Quote:
Originally Posted by Endscape
I've found their reviews to be a more of a mixed bag myself. A lot of them are terrible, true but some others are not so bad. Most of their reviewers don't seem to have a good grasp on how to conduct criticism properly.
The problem is that the anime review scene, apart from a few scattered Anitubers is so hilariously bad that ANN really is the best game in town.
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For TV series, I agree that they tend to vary. The reviews that are well-written are moderately helpful, but the bad reviews look like they were hacked together using a first-year sociology textbook. However, the movie reviews are consistently poor, and I think that it's actually a result of ANN sending one of their writers out shortly after a film premieres in Japanese theatre to write a review. Since the reviewer only has their impressions to go off of, they can't otherwise recall smaller details. I've long had a problem with this approach: in their haste to be first to have a review of something most of us can't get for at least half a year, ANN completely sacrifices journalistic integrity, and this practise is one I've never respected. This isn't a problem with local cinema because people can always go and watch a film for themselves, but when it comes to anime movies, having the only opinion piece does give ANN a bit of a monopoly on what people make of an anime movie.