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I'm curious about the way people rate their anime ("my anime") in the encyclopedia. And it'll give us all a chance to show how we distribute our ratings if we want, I know how so many like to show off stats.

Preferably this shouldn't be a discussion about separate series' qualities, unless it's as an example.

Currently in my "Seen all" category I have 335 rated anime, here's a general breakdown:

A or A+ / 10 - A Masterpiece, exquisite beyond words:
18 ratings - 5.5%
A- / 09 - Excellent, should be in anyone's collection:
42 ratings - 12.5%
B+ / 08 - Very good, don't miss it:
86 ratings - 25.5%
B / 07 - Good, worth seeing:
87 ratings - 26.0%
B- / 06 - Decent, I didn't lose my time:
55 ratings - 16.5%
C+ / 05 - S-so, it didn't really grab my attention:
21 ratings - 6.5%
C / 04 - Not really good, but not a total waste either:
15 ratings - 4.5%
C- / 03 - Weak, I wish I'd done something better with my time:
8 ratings - 2.5%
D+ / 02 - Bad, really not recommended:
2 ratings - 0.5%
D or D- / 01 - Awful, should be avoided at all costs:
0 ratings - 0%
F / 00 - Worst ever, maybe useful as sadistic torture device:
1 rating - 0.3%
(MD Geist - FYI- an early indiscretion, and lesson of what I don't like)

Of course this is very approximate and doesn't take certain things into account but it's a good baseline and as such I've rounded things slightly after plugging the numbers into a percentage calculator

I also personally do not take into account "Seen Some" ratings. If I've only seen a couple episodes of a show, even if I've dropped it due to perceived low quality, I do not think it's fair to rate an entire series on that, unless it was particularly heinous. I usually don't even bother listing something I've seen a single episode of, unless it's a short OVA. If I've seen enough to get a good idea of the show I'll include a rating but don't stand by it too strongly. There may be a couple occasions in the "Seen all" category in which I truthfully haven't seen every little episode but enough to say I have. If I did, it would of course bring up the negative scores up, but not much (There aren't any more Worst Ever's in there). Mostly I think I know what I'll like and don't even bother with what I don't think I'll enjoy to some degree.

So as it is, almost 70% of the anime I have rated is Good or better. Does this mean I'm not being critical enough? That I let things pass?

I think it's more that I LIKE anime, and it's natural that I give them high ratings. And I can understand why all the ratings in the encyclopedia are top heavy.... Although I do think there are too many "Masterpiece" ratings out there- how is it that any mediocre show (Ichiban Ushiro no [Demon King] Daimaō for instance) get masterpiece ratings? I mean, for a Masterpiece rating not only should a show be an example of something you like, it should be the very best of of show you like- "exquisite beyond words"- something you should not even be able to formulate a criticism about.

Likewise I'm confused about so many "Worst Ever" ratings. It's the opposite of a Masterpiece. It's a zero rating- you can't imagine anything good being said about it.

So, how do others rate their shows?

Is it possible that others use a more academic approach? Using something like a schools academic grading scale? I tried to incorporate that into the above ratings system but in order to include everything from an A+ to a F it'd have to include 13 categories. And as you know, you can score points in a failing grade. typically if you can't get 60% or 50% on a test you're going to fail. I consider "Worst Ever" to be a zero grade but I guess others might think of it as a 49 out of a hundred.

Personally, I use a masterpiece and a worst series ever as benchmarks. I have only one series set as each, and then all other ratings are relative to those two.

I think people tend to rate the anime they watch highly because they know their own taste, and mostly watch anime that match it.

Here are the stats of my ratings:

Excellent: 47 (18%)
Very Good: 53 (20%)
Good: 70 (27%)
Decent: 34 (13%)
So-so: 24 (9%)
Not really good: 13 (5%)
Weak: 15 (6%)
Bad: 3 (1%)

Total: 259 anime seen completely

I don't use the 'Masterpiece' rating, and probably won't use the lowest few ratings either.

So, that gives me 66% anime rated 'Good' or better. Looks like I'm not as good at predicting my own taste as you, Minnow. Or, it's also possible that I've been saving the anime I'm anticipating most. Hmm, maybe I should do something about that.

Last edited by Hentai_JP on Sun Jul 04, 2010 4:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

Talking about statistics, ah, how I love statistics...

Here is my stats (including titles in "seen all" category in "my anime" only (same for other graphs)):

You can see that I rate relatively high just like you. Then again, I know I have low tolerance for weak series so I mostly don't finish those below "so-so" and don't add them anywhere in my list. Same as Holy American I start from a "masterpiece" (luckily my first anime was Elfen Lied so that part was easy Razz

) and then rate rest of them accordingly. Over time I get better at separating good from bad, but most importantly I learn to see the levels of mediocrity. I can immediately tell a "masterpiece" or "excellent" level show, and I feel very strong about "very good" rating. Next three (good, decent and so-so) are harder but that comes with experience of sorts. Rest is just bad, I rate them depending on how much I wish I spent my time elsewhere.

So don't think you are overrating Spastic Minnow. In fact, your numeric average is 7.09 which is "Good +.09" if converted to ANN's rating system. Mine is 7.25 and overall mean on ANN is 7.5203 so we are actually a "harsh" raters compared to the masses Very Happy

.

And the best part about this post is... graphs of the ANN staff I am personally interested in(including Theron "Key" Martin, Zalis116, abunai, Tony K.):

Note how well-rounded ratings Zalis116 gives.

Spastic Minnow wrote:

I also personally do not take into account "Seen Some" ratings. If I've only seen a couple episodes of a show, even if I've dropped it due to perceived low quality, I do not think it's fair to rate an entire series on that, unless it was particularly heinous.

I am the same. I do not rate a show on this site if I have not seen all of it.

Spastic Minnow wrote:

So as it is, almost 70% of the anime I have rated is Good or better. Does this mean I'm not being critical enough? That I let things pass?

I think given your policy of not rating incomplete shows, you are likely to find the shows you did rate to be at least tolerable unless you are a completionist who insists on watching shows all the way to the end no matter how horrible. So it is not surprising that your anime scores are high. People who rate shows they did not finish will have much lower scores.

Spastic Minnow wrote:

I mean, for a Masterpiece rating not only should a show be an example of something you like, it should be the very best of of show you like- "exquisite beyond words"- something you should not even be able to formulate a criticism about.

Not possible. the best reviewed anime in history will still have a bunch of people who think it was crap and there will always be at least one person who thinks the worst reviewed anime ever was a masterpiece because they enjoyed it. That's the nature of human beings, we see and value things differently.

I use a relativity system as well. For me, "Worst Ever" doesn't really mean the worst series ever objectively, but the worst that I have seen. My list is still somewhat biased towards the Masterpiece to So-So rating because I tend to not finish anime that I think are bad, and not even start them if I don't like the premise. My "worst ever" rating goes to the Eureka Seven movie just because it was in my opinion a poor retelling of the story in an alternate universe which made the characters to me feel like cardboard cutout fanservice, and what's more they reused animation from the excellent TV series. It's nowhere near the worst anime in existence, and maybe not even the worst I've seen but I definitely inspired the worst reaction in me of everything I've seen.

I use the relativity scale so that people get a better idea of where an anime sits for me perfectly, and generally anything rated "Decent" or above can be considered to receive a recommendation from me; So-so and Not Really Good are series that possibly people would like but just didn't click with me and/or I didn't like so much, and anything else I didn't really like at all. As recently as last night redid a lot of my ratings to better reflect this; my ratings have needed an overhaul badly for the last couple of months - what happened with this system is that anime I rated early on in my days on the forum weren't as well scaled because I hadn't seen enough to make a worthwhile comparison.

I still think this is the best system because to try and sit objectively just doesn't work, and with my old system I had a lot of Excellent and Very Goods and not really much of anything else. With this system, the anime I thought were truly masterpiece material, excellent or very good really stand out as being so in my opinion.

Oh God, statistics! *begins to twitch nervously*

Not so long ago I thought I'd stick with the system that's usually used for a lot of stuff online... basically rating everything between 7 and 9 (because nothing's perfect, and what's below 7 doesn't deserve attention). However, recently I came to the conclusion that it's not as applicable to anime as other entertainment media. Why? Not sure, it's as though something made me reconsider, and I'm still in the process of trying to remember the shows and adjust their ratings accordingly.

I think it's because the more you watch, the more you understand the difference between a series that's simply enjoyable and watchable ("Good", where most of the shows go); one that takes a step further and adds something I really liked, but isn't quite the best because of its other parts ("Very Good"); one that really excels in most parts (Excellent, duh). I try to give more or less objective ones, though obviously they are mostly skewed up, because I don't think I can rate a show that I've liked less than "Good". If it's not good in my opinion, then I can't have liked it and wouldn't have finished it (in most cases).
I feel that the "Masterpiece" rating should have a different word for it... Most of the series to which I've given that rating are Excellent + my personal liking of one or more elements. It really gets subjective, because at the end it's not me who decides whether that particular series really is a masterpiece or not, so as I said, I use it only to distinguish series from simply 'excellent' ones. But then I've also created a Favourites category where I put all kinds of series, and it's more important to me than the rating system itself.

The ones below "Good" have really disappointed me. Frankly, some of the shows that I've dropped without finishing would probably end up as "Weak", but I don't rate unfinished shows.

But my generally high ratings are the result of me watching good shows, reading reviews and plot summaries and whatnot before actually starting the series... It's not like I'd see a horrendous review and think "wow, it's time to have a really bad show in my list! let's go!"

Hentai_JP wrote:

And the best part about this post is... graphs of the ANN staff I am personally interested in(including Theron "Key" Martin, Zalis116, abunai, Tony K.):

Note how well-rounded ratings Zalis116 gives.

Interesting graphs. I will point out, though, that the stats are slightly skewed by the fact that they only take into account "Seen All". If you'd included "Seen Some", you'd see much more average ratings -- the simple reason being that (given limited amounts of time) one does not always make the effort to see the entirety of a bad series (sorry, but there is not enough money in the world to make me sit through all of Weiss Kreuz). That means that the poor ratings will tend to be in the "Seen Some" category.

I'd love to see similar graphs including "Seen All", "Seen Some", and "Will Not Finish", to give a complete view of ratings.

- abunai

lesterf1020 wrote:

Spastic Minnow wrote:

I mean, for a Masterpiece rating not only should a show be an example of something you like, it should be the very best of of show you like- "exquisite beyond words"- something you should not even be able to formulate a criticism about.

Not possible. the best reviewed anime in history will still have a bunch of people who think it was crap and there will always be at least one person who thinks the worst reviewed anime ever was a masterpiece because they enjoyed it. That's the nature of human beings, we see and value things differently.

I'm speaking on a personal level. A show that you personally enjoy every aspect of and whose faults you can't personally see. The strangest choice in my masterpiece section is probably Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space, it's little seen (not licensed in North America), aggressively weird, incomplete, quiet and dreamy with a soundtrack of downbeat electronica. Not everyone's cup of tea, and while I see why the biggest criticism of it is that it is slow and hard to understand, when I watch it, that doesn't register.
But it's such a singular and unique movie that I bet anyone who sees it, even those that really don't like it (and there are just as many "awful ratings as "masterpiece"), understands that there may be weirdos out there like me that would love it.
And I too can understand others can enjoy many shows to a great degree that I don't.
Yet still I can't see how some get Masterpiece ratings. I'll have to use another example here, Winter 2010's Omamori Himari, I personally couldn't finish it but I'm not going to argue (much) with people who like it, I got at least halfway through it- it had some appeal. It has a median rating of Good, but what criteria is there for 15 people rating it a masterpiece?

First of all, I do not give "Worst Ever" grades. I blame this on the wording; if it had been named "Complete Dreck; No Redeeming Features", I reckon I could find a few titles that would fit the bill. Unlike Skylark, I just cannot divorce myself from the objective interpretation.

On a related note, I dislike the description for "Not Really Good", because it is (in a way) more generous than the one for "So-so". I find it difficult to make up my mind if a title lands around there, because the descriptions keep making me rate things higher or lower than what I really think they should be at. 'Tis annoying.

Secondly, at the start I thought about having a system where there would be quotas for the top grades. So there might be no more than, say, ten "Masterpieces", or the "Masterpiece" rating might take up a maximum percentage of 1% (say). Two reasons exist for why I didn't implement it; too much constant maths involved, and it doesn't give an accurate description of what I actually think is great.

Thirdly, I instead have a few easy rule of thumbs that I go by.

Titles which were cliched and/or had large flaws and/or had bad writing, but were still enjoyable, can earn themselves up to a "Good" rating but no more. Additionally, if the title was largely flawless but completely boring, I'll give it a Good rating; Anime is supposed to be enjoyable.

Titles which had only a few flaws and were somewhat enjoyable, or were quite flawed but were also very enjoyable, can earn up to a "Very Good" rating. I use this grade a fair bit because I try to be careful with what I watch, and therefore a lot of Anime ends up here (even more does not, sadly).

To some, the distinction between "Excellent" and "Masterpiece" is a somewhat blurry one. I'm sort of better, sort of in the same boat. To get an "Excellent" rating a title simply needs to be both well constructed and very entertaining. For a title to be a "Masterpiece" it must be without any major flaws, and must either personally affect me on a deeper level than just entertainment (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Only Yesterday, Kino's Journey), be crazily entertaining (Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion), or it must be so well constructed that I have no choice but to acknowledge it (FLCL). The two wildcards are Trigun and Vision of Escaflowne, both of which should probably be in "Excellent" but which have such impressive re-watch value I'm loathe to mark them down.

I don't really have rules for differentiating titles at the lower end of the spectrum, as I just compare them to what's down there already. It sounds haphazard, but I assure you I do spend considerable time making sure that titles aren't getting shafted (or unfairly rewarded).

I give the "masterpiece" rating an awful lot, and it's not because I consider all of the titles masterpieces. It's more a consideration of how much I like the series at the time I rate it. Because I rate them right after completion the scores tend to be higher than they should otherwise be. If I have a big change of heart, I will edit the rating later. I almost never finish any series that I would rate below the highest 3 ratings and don't rate many of the ones I don't finish. Otherwise I would be rating 100 more series based off watching an episode or less. Maybe I'm a bit picky?

And I don't really give out "worst ever" because I just never really think about rating Dragonball or other oppressively long winded, 100+ filler episode shonen action series.

Last edited by Skylark on Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

I have to say that I agree with dtm's allocation of the masterpiece rating. I have yet to see an anime (except maybe the move The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) that I can't attach one single criticism to, so they are simply the anime that belong rightfully in the excellent category, but for one reason or another reached out to me on an emotional level enough to receive that distinction. I take this into account with all my ratings though; some that don't really deserve my excellent rating have been bumped up through pure emotional connection. As I said I don't really try to remain objective because if anyone is going to look at my anime list they are looking to see what I think of any given anime. The ratings are going to be subjective whether you like it or not, which is why the "weighted scale" approach feels appropriate for me. I feel that rating too many anime as a masterpiece takes away my ability to separate the great series with the ones that I really felt were sublime - people are limiting themselves to a scale of 1-3 rather than a scale of 0 - 10; though the ratings are given "names" this is rather limiting your ability to distinguish.

Honestly though no "rating" is really going to be accurate. I feel it is impossible to attach a numeric value to a complex opinion and that is exactly what we have to do in order to rate something; so at every available opportunity I try using the forum to give a detailed description of why I liked/disliked certain qualities of a series that I've given a rating to. I really think I should go through and give commentary on all the series I've seen but it's a time factor more than anything else, and usually I need current conversation to push me to think deeply about what aspects of an anime led me to choose a rather abstract number. A series rated "good", for example, might have been consistently decent from start to finish and led to me giving that rating - or it might have been fantastic up until a terrible ending. Or the opposite; I rated Code Geass R2 possibly higher than it deserves overall because I thought the ending was brilliant.

Maybe as they come to me, one at a time, I'll start to comment on my anime. However, part of me can't really be bothered because it's a lot of effort to go to on the offchance that someone might be perusing my massive list and actually bother to read them all, when making comment in a topical thread here is more likely to draw attention to your opinions concerning a given series. I am really only maintaining the list so I know exactly what series I need to eventually purchase - when I win lottery or something.

If anyone is interested, my Rating spread is as follows:

10/Masterpiece - 8 votes or 5.26%
09/Excellent - 15 votes or 9.87%
08/Very Good - 21 votes or 13.82%
07/Good - 27 votes or 17.76%
06/Decent - 23 votes or 15.13%
05/So-So - 20 votes or 13.16%
04/Not Really Good - 16 votes or 10.53%
03/Weak - 12 votes or 7.89%
02/Bad - 7 votes or 4.61%
01/Awful - 2 votes or 1.32%
00/Worst Ever - 1 vote or 0.66%

As you can see my botes are centered around "Good" with pretty much equal rise up to it on either side - very similare to Zalis' curve, in fact. Also, I found that after I'd rated my series in this way, the ratings "names" still more or less described vaguely my feelings about the series. So overall I'm pretty happy using this system.

A substantial period of time has elapsed since I last rated anything. I construe ANN's system of ratings as being effectively numerical, in virtue of the linear ordering of each rating category with respect to the value each signifies. To express an opinion in terms of a number is certainly a tenable notion, for giving something the highest rating can be understood as signifying the lack of any other title valued to a greater extent.

What becomes difficult is the plausibility of expressing my approval of one title as a fraction of my approval for an absolute favourite, viz. assigning one of the ratings lower than "Masterpiece" to a title. It is not obvious that my sentiments held towards one work are so comparable to those held towards another. They may both reflect similar sorts of emotional response, but the unique combination of responses each work elicits may render comparison of a quantified sort far less precise than the numerical form of the comparison would suggest.

I find it mildly easier to rank titles in a list of descending value, though only in case of the titles I judge passionately. I seem able to proclaim that I value one title over another, to a greater extent than I seem able to assign each one a label signifying this affection as a mathematical entity. (For titles for which my opinion is neutral however, I admit that this method is less suited.)

abunai wrote:

Interesting graphs. I will point out, though, that the stats are slightly skewed by the fact that they only take into account "Seen All". If you'd included "Seen Some", you'd see much more average ratings -- the simple reason being that (given limited amounts of time) one does not always make the effort to see the entirety of a bad series (sorry, but there is not enough money in the world to make me sit through all of Weiss Kreuz). That means that the poor ratings will tend to be in the "Seen Some" category.

I'd love to see similar graphs including "Seen All", "Seen Some", and "Will Not Finish", to give a complete view of ratings.

- abunai

By popular request Razz

(I have also added a total count and arithmetic mean):

Note that Key doesn't have/has hidden the "seen some" and "will not finish" categories and Tony K. doesn't have the "will not finish" category.

Well, you are right abunai, graphs did change, significantly I'd say. Tony K's graph now looks like an almost straight line down from "excellent" to "worst ever". Abunai, yours also evens out, and starts to look suspiciously close to Tony K's Rolling Eyes

. In both your graphs, and Key's graph too, "excellent" count is highest... and it's literally all downhill from there.

I bet these are the very graphs used in the complicated formula Dan42 devised to rate user's credibility. Bell Curve with site's median rating as "peak" is most likely the credibility criteria which counts votes from every category in "my anime" and "my manga" lists. Interesting.

dtm42 wrote:

On a related note, I dislike the description for "Not Really Good", because it is (in a way) more generous than the one for "So-so". I find it difficult to make up my mind if a title lands around there, because the descriptions keep making me rate things higher or lower than what I really think they should be at. 'Tis annoying.

I, for once, agree with you. If you check my stats I posted you'll see a "dip" of sorts on "not really good" rating (heck, abunai has that "dip" too). It's hard to pin a series there and as of right now I feel that only one series I've seen deserves that rating, and that rating only - Chaos;HEAd (TV). It's such a horrible series, yet I finished it without much difficulty... fits rating description perfectly.

And just because I can I want to point out how, in a rather interesting way, your ratings are distributed. Seriously, anime needs more love.

How do I rate anime? A scale of 1-10 based on how much fun I had watching the show...and that's it. No comparison to other shows (except twice), no taking into account art/animation, no interest in deep character development, nothing except how entertaining it was from beginning to end. This is perhaps why my list is so weird at first, and possibly second and third, glance.

For example, both Moribito and School Rumble have a perfect grade of 10/10. They may be two totally different shows in every way possible, but they're awesome in their own ways. Moribito has it's 10 because of it's great story, nice fights, entertaining characters, and it's topped off with a heart warming end. School Rumble, on the other hand, has it's score for being absolutely hilarious for 26 straight episodes without ever feeling dry. Sure, it's no deep philosophical piece that's an allusion for how war is bad, but I don't care about that; it was comedy and it made me laugh HARD. Both entertaining, both perfect scores, but for different reasons. Their one connection is that they succeeded in keeping my butt on my couch and my eyes on the TV, and that's all I ask.

All of this talk about the lines that separate and blah blah blah bore the hell out of me. I feel like people just don't have fun watching anime and sit there with their thinking caps on trying to find the really awesome things and really shitty things about a show instead of chilling out on their sofas. Perhaps its because anime is nothing more than entertainment to me instead of a "visual art medium" like many others see it. I mean, it's not like I'm preparing to write a 20 page research paper on how Show X changed animation as we know it, I'm watching cartoons.

Now this said, I can cut a show open like a surgeon. I can and have dissected a show, but I choose not to most of the time. Don't think the bad acting, lazy animation, dull color palettes, plot holes, and undeveloped side characters slip by me; I see them and simply don't care (bad endings are really the only thing I take into consideration for my grades). In fact, only shows that are completely dull with little redeeming factors make me rip them apart with stroke of my keys. As long as comedies make me laugh, dramas make me cry, romances make me mushy, and action shows make me yell "HOLY SHIT, HE BLEW UP HIS FACE", I'm set.

--------------------------------------------
Now for the stats. Personally, I use My Anime List's list since it breaks things down into how many days I've spent watching a show and things along those lines.

250 total entries including dropped and on hold shows.

230 (92%) completed

8 (3%) on hold

11 (4%) dropped

and I'm currently watching 1 show

Breakdown by score
10: 33 (14%)
09: 36 (16%)
08: 50 (22%)
07: 58 (25%)
06: 29 (13%)
05: 8 (3%)
04: 4 (2%)
03: 2 (.8%)
02: 0 (0%)
01: 1 (.4%) Mars of Destruction

I also have 3 shows (Cardcaptor Sakura, Death & Rebirth, and End of Evangelion) unscored because I'm either waiting to watch the uncut version (CCS) or just plain old don't know what to give it (EVA movies).

What I take from my scores: I like most anime and you really have to suck to not at least get a 6, which is "Alright". And I think that's a pretty accurate assessment since I do like watching anime and rarely have bad experience.

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