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Forum - View topicNEWS: Survey: Reviews
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Excellent survey topic! This is a subject that's been much bandied about on the various review threads (I know I've talked about it on Shelf Life threads.)
I may have sent my answers twice do to an error. (Sorry.) |
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Unholy_Nny
 Posts: 622 |
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Keep the scores!
Without them, I fear you may turn into a certain other review site ( I've known they've told their reviewers "You can say it sucks, just say it in a positive way". I think it's easier to do such things because they don't use scores.) |
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Ryvius213
Posts: 291 |
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I'm all for keeping the scores. The scores sum up the overall quality of the anime, and make it easier for a reader to make a decision on whether he/she should watch it or not. Without scores, one could say an anime is "okay", but still make it sound bad when he/she mentions several negatives in contrast to several positives in reviews. Many people who read reviews focus more on the negatives than the positives, so they may see an "okay" anime as a bad one.
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Xenofan 29A
 Posts: 378 |
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I agree you should keep the scores. I really love your review philosophy; I have similar opinions on how reviews should be written. If the reviewer focuses on his/her reaction, the reader doesn't usually get much out of it. However, if he/she focuses on the objective aspects of the show that produced that reaction, the reader can inevitably learn something about it.
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Veoryn87
 Posts: 808 |
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I've always liked the way ANN reviewed stuff. They get into every aspect of the series and talk about the quality in each of them. The reviewer may have liked or disliked the series, but s/he grades the quality of the series as if it's a seperate thing (enjoyment doesn't always equal quality, but I suppose that depends). I also like the fact that they don't seem to give everything good scores. Some anime reviewing sites I've been to don't seem to have anything bad to say.
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wintermoon
 Posts: 5 |
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I like the way that ANN does their reviews, I just wish that they would follow through in reviewing a series.
I often find that there may be reviews for a couple of individual dvd releases but that the entire series consists of 6-7 dvd's-not all of which have been reviewed. I would love to see an overall series review. Maybe the dvd's they reviewed were not the greatest, but the series redeemed itself later on and is worth getting. While I do check ANN for their reviews, I also check AoD and a couple of other site as well. While I like ANN's review style, for me at least, an overall series review is just more helpful than knowing if one dvd in the set is worth buying or not. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I like the scores, I admit sometimes I skim the major section and go down to see them (as well as the plus and minus points).
I definitely love the reviews here, and the columns. Even if Right Turn Only has cost me more money that I would like to admit 
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I am for removing the scores. I mean, if reviews are subjective, what's the point in having a score?
I am of course referring to that Death Note review. I have not forgiven Mr. Kimlinger for that unprofessional abomination. Reviewers say that they're impartial, but even after heaping praise on it for technical, writing and watchability merits, he still felt it was necessary to give it a "C". Plenty of mediocre (or even plain bad) Anime have scored better than a straight "C", simply because they had a more sympathetic reviewer. And that's not right. We try not to have a justice system where one's fate is dependant on how much the judge likes you, or what their mood is that day*. But too bad if an Anime gets a reviewer who openly hates it, or who hasn't had their morning cup of coffee, or such. We also tend to look down on discrimination in the hiring process. Think of Death Note as an excellent job candidate who wasn't hired because he was black, or gay, or a woman. We wouldn't tolerate that, so what is the big difference? So why does ANN think that it's okay for a reviewer to be giving a "C" to an Anime that is consistently in the top five of the encyclopaedia and has top-notch merits all round? Did Mr. Kimlinger truly believe that his review met the standard for impartiality, as well as fairness? If a reviewer hates an Anime, that's fine. It happens. But to consciously allow their personal feelings to affect the overall score is just outrageous. All it looks like is that he gave the score out of spite. To sum up, I argue for keeping the comments at the end, but removing the score. It's just too easily corrupted by reviewers with an axe to grind. *Well, we actually do have that sort of justice system, but that's another matter. The key thing is that we don't want it that way. |
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DavidShallcross
 Posts: 1008 |
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I disagree with dtm42.
Given the absence of an explicit list of objective rating elements, it should be clear that the score given to a work under review is exactly as subjective as the text of the review. Ideally, a score is redundant, given the text of the review, but in the real world a reviewer can overemphasize things that are interesting to write about, and leave a mistaken impression of his/her overall opinion of the work. Quoting a score helps correct for this. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I'm fine with scores, as long as there is an explicit list of objective rating elements. Without those elements, understanding a contrary score that is intended to correct a mistaken impression is difficult at best. It would create the same exact impression that was given in the death note review dtm42 is referring to, where there was no disagreement on the good points of the anime, yet the overall score was still incredibly low.
Criteria should be found through various popular anime and a list constructed that is useful for guiding review scores. If this isn't done, then I think that the score should be removed entirely. |
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mufurc
 Posts: 612 |
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I would've given it a C as well, for mostly the same reasons. On the other hand, there are other anime that I thought were great and were given low ratings here. So what? Sometimes you just have to accept that even though you think that a show is the best thing since sliced bread, not everyone agrees with this opinion. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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It's not about "you" or "me." Death Note has a strong general appeal and the consensus is that it is good across the board. The fact you personally don't like it, or Kimlinger doesn't like it is not the point. There are lots of shows I don't like. If I were reviewing those shows I would try to do so objectively, or I would ask for the review to be done by someone else so objectivity could be maintained. If you can't be at least somewhat objective then what use is your review to anyone else? |
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wintermoon
Posts: 5 |
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I have to say I don't understand why he rated the dub/sub a C either. Especially after he wrote "it is acted to cruel, chilling perfection in both languages (save for a certain weakness in the English supporting cast) "-quoted direct from review. If it was that perfect, then why the low score? It's hard to think that he would be able to be fair or impartial at all about this series since he states that "it's morally repellent." Thanks for posting that link. I don't read reviews of series that I know I'm going to buy, so I would never have known about that. Definitely makes me want to rethink my vote to keep the grading feature. |
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flip
Protoculture Addicts Editor in Chief
 Posts: 121 Location: Montreal, Qc |
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I agree with ANN review philosophy and I think the score is very important. So, please, keep it.
That's why I have developped a detailed score system for Protoculture Addicts. (anybody would like to comment on PA's reviews? You can do it in the PA's forum!) The score give squarely what the reviewer thinks of the title and the review itself explains why, justifying the score, but can also give more information (like putting the title in a larger context). Some people will look only at the score (to know, for example, if it is worth buying), some people will read only the review (because they think the score is irrelevant, or biased -- those are the people who voted for removing the score) and some people will read everything. Personally, sometime I only look at the score and sometime I read everything. It depends how much time I have. We all know that the reviewer will do his/her best to be impartial, but we also all know that it's impossible to be entirely objective. And anyway, we want to have his/her opinion and that's why we read the review, isn't it? That person spends lots of time watching anime and reviewing them, so that's the sum of all that experience that constitute his/her opinion and that's what I am interested in when I read a review. That's also the assumption I have when I write a review... With time, people tends to have a favorite reviewer. “I like the review of that person because most of the time he/she has the same taste as I have.” So the question I would ask you is: do you have a favourite ANN (or PA) reviewer and, if so, who? |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I don't think that the scoring system is necessary. When there are some series or reviews that seem to go favorably when the person is talking about what is happening and what the series could improve on, the scoring system either seems to undermind or over rate what the series is going for.
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