Report chammont's Profile

I doubt you care about where I grew up or what my blood type is so this will all be related to anime/manga. I use this site mostly for the ratings and reviews so I'll start with that; what I put into them and what I like to see in them. There's not much to be said about the ratings. MAL makes it pretty simple now by giving descriptors next to each star. Although, how a person determines whether a show is great, average, horrible, etc. can vary a lot. It all depends on what's important to them and what they find enjoyable. For me I try to enjoy everything I do as much as possible and to that end I try not to have any expectations. This makes me a horrible critic, and you can tell that by my average rating. There are a couple other reasons for my high average rating. One is the fact that I don't give a rating to shows I don't finish. There have been a number of shows I've seen that have had strong ending that totally changed my opinion of it, ( for example Puella Magi Madoka Magica) so I don't think it's fare to rate it unless I've finished it. Since I often stop watching shows that I'm really not enjoying, there are very few poorly rated shows on my list. I do try to follow the three episode rule but there are quite a few shows I just couldn't see through to the end. There can be exceptions when it comes to not rating unfinished shows and that is shows that are super long like Naruto or One piece. If I've watch at least half of it then sometimes I'll give it a rating even though I haven't got to the end. The other aspect is the fact that I usually look up shows and get some info on them before I watch them so it's a lot less likely for me to start a show that I won't like. Although I don't go off just ratings, I always read through the reviews. As I kind of alluded to, ratings don't tell the whole story (no pun intended). There can be lots of reasons why someone can like or dislike a story, and as the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Whether they think it's trash or treasure, what they say can give a lot of insight into what kind of show it is. It's kind of like the reviews give me the persona of the story/show. If you tell me a bunch of facts about a person (which is basically what a synopsis is like) it won't necessarily help me know what kind of person they are i.e. their personality. Reviews give me that kind of insight to a show that I can't find elsewhere. Not to say that the synopsis isn't helpful. The plot is definitely a factor in deciding what I want to watch but we all know that a good plot does not equal a good show. Speaking of synopses one of my pet peeves are reviews that give their own synopsis of the story. I'll admit that some of synopses on MAL can be lacking but if that's the case then just point out the part that's lacking. I don't need another recap. Plus there's a club whose sole purpose is revamping and improving the site's Synopses.
Another thing I'm not fond of is spoilers. I think it's important to consider your audience when writing a review. Most of the time people read reviews to see if it's something they would be interested in, i.e. they haven't seen it yet. If the reader sees a spoiler warning they'll probably just skip over the post and not read it. It's just not the right place for that kind of thing. Whenever I see a spoiler warning it's usually because someone is venting about the show, which is fine but why not put it somewhere that it's more likely to get read, like on a thread that was made for that kind of thing. MAL has lots of places to post stuff and there's always 4chan and Reddit. I'm open to any rebuttals (as long as your civil about it), but to me it just doesn't make sense.
Anyhow, that's enough griping. It's time to talk about what I like in reviews and there for what I try to put in my reviews. The first thing isn't what's in it but the size of it. I like them short and concise. The longer ones can give a little more insight on occasion but a lot of times it reminds me of watching filler episodes. There's a lot being relayed but it doesn't contribute much to the overall content. Of course the short ones can end up being too short and lacking in over all content. Writing a good review can be hard. That's why I haven't written many of them. I toil over what to put and how to word it and it takes me forever. After all the time I put in I end up with only a paragraph or two, and it's certainly no masterpiece. But hopefully they've been helpful to someone out there. As for what I like in a review, it's hard to give specifics. To start I like knowing the overall tone of the show. Am I going to be baling, laughing, or on the edge of my seat? If it's a comedy (which is probably my favorite) what kind of humor is it? If it's going to be like Excel Saga that's a hard pass for me. It can also be nice to know how much fan service there is. Too much fan service (which in my opinion IS possible) can be distracting. I'm looking to be entertained not aroused. Knowing if it's going change gears in the middle is always good (like Angel Beats or Shuffle)? I prefer to be forewarned of that kind of thing. Don't give me warm and fuzzy and then decide to ripe my heart out and leave me sobbing like a baby. Not cool. Although just for the record I liked both of the aforementioned shows despite the shift on tone. Hearing about what stood out for you in the show such as good character development or striking artwork is great too. When doing my own reviews I try not to hype the things I liked too much so that people's expectations don't get too high. Cowboy Bepop is touted as this epic anime so I had enormous expectations for it. When I watched it I walked away feeling disappointed. In hindsight I'm not even sure what exactly I expected, but I doubt the show would have lived up to my expectation regardless of how good it was. There's a lot else that can go into a review but for the moment that's all that comes to mind. I'd love to hear what kind of things you like to see in reviews. Oh, one last gripe, PLEASE proofread your post. I know it's a pain but it makes it much more enjoyable to read. I don't expect perfection, (I'm sure there will be mistakes in this) but there are some reviews that I've read that were obviously not proofread even once. Now if English isn't your native language then I completely understand if you make mistakes. This isn't directed at you. It takes a lot of guts to try to communicate in a different language and I have a lot of admiration for those that try. I would never be critical of someone trying to speak or write in a different language. But for the rest of you, you can at least proofread it once.
Now I think I'll talk about how I got into anime. I'm not one of the people that grew up watching Dragon Balls Z or any other shows on Toonami. My parents were too cheap to get cable. I did see some of the old Gotchaman that was retitled in the US as Battle of the Planets but I had no idea that it was made in Japan until much later. I was curious about anime and at some point in my twenties I saw Akira and Ghost in the Shell but getting my hands on Anime wasn't easy. It wasn't until I signed up for Netflix that I started to get into anime. This was when Netflix was just DVDs, no streaming. I remember watching Appleseed and the 2005 Guyver. Then when Netflix added the streaming I really got into it. I started with Witchblade which I consider to be my gateway anime (kind of ironic considering it's a comic from the US). From there I watched whatever I could get my hands on from Netflix, Streaming or DVD. Darker than Black was one of the ones that really made an impact on me back then. There was a lot of stuff I could only get on DVDs. I remember waiting forever for some of the DVDs. The number of copies Netflix had must have been pretty limited and you could tell that they never bothered with replenishing their stock. If Netflix was down to one copy you just had to hope that it didn't get damaged or go missing before it got to you. I always handled those discs like they were some priceless artifact. I didn't want to be the one that caused that disc to disappear from someone's queue and end up on their wish list (not sure if that's what it was actually called). That was like no man's land. Once a disc got put on your wish list, chances were slim to none that you'd ever see that disc back on your queue. Although, there were a couple of times that actually happen, but generally if it went to the wish list that meant I wasn't going to see the rest of that series. I feel like some old guy going on one of those "back in my day" rants. Any how I'm pretty thankful for Netflix and I feel like anime owes a lot to Netflix for its current popularity. As far as I know that was the first time Anime was readily available in the US. Although from what I've read Toonami deserves a huge amount of credit too. I guess you could argue that Toonami what the first to make Anime readily available. Unfortunately that wasn't the case for me. Speaking of Toonami, I still haven't watched the infamous Dragon Balls Z that from what I know gained it's popularity from that network. I've seen Dragon Balls but not DBZ. I had to look up the whole "over 9000" meme. Like DBZ there is still a bunch of classics I still haven't seen. That's partly due to the fact that I like watching shows with English dubs and there is no denying that some of the older shows have pretty bad English dubs. I tried to watch the original Gundam with the English dubs but didn't get past episode 25. Recently I watched the first few episodes with the original dub and I was kind of shocked by the difference. The acting really drew me in making the show more interesting and compelling. As for the whole subbed vs. dubbed debate, I have to admit that the arguments for subbed make sense. One thing I hate is how they "white wash" everything. I don't mean that in a racial sense but in a cultural sense. They think if an American doesn't understand something because of cultural differences they'll be turned off and not buy it. However, when you consider the demographic, that thinking seems backwards. Plus I'd like to think most of us aren't that shallow but maybe that's giving us too much credit. Regardless, profits are what're important, and the people in the dubbing industry feel the safe bet is to make the changes. The one time I think changing the script might have merit is with puns, although I'm still conflicted about this. Unless you learn the language you're just not going to get it and of course if you've learned the language a translation is pointless. There are some shows where I thought the script changes were pure gold. "Cat Planet Cuties" English script certainly took some creative liberties using American puns and references but I thought they fit the tone and vibe perfectly. I could tell what they changed because I'd watch it with the subtitles on even though I was listening to the English dub. I know it sounds counterintuitive but even though I'm not paying much attention to the subs I still tend to notice if the dub and sub are really different. When I do, I rewind it and reread the subs. I've learned a lot about Japanese culture from those catches. None the less I still find reading subtitles a chore so I listen to the English dubs. Maybe if I was encouraged to read more growing up I wouldn't find it to be such a pain. One of my biggest issues is keeping up with the subs. I'm not a very fast reader. I watched the first arc of Bakemonogatari and I don't think I've ever used the rewind button that much in my entire life. It probably took me over a half hour just to get though the first few minutes. Granted, that part is just translated script, but even once the dialogue started it was still too fast to keep up with. And I gave up on The Tatami Galaxy (Yojohan Shiwa Taikei) before I even got five minutes into the first episode. It's really unfortunate considering how well liked both of them are. I actual started reading the manga for Bakemonogatari with the idea that maybe that would help me be able to keep up with the anime. My thinking may seem a little backwards but if it works then why not. On a side note, it might seem odd to specifically refer to the dubs as English dubs. Most people just say it's subbed or dubbed but I came across a post ranting about how it was ridiculous to call it dubbed because all animation is dubbed, they're just dubbed in different languages. I thought they're indignation over it was a bit much but I still felt the argument had some merit. That being said I have no issues with people referring to a show as the dubbed version vs. the English dubbed version. I think when you're talking about dubbing it's kind of implied that you're talking about the dubbing of the language that you're using. None the less I've gotten in the habit of specifying that it's English. that's kind of an odd note to end on but my brain is done. I know I said that I like reviews concise but for my profile I thought I'd let loose. If you're reading this then you either have a strong determination to finish things or I somehow manage to keep your interest. Whatever the case, thank you for sticking in there until end.