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This Week in Anime - When Criticism Meets Anime Fandom

My main thing with the imo broken review process here at ANN is that some of the ladies and gentlemen who write here (I'm not gonna name names, but I've been here long enough to where I could if I wanted to) will start with the statement "this show belongs to a genre that I personally do not care for", spend three paragraphs explaining why that is the case, call it a review and send it in. The problem is that for anyone who is into that genre (which will be most people who are bothering to seek out reviews for shows of said genre), that's not the type of information they're looking for.

Just as a very simple example: if someone with an interest in shojo romance anime is trying to figure out whether this season's shojo romance offering is worth looking into, what would it matter to them whether or not it's in line with the tastes of someone whose area of expertise is shonen battle anime? That's not going to answer their questions.

MiniMarps wrote:

My main thing with the imo broken review process here at ANN is that some of the ladies and gentlemen who write here (I'm not gonna name names, but I've been here long enough to where I could if I wanted to) will start with the statement "this show belongs to a genre that I personally do not care for", spend three paragraphs explaining why that is the case, call it a review and send it in. The problem is that for anyone who is into that genre (which will be most people who are bothering to seek out reviews for shows of said genre), that's not the type of information they're looking for. Just as a very simple example: if someone with an interest in shojo romance anime is trying to figure out whether this season's shojo romance offering is worth looking into, what would it matter to them whether or not it's in line with the tastes of someone whose area of expertise is shonen battle anime? That's not going to answer their questions.

Such reviews do work for a reader who's not normally into that genre, either, and that's why they still have value.

For instance, I'm not at all a fan of BL. If a reviewer whom I know has bad-mouthed BL in the past says in a review "despite my normal tastes, this is actually worth watching" then that's certainly going to get my attention much more than praise from someone who's a known fan of BL.

Besides, I think it's good for reviewers to step out of their normal comfort zones every so often to review something they might not normally like. (Chris Farris and his GOMG reviews is a good example of this.) Now, I'll grant you that it's counter-productive if the reviewer just spends the whole review talking about what's wrong with the genre or why they don't like the genre, but thankfully that's not very common.

Personally I think its fine if someone critiques a genre, say, isekai using a specific work as a framing device, eg, mushoku tensei. It's similar to, say, someone critiquing the implications of certain romances with power-imbalanced relationships using twilight as a frame. People who dislike critiquing genres have persecution complexes.

Ex arm is not "objectively badly animation", because NOTHING can be objectively bad. If that were possible "objective" would have no meaning. By definition, art is subjective

Also, I assure you there are plenty of things some people think have amazing animation which I think have hideous, repulsively bad animation, and vice versa.

And if people don't want to be accused ot presenting their opinions as facts, wording things better might help. Saying "this show sucks and is bad" and being surprised they get pushback seems like it could have been avoided by wording it like "I didn't care for this, but then I don't like this stuff anyway so my opnion probably doesn't mean much.

Also, try not to be inflammatory, passive-aggressive, or snarky when doing so. People are not dumb and know what you're doing when you say things like "people who like this show should probably have their hard drives checked..." in a review of I Admire Magical Girls, and....

The theoretical purpose of a review is to help potentially interested parties determine whether or not this thing they're unsure about is worth their time. Some of these ANN writers lose sight of that sometimes.

Honest question: isn't this, to a point, just extremely pedantic?

...

Take a look at Twinkle Nora Rock Me, the animation is infamously poor, so poor that there are scenes where you wonder why this is in an animated medium when the movement is impossible to follow. If the poor quality of animation is actually making the media harder to follow, would that not be objectively bad?

it's bad to tie your identity to a piece of media

turnsie wrote:

Honest question: isn't this, to a point, just extremely pedantic? ... Take a look at Twinkle Nora Rock Me, the animation is infamously poor, so poor that there are scenes where you wonder why this is in an animated medium when the movement is impossible to follow. If the poor quality of animation is actually making the media harder to follow, would that not be objectively bad?

This is kind of what I was trying to get at earlier with some of my specific suggestions using animation as an example. I think the primary obstacle is that, in principle, an animator could choose to do just about anything and the choice could be defended (?) on the grounds that it is 'art, and subjective', and no matter how many people dislike it nor how predictable that is, there's not some discernible rule of reality that decrees their choice was bad.

But, it's also often pretty clear when the animator (or artist, etc) simply hasn't been able to really enact their vision, because of a lack of skill or funding. There are common hallmarks of underfunded or amateur animation, and anime of the last 10 or so years is totally full of them, as a combination of its industry structure and that it was pretty late to trying to figure out how to integrate e.g. CG animation effectively in anime.

It seems like there's a very strong tendency to attribute any and all imperfections to simply different, subjective artistic choices, as if skill and funding aren't a part of the process at all, or speculating about them given any ambiguity is too dangerous or some such. Though, maybe this is a reaction to the at least equally common tendency of many posters to argue that e.g. a reviewer's numerical rating of a show is unacceptable and 'objectively wrong', even though there has never really been any attempt to by most sites to give those ratings an 'objective' methodology and they are generally just based on however the reviewer wants to treat that rating exercise subjectively.

The implication that if a project looks amatuer or looks cheap or it looks like the directors first work, then it must be objectively bad is absurd.

Subjective judgment is what separates a review from a database entry. Since it's so inherent to the form, I think it's reasonable to interpret the label of "review" on a piece as applying a blanket "IMO" to all applicable statements therein. It's how the writer sees things, and the readers get to decide what to do with that viewpoint.

Bonebrain wrote:

Also, try not to be inflammatory, passive-aggressive, or snarky when doing so. People are not dumb and know what you're doing when you say things like "people who like this show should probably have their hard drives checked..." in a review of I Admire Magical Girls, and....

For the record, your post is currently the only Google search result for this sentence. If it's a hypothetical example, I think the case might be better made with real ones. Otherwise you risk arguing against a person in your head, rather than one who exists in real life.

This is kind of what I was trying to get at earlier with some of my specific suggestions using animation as an example. I think the primary obstacle is that, in principle, an animator could choose to do just about anything and the choice could be defended (?) on the grounds that it is 'art, and subjective', and no matter how many people dislike it nor how predictable that is, there's not some discernible rule of reality that decrees their choice was bad.

Now, about the non-extreme examples. The easiest angle to deem "objective" is the technical one: knowledge of animation makes you notice off-model key frames, wonky CG, missing inbetweens, blurred backgrounds, unfinished cuts, cost-saving shortcuts, etc. It doesn't end there: plot holes, contradictions, contrivances all negatively affect a screenplay and can be pointed out. Generic, cookie-cutter art direction will be felt by experienced viewers. Same goes for good and bad voice acting.