Niyawa's Blog

Nov 21, 2013 5:49 PM
Anime Relations: Danganronpa: Kibou no Gakuen to Zetsubou no Koukousei The Animation
I still believe that value in entertainment media is not something that you can simply quantize with numbers, especially in regards to creatures like humans where their first impression of something, and ability to put things in stereotypes is so predominant. Whenever possible I try to not pay attention to that and simply focus on what said anime has and doesn't has to offer, as that will usually be a more useful metric in regards to "is it worth watching or not". I'll still leave this methodology here for those interested in what I'd do if I were to review something that forced me to give it an score, so take that as you will.

When talking about specific elements of an anime, I need to remember us all that there's no such thing as perfect. Even my favorite of favorites have something I disliked or feel that could've been improved somehow. That leaves me with one option, give merits to same elements of said anime that I was talking about.

+ = Good/Positive
- = Bad/Negative
· = Neutral

This rating was originally made for reviews (when I used to write them). Now I have a quick 50/50 (objective/subjective) internal rating of my own to keep this balanced and fair as possible. I won't rate something I know it's bad 6 or above unless I firmly believe the good side of it reflects its merit in a just and humane way, neither will I rate something that is good 4 or lower because it had elements which I didn't personally enjoy, yet with a mindful reasoning behind it. Anything with 5 is likely really average or it's too mixed for me to make any other conclusion out of it.

Story

A very important element, if not the most important. Story however, depends on what said anime wants to achieve. Genre or demographics for example, will give a very different meaning to each story depending on what show we're talking about. You won't focus too much on the storyline if you're watching a slice of life, as storyline will matter a lot if we're talking about drama or supernatural.

Plot - Very important if you want to make things interesting throughout the whole development.
Tone - A naive mistake is to believe that comedy always work in every scene, that isn't always the case.
Structure - Many likes to leave the viewer wondering "what happened" or lost in thought for no legit reason.
Pace - Heavily close to structure. Making sure every piece fits together is important, but so is the transition between them.
Setting - None of the above will matter if your story is boring to begin with.

Characters

When talking objectivity, it's hard to draw a specific line between a "good" or "bad" character. Stereotypes are the worst things you can expect from them, but sometimes the best too. Usually if you managed to make me care about anyone, then the writer at least did a decent job. If I see them as fap material though... don't expect too much.

Realism - Makes them easy to relate and care about. An unrealistic character doesn't necessarily make a bad one though.
Personality - A writer should spend time making his folks worth my tears, laughs and above all, my time.
Individual - Everyone has a personality, but those have patterns (a.k.a stereotypes). Making them unique is the key.
Development - It's important to make clear that the events changed and influenced your character in a way or another.
Humanity - Make me care for an alien that's destroying my planet and I can stand back while saying you're doing it right.

Animation

We're talking about anime, so this isn't rocket science. We want it beautiful and fluid it as it can be, there aren't any limits whatsoever. However, we live in times where budget and time restraints are making more difficult for us to raise the bar of quality. While the majority of the world cares about lip-sync, we just want that our characters don't appear with a poker face in the middle of an important event.

Background - It's not rare to see bunch of people with the same silhouette and hair color in this situation anymore.
Lightning - Gradients that are fucked up won't work. Make something believable or it will just hurt to look at.
Consistency - Spending the whole budget on the first episode and making everyone else disappointed next week has become a norm these days.
Style - Make stuff connect with the theme. I mean seriously, pfff, Another is one of the best examples you'll ever get.
Quality - None of the above will matter if nothing was drawn properly in the first place.

Soundtrack

Unfortunately, this is the element most people miss. OSTs tend to be very easy to not pay attention to when you're focused in other aspects of the show such as the characters interactions or an interesting storyline. What's funniest about this is how an OST can differ to the actual quality of said show in particular.

Simple - Managing to bring life to a scene without feeling heavy or unnecessary, yet dynamic is the key to a good music.
Voice Acting - Either it's a cute Kana or badass Sugita, being able to like and appreciate a character's voice is extremely important.
Special Effects - A good rain sound is always welcome when it's raining. I'm done with cicada cries though.
Timing - A good track starts and finish in the best scene possible. It shouldn't be repetitive if possible.
Noticeable - Remember that track that is outstanding alone... but in the actual show it doesn't stand out? Hmn.

Enjoyment

It's basically how much I liked what I just watched. This is different for everyone so I won't bother with specifics. If you want an idea however, it goes in a range of 1-10 but no math. The number that appears in my mind will likely win, like a gut feeling. It sounds unfair, but subjectively relies on one's own experiences, values and morals to make any sort of judgment. I like to believe the entropy in that has yet to be calculated.

Verdict

I use 1-10 for ratings, giving me a better and accurate result when converting my feelings to numbers.
I hate math so I won't explain further but it would be along these lines:

Story (5+5+5+2+6 / 5 = 4.6) + Character (4+6+6+4+5 / 5 = 5) + Animation (8+8+5+6+6 / 5 = 6.6) + Soundtrack (6+7+7+6+6 / 5 = 6.4) + Enjoyment (5) / 5

The result is the Ultimate Universal Rating = 5.5 (from 5.52).

I don't have any specifics when it comes to rating manga or visual novels and games in general because I never tried to review any of those.

It should be noted however that the final result isn't a general absolute average, and the score might be more or less depending on my final verdict based on the overall combination of all elements being made from a more emotional standpoint, this is an attempt to evaluate things that numbers just can't do, making the real final result a more accurate one depending on the list's owner.

PS: I'm not an elitist and I don't plan to become one. This is here merely to give an idea of how I rate my anime when reviewing and nothing else. I don't use this tiring and unnecessary rating for my list, and right now I don't believe that will change.
Posted by Niyawa | Nov 21, 2013 5:49 PM | Add a comment
It’s time to ditch the text file.
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