Forum - View topicDo you consider ratings when looking for series to watch?
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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I must say for a long time I was not taking ratings under consideration when picking up new titles. Then I saw a couple of complete misunderstandings, and decided that maybe ratings are not that bad after all and that we should become friends again, since the time I can sacrifice for watching anime is very limited during the semesters, so it is easier to eliminate a lot of bad titles...
However, ratings and reviews definitely not something that can shield me against shows I dont enjoy  (Noir has really good average on all sites I use, and yet it bored me out of my mind) therefore making me think that maybe I might be missing out on some really good stuff that just does not seem generally popular/liked...:/
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I take note of existing ratings and other evaluative expressions, but only insofar as I can justifiably assume the persons submitting such ratings to be disposed to prefer the same things, and moreover the same sorts of things, as myself.
More concisely, I give the greatest considerations to the ratings submitted by those alike in "taste" to myself. Of course, this requires an assumption of reliability to be made, wherein I expect trustworthy sources to voice the same evaluative claims I would have voiced regarding any given title, had I seen it under the same conditions as they. Given that very few people have identical preferences however, I can only accept this practice as an vaguely instrumental posit as opposed to a law-like principle. One presumes most other persons account for others' ratings in this manner as well, save those who draw a distinction between statements of evaluative quality and statements of personal favouring. (This is something I would rather not do.) |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I'm watching the first season of Clannad because of the high ratings it has. It is pretty good, and I'm really glad I decided to watch it.
But really, I look at the top fifty and shake my head in a mixture of disgust and disbelief. Of those fifty, there are twenty-six titles that I have seen/watched enough of to form a decent opinion. I would venture that only seven of those are good enough - in my mind at least - to deserve being in that group of fifty. Some titles (by no means all) that I think are great but which have done poorly/which are underrated in the ANN rankings: --- Whisper of the Heart (#51); should be at least ten places higher. It is a lovely film, but suffers because it is not as commercial as Howl's Moving Castle (48#) or as artistic as Princess Mononoke (#9). I think it is better than either of those two; the movie, like the two leads, is full of charm. Many of the characters seem like real people that I either know, or could see myself knowing. --- NANA (#56); definitely should be in the top forty, and probably the top thirty. The show has its flaws, but the realistic depictions of characters and situations (looking for jobs, taking contraception, trying to make it big in the indie music scene) is the show's biggest strength. Yeah, the characters can be stupid, but in the same way that real people can be stupid. Oh, and the music is excellent. --- Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (#81); easily top fifty. It is one of the best comedy shows I have ever watched, animated or otherwise. The rugby episode is just perfect comedy gold, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Kiwi. --- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (#87); top fifty. Complex is a good descriptor of this show (a rewatch is recommended), so having it in the title in fitting. But hey, it's intelligent and clever and a welcome break from most of the stuff that we see these days. What it is doing so far down the list is beyond me, as it is a great title from a popular franchise. --- Macross Frontier (#113); around top thirty. One of the best Mecha shows I have ever watched, this title has awesome battle scenes and an incredible musical pedigree (its music budget was over ten times that of a typical show's). Yeah the end was a let-down, but the ride was incredible. It will never be released in the West because of licensing issues, so don't feel guilty about getting the fansubs. --- Master Keaton (#329) and its OVA (#135); top thirty. This is a fantastic show, it really is (note: I count the OVA as part of the regular show). Extremely episodic (there is only one two-episode arc; all the rest are one-shots), it nevertheless is very well structured. The regular cast are competently developed, and because of the episodic nature of the show, there is always new and interesting characters, locations, events and themes in every episode. Quite an unusual series, but highly recommended. --- Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (#189); top twenty. This was my favourite show of last year, even more than the also underrated Bakemonogatari (#175). The reason I think it is so great is that it really hits you in the heart. But even before then, the show indulged in some extremely good characterisation, and they seemed like real people, I mean they really did. The show is also curiously unique; Anime just doesn't do American-style disaster flicks. The ending is one of the best in recent memory due to its incredible emotional impact. --- FLCL (#190); top twenty. The energy of this title is . . . ridiculous. The animation is epic in its quality and inventiveness (Manga-sequences, anyone?). The music became an instant classic to many fans. And this six-episode OVA still found time for meaningful character development, a plot that actually had some depth and substance, loads of awesome action scenes, numerous parodies, and of course comedy. Some people just do not appreciate genius. --- Vision of Escaflowne (#212); top thirty. I'll admit to some nostalgia, but there's no denying this is a classic. It featured one of the best female Anime leads ever (not to mention one of the most delectable villains), with beautiful music, highly original Mecha designs, and a great supporting cast, all backed by a finely crafted plot and excellent voice acting in both languages. The character designs are pretty horrible to look at by today's sentiments, but if you let the surface veneer fool you then its your loss. --- RahXephon (#237); top ten. Without a doubt. In my mind. This is not an Evangelion (#142) clone. It is hard to find a better crafted show in Anime, and the love story is epic. It may not do everything perfectly, but you know, it just about does. What's it doing slumming around here, I have no clue. Still, definitely watch it. --- Only Yesterday (#359); top twenty. If there's a mainstream Ghibli film that's often overlooked, it may just be this one. Yet it is just a fantastic piece of art. There is nothing fantastical about this movie, and it revels in the mundane. And yet, boy is it good. The film is a shining example of how not all Anime are focused on telling larger-than-life stories populated with larger-than-life characters. Sometimes regular people can have interesting - even fascinating - lives. And the voice acting; wow. I mean, the Seiyuu give probably the best performances I've ever heard in an Anime. Watch this movie; you owe it to yourself. So anyway, read lots of reviews and keep your eyes and ears open when people gossip about Anime. Because with all respect to Dan42, the ratings system is just not accurate to a meaningful degree. |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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I have only now looked at the top 250 titles... And I am quite surprised that some titles you mentioned are so far down the table...
Specially in the case of Escaflowne, even Evangelion far away from where I thought it would be. I guess popularity is a factor here, much as I like the first FMA, which is rated 18, I would not say it is better than lets say Haibane Renmei, but definitely had a much broader audience. This is a problem on all sites I guess, it is hard to come up with a system that would be please all, and the rating is still a matter of personal tastes, so getting an objective average is impossible. What I was mainly looking not at he overall ratings, but at the small breakdown in them- both ann and IMDB both show you how many people voted and how many among them gave the show 10,9,8 ratings... etc. I dont have as much time to go into reviews and digging into other interesting resources with my busy schedule during the year except for summer, so in a way I am dependant on those ratings. Most of the shows I am interested in now are deep down below #100, so Ill just have to keep my fingers crossed that they are underrated, rather than to spend my student loan on something I will want to burn and flush down the toilet. |
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lesterf1020
 Subscriber Posts: 295 Location: Trinidad and Tobago |
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I love ratings and reviews. I very much enjoy seeing what other people think of things and why. So I consider ratings both before and after I view an anime.
The thing about reviews and ratings is that it is important to know who is doing the review or rating and what their tastes are. That will give you the right perspective on their reviews or ratings. once you know what is important to the reviewer and what is not, you can then properly use their review or rating to decide if you will like the show as well. Some of my favorite reviewers have very different tastes to mine but their reviews give me all the info I need in conjunction with what I know of their tastes to decide if I will like a show. |
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Mister V
 Posts: 1000 |
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With a very large degree of doubt and margin of error, but yes. If a series is highly rated by a lot of people, it's bound to be either a classic (that remains a classic regardless of whether you like it or not), or a relatively new one that you can enjoy (or not), or in the worst case, something immensely popular because of its massive casual appeal. Well, ratings alone don't tell me much without reviews, but then reviews aren't worth a lot without ratings, either. Generally, I prefer gathering as much info as possible, and ratings obviously have a small, but non-negligible part in it. The good thing about the ANN system, for example, is that it lets you see the breakdown easily, so some extreme cases (anything up to and including mass trolling) can be spotted.
It gets hard about... right now, actually, when I mostly have watched the classics, and those that are soon going to become classics, given a little time, as well as a lot of the series you often hear about. Now it's about carefully picking out the rest of good series, which includes observing the spread of ratings more closely. |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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Ratings are just a single factor and, in my opinion, never the most important one.
The underlying problem, if you want to call it that, with any online rating system open to popular participation is the simple fact it's always going to reflect the current trends, tastes and interests among its users more than anything else. If yours don't match, there's little or nothing to be done. Both of those might gradually change over time but you're never going to find an absolute guarantee of quality. Even in the best case scenario, there's only a very limited correlation between quality and popularity among the general population, let alone anime fans, and one person's "masterpiece" rating is another's "average" or worse. Like others have said, reviews can be far more useful and informative as a guide, whether or not you agree with the reviewer's overall conclusions, because at least some specific arguments and positions should have been presented and it's quite possible to keep track of a critic's record and compare it to your own judgment. Still, there's no such thing as universal agreement even among critical circles (barring a few token exceptions) and different individuals will unquestionably continue to appreciate different things from time to time. As a result, I think the best course of action is simply to collect as much information as possible about a particular anime title before deciding what to buy or, if you must, watch. Asking for recommendations in those forums that allow such things (ie: not ANN) isn't necessarily a bad idea but it's not guaranteed to work wonders either. |
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RHachicho
 Posts: 897 Location: Essex, UK |
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Nope .. not in the slightest. I find them unrepresentative. Though if something has universally abysmal ratings I tend to be wary of it.
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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I take the anime top 250 list here as seriously as I do IMDb's top 250. As in, I'll probably enjoy the vast majority of titles listed, but I'll probably disagree with the ranking of the movies or anime most of the time. So that's I how I use these sort of "lists", seeing what's listed while completely ignoring ranking.
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xxxleet.ptxxx
Posts: 3 |
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Normaly i check all ratings, the Top Best Rated (bayesian estimate), the Top Best Rated (weighted average), Top Most Viewed and the Top Most Diverging Opinions and its in this last one that i normaly find some nice not so famous shows.
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gundam83
 Posts: 93 Location: Caribbean |
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I don't know why but I never check ratings or reviews. If the story sounds interesting to me I check it out,sometimes it works out,sometimes it sucks!
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7991 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Other people's opinions are their own, not mine, and mine is the most important to me. I'm perfectly capable of forming my own opinions by watching them, so I don't need them. I may like a series everyone else hates. I may dislike a series everyone else likes. However, if so, than so be it, that's me. The only way to find out is watch and see for myself.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Yes and no.
On the No side of things, I don't tend to really trust overall sort of top 250 lists because I think that there are a lot of incredibly bad series up there that totally didn't agree with me, probably more on the top 250 list than off it seems. And then not on the top 250 list are tons of hidden gems that I'd miss only looking at the top 250 lists. No, what I look at are MAL's ratings and specifically what people in my friend's list have rated something. Then I can go "oh, Person A has really similar tastes to me and found it to be average, it might not be worth my time" or I can go "Persona B doesn't have similar tastes to me within this particular genre but even he seemed to like it so I should really give this one a go". So the ratings that matter to me are people whom I know their tastes pretty well since it's more useful to me than a random review from someone I either don't know or who's tastes I don't know or a bunch of people all with varying tastes. Note that I only use that when looking for something new I might have overlooked to watch, go into their list and find something they gave an 8 to and go "that sounds interesting, might be fun", but in no way does it influence the score or opinion I will form of it when all is said and done. |
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Wrathful
 Posts: 372 |
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I like reading Ratings and other people's reviews but I don't take it to heart. I found 2 animes that I truly like in top 10 and rest of them all scattered down to top 250.
I must say I'm surprised that I see Baccano in 32nd position. I never realised how popular that series is. Somewhat I'm disappointed Berserk is in 104th position. It deserves a much higher ranking but I suppose that is good enough. |
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ShinobiX
 Posts: 889 Location: NY |
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Nope my rule is to watch the first 3 episodes then decide for yourself.
Ratings can be bias. Although, the top tens are generally good. |
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