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Thoughts about Anime Reviews done by Fans and Professional Critics

July 23, 2015 by Chikorita157 10 Comments
Artist: Tears39
Artist: Tears39

Since I am busy settling down, I may as well share my thoughts about something that I’m curious about: Who does Anime reviews better, the Anime Blogging community or ones done by professional reviewers like Anime News Network? I have wanted to share my thoughts about this after reading an infamous review from a certain famous Anime news website.

Anime critiquing by fans is nothing new with blogging becoming widespread, thus making it easier to share one’s thought about a show. For instance, someone passionate for a particular show like Love Live can now share his or her thoughts by writing a post on a blog. Of course, while there have been professional reviewers for various types of media, namely video games, Anime News Network, which has professional reviewers have started writing full and just recently, episodic reviews as well.

With that, you might be wondering who makes better reviews? To me, the fans in my opinion generally write better reviews not because they comes off as more genuine, but they do it for the passion rather than the money. Generally, people who already experienced the source material for shows likeFate/stay night, Love Live, Kantai Collection or Idolmaster tend to know more about the franchise than professional reviewers. Still, I think studios should try to make the show more accessible by not leaving out important points that are essential to the plot so that everyone can fully understand the story without becoming confused without prior knowledge. Otherwise, the adaptation will not be a good one.

While most people typically experience the anime first before experiencing the source material, of course people who are experiencing the franchise the first time through anime will be the most open minded and will have less bias opposed to someone who has experienced the source material.

The problem with the reviews written by professional critics is that they do not typically experience the source material first hand. In most cases, they are forced to cover it, even if they do not necessarily like it, which of course leads to biased reviews. This is very common with reviews of Japanese role-playing games make very scathing reviews for this very reason besides on content and story alone.

For instance, a female reviewer have given Hyperdimension Neptunia a bad score just because she did not like how women are depicted while users review scores are higher. In addition, there is another reviewer mentioned earlier who complained about one scene in Fate/stay night without having the full knowledge of the visual novel to understand the context and that Matou Shinji is a bad guy in the story.

The thing that really turns me off with professional reviews is that professional critics tend to bring politics into their reviews and if they find something that offends them, they will harshly criticize it, which eventually leads to drama, flame wars and disagreements in the comment section. Sure, nobody is forced to read it and everyone is free to express his or her opinions, but nobody is free from criticism, even the reviewer. Even so, people generally read reviews and episodics to see what the person thought about a particular episode or show, not for the political issues. Even so, it is understandable to see why professional reviewers tends to be more critical since they are probably forced to cover a show no matter they like it or not.

In short, I do not read professional reviews of Anime or Japanese role-playing games since they usually do not come off as genuine, but rather closed-minded for the most part, especially since they are dealing with media from a different culture. Because of this, I believe that fans usually do a better job writing reviews or critiques besides the reasons above mainly because of the “we do it for free” mentality. This allows us to freely share our thoughts about a particular show whatever way we want without restrictions.

What do you think? Do you think there is a place for professional critics to write episodic or full reviews of Anime? Or do you think that fans write better reviews and that the professional critiques are useless for Anime or related Japanese media?

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Category: EditorialsTag: fandom, personal thoughts, rambling

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Reader Interactions

9 Comments… read them or add your own.

  1. Overlord-G :
    July 23, 2015 at 9:24 pm • Magical Level: 439

    Yeah long comment short any “episodic” written on ANN is about as legit as an IGN review. You need not think hard to get what I mean by that.

    Reply
    • chikorita157 :
      July 25, 2015 at 9:34 pm • Magical Level: 3019

      For the most part, IGN reviews are pretty useless as well, especially considering that they tend to give Japanese games bad scores.

      Reply
      • Overlord-G :
        July 26, 2015 at 8:27 am • Magical Level: 439

        There you have it.

        Reply
  2. marthaurion :
    July 23, 2015 at 10:46 pm • Magical Level: 4

    I don’t personally agree with the notion that a review written from someone who doesn’t know the source material is somehow inferior to someone who has only watched the anime. In fact, I would argue that the person who has only watched the anime has a more objective perspective. I think it’s incorrect to need extra information from source material to properly enjoy an anime. If that information is necessary, then I would argue the anime has failed in that regard.

    As for the whole thing about professional critics vs. fans, I don’t think I’ve ever read a review of an anime from someone I considered a “professional critic” (I don’t really think the ANN reviewers count), so I can’t really personally pass judgment. That being said, I feel like we as bloggers have an artificial bias on this argument, so we should take our gut opinions with a grain of salt.

    Reply
    • chikorita157 :
      July 25, 2015 at 9:46 pm • Magical Level: 3019

      Of course, knowing the source material should not be a requirement for the fact that not everyone is going to read the source material before watching the show. Aside from a select few shows, I watched the show without knowing the source material. Sure, knowing it beforehand can help, but I do agree that shows should be done in a way that the extra information is not needed so that everyone can enjoy the story without being confused or have the feeling that the glass is left half-empty.

      Reply
  3. Hogart :
    July 24, 2015 at 12:10 am • Magical Level: 4

    To be honest, this just sounds like you prefer one type of potentially-closed mind to another. It’s not like “fans” who know a lot about a given franchise are capable of distancing themselves enough to make a useful review for relative laypersons. Often they’re some of the most closed-minded people you’ll meet, even compared to people who have no experience reviewing something and/or experience culture shock.

    But that’s kind of the point. You should follow reviewers who are of a like mind to yours, so you’re more likely to know whether something will be enjoyable to you on that level. You should also follow reviewers you don’t necessarily agree with all the time, in order to gain perspective to ensure you don’t become closed-minded yourself.

    Reply
    • chikorita157 :
      July 26, 2015 at 7:47 pm • Magical Level: 3019

      This is not what I meant as I have worded it wrong or have forgotten a point that I meant to say. While people that know a lot about the franchise may give a series a favorable or less favorable review given how it’s adapted, but of course someone who is not familiar with the franchise will usually be more open minded for the fact that he/she is going in without any knowledge of the source material. I have to admit that most of the shows I watch I haven’t experience the source material before watching a particular show.

      I do agree that people should review other reviews for different perspectives of the show. As they say, opinions are mostly subjective and not everyone is going to think the same way. On the other hand, the reason professional critics are shunned is for the fact that they insert politics into the reviews just to stir up controversy and get more clicks to generate more money from advertising. Moreover, especially in video games, there are critics that give good scores when the games are buggy or unplayable. In short, aside from the distrust of journalism in general, I don’t think one can trust a professional critic compared to an average anime viewers or an anime blogger who critique reviews.

      Reply
  4. Timeenforceranubis :
    July 24, 2015 at 2:49 pm • Magical Level: 5

    I agree that, for the most part, reviews by fans are better than reviews by professional critics, and there are a few reasons for that.

    First, while knowledge of the source material for a show might be auxiliary, it does provide perspective, and perspective is the currency by which reviews and criticism should be measured.

    Second, fans are intrinsically motivated to be knowledgeable about what they talk about. While it would be nice if professionals had that same motivation, it’s become increasingly obvious that we can’t expect professionals to be knowledgeable, which is a shame.

    Third, the political commentary. It’s lazy criticism and it helps no one. It’s basically saying “I have personal hangups that this anime doesn’t take into account, and this anime is deficient because of it.” It doesn’t provide perspective, it doesn’t exhibit knowledge of the subject matter, and it stops conversation, rather than encouraging it. It’s lazy, self-centered, and self-aggrandizing, and the fact that it’s looked upon with such deference just tells me how low the standards for professional reviewing have become.

    Reply
    • chikorita157 :
      July 26, 2015 at 7:59 pm • Magical Level: 3019

      As said earlier, which I forgot to mention in my opinion piece, I do agree that anything extra from the source material shouldn’t be a requirement in order to understand the story. Since Anime in an essence is an advertisement for a franchise, I think the director should make his or her best effort to make the show accessible to everyone.

      Of course, there are some source material where this can be difficult such as video game adaptations and sometimes visual novels. But generally, with everything else, one does not need to experience the source material in order to enjoy the show. But yes, it’s understandable that professional critics may not have some knowledge of the source material since they have to review a good number of shows at a given time.

      I do agree that inserting politics into reviews is kind of lazy. To me, it can be counterproductive unless one can actually prove that it exists, which in most cases most people can’t. Not only that, most viewers won’t have the knowledge of politics to fully understand the issues. Of course, from the whole disaster happening with video game journalism that is still happening, which I will not mention the name of proves that inserting politics into media criticism is not a good idea since 1. the problem in most cases is a non issue, 2. the discussion goes out of control, leading these sites to disable comments because the author is afraid of criticism 3. people just don’t care and just want to enjoy their entertainment and 4. anything that happen in movies, video games and other types of media is just a fantasy. Sure, I would like to see more female protagonists, but I won’t fault a piece of media for the lack of one. In short, they have a word for this and it’s “first world problems.”

      Reply

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