 7.7_Tekkon Kinkreet
79. 7.7_Paprika
80. 7.7_My Neighbor Totoro
81. 7.7_Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
82. 7.7_A Letter to Momo
83. 7.7_Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
84. 7.7_Kara no Kyoukai V: Mujun Rasen
85. 7.6_Un-Go
86. 7.6_Shinreigari: GHOST HOUND
87. 7.6_Boogiepop Phantom
88. 7.6_Serial Experiments Lain
89. 7.6_Shigurui
90. 7.5_Kaiba
91. 7.5_Now and Then, Here and There
619 days with an average score less than 4, I hope that you still enjoy what you watch. Gotta respect the Shimeji Simulation in your favorites, shit is bonkers and I love it.
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