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Ever since I've been reading reviews on ANN, I've found it strange that although the scale ranges from A+ to F, it is rare to find something scaling low.

I think it is safe to say that not every episode of an anime is a gem, yet even in the episode reviews, most episodes are in the range of A to B-.

That creates a kind of imbalance. It makes B- appear as a bad grade, and it prevents good grades from really having an impact. Of course there are many different reviewers with different opinions, but I get the feeling that the reviews are generally to favorable and that the reviews don't take into account that "C" and "D" are actually the grades in the middle, not "B".

To name some concrete examples, I'm going to look at some of this season's episode reviews, some of them not exactly of the most popular shows:

Monster Musume:
B / B- / B / B- / B+ / B / B / B- / C+

Snow White with the Red Hair:
A- / B+ / A- / B / A / A / A- / B+ / B / A

Overlord:
B- / B / B / B- / B / C+ / B / A- / B+

God Eater
B / C / A- / A / A- / A- / B-

Rokka
A / B+ / A / B+ / B- / B+ / B+ / A-

Chaos Dragon
C+ / B / B- / C- / C- / D / B-

Castle Town Dandelion
B+ / B / B / B+ / B+ / B- / A- / B+

Gangsta
B- / B / B+ / A- / B+ / B / C+

As you can see, it's mostly A's and B's. A means "very good" to be, B means "good". A "C" should still mean okay. There are very few C's, however; Chaos Dragon is the only show that had some C- and even a D.

Seeing these scores, I get the feeling that C is already a bad grade, and everything below is just really, really bad.

Of course the text is more important, but if you use a grading system, I'd love to see it being utilized fully. An "A" should not be a standard score, and "D" should not be an exceptionally bad score. At the moment it feels like a famitsu score where games that score lower than 30 are often considered failures.

That's why I found Hope Chapman's reviews of Psycho-Pass 2 very refreshing. They were very critical and not afraid to step on people's toes. I don't demand the same amout of criticism for every show, but I'd be nice so see more varied review scores ranging from A (outstanding) to F (exceptionally bad), not from "great" to "okay".

And on a related note, I guess most ANN readers are not exactly teenagers new to anime who find everything they watch great. Even though bad scores will invariably tick some people off, I'm sure there are also many people who'd like to see more critical scores.

(That, by the way, does not only refer to episode reviews.)

ANN is allergic to using low grades, especially failing grades. It has been an issue with the reviews (of every time of media it covers) since forever. Even though a B should be above average it is now middling, ho-hum, middle-of-the-road. And a C should be still a passing grade but is actually used to indicate a disappointing title, something that most people should stay away from.

Come on ANN. D and F exist. Use them more than once in a blue moon.

This is the scale:

A+: one of the best things I've ever seen
A: Fantastic
B: Good
C: Just passable. Mediocre
D: Actively bad
F: One of the worst things I've ever seen

I encourage our writers to use the entire scale and I've had discussions with them when I thought they were avoiding it or not using a lower score on purpose (this happens when the text doesn't match the score).

The problem with saying "do this more often" is that you can't legislate it like that. You lay the groundwork, you set the example (I just gave Saikano an F), you make sure they know that they are expected to give their honest opinion in all situations. I trust that they are. Let's also remember that the shows are being reviewed by people who specifically requested them - these are reviews written by what is hopefully a member of the show's target audience. That's going to mean a lot of As, Bs and Cs for mediocre, but unless something is a pretty severe letdown, it probably won't drop below a C-.

Yeah, I stick pretty closely to the above scale.

I also entirely agree with Zac's explanation on why you don't see more low grades. Unlike with the Preview Guides - where we review everything that's not a sequel, regardless of preferences - we don't (usually) choose shows for episode and full-length reviews that we know we're going to hate. Given that, there shouldn't be much for D and F grades unless something is unexpectedly bad or tasteless.

Now, if you really wanted to see Fs that badly, then you should have insisted that I do Prison School. But Zac doesn't condone hate-watching in reviews, so that would have never flown.
Wink

For starters let me say this is not an attack on the reviewers here or other members either. That being said, I don't personally understand why the actual rating means a bloody thing to begin with. To anyone at all. I say get rid of the "grade" part altogether.

I guess some people need things quantified and handed to them on a platter. I get it I suppose. Honestly though, once you read the opinions and thoughts the reviewer has on a show what does the actual rating matter? Are you basing whether or not to watch a show on what the reviews SAYS or some arbitrary letter/number grade? What if they said they loved it but only gave it a C? Which one are you going to go with? The grade or the review itself where they explained the hows and whys of their enjoyment and like of the show? If you had an opinion on a show, be it to like or dislike a show, based on everything you read in a review would you then just randomly flip that opinion if the reviewer gave it a B+ despite slamming it up to that point? Boy that new action movie looks great.... it's gotten great verbal reviews, oh but wait.....that one balding bitter assbag critic gave it a D....guess I can't see it now because that single letter is worth far more than any detailed review ever could be.

I don't know about other people but actually hearing the how's and why's from a reviewer on whether or not they like a show or not, including technical merits, failings, high points, etc. is the only part of a review that is going to influence me to try a show or not. Or to drop ma show if I couldn't decide on my own already. Not what arbitrary "grade" they decided to give it based on their own personal views that might not even reflect my own in the slightest. I think beyond the review itself the "pro's" and "con's" part of the review is a better "grade" than some number or letter that is entirely subjective. Granted, the review itself is subjective but I can read a review and see how and why a reviewer came to their praise or disdain for a show. I can decide based on my own opinions and personality if I agree or not with their views and thus figure out where I want to go from there. But wait! They gave it a B despite making me think for 6 paragraphs it's below average in quality!? What is I gonna do!?

I exaggerate, but you get the point. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this way. Maybe I am actually turning into that old crank who sits on the porch and tells the little snots to get the hell off his lawn because he doesn't get the younger generation.

@Psycho 101

I agree with you entirely and have said so a couple of times. However in a few minutes Zac will chime in and state how horribly popular the letter grades are and how much flack they get at any attempt to leave them off.

I have noticed that we have several people who love to argue about the letter grades assigned, including the differences as minor as between a B+ and an A-. Most of them seem to ignore that actual write up the reviewer spent the whole time on. Seems rather silly to me, but different strokes for different folks.

I'm more concerned with what a show is about than any overall summation of its quality. I avoid a number of highly rated shows because I don't like the concept or story line no matter how good. I also am willing to try low rated shows if the story sounds interesting so I'm stuck with actually reading the reviews.

In response to the initial question, I simply don't see making someone review something they dislike based on concept or initial impressions. Also since it is not possible to review everything I don't see why they should waste time on the bottom feeders. The only way I can see a D or F is if the show starts out well and tanks spectacularly. If a show starts poorly but improves there is usually enough buzz to bring it to their attention for a later review. That happened this season.

On a practical level, the subscores also help offer some grounding of what exactly "this had great music, but it was wasted on an awful show plot" means to a given reviewer. It might be worth experimenting with using those only if they decide to take the leap of not using the overall scores(though this would require the creation of new "voice track"(working title) subscores).

As long as there are grades/scores, people will take it as an excuse to not read the text. I'm personally all for abandoning the grading system at all (actually that's what the website I'm working for just did), but it's not good from a marketing perspective (I think this was mentioned before).

@Zac: Yes, I see what you mean and you've got a point there. Of course people with a strong distaste for a show won't review it. But despite that, I still think the reviews are generally too favorable.

I assume this is because at some point a certain standard was established, not only here but on any kind of media review websites and magazines, that everything on the lower half of the grading system is utterly bad. As a reviewer, I've felt that I myself tended to give the objects of my reviews a better grade publicly due to the public understanding of the grading system compared to the grade I gave "privately" in order to "synchronize" both.

Likewise, if ANN would suddenly start to give out A's more reluctantly and C's and D's more freely, many people would think that the new anime shows are much worse due to them scoring lower on the scale.

@Polycell: I like the concept of subscores, but I think a normal +/- (or positive/negative) list is much more informative and generally better because it is still very easy to consume.

I prefer having the review scores/grades, even though they are a sometimes a big pain to assign.

I see nothing wrong with simple, summative evaluations, provided that what those evaluations mean is firmly-established. (In fact, I get rather irked when I don't see them.) I like them because they force the reviewer to quantify what he/she has only been qualifying with the full text of the review. It also gives a definitive feel for what the overall impression is (was it good/entertaining despite its flaws) and allows for easier comparison between titles (assuming consistent grading standards are used). And, frankly, sometimes I just don't want to have to bother with reading the whole review, or be in a position where I'll only read the view if the grade is dramatically inconsistent with what I expected.

As has been mentioned, maybe it (lack of low grades) is partly due to the fact that reviewers are now being set up more with shows that they might already have an inclination to like. I don't know if there is an easy solution for that, as ANN generally doesn't want to have people doing hate-watch reviews (and I do think there is some good reasoning behind that).

That being said, I did complain during last winter about what I thought was some "grade inflation" but I think maybe it is a bit more isolated. For the most part, it does seem like most shows are being rated in the "B" range so that's probably not too far off the mark when you consider that ANN is not reviewing all of the trash that comes out each season.

Essentially, if they are only watching and reviewing shows that are decent to good, then the ratings are going to reflect that as well. I don't think anyone would want them giving artificially low grades just to make some kind of curve.

What I would say in regard to the grade inflation issue though is I think "A"s should either be given out less commonly or if they are given out, there should be a very concerted effort to explain why that deserved an A since that should realistically mean that the show or episode was at the masterpiece level of quality. I feel like sometimes an A can be given just because someone liked something rather than it truly being that level of quality.

^
This has been a historical problem, not a recent one. ANN has done full-length reviews of diabolical productions in the past and given them passing grades. So to attribute ANN's tendency towards high grades to the Daily Streaming Reviews is completely false; they are merely a symptom of a deeper issue, not the cause.

Film reviewers don't mind giving out low grades to bad movies. Why do game reviewers and anime reviewers both treat low ratings/grades as if such things are asbestos?

^
I am assuming that you are excluding our seasonal Preview Guides from that generalization. Anime get reamed in that on a regular basis, sometimes to the point that people complain about us being too harsh.

As far as physical copy reviews are concerned, most shows that truly deserve such low ratings either don't make it that far or else a review copy isn't sent out and no one on staff is inclined to pay to pick it up.

(For the record, of the anime titles sitting on my (substantial) shelves that I consider absolute dreck, most were review copies and the rest were blind purchases gone bad.)

^
Of course I'm excluding the preview guides. The previews are not full reviews and nor are they intended to be.

Instead of using grades, you could also give a short conclusion in a few words, optionally combined with the word grading system for anime that ANN uses. I'm personally not against a grading system, but just to toss an idea in the world. Examples (bad ones, I'm no reviewer obviously):

Episode 12
'Excellent: in dehydrating my tear ducts'
'Poor: incohesive and no focus'
'Good: nothing original, but well executed confession'
'Weak: Battle of screaming nitwits'
'Decent: pretty... but what was this eppie about again?'

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Why not use the entire review scale from A+ to F?

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Why not use the entire review scale from A+ to F?