How useful are anime "ratings"?

[qtipbrit]

New page now, so my mildly extensive research will be a page back for no one to care about anymore.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

The only major flaw I see with anime ratings is that they're frequently based purely, or almost purely, on the likeability/enjoyability factor.

Now, don't get me wrong, that's a very important factor, but in my view, what seperates very good anime from truly great anime isn't likeability/enjoyability, but rather how well characters are developed, how well a story is paced, how good the ending is, the degree of creativity and novelty in the work, etc...

So you'll get two different anime, each about equally enjoyable with an equally likeable cast of characters... but one has a sloppily constructed plot or poor pacing or very little character development, while the other one is strong in all three areas, but... they'll end up getting roughly the same rating.

I usually don't rate purely based on enjoyment, but I'm aware that many do.
Of course, isn't the main point of anime enjoyment?
I personally don't go into an anime thinking "You know, I really hope this anime has a great, followable plot and pacing, with some good character development and relationships. A touching, dramatic climax followed by a well-put-together ending would be nice, and some symbolism dabbed in here and there wouldn't hurt.", it's usually something more along the lines of "I hope I like this one."

There are the obvious ones I don't begin for pure enjoyment, though. Elfen Lied, Air, 5 Centimeters per Second, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, and many others aren't anime I watched because I thought to myself: "All right, let's watch some depressing anime for enjoyment!", for these kinds of anime, I rate them moreso based on how well they were made, animation quality, music, characters, plot, touching moments, and moreso "real" ratings, as opposed to the high ratings I gave to Lucky Star, Haruhi, or Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! for they pure enjoyment and fun (of course, being KyoAni works, they also had their animation quality down, and incidentally all had good music and fun characters.)

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by qtipbrit92

New page now, so my mildly extensive research will be a page back for no one to care about anymore.

I was impressed by it, and found it very informative.

Thank you for it.

I usually don't rate purely based on enjoyment, but I'm aware that many do.
Of course, isn't the main point of anime enjoyment?
I personally don't go into an anime thinking "You know, I really hope this anime has a great, followable plot and pacing, with some good character development and relationships. A touching, dramatic climax followed by a well-put-together ending would be nice, and some symbolism dabbed in here and there wouldn't hurt.", it's usually something more along the lines of "I hope I like this one."

I have to admit that I kind of do go into an anime thinking that. Well, I don't care that much about symbolism (though it doesn't hurt), but the rest of your qoute there would apply to me.

That being said, if I really enjoy an anime, for whatever reason, I'll usually give it at least an 8 (which is why I gave Nanoha Striker S a 8 in spite of all its flaws). I just think that 9s and 10s should be reserved for animes that have most/all of the good story elements that you listed in the qoute above.

That's just my opinion, though.

There are the obvious ones I don't begin for pure enjoyment, though. Elfen Lied, Air, 5 Centimeters per Second, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, and many others aren't anime I watched because I thought to myself: "All right, let's watch some depressing anime for enjoyment!", for these kinds of anime, I rate them moreso based on how well they were made, animation quality, music, characters, plot, touching moments, and moreso "real" ratings, as opposed to the high ratings I gave to Lucky Star, Haruhi, or Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! for they pure enjoyment and fun (of course, being KyoAni works, they also had their animation quality down, and incidentally all had good music and fun characters.)

Yeah, I think Haruhi deserves about a 9 or so because it's more than just enjoyable - it has many of the elements of good story-telling.

[xxanimefan4_ever]

they're pretty awful like I did not like the following and I wish I did not waste my time. But anyway animenfo usually has positive and negative reviews so now I'm always sure to read the "haters" and the "reasonably loving lovers" (not all10s). But yeahyoudon't really know till you watch it yourself...

love hina
azumanga daioh
fruits basket
genshiken
shakugan no shana
fmp
kare kano
gankutsuou

looking at animenfo now they're some awesome negative reviews for most of these shows I put cause I feel the same pain as those reviewers... It's really hard to figure out if it'spopular cause it's actually good or casue it's really bad. Or if it's obscure cause it's not that great or special or if it's a gem...

most of these are pretty popular but to me they're pretty awful as in boring, stupid, not funny,noplot, etc.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So you'll get two different anime, each about equally enjoyable with an equally likeable cast of characters... but one has a sloppily constructed plot or poor pacing or very little character development, while the other one is strong in all three areas, but... they'll end up getting roughly the same rating.

Yep that irritates me so much... come on people with decent taste not mesmerized by the animation, fanservice, etc...

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by qtipbrit92

Regarding things about animenfo and popularity:
I don't think animenfo's ratings are reliable at all, since they have around 200 reviews for each anime.

Naturally, i must disagree. First, you compare reviews with simple votes. You can vote for 50 anime in the time you're writing a substantial review. People who actually write a review are probably the more eager, more experienced, and smarter fans. I consider ANN and the like as an example how not to make a helpful Best Of list.

It's likely than the ANN top anime are more popular. But what does that mean? It's like voting on how to contruct a plane. I wouldn't want to fly with such a plane. And most importantly: the crowd who has voted on it wouldn't want to either! So are ANN's anime popular with the crowd. Yes. Is the list helpful for the crowd? Not so much.

It's easy to demonstrate how skewed and dominated by unexperienced voters ANN's list it. Let's take a closer look at the Top 30:

Nine anime ended in 2007/2008:
2. Death Note
8. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
9. Nodame Cantabile
13. 5 Centimeters per Second
14. Kanon 2006
17. Code Geass
18. ef - A Tale of Memories
19. Clannad
23. Baccano!

Fourteen anime that ended in 2006 or later. In 2006:
4. Mushishi
6. The Girl who Lept Through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo)
11. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
15. Honey and Clover II
25. Ouran High School Host Club

Eighteen anime ended in 2005 or later. In 2005:
10. Monster
22. Honey and Clover
26. Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Christo
28. Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd GIG

One could add
30. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
in the list of recent anime because although it is an 'older' one, it was fansubbed only recently.

I think the trend is obvious. The list is dominated by most recent stuff.

So if one takes that list serious then 2007 is not only the best year of anime ever but with about one third of the best anime ever it pretty much owns the whole, several decades long history of anime that came before. I think that's ridiculous and I'm definitely anything but the kind of fan who sits in his corner whining that there haven't been any good anime since Robotech.

Not only that, come 12 months and the list will be dominated by 2008 anime. Again 12 months later, 2009 anime. If that's true than the quality of anime is exploding at a rate that it will be better than God in about 2012.

The animenfo rating on the other hand is much less dominated by the newest titles. In fact, as I said before, I think they are even too strict so new titles need a lot of time to enter there. But the slowly changing list is a good indication that it actually means something.

[KholdStare]

Or, you could take into account of all lists since they overlap a lot anyways, and choose from there. Problem solved.

[Sorrow-K]

Slice of Life: Well, yes, of course. The lists are skewed by popularity. That's a given. I agree, none of them work well as a "Best of" list. But as a "These are good anime that are worth watching" list, they're quite reasonable.

[qtipbrit]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Naturally, i must disagree. First, you compare reviews with simple votes. You can vote for 50 anime in the time you're writing a substantial review. People who actually write a review are probably the more eager, more experienced, and smarter fans. I consider ANN and the like as an example how not to make a helpful Best Of list.

I'm quite sure you're aware that not all reviews are substantial, and even so, writing a review on animenfo is the same as rating an anime, except that users now explain their reasoning behind their rating to be more helpful and such to others who are deciding whether or not to watch the anime. Do I think that reviews mean more than ratings? Of course. Still, the fact that each anime on animenfo has fewer ratings proves again that people are generally too lazy to review as opposed to rate. The only people who will write a review are those that feel strongly about the anime, those who love it or those who hate it. For example, take Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. It's one of my personaly favourites, so I think it's deserving of a top ten, but many think otherwise. But what of the voices in the middle? People who are iffy on it, with medium ratings, are ignored, as they care too little to review an anime that didn't particualarly impact them. Another example is (taking that animenfo has 116706 members, while AnimeNewsNetwork has 283748) Fullmetal Alchemist has 6585 ratings on ANN, while it has 235 reviews on animenfo. That means that there are roughly 2.5 times as many users on ANN than animenfo, but 28 times as many ratings as there are reviews. In this case, how many reviews do you think are the voices of those who thought Fullmetal Alchemist was neither excellent nor terrible, but was enjoyable for the most part?

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Is the list helpful for the crowd? Not so much.

If you're saying that people generally don't like popular anime, then I believe you need to look over your definition of "popular". Why would an anime be popular? Because a lot of people like it. Why do a lot of people like it? Because it appeals to a majority of viewers. In general, I've found that a majority of viewers are in this "majority of viewers".

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Nine anime ended in 2007/2008:
2. Death Note
8. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
9. Nodame Cantabile
13. 5 Centimeters per Second
14. Kanon 2006
17. Code Geass
18. ef - A Tale of Memories
19. Clannad
23. Baccano!

Fourteen anime that ended in 2006 or later. In 2006:
4. Mushishi
6. The Girl who Lept Through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo)
11. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
15. Honey and Clover II
25. Ouran High School Host Club

Eighteen anime ended in 2005 or later. In 2005:
10. Monster
22. Honey and Clover
26. Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Christo
28. Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd GIG

One could add
30. Legend of the Galactic Heroes
in the list of recent anime because although it is an 'older' one, it was fansubbed only recently.

I think the trend is obvious. The list is dominated by most recent stuff.

Does that mean that more recent anime are better? No.
It means that more people have seen recent anime than older ones. If we had 100,000 anime fans in a room, we could ask them how many have seen Neon Genesis Evangelion (One of the most popular and the bestselling anime of all time), and how many have seen Fullmetal Alchemist. The two anime are seven years apart, and I would assume many more have seen FMA than have seen NGE. A good deal of the anime fans of today have not seen many older series, and many would not enjoy some of them for their "old style". I'm not one of these people, but I've seen plenty of people who are. Even in the suggestions forum here at animesuki,"Oh, nothing before year 200X please, I dislike the older animation style.","Newer anime please.", "What are the best recent anime?", etc.

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

So if one takes that list serious then 2007 is not only the best year of anime ever but with about one third of the best anime ever it pretty much owns the whole, several decades long history of anime that came before. I think that's ridiculous and I'm definitely anything but the kind of fan who sits in his corner whining that there haven't been any good anime since Robotech.

I'm not old enough to answer, but I would assume that the 90's had not the 100+ anime series coming each year, with my estimate being around 50 at most for each year. Again, you're probably aware that most people who watch anime are younger, with most in their 20's or teens. And if we take 21 as the average, it means that most of them were around age ten when Neon Genesis Evangelion first aired.

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

The animenfo rating on the other hand is much less dominated by the newest titles. In fact, as I said before, I think they are even too strict so new titles need a lot of time to enter there. But the slowly changing list is a good indication that it actually means something.

Again, people generally care too little to write reviews. It isn't that they're strict at animenfo, it's that the older titles have had more time for the fifty or so reviews (at most) each year to trickle in.

[Junpaku]

ANN's Top list is heavily influenced by the number of votes an anime has. Anime that are popular and new will levitate around the top because the more eager fans are also more eager to vote quickly. That has been the case with every major anime that's come up on their list. Take The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for example, it was number one on it when it was airing, but as more people ended up watching it, the show dropped a few spots. I think ANN's ranking system is very self-correctional in that it features popular new anime during their winning hype streaks, which helps them become more exposed and judged by a wider audience. In the end, it's all about how the math works.
In a few years time, those anime will settle down; if they were nothing but hype at the beginning, they will disappear from their Top list. But it is true that some of the older, pre-fansub anime will have a hard time achieving any high score on such a system because their most graceful times are long gone.
I've taken a look at AnimeNFO's list right now. I don't think it'll ever be able to convince me Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is in the top 3 anime titles of all times. Relationship anime always get extensive commentary because they deal with the most complex instruments in the world - the human mind. I think the number of reviews it has received on AnimeNFO has a lot to do with its success there.

[KholdStare]

Meh, bad example. KgNE is hit or miss, with very few finding it iffy.

[Junpaku]

It could be hit or miss, but those kinds of titles never do well to remain on top under, what I call, normal circumstances.

[IHaveCrayons]

What is the use of any ratings? It's the objective opinion that carries the most weight. Even so, people have their own tastes, a person's 9.0 on a certain anime may be another person's 3.0. Their use is questionable, though they are not absolutely superfluous.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by qtipbrit92

I'm not old enough to answer, but I would assume that the 90's had not the 100+ anime series coming each year, with my estimate being around 50 at most for each year.

Actually by 1990 or so the figure was closer to 150 shows a year. I compiled this graph from data at AniDB last year. The base is all series excluding adult programming and eliminating any duplication of titles.

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Actually by 1990 or so the figure was closer to 150 shows a year. I compiled this graph from data at AniDB last year. The base is all series excluding adult programming and eliminating any duplication of titles.

Excellent, and very interesting. Cheers for that. ^^

[qtipbrit]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Spoiler for size:

This list probably includes OVA's, specials, movies, etc., am I correct?
I highly doubt that there were an amount of anime series tallying in the mid-high 300's each year recently.
I was under the impression that it was within an average 20-40-20-40 series airing each season, but either I was very, very mistaken, or there were a lot of OVA's, specials, movies, etc.

[SeijiSensei]

I did these counts a few months ago and don't really have the specific details available at the moment. But a little research indicates that OVAs, movies, and specials were included.

I took a look at 2001 as a random year. There were 163 unduplicated, non-hentai titles, of which about half were series and the rest were OVAs, movies, and specials. In comparison, AniDB lists 130 series and 226 titles overall in 2007. That fits with your perceptions of the current rate of series production.

Also remember that there are a number of shows, like those made for children, that never get released in fansubs.

[WanderingKnight]

I like reading reviews after watching the series/movie/playing the game, simply to see what other people have to say about it. I sure as hell don't care about happy-voting polls, nor what the majority of the fandom has to say about what's "THE best series", simply because there isn't such a thing. I simply check the series calendar every season, pick a few non-mainstream looking series, and then dig among the popular ones, after they start airing, to find something interesting. That's what happened with, for example, Spice and Wolf last season (which I wasn't intending to watch at all, until I decided to check out what the hype was all about), too bad the ending has been... rather forgettable, though I suppose it's because they're going to do a second series.

Anyways, bottom line: Polls suck, rely on your intuition, read reviews for pleasure and not for decision-making. Listening to the crowd once in a while can be nice, but not too much or you'll go deaf.

[Hayaku]

You shouldn't go after ratings. Go after your own taste and watch what ever you like ^.^
even though it was the ratings that got me watching One Piece and I loved it so much that I kept on watching it

[LR2]

When choosing what anime to watch I do look at ratings. If an anime has a really low rating (5 and lower) I can be pretty sure it is bad. With ratings like 6-8 it can be really hard to tell.

So, what I look for is an anime with a rating of at least 8. I really trust an anidb rating of 8+.

However, ratings really are objective. There is an anime with an 8.03 rating on anidb that I really don't like. So, ratings are never 100% accurate to your personal tastes, but they do help some.

Edit: I just wanted to add that AniDB is the only site I trust for ratings. However, ratings are objective and merely serve as a tool to quickly determine if an anime might/might not be any good.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Is somebody trying to justify ANN and Animenfo's list as anything other than a popularity list. Pretty much any series that is popular makes it into the top 50 within a few episodes and it has no safeguard against you registering any number of accounts if you want to proxy a show to death.

[escimo]

I've found especially AnimeNfo's ratings quite useful. However not alone but coupled with the reviews. As I begin to have quite clear picture about what I like, reviews and ratings give rather good hints about what to watch.

I don't follow ratings blindly. Most of the series I've found most rewarding have received quite mixed reviews and thus ratings.

All in all a tool amongst others. You can't build a house with hammer alone.