The most important thing to know about how I use MAL: my lists are based primarily on my emotive feedback for the series. I categorize my anime and manga this way because I believe a numerical point on a rating system cannot objectively represent my subjective values which dictate what I think makes a work of art "good" or "bad". Simple as that. Here is an incomplete list of basic ideas that I consider when ranking these IPs:
How memorable was this?
How often am I thinking about this?
How likely am I to revisit this?
How likely am I to own a physical copy of this?
How likely am I to talk about this with other people?
Do I feel like I made a good or bad decision to consume this?
The other thing to know about how I use MAL:: I use the "Notes" tab on my list to write paragraph-length commentary on the respective work. In my notes, I share my immediate, rudimentary thoughts on a specific work in a concise manner (in other words, without needing to write a lengthy, analytical review). Hopefully, my notes and reviews illuminate how my critical side evaluates entertainment, and to that end I hope you can glean from all this information my preferences.
ENJOY YOUR STAY
And remember, my opinions are better than yours ♥~
EXTRA CONTENT
Incredible soundtracks -- I love nothing more than music, and this deep appreciation shines brightly whenever I consume anything that utilizes music in the background. In fact, if I enjoyed the soundtrack enough, then I will remember musical sequences from a movie before I remember specific scenes. Ideally, the soundtrack should fit the thematic elements of a series; for example, Joe Hisaishi's whimsical, Romantic symphonies pair extraordinarily well with the natural beauty illustrated in a typical Studio Ghibli film. Conversely, I abhor bad soundtracks to the same degree at which I cringe whenever I observe terrible writing.
Protagonists -- Most of the time, I care more about the protagonist than all other characters. My reason why is quite simple: typically, entertainment spends a greater deal of time focusing on the main character before everyone else, so the consumers learn more about the main character than anybody else. I also think an ideal protagonist exerts the most influence over the plot, but obviously not every fictional work utilizes the MC in this manner. For example, Fullmetal Alchemist has such a massive cast rife with vibrant characterization, and plenty of characters besides Edward and Alphonse Elric affect how the story progresses. With that said, because of my love for MCs, Edward and Alphonse still ended up being my favorites in that series.
Translation -- Because anime and manga are produced in Japan, a county with a language so different from English, translations are essential for foreigners to consume these IPs. Because I consider the writing to be the cornerstone of all entertainment, I hate how often a translation makes or breaks an anime for me, but unfortunately, subtitles have a habit of being too bare-bones for my liking, and English dubs have a habit of sounding too cartoony. In my opinion, Steins;Gate has the best English dub of all anime. John Michael Tatum and Trina Nishimura perfectly play the conspiratorial scientist characters, which elevated my viewing experience greatly. I would not like the series as much without those two. March Comes in Like A Lion also has an exceptional dub, although this relates more to the translation itself rather than the voice actors (no disrespect to them).
Bad guys who become good later in the story -- Without question my favorite trope in all of storytelling. The best explanation I can give is that I like to watch people change over time, and to witness an evil character reconsider their position and switch sides makes for good entertainment. Another probable reason why I like these types of characters is because the "bad guys" typically have an aesthetic which I gravitate towards. Examples from and outside anime include Greed (FMA:B), Susie (Deltarune), and Darth Vader (Star Wars), to name a few. Interestingly, I don't care as much about the opposite (good guys who become bad later in the story), although I have certainly seen stellar examples.
Good writing -- When I say this, I simply mean that the main ideas of the project are communicated well to the audience. I don't think the script needs to be written à la Pulitzer Prize Winner to be a successful series, nor do I think such a script immediately elevates a series. I just want the mangaka to exercise incredible control over the stream of conscious thoughts onto the frames, or the animation studio to tap into the adaptation's aura so that it stays relatively faithful to the author's original intentions. There is no specific literary stance that I take, either. I just want the writer to write well, because if the writer cannot, then the entire IP falls flat on its face.
Meaningful storytelling -- The whole reason we as a species started to tell stories is to edify listeners. I appreciate it when entertainment teaches us something, so long as the message isn't hackneyed, or negated by the series in some way, or flawed in some other conceivable way. With that said, I am slowly learning to appreciate literature, film, or anything else that is meaningless, even without a comedic aspect to it. So long as the thing is fun to participate in, I will like consuming it. Additionally, I prefer the meaning of stories to be explicit rather than implicit. I don't want my entertainment to look like complex puzzles.
Surrealist comedy -- If you ask a random person what they envision when hearing the word "anime", people will naturally give varied responses. For me, I always think about how crazy Japanese cartoons come across to the Western context, particularly how absurd these shows are. The combination of internet memes and comedy acts such as Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg gave me a peculiar sense of humor that loves surrealism. Whether its from absurd visual gags, insane storytelling, or any form of non sequitur, these moments get a laugh out of me. Additionally, my secondary mode of escapism is humor (the main one is obviously music), so I appreciate a work that gives me a good laugh.
Existentialist themes -- The fundamental question about our lives that perpetually haunts the collective human consciousness: why are we here? I think that entertainment that tackles this question in any intriguing way makes for an especially rewarding experience. It is no coincidence that some of my favorite books, films, and music all have takes on existentialism in one way or another. Of course, not every IP needs to make some profound statement on our being here. I simply appreciate it when a story asks what the point of everything is, because this makes the story's world feel more significant, and the characters' actions more impactful.
Poorly choreographed action -- A fight should be entertaining to watch, yet so often does the anime form fail to capture this. For the sake of the story, characters typically receive plot armor until something important happens; sometimes, the fight is simply not illustrated in a captivating way, or is just too messy to follow; almost always the characters explain what's going on in the fight, as though the storyteller doesn't trust the reader to follow; and of course, there's the dreaded flashback trope. Nothing aggravates me more than a flashback in the fight. This removes all tension from the action, and it often poorly justifies how the MC overcomes the enormous gaps in strength. I believe that the power of friendship is a motivator, but to use it as a plot device is frustrating time after time. For these reasons, action-oriented shounen is a mixed bag for me.
Bad worldbuilding -- I firmly believe that an ideal setting should feel like a separate entity, like a special kind of character in the story. That I think the environment affects who we are impacts my beliefs, so in the context of storytelling, all settings should exert some kind of influence over all characters. Also, a world should have its own kind of untold (or sometimes told) story. I don't want to think of the background as some drawn illustration, rather an organism. How the story tells itself affects how good I think the setting is, but I typically think these two things: when a setting in a story is empty, or when a setting can come across more as an artificial, lifeless sandbox wherein the characters to move about, that's bad worldbuilding.
Self-insert characters/generic protagonists -- Since I think protagonists are the most important character in a story, whenever an anime presents me with the blandest, most generic character, I immediately hate the series. There's no better way to trample over the integrity of storytelling than to mire the narrative with viewership's fantasies (more on that later). I cannot lie, though: I definitely have imagined and continue to imagine myself in some of the things I watch/read. However, if I wanted to imagine myself in a world, then I'd insert myself vicariously and after the series is over. That somebody would cater to this mindset annoys me.
Inability to suspend disbelief -- Basically, whenever the IP makes a decision that detriments its value (whatever that means). This one is pretty self-explanatory. Examples include deus ex machina, blatant anachronisms, inconsistencies in storytelling, et cetera.
Insipid exposition -- Yet another issue I have with all entertainment. This in particular relates to the dance artists must make when creating something that does not exist in reality: how does one convey just enough information about a fictional world for the viewers to understand what's going on without bogging the moment down with boring exposition? Bad expository writing comes in many forms, but when I experience it, I feel as though I'm being treated as a child, not as an adult.
Poorly treated female characters -- The great divider that separates the good anime from the bad is how the show treats its female characters. One-dimension in personality and three-dimensional in "assets", characters who exist purely for fanservice annoy the hell out of me, because to me this signifies that the creators did not trust that their narrative content would entice viewers, so they felt that they needed something eye-catching for their target audience. To this extent, most "-dere" archetypes I find obnoxious, although to be fair I'm not a huge fan of purely archetypical characters in general. While I'm talking about this, perversion in general is not my thing, and unless it's done in a tasteful way, I cannot support its existence in an otherwise non-sexual series.
Aesthetics that are too cutesy -- I'm a young adult male who grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s. In both of these time periods, being edgy was still seen as cool, and because I refuse to relinquish the past, I also enjoy this alternative aesthetic. It helps that, like many other deviants, I desperately wanted to oppose whatever the norm was, and my high school felt so preppy it was nauseating. Granted, I'm not completely opposed to the kawaii aesthetic in anime, but if a show comes across as too childish, then I might be unable to tolerate it simply because the sweetness makes me queasy (also, more often than not, these shows lack any real substance and just show anime girls doing cute things without any subtext).
Oversaturated with otaku culture -- On the one hand, I don't think it's altogether a bad thing that the culture adopts ideas in a close-circuited, circulatory fashion. After all, the manner in which art is created is basically a continuous trasmission of ideas passed down from one artwork to another. On the other hand, I think that creators should be able to free themselves from pandering to their audience, especially when some of their target audience includes some depraved individuals. You can't make everyone happy, but I don't like the idea of making content purely to pique the interest of specific individuals. Also, keep your fetishes out of my non-ecchi entertainment, please and thank you.
Thanks for the friend request. I might give Beelzebub a try. It was quite popular when I became more interested in anime back in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I don't know why I always kept pushing it aside.
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