Starting from spring 2017, I am posting reviews on seasonal series as well as uncommon series that I have watched that might lack a decent review for potential watchers.
My thoughts about reviews
To make an Anime review, you first need a lot of base knowledge regarding Anime, use language that is comprehendable by a larger audience, a solid scoring system as well as watching the episodes with a bit more of an objective view, to the level where it doesn't hurt your own enjoyment of the show.
My experience
I started watching anime during summer 2015 and have watched around 150 days of content since, you might note that very few shows are listed as "below 6" which is due to 2 main reasons. First off, I tend to not watch shows that are of lower quality unless I got tricked. The second reason lies in my scoring system.
Something you might notice in my list is that I tend not to have watched very old shows, and the reason for that is: There's just no value in trying to enjoy something that is outdated, both in art, sound and often the story can be the "beta" stages of what later developed into a more established genr. All said and done: Old anime CAN be good, e.g. Cowboy Bebop, but can also be something I've already seen newer and often better versions of.
Scoring system
My scoring system basically builds slightly on the MAL database of scored anime. A technical score + personal enjoyment score often don't portray the show in a just manner. Every reviewer obviously has their own way of scoring a show, many also step away from using the 1-10 scale, but all in all - Only established reviewers can back up giving a show a 1 or a 2, and even for them it's not completely justified.
To the point: A show with bland art, a boring and generic plot, decent sound quality and characters that are only driven by the story itself would generally be given a "5, 5, 7, 5" technical rating by me which would result in a technical score summary of 5.5. If we then look at shows that lie around the rating 5.5, we will find shows that would have a technical rating of below 3, meaning that our score for the reviewed show definitely wouldn't match the lower quality of similarly scored shows. The solution of this is having a fairly good sense of what the series can compete with. In the case of a 5.5 technical score, we would generally fall into the 7.0-7.3 line, where very many of the "generic" and "average" shows lie.
What's important with the scoring of an episode on MAL is that the reader needs to understand at "what level" the show lies, rather than making it look a lot worse than what it actually compares to, even though it's not a good show.
The system I use is definitely not perfect, since there is quite a lot of personal opinion involved and a problem comes up when we get to higher scores.
As an example: If I rate a show a 10, while a great show like Gintama or Steins;Gate only hovers above a 9 on MAL, would that look reasonable if you compare it to my previous argument? Definitely not, however - POPULAR shows that hover above 8 in general score has a high tendency to often reach a 9 or 10 on my list due to the fact that no show appeals to everyone. A POPULAR show or movie that has a rating of 9 or above often beat the score ceiling of 10 when it comes to the majority of people watching it, but the minority of people that don't like the show will make the score suffer.
Another problem when it comes to scoring within 6-10 is that you're basically limiting yourself to 5 numbers, and one 7 rated show can differ very heavily in quality to another 7 rated show.
And finally: I often rate shows on my own anime list slightly different to how I rate them overall in a review, due to the fact that reviews are meant for readers and potential watchers to get a bit of understanding of the show, whereas my own animelist could be seen as my overall technical score, which also directly influences the MAL score of the show (albeit veeeery slightly).
The concept explained: I will list the magic words behind the numbers.
5: Almost never worth watching.
6: Below average.
7: Ranges from average to good, often worth watching.
8: Almost always worth watching, most of these are shows worth their time.
9: Great shows, solid in consistency, always worth watching even though the genre can differ from your favorites.
10: Excellent quality in several departments as well as a high enjoyment value.
Finally, when it comes to how I watch shows to set these scores, there are deviations to my methods from show to show.
Some shows are rewatched, some are too average and can be judged directly after watching them. Shows are supposed to be rated to the level you believe it was after your first time watching it, since a reader doesn't watch something 3 times to judge it before reading a review, but it might be a lot better to know the faults that the series has and note them even though it might not affect your rating too much.
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All Comments (4) Comments
I started watching anime seasonal probably in Winter 2014. I usually only write non-airing reviews though.
I tend to like to start a conversation with everyone I invite instead of just giving you a random invite.
What was the first season that you started to watch shows seasonally?