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REVIEW: Creamy Mami Episodes 1 - 7 streaming

ComSR wrote:

Shay Guy wrote: I don't think this review says anything about where this series is streaming. AnimeSols: Creamy Mami episodes It's unfortunately US/Canada only, though.

This is something that's bothered me for quite a while. Is there some sort of official ANN policy against including company links in reviews? It's rather frustrating to read a review of a series, decide said series looks interesting, and then have to sleuth around to find out where I can see the bloody thing.

Unless you're only writing reviews for people who have already seen the show -- in which case, what's the point?

These reviews will be on this site indefinitely, while streaming contracts are frequently short and limited. Hundreds of thousands of people dig through the reviews archive daily, often researching older shows, checking out reviews that are 5+, sometimes 10+ years old. Having a mountain of streaming reviews with dead links to defunct services, pages for series on active services that have long expired, this only creates a scenario where we're going through hundreds of streaming reviews each year removing links.

I'd rather just review the content, attach the 'streaming' label so people know that's how the show is available and trust their ability to do a basic google search.

As far as new vs. old, I don't think it is necessarily about not being edgy, I just think that there generally wasn't as high quality stuff as there is now. Some of the stuff was groundbreaking at the time, but since then the concepts have been refined and made generally better since. At the time something may have been a 10, but when there are generally higher quality similar shows, that drops it's number a little bit. This isn't at all to say that old stuff is bad and new stuff is good, there is plenty of older gold and newer crap, it's just things were somewhat unrefined back then. It was trying to be wacky cartoons, and now it is more refined into anime as we know it. There are absolutely still classics back then though that hold up perfectly today. Also as far as people who think older anime is better, I think that is nostalgia talking. When you think back to older years, which titles do you remember? Only the best of the best. Not all the lesser titles that came alone with them.

That doesn't really apply to Creamy Mami though; that was just a fun show to entertain the kids. Just thought I would contribute to the discussion.

EnigmaticSky wrote:

As far as new vs. old, I don't think it is necessarily about not being edgy, I just think that there generally wasn't as high quality stuff as there is now. Some of the stuff was groundbreaking at the time, but since then the concepts have been refined and made generally better since. At the time something may have been a 10, but when there are generally higher quality similar shows, that drops it's number a little bit. This isn't at all to say that old stuff is bad and new stuff is good, there is plenty of older gold and newer crap, it's just things were somewhat unrefined back then. It was trying to be wacky cartoons, and now it is more refined into anime as we know it. There are absolutely still classics back then though that hold up perfectly today. Also as far as people who think older anime is better, I think that is nostalgia talking. When you think back to older years, which titles do you remember? Only the best of the best. Not all the lesser titles that came alone with them. That doesn't really apply to Creamy Mami though; that was just a fun show to entertain the kids. Just thought I would contribute to the discussion.

I think it's a bit presumptuous for many modern fans to comment empirically on older anime since their exposure to older anime is generally limited. When a kiddie anime from the 80s happens to come along, you can't just go "Oh, it confirms my suspicions after all. The 80s were so tame and uneventful." It'd just like a newbie just happening to pick up a show like Kodomo no Jikan and saying "So it confirms my suspicions after all. All anime I've seen are about lolis and fanservice." Obviously, that's so stupid an attitude to take.

The fact is we have access to almost every anime show airing in Japan now so we have a pretty good sense for the general environment in today's anime. For older stuff, less so. There are still hundreds of anime from the 70s and 80s most people here have either never seen or heard of. How many people here have seen the entire run of Touch? Or The Kabocha Wine?

The biggest difference between now and in the past, from a creative standpoint, is the advent of cable/pay TV stations in Japan. In the past, anything you couldn't do on regular TV they did it on OVA. The strength of cable/pay TV is that you can flesh out longer stories better. The strength of an OVA is that if a show sucks, you won't have to worry about 12 or 13 more episodes wasting air time.

As far as new vs. old, I don't think it is necessarily about not being edgy, I just think that there generally wasn't as high quality stuff as there is now. Some of the stuff was groundbreaking at the time, but since then the concepts have been refined and made generally better since. At the time something may have been a 10, but when there are generally higher quality similar shows, that drops it's number a little bit.

This isn't at all to say that old stuff is bad and new stuff is good, there is plenty of older gold and newer crap, it's just things were somewhat unrefined back then. It was trying to be wacky cartoons, and now it is more refined into anime as we know it.

There are absolutely still classics back then though that hold up perfectly today. Also as far as people who think older anime is better, I think that is nostalgia talking. When you think back to older years, which titles do you remember? Only the best of the best. Not all the lesser titles that came alone with them.

True, in the end it's all about each individual's personal opinion, but at the same time it doesn't hurt to maybe try to see why they feel that way. You might learn a thing or two. It's especially important to do this because one day you'll end up like those very people when the next generation claims that the anime they're watching is the best & that the older stuff (i.e. what we're getting now) is old-hat & nowhere near as "refined".

There are fewer anime back then that "blow your mind" with explosions and melodrama and having philosophical themes explained to you by voiceover but perhaps more that did so with well-written characters and drama and a more old-fashioned sense of imagination.

Zac wrote:

These reviews will be on this site indefinitely, while streaming contracts are frequently short and limited. Hundreds of thousands of people dig through the reviews archive daily, often researching older shows, checking out reviews that are 5+, sometimes 10+ years old. Having a mountain of streaming reviews with dead links to defunct services, pages for series on active services that have long expired, this only creates a scenario where we're going through hundreds of streaming reviews each year removing links. I'd rather just review the content, attach the 'streaming' label so people know that's how the show is available and trust their ability to do a basic google search.

Thanks for the explanation, Zac. I see where you're coming from, though I still feel it would help to give your readers some sort of guidance, especially for folks who may not be savvy enough to pick a legitimate source out of Google search results. Perhaps a non-linked statement to the effect that, "At the time of writing, this series was available for streaming at [X, Y, Z, etc.]." It would help contemporary readers narrow things down without unduly misleading future archive-diggers.

Citizen Klaus wrote:

Zac wrote: These reviews will be on this site indefinitely, while streaming contracts are frequently short and limited. Hundreds of thousands of people dig through the reviews archive daily, often researching older shows, checking out reviews that are 5+, sometimes 10+ years old. Having a mountain of streaming reviews with dead links to defunct services, pages for series on active services that have long expired, this only creates a scenario where we're going through hundreds of streaming reviews each year removing links. I'd rather just review the content, attach the 'streaming' label so people know that's how the show is available and trust their ability to do a basic google search. Thanks for the explanation, Zac. I see where you're coming from, though I still feel it would help to give your readers some sort of guidance, especially for folks who may not be savvy enough to pick a legitimate source out of Google search results. Perhaps a non-linked statement to the effect that, "At the time of writing, this series was available for streaming at [X, Y, Z, etc.]." It would help contemporary readers narrow things down without unduly misleading future archive-diggers.

Agreed, especially seeing as this is the first review for a show on Anime Sols I was expecting that to be mentioned. The reasoning for leaving out the site makes sense, but I also think that a simple mention of "at the time of this review" would help alleviate the need to remove the links later on. It's also nice to be able to simply read a review and be able to just jump right to the site the show is on, even if it's easy to find on google, it does bring the reader directly to the legal site as opposed to something else google might provide.
In this case in particular, I'm sure Anime Sols would appreciate the extra awareness as well. I'm sure visitors is definitely one thing they need.
It also couldn't hurt if streaming sites offer affiliate links, that could be useful for ANN at the very least.

unless Anime Sols pay them. I don't see any reason to do it. Like movies and TV drama reviews don't direct you to Hulu, crackle, or Netflix to watch it too. Reviewing a show is reviewing it, it's not here to help you how to find it.

Video game reviews will never tell you go to buy it in amazon or gamestop unless they get pay to do so.

Anime fans are so lazy and funny.

unless Anime Sols pay them. I don't see any reason to do it. Like movies and TV drama reviews don't direct you to Hulu, crackle, or Netflix to watch it too. Reviewing a show is reviewing it, it's not here to help you how to find it.

I've been watching all the Creamy Mami eps and so far I'm liking what I'm seeing, just made my pledge to get the DVD set, I hope it reaches it's goal.