Should a review be "objective"?

[Arcanum]

Any reader should rightfully expect a review to be the author's opinion. However, the same reader should also expect the author to:

- Be fair
- Be knowledgeable about the full anime
- Base opinions on fact
- Provide the reader with a way to form his own conclusions about the anime

The last two points are generally the ones that I think is the cause of all debate. The following two sentences are both opinions, and subjective, but one of them is definitely more valuable to the reader than the other.

Sentence A: "Naruto becomes extremely frustrating to watch, and I can't imagine how anyone in their right mind could possibly find enjoyment from episode after episode of mindless drivel."

Sentence B: "Though I enjoyed the early episodes, I soon became extremely frustrated with Naruto when I realized that the producers made the dreadful decision to pad the plot with over 100 episodes of mindless drivel in an attempt to buy time for Kishimoto Masashi to finish his manga."

The difference between the two sentences is context and information. Sentence A is clearly an opinion, but fails miserably in the context of a review because it gives the reader the impression that Naruto is essentially episode after episode of mindless drivel. Sentence B is much better, because it still conveys the negative sentiment of the author, but it also implies that Naruto might not be that bad of an anime, but rather became the victim of a very poor commercial decision.

--

Essentially, I agree with vivafruit that all reviews are subjective, and ought to be. However, I would argue that there are differing levels of subjectivity. Certain levels might be very appropriate in a social conversation with friends.

"OMG! Have you seen the latest episode of Naruto? Kishimoto is a genius!"

This is acceptable with people who know you, because they can gain information based on their past interactions with you and judge your enthusiasm vis-à-vis their own preferences.

But in a review, most of your readers don't know who you are. I would tend to believe that it is almost imperative that the author writes opinions in such a way that the reader ends up with enough information to form his own opinion on the anime. For example, I find it frustrating to read a review and come away only knowing how much the author liked or disliked the anime, but without an inkling of what the anime does well, or why it might be poor.

[Cetonis]

I guess this is what happens when I'm too tired to be anal about picking bulletproof examples >.<

Cythraul: I don't think you're correct in saying that 'most' anime have ecchi in them. This does, of course, depend on how you define ecchi. In my case, I view ecchi as anything blatantly intended in a perverse manner - i.e. upskirts, yaoi, absurd bouncing, etc. Under that definition, I have found ecchi to only be present in about 10-20% of anime out there, based on anidb perusals and my own list. Far from most.

Tetra: So far as Shinji is concerned, I may be off since I watched eva several years ago, but so far as I remember he got a pretty absurd amount of screen time spent in psychotherapy. If that doesn't count as character development I don't know what does. Simple/complex is indeed a somewhat more subjective notion, and was pretty bad for use as an example.

In any case, neither of those things are the point I'm trying to make. I did not mean to imply that it is possible to write a purely objective review. Rather, I would say that if a reviewer wirtes a review aiming to be objective, the subjective aspect will not be such as to make the review unusable. (see the two paragraphs after my poor examples) Actually, arcanum and v16's models are optimal in my opinion, mixing the two nicely, it's just that I fear it is all too easy to accidentally wind up covering an aspect with pure opinion and no fact that way. Hence my theory about putting opinions in a final paragraph of sorts. Although I suppose you could start by making sure you cover everything factually/objectively and then edit in your opinions as needed. That way you'd wind up with something that reads nicely like v16 and arcanum's examples and is still useful to readers.

So far as rating an anime based on what it is, I've thought about that idea before, and it's hard to agree or disagree with it. I mean, it's hard to justify penalizing an anime for not being something it wasn't meant to be. At the same time, though, on that basis you could argue that dbz was never meant to be anything but a mindless, drawn out and repetitive action series, and give it a 9 or 10 for accomplishing that. Is it really fair to give dbz the same rating as some of the best anime out there? Plus, I think attempting to judge what an anime is trying to do can lead to many assumptions that may or may not be correct. I believe there was a texhnolyze review some time back, for instance, where the writer (velusion, i think?) assumed it was trying to be a gang-war action anime, and then smashed it for changing course halfway...

[sothis]

lol, my review for highlander isn't up quite yet, but i thought the story was marvelous ^_^; simple, but a tale of revenge that is somewhat epic.

[Arodec]

As for rating an anime for what it is, i would say it's important to take that in consideration, but still hold some kind of minimum standard. For managing to accomplish what it should within it's genre, it should get an average score (five out of ten etc.), after all, average isn't something really that horrible, it just means it's nothing extraordinary, but still by no means bad. Raise the rating above average if it accomplishes what is accepted as average standard within it's genre (Story justifying the fighting in an action anime etc.), and goes beyond that, delivering something the average show in that genre doesn't.

[Cythraul]

I think it'd be fair to say that, while dbz succeeds in what it tries to do, it doesn't aim high enough to warrant a top score. Or you could add a huge disclaimer about it. Or just don't have points with your reviews at all. edit: yeah, what Arodec said (sorry, you posted while I was still writing).

As for most anime having ecchi, well, up for debate I guess. Looking at the first page of my anime list over here, I'd say over half are undisputably ecchi. (and a few that might be)*shrug* A bit less on the second page. I can change it from "most" to "a significant portion of" if you think that sounds better. I think the point about a nontrivial part of anime fans liking it still stands.

@aboumonkey: lol, learning English is at least half the reason I get myself involved in internet arguments.

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Cetonis

So far as rating an anime based on what it is, I've thought about that idea before, and it's hard to agree or disagree with it. I mean, it's hard to justify penalizing an anime for not being something it wasn't meant to be. [...] Plus, I think attempting to judge what an anime is trying to do can lead to many assumptions that may or may not be correct.

All too true. I've seen quite a few reviews in which an anime gets penalized very heavily for doing something contrary to the reviewer's expectation. In my opinion, and I acknowledge it's only my opinion, the proper way to approach such an anime is to let the story reach its conclusion before even attempting to make a first conclusive judgement.

Let me use Hikaru no Go as an example, since I'm very familiar with the plot of that anime.

For the first half of the anime, one naturally assumes that it is an anime about a boy learning the game of Go through very bizarre and supernatural circumstances. But in many ways, the anime follows a very formulaic approach to making its episodes - each week represents a new game of Go, in the same way that Bleach features approximately one fight per week.

However, the author realizes that unlike Bleach, she cannot continue inventing new and more challenging enemies for the protagonist to challenge. The world of Go is very well defined - there is a reigning champion, and once that person is defeated, there is little left to talk about. Therefore, mid-way through the plot, Hikaru no Go changes pace. Some people might have found it abrupt, if they had already judged the anime to be similar to Bleach. Certainly, I admit I was tempted to do so. However, I consciously decided to sit back and watch how events unfolded before passing my judgement.

At the end of the series, you could then make some evaluations about the change of pace. "Here is an anime that started off almost exclusively about Go. Mid-way through, it becomes clear that the author never meant for Hikaru no Go to be an anime about Go at all, but rather an anime about growing up, with the world of Go as merely a backdrop for the events of the story. Did the transition go smoothly? Was there a transition at all? Putting aside my own preconception that the anime would finish as it had started, did the anime, with this change of pace, work out alright after all? If I were judging this anime as a coming-of-age story instead of a story about Go, would I see things differently?"

Certainly, a reviewer who goes through that kind of thought process is less likely to penalize an anime for something it was never meant to be. After all, there is a huge difference between "Hikaru no Go suffers from poor coherence in its plot, a factor which detracts from the enjoyment of the anime" and "the change of pace in Hikaru no Go caught me by surprise, and I personally did not enjoy how the story progressed afterwards, though the plot and characters continued to be well-developed."

Admittedly, though, humans are judgemental by nature, so it is hard, or near impossible, to prevent oneself from making assumptions, preconceptions and forming conclusive opinions as we go along.

[aboumonkey]

Originally Posted by Cetonis

So far as rating an anime based on what it is, I've thought about that idea before, and it's hard to agree or disagree with it. I mean, it's hard to justify penalizing an anime for not being something it wasn't meant to be. At the same time, though, on that basis you could argue that dbz was never meant to be anything but a mindless, drawn out and repetitive action series, and give it a 9 or 10 for accomplishing that. Is it really fair to give dbz the same rating as some of the best anime out there?

And how you determine something as the best anime out there? isn't this something purely subjective ? I mean I for example did not enjoy chrono crusade as much as to give it a rating on anidb higher than 7 but my overall impression towards it changed due to its ending and the feeling it gave to me which was something really epic and at the same time ambiguous so I gave it an 8. The same goes for every show .Your need as to what you want to watch that time , your mood etc can determine how much you will enjoy the show and thus your rating .
I want to read in a review in the last paragraph at least who should watch this show and when and the opposite to enjoy it to its full potential .

sothis: highlander totally rocks

[Tetra]

Cetonis: I did not imply that you were wrong, just that I did not agree. And this actually leads to a much less talked about issue with reviews; what the writer indents to say and what the reader see. "Heavily developed" for me did not mean that the character is developing through the series but that the character is well thought out and described from the very start of the anime. While the intention apparently was that he is developing.
Now, I may very well be wrong in what I read, english is not my native language after all, but right and wrong has no meaning when it comes to interpretation.

After that bit of rambling I guess what I wanted to say is that a good review must have a well thought out language where the writer try to avoid confusion about what they really mean.

[Cetonis]

Aboumonkey: Yes, what any one person considers to be best is purely subjective, but I figured no matter what they were the argument (dbz != best anime) would work , so I didn't bother going into disclaimers and such.

Tetra: (assuming your comment was directed at me, not Cythraul) Got it. Good point that reviewers need be careful of words with varying interpretations. Sometimes, though, people aren't aware that different interpretations exist. Writing out a lot of term definitions instead of just using the term might make a review long-winded and awkward as well. May or may not be worth it. Tough issue.

Cythraul: I didn't necessarily say ecchi fans were of a trivial amount, but rather that they know who they are. If a reviewer works under the assumption that ecchi = bad, it is not hard for an ecchi fan to modify the interpretation/score to suit their tastes. In this way, even though an attempt at an objective review would certainly use value assessments that not everyone agrees with, those who do not could still make use of the review.

Arodec: *nod* That's about where I've wound up on the topic as well. Though I'm one of those wierd people that winds up using 7 as the average score. I interpret my scores to reflect enjoyment level, rather than quality compared to other anime. Since I would describe an average anime as 'pretty good, but nothing special', and that's around a 7 on my scale, 7 it is. Not that that's a correct or better way to do it, just that it's another way in which reviews can get misinterpreted.

[v16]

I mean, it's hard to justify penalizing an anime for not being something it wasn't meant to be. At the same time, though, on that basis you could argue that dbz was never meant to be anything but a mindless, drawn out and repetitive action series, and give it a 9 or 10 for accomplishing that.

The answer is simple. If it wasn't meant to be above average, then it didn't aim for score above average and was fine with the average score for perfectly achieving what it meant.

The same, in part, applies to genres. While silly story in action deserves less penalty, a perfectly fitting story for action still isn't 10, as you don't become a sharpshooter for hitting the barnside 100 times of 100.

In this aspect, I have to say I disagree with many reviewers who say "story matched the show", "graphics did its work", etc., and put 10/10 for otherwise unremarkable story or visuals. Mediocrity isn't an achievement, even if it's enough for your job.