Forum - View topicANNCast - Criticproof
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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How pleasantly revealing this all was! There is much I wish to say in response, so please bear with me.
The prelude about Psycho-Pass. I was initially surprised that Zac's criticism of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence was as measured as it was. I have seen several reviews excoriate it for being so distanced from the psychological matters it is supposed to explore, so for you to praise the merits it bears at a less introspective level was welcoming. Having listened to the subsequent Twitter questions though, I now appreciate that this reflects the approach you currently take towards criticism. ANN's editorial direction The website's meandering away from the comprehensive and authoritative approach to producing reviews, in which writing in the first-person is encouraged and a monolithic "opinion from on high" is avoided, comes as being of great interest. If I may say so, this suggests you believe something somewhat controversial: the notion that thorough but disinterested analysis is better placed outside the domain of a review. I can see how this has given way to the division in editorial features that did not exist here several years ago, considering such articles as the "best ending" feature you published this week. Jacob's view that viewers just want to hear a voice before watching, with further analysis being best left for the works one has already watched and appreciated, seems to cohere with this. You seem to profess there is a certain intractable anthropocentricity in which the import of a review inheres, something that I imagine would not be tolerated in many circles. It is almost the polar opposite to the impression I gain from trying to read certain literary periodicals, wherein a reader may be presented with an expansive, lingering and exquisite exploration of ideas stemming from a book they didn't know about beforehand, at which point ascertaining how it was to read can become an almost hermeneutical task to the unacquainted. Your ethos of encouraging writers to prominently use their own voices and to prominently convey their own reactions will naturally lead to the irresolvable objections and disagreements that 'loftier' reviews might attempt—often unsuccessfully—to curtail, though I gain the impression that you both welcome this. Indeed this may be for the best. Twitter question: The importance, or otherwise, of a background in criticism and film theory when criticising anime. You both seem to agree that a formal background is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for your writing, but that it certainly facilitates certain topics. I appreciate that the identification and assessment of formal techniques is greatly aided by education, though I am impressed by the fact that its utility was not overstated so as to come across as being superlative. I apologise if I misremember this, though many years ago I listened to an ANNCast episode in which the division between those with and without such knowledge was articulated in a more partial way, so I welcome this current diplomacy. Twitter question: What you would say to your younger self about criticism. Heavens, here is the section that took me aback somewhat. Zac, in brutal honesty I did once associate you with a degree of negativity in the past, though with good reason you sound like you are now completely different in this respect. I perhaps misjudged what you aim to do as a critic, and I apologise for this. spoiler[Not that I wish to split hairs, but to this end I also humbly forgive you for your SaiKano review from last year]. Jacob, it came as some surprise to know you were once worried about taking yourself too seriously in your reviews, or of taking too seriously the reactions that may arise from them. Perhaps my frame of reference is outdated, but I have always taken your critical skills to prominently include a certain underlying humour and cheer, coupled with an eager honesty regarding divisive matters. In view of this I doubt your fears about seriousness had too ill an effect on your creativity. Thank you both for the podcast! 'Twas scintillating stuff as always. |
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Venus_Angel9
 Posts: 55 |
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How do I feel about the ball? Bouncy, always bouncy.
Okay, in all seriousness, I loved this episode, as I've recently started doing a simulcast review for another website (don't know if it's okay to post the name here, nothing shady or anything, I'm just not clear on what the rules are on that). Anyway, as I said, I just started, it's my first time doing it episode by episode and I've been having a bit of trouble keeping it short and controlling the recap part of it, precisely because I want to discuss every aspect of it, and how can you if the people reading the review have no idea which scene you are referring to. I don't know, it's an ongoing battle for me. I also have the opposite problem Zac had in the past, like I feel nervous saying something negative because I don't want to turn people away from the show just because of one little detail I did not like or something like that. I do try to be as honest as I can though, but I struggle with how to say things exactly. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5426 Location: Iscandar |
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An interesting episode. I enjoyed your conversation on anime critiquing. I agree 100% with the opinion that an A grade is for something exciting and a B grade is for something you just have a good time with. That is why I cannot give a pleasant show like Non Non Biyori even an A- because it is not doing anything challenging and/extraordinary.
And I was surprised you did not discuss Funimation's Escaflowne kickstarter. Last edited by Angel M Cazares on Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2558 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Personally, I never really find a "need" to have to use "I" in order to express that a review is the writer's own personal opinion; the content & context should be able to do that enough. That being, said, I fully understand why Zac is encouraging a more personal & less authoritative style for ANN, and it's especially so for a site like this. Whether it's ANN, IGN, Gamespot, Polygon, or what-have-you, readers tend to always associate their reviews with the site & staff as a whole. Back in the older days, sites would simply credit the overall "Staff" for reviews, but even when sites started to specifically credit the actual writers for their individual works, readers would still feel that the writer was simply writing on behalf of the entire staff, rather than it be that specific person's opinion.
It's hard to fight a mistake like that, especially when there is usually only one review/opinion put up for each & every thing that is covered on most sites, so I'm curious if Zac's new change in editorial direction has helped fend off that common misnomer. When it comes to how to "rate" things that may not be within someone's own personal biases, I personally think about how Roger Ebert looked at the concept of rating. I've read that Ebert never looked at rating various titles as if they were all being judged against each other, but instead judged titles based on what they are in terms of genre, style, concept, etc. He wouldn't rate a superhero movie against Citizen Kane, for (an extreme) example, but instead would rate it against the first Superman movie, which he felt was the best of its genre. Therefore, when he gave Hellboy four stars, it wasn't in a "This is one of the best movies of all time" way, but instead was a "This is a really damn good superhero movie" way of looking at it. I don't rate stuff when I do a review generally, though I've had to for a site like Sega-16.com, but I always write reviews from this perspective. I just find it easier to be able to judge something on the merit of what it's aiming to be, I guess. I very neat episode, all in all. I like Zac's message to his young self at the end, too. I sometimes do feel that a lot of people who write/produce reviews of any sort online tend to put the focus on the negative, which is partly why I've generally tried to maintain a sense of hopefulness in whatever I write about. Even when I had to talk about absolute trash that seemingly kept on sabotaging itself & became worse, I still tried to see if there were any inklings of potential to be found. Instead of simply bashing something for being poor in some fashion, I try to see if it had an idea in there that could have been executed better, & instead explain why & how it failed to do so. If anything, it's made me appreciate the minuscule moments that did do something right. |
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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Yes, that's right. Ebert's approach to criticism was two-pronged. One part was how a movie stacked up against other movies in its genre, and the other part was that he always considered the goals of the filmmakers in making the movie and evaluated how successful the movie was at meeting those goals. So if "Anime Ebert" was evaluating Non Non Biyori, he'd rate it against other benchmark anime within the slice of life/iyashikei genre (like Aria or K-On), and he would also look at "Okay, the goals of this show are making its audience laugh, relax, and feel good. Now does it succeed at that, and why or why not?" So if he felt like NNB accomplishes all of those three goals, and that the quality of the acting, animation, and writing are all high enough, then "Anime Ebert" might indeed decide that NNB is an A or A- show. That doesn't mean he thinks it's comparable to Utena or EVA, it would just mean that for someone looking for SOL/iyashikei specifically, he thinks it's one of the best examples in its genre. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Thanks for taking my question about mainstream TV critics not paying attention to anime. Kind of a loaded question, because I've been thinking about it a lot. It starts with the AV Club, which sometimes assumes a familiarity with anime as a cultural touchstone, without ever actually covering it. Consider that they've run, as news pieces, Gravity Falls as anime, The Real Ghostbusters as anime, Adventure Time as 3-D anime, etc. And AV Club's format is built for things other than episodic coverage: features like "Memory Wipe" (revisiting old favorites to see if they still hold up), "Inventory" (oddball lists), "My World of Flops" (infamous busts), "A Very Special Episode", etc. give them the ability to cover wide ranges of TV, from documentaries to late night to game shows to soap operas to whatever. And their series reviews do not require a full series watch - in many cases, they'll check in with something outside their usual scripted-drama wheelhouse by just watching a handful of episodes and report on that. Yet as far as I can tell, the only substantial anime reviewing they've done in recent years is Genevieve Koski's review of the first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, and Eric Thurm lamenting One Punch Man's absence from the 2015 Best Of TV feature.
And not to pick on AV Club. I can't think of a prominent mainstream TV critic who's ever written about anime, though a few have come close. When Todd VanDerWerff was at AV Club (he's now at Vox), he openly proposed doing "Evangelion" for TV Club Classic, though it never came to pass. When Tim Goodman was writing for the San Francisco Chronicle and asked his readers (and listeners of his "Bastard Machine" podcast) to tip him off to obscure TV they were watching, he did give me a nice notice for my blurb about "High School of the Dead" (which I described as "a mix of panty shots, firearms fetishism, and just a touch of Japanese ultra-nationalism... but mostly panty shots"). Now consider, on the other hand, film criticism. Anime gets a lot more love there. Even small city newspapers (those that have not yet closed their doors, anyways) will run reviews when a Studio Ghibli movie comes to town, as we're seeing with the coverage of Only Yesterday's belated release. And while the one-night-only anime showings like Kizumonogatari don't get many reviews (without a screener, how coud they?), the mainstream press can and will sometimes engage them quite effectively: Variety had a deeply knowledgable review of Madoka Magica Rebellion. So that's why I wonder if the mainstream TV critics ignore anime because there's too damn much of it: 200 shows a year, versus just a handful of movies for the film guy or gal to check out. Zac's point that anime is a niche is well made and accepted, but with the caveat that in this internet age, everything is a niche. How many people can name one anime made in the last 5 years? Surely not a majority, but then again, who can name an active NHL player? A pro golfer other than Tiger Woods? A novel currently on the New York Times bestseller list? Aren't all of these things hovering in the single-digit percentage range? I'm not saying that I need AV Club to start competing with ANN in the weekly review business (though I do think they'd be wise to pick up Attack On Titan when it finally comes back), but when every mall in the country has at least two stores with Eren and Mikasa POP! figures and Sword Art Online t-shirts, the mainstream critics' big blind spot for anime starts to look like a genuine liability. |
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Gasero
 Posts: 939 Location: USA |
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Regarding criticism, I definitely expect a reviewer to tell me what they experienced and how they personally felt about it. One way to learn about a reviewer is to compare their perceived experience to other perceived experiences. Some reviewers don't even recognize the same objective themes about content, and that is revealing.
I dislike reviews in the second person because I don't want a reviewer to tell the audiences how to feel. I always appreciate it when a review is written in first person. I was one of the people advocating for ANN to change the seasonal reviews to be organized by show instead of by reviewer because I would rather look up a show and read various impressions rather than find a reviewer I expect to agree with and then read their impressions. It's just easier to compare the other way. I agree that 5/5 and A scores should be reserved for things that are excellent experiences. It shouldn't matter if its drama or comedy. |
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David.Seth
 Posts: 453 Location: near SF |
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One of the reasons why I enjoy reading reviews here (as well as other sites) is that I like hearing what people can put into words that I can not. I see a show or a movie, and I know in my guy its bad or good, but I can never really seem to answer why. Zac, you mentioned that reading about film theory helps one to understand and analyze a film or show much better. Is there a book out there that goes over film theory without being too dry? Or are they mostly academia level reads?
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4439 |
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I definitely prefer the current format of the season reviews. One thing that I like about ANN is that a lot of anime gets more than one review, and the current preview guide makes it even easier to read multiple reviews.
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Responder
Posts: 45 |
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Totally. I remember when they had them sequenced out by critic, not series, which didn't make a lick of sense. Generally, people want to get a sense of general critical consensus for a specific series, so the way they have the preview guide now is essentially perfect, and the plot summary is even better. |
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invalidname
Contributor Posts: 2450 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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But in the podcast, Zac laid out their reasons for originally doing it by reviewer -- long-time readers will often figure out which critics most closely match their tastes, and gravitate towards them (for example, Theron is closest to my interests, followed by Nick, while Zac and Jacob are probably least similar to me). So in that way, it could be easier for me to set up a list of shows to watch by just checking what Theron and Nick liked best. True, going show-by-show as they do now gives you the critical consensus, but I don't always want to just watch the shows that everybody thinks are good… a lot of the shows I like are deeply disliked by some or even most of the panel (case in point, this season's Schwarzesmarken). So, either way has its reasons. People asked for ANN to organize it by show, and it sounds like it's doing better that way, so… yay. |
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Paul D. Atreides
 Posts: 128 |
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Hope, why have you changed your name to Jacob?
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1819 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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From Jacob's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/annjakeh/status/693538775041900544 |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5529 |
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Not sure I'd take advice about reviews from 90% of the reviewers on this site, for various reasons I won't get into since I expect my opinion to be ignored anyway. Well, I'll go into one and that is that I don't like how you have people that outright hate a genre, review anime for that specific genre. For example when you have people that ALWAYS rate harem anime 1/5 or 2/5 tops. And yet they keep reviewing harem anime. I feel it does far more for the audience of the site if someone that actually can handle the genre reviews it and compares the new shows to older shows like it so that fans of the genre as a whole, will get a general idea of it's quality. It's like having someone that hates FPS games rate an FPS.
This will probably get deleted or something, but Zac outright called people with aspergers and other forms of autism "inhuman" in his Death Parade review when he said:
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Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
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^Here we go again with the whole "ANN staff hate's harems!",schtick
 . it's fine if you like them,but when you look at them critically,they're mostly poorly animation schlock,with the same premise's and archetype characters. And in general are safe and take no risks whatsoever.
I do agree with Zac's idea that a work should make you feel something. You could have show that is technically well made,but if I don't feel anything at all,then it's a failure to me. I also am a believer of Roger's grading within a genre,but in general I don't giving a show an arbitrary score, since each one is going for different ideas and themes. |
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