@Vampt Vo

Oh no, I never said I agreed with the idea of only reviewing your favourites, sorry if I gave that impression. It’s just interesting to consider why you would review anime. If it’s just to tell people what you think they should watch, then is there any point in reviewing anything else?

Otherwise, I totally agree. I’ve seen reviews I disagree with, like that Gurren Lagann review, where I might disagree but the review is still expertly written. The title of this post is a lie

@Sean

Obviously. Reviews have become more analysis than reccomendations and this percentage increases with the more anime you’ve seen. <90% of the reviews I read nowadays are shows I’ve already seen.

I disagree that fans are incapable of viewing things critically. To take an extreme example, even the usually retarded youtube comments on Endless Eight videos were full of criticism. Obviously there were people who claimed to love it but there’s always someone who enjoys the shows out there. That returns back to the very point of this post. Just because you think Kampfer is utter shit doesn’t mean that those who enjoyed the show are ‘wrong’.

This no doubt also plays a role in how fans willingly tune into whatever garbage shows are popular that season; because they’re incapable of, or at least refuse to, view anything critically.

Additionally, I protest the notion of only liking reviews that agree with my opinion. I’ve read a lot of great reviews of shows that I didn’t like—Erin F.‘s Beck review in Otaku USA, for example. I gave that show 2 out of 4 stars (an “average” rating), but she recommended it, if I’m not mistaken. Her points are valid, and she wrote a solid review, but I felt that Beck’s poor animation and slow pacing brought the show down. The way I see it, disagreements in opinion should always be welcomed, as they further the discussion in any fandom and contribute to a deeper appreciation of the medium.

I definately disagree that a review has to look at all aspects. Apart from the fact that a lot of them might be irrelavent to the enjoyment of the series, but the review would end up tl;dr.

@Canne

I actually like it when a review focuses on certain aspects. One of my favourite reviews I’ve ever read was a review of Sola where whenever the animation was called into question, the reviewere descended into ‘those chins, the horrible chins!’.

@temperus

The compatibility is very suspect, although that’s probably because I have no idea what they use to calculate that. Reccomendations quite often just end up with anime with similar plot points rather than a similar feel. If you combine all the factors together you should be able to find out what anime you’d enjoy but that seems like an awful lot of work just to decide what anime to watch.

@Humanity_Cat

That’s the main reason I read reviews now. I like seeing different opinions of the same show. However don’t mix up blogging and reviewing. I know I interchange the words and I shouldn’t, but any review shouldn’t talk at length about what happened in the series

A good review doesn’t neccessarily have to agree with my opinion for me. I rather like seeing the contrasting opinion and seeing why.

But most of my opinions are pretty much what zzeroparticle said.

As you mentioned, people seem to vote based on their compatibility with a reviewer more than whether they think the review itself is good (I’m guessing it might be because of tl;dr or the sheer volume of reviews they feel they must rate).

I read somewhere once (or maybe I’m quoting myself here…) that it’s pointless to review anything other than your favourites because that is all people are looking for. Instant filtering system achieved

@temperus

I disagree. With MAL’s system, instead of filtering through the 200+ reviews of Death Note, the cream floats to the top and you read the best reviews. Of course there are problems with that system, as I’ve pointed out in the post, but at its centre it’s a very sound idea.

@wina1

I found your review of my review of reviews helpful

@zzeroparticle

Then what about reviews from people who found the show decent. In your comment you’ve implied that there is no place for a review that doesn’t give a clear view of whether you should watch it or not. Honesty is always the best option while writing a review but that doesn’t therefore mean the review would be helpful or not

@chii

How often when reading a review on MAL would you go back and provide constructive criticism? I read a hell of a lot of reviews on MAL and there’s no way in hell I’d go back and comment on every one. The helpful button is quick and helps let the good reviews rise to the top.

Although one thing I’ve been noticing is people automatically rating certain reviewers as having written a helpful review everytime. Tehominator is a great reviewer and all but I’m kinda sick of seeing her review at the top of every anime, even when the review itself isn’t actually that good