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The Best and Worst of Winter 2019, Mar 12-18


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Redbeard 101
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Joined: 14 Aug 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:41 am Reply with quote
For all the hype and people clamoring for season 3, I would've expected Index 3 to be higher overall. Didn't figure it would make the top 10, but at least the top 50%. Guess the season has been more of a let down.
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:51 am Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
For all the hype and people clamoring for season 3, I would've expected Index 3 to be higher overall. Didn't figure it would make the top 10, but at least the top 50%. Guess the season has been more of a let down.


Well, yeah. The pacing is rushed to hell. Hard to get much enjoyment out of it since it just blitzes through content at hypersonic speed.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:56 am Reply with quote
I'm enjoying Index 3 a lot, but yeah the pacing has made most people disappointed with the show, both people who've read the source (because it's not as good as they hoped it could've been) and people who haven't (sometimes it's barely understandable to them).
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:29 am Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
For all the hype and people clamoring for season 3, I would've expected Index 3 to be higher overall. Didn't figure it would make the top 10, but at least the top 50%. Guess the season has been more of a let down.

I assume a very vocal minority was hyping up season 3 because Index has never struck me as being a popular and beloved franchise. As far as the rating of season 3, Index is a mediocre anime and season 3 is more or less as bad as the first two seasons.
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:32 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
I assume a very vocal minority was hyping up season 3 because Index has never struck me as being a popular and beloved franchise.

A Certain Magical Index has over 45 published volumes in nearly 15 years, with the latest volume released this March.

It is an immensely successful and popular franchise, and it's a testament to its staying power that over 8 years later, the anime received a continuation.
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Angel M Cazares



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:54 pm Reply with quote
FilthyCasual wrote:
angelmcazares wrote:
I assume a very vocal minority was hyping up season 3 because Index has never struck me as being a popular and beloved franchise.

A Certain Magical Index has over 45 published volumes in nearly 15 years, with the latest volume released this March.

It is an immensely successful and popular franchise, and it's a testament to its staying power that over 8 years later, the anime received a continuation.

I was referring to this franchise not being that popular and beloved in North America. I am aware that it is a big deal in Japan.
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RenRen94



Joined: 08 Jul 2018
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:55 pm Reply with quote
For me personally, Index 3, Karakuri Circus and Kakegurui S2 are fighting for my Worst Anime of Winter 2019. If I'm not including continuing series, then KC would not be in the running, but between these 3 shows I'd say it wasn't as bad since it doesn't have a prequel that I can compare it to.

Sad thing is that I remember enjoying the first 2 Index seasons (that could all change if I ever rewatch it, it has been like 6+ years), so to see S3 as this large convoluted mess is just disheartening. It's not as bad as Tokyo Ghoul re S2 (my personal pick for trash fire anime of 2018), but it's still not great.

On the other hand, hats off to my favorite orphan children of Grace Field House, the tenacious college boys of Kansei, the socially awkward writer and his furry roommate, and our two happy/grumpy high school boys with an equally furry (or should I say fuzzy?) yokai pet for consistently giving me something to look forward to each week Smile
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 1:27 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
I assume a very vocal minority was hyping up season 3 because Index has never struck me as being a popular and beloved franchise.


animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2018-09-24/ann-readers-the-most-anticipated-fall-2018-anime-series/.137254
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 3:01 pm Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
For all the hype and people clamoring for season 3, I would've expected Index 3 to be higher overall. Didn't figure it would make the top 10, but at least the top 50%. Guess the season has been more of a let down.


While I do think people have been disappointed by the pacing, both for source material readers and anime-only fans (of which I am the latter), - as reflected in how the first cours starting around where you expected (going as high as 12th and sliding to 16th in the cumulative) whereas the second's cumulative ranking only every touched where the first had ended with a placeholder - I think the mainline Index has been a soft B, both this season and previous ones, and series in that range have generally landed towards the bottom of the middle to the upper twenties, which is where Index III has generally lived. It is not only a disappointment but also a regression to the mean, though one could argue that that it was disappointing in similar ways to the first two seasons due to similar adaptation choices. On the bright side, it is clearly not as much of a disappointment as Karakuri Circus, which went from one of the top three anime of the season when it started to taking last place but for the surprise sequel to arguably the worst anime of the past decade if not longer.

That does raise the question of why the hype coming into the season didn't translate into higher rankings, even in the first cours, than SAO, which it edged out for most anticipated, or even Fairy Tail by the end of the first cours, which had gotten sixth, neither of which could be considered critical darlings and haven't been rated too differently than Index by their reviewers. At least in SAO's case, that does reflect a consensus, among both its fans and its reviewer, that, aside from an episode or so, it has been relatively well adapted, but I think there are other factors at play. It would be easy to think that SAO (and Fairy Tail) have a smaller but more consistently positive audience, but I don't think that really bears out. I will caveat this saying that I don't know the numbers of people following the shows on this site, which would make for the most apples to apples comparison, and therefore it is not impossible that that the other two have smaller audiences with more consistent views, but I think it could still be illustrative of my point. So, looking at other sites, MAL for example, SAO and Fairy Tail's current seasons have both larger audiences and higher ratings than Index III. Provided a similar dynamic holds here too, I think there may be another explanation for there being more hype for Index, but higher ratings for SAO and Fairy Tail. I think a greater portion of Index's audience is willing to unabashedly be hyped up for for a new season than for SAO or Fairy Tail, since Index doesn't have the dedicated hatedom that SAO, and to a lesser extent, Fairy Tail does, which leaves at least some portion of each series' fans more reticent about showing support or even not really anticipating the shows, not because of the show itself, but for fear of the discourse that would come with it. Thankfully, that discourse hasn't flared up for the most part, whether due to the rule changes or previous efforts by moderators to shoo off those who would jump into those series' threads just to say they are crap, but I think those reflexes don't go away immediately. Now, that is not the only possibility (perhaps the longer gap between the second and third seasons of Index vs SAO and Fairy Tail's left fans of the show forgetting its weaknesses while remembering its strengths, though a lack of an ongoing hatedom could facilitate that too) but I think it is a factor in the contrast between SAO and Fairy Tail have not as much hype going in as Index, while more consistently ranking higher when people started watching them.

I would be interested in seeing how Accelerator and Railgun III do, as Railgun's previous seasons have been more well received by audiences than the mainline Index series.
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BodaciousSpacePirate
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 6:51 pm Reply with quote
killjoy_the wrote:
both people who've read the source (because it's not as good as they hoped it could've been)


Yeah, I can't remember being this disappointed by an anime adaptation since... God, I guess Million Doll? Although that adaptation was so bad that fans stopped updating its Wikipedia entry with episode summaries after the second episode.
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Sekaro



Joined: 12 Nov 2018
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Jojo went down a couple of spots? But episode 22 is where it got its new OP Rolling Eyes
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Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:59 pm Reply with quote
I feel bad for Index fans.

All that time waiting for a 3rd season & when it finally came, it’s less than what one expected.
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Key
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:08 pm Reply with quote
^
Actually, Index III is about exactly what I expected, as I was also far less than fully thrilled with Index II. I was always more looking forward to Railgun III anyway.

I also find it sadly amusing that I am currently following five of the bottom seven series in the cumulative rankings but not one of the current top 7. (I am following #8-10, however.) Sadly, this isn't the first time in the past year that's happened. . .
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NPC



Joined: 21 Sep 2016
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:42 pm Reply with quote
Psycho 101 wrote:
For all the hype and people clamoring for season 3, I would've expected Index 3 to be higher overall. Didn't figure it would make the top 10, but at least the top 50%. Guess the season has been more of a let down.
These rating are just meaningless. Here are "community scores" for last 5 weeks of Index (#18 in rating):
4.6 4.4 4.2 4.0 4.4
ahd here the same for Boogiepop and Others (#7):
4.1 3.4 3.7 4.2 4.0

In particular for March 12-18 it's 4.2 (March 9) for Index and 3.7 (March 11) for Boogiepop.

According to cumulative rating Index dropped 1 position in these weeks and Boogiepop raised 6 positions.

There is a long disclaimer under the ratings which basically says that ANN takes user scores, does whatever it feels like with them and produces some ratings. From the data above it seems that result doesn't make much sense. Which, I think, indicates that methods they use are too complex, counterintuitive and likely produce errors.

This particular kludge "this roughly means that if, out of all people who rated both A and B, 60% preferred A, it will be ranked higher than B" roughly means that result is a set of mostly random numbers.

Just to be clear - the two shows were used to demonstrate peculiarities of ratings, not to compare them.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:40 pm Reply with quote
^Critiquing the rankings based on 5 data points (really 4 because the most recent points will not be reflected in the rankings until next week) from 2 shows is not compelling, especially when only two of the 4 reflected in the rankings are lined up correctly, as shown below

Index
February 19-25: (4.6) February 26-March 4: (4.4) March 5-11:(4.2) March 12-18: (4.0)
Boogiepop
February 19-25: (3.8) February 26-March 4: (3.8, 4.0, 4.1, 4.1, 3.4) March 5-11:(3.7) March 12-18: (4.2)

You only mention the weekly ranks of the last one (the actual last one reflected in the rankings, Boogiepop 4.2, Index 4.0), not only implying that they apply to your last two (Index 4.4, Boogiepop 4.0) but also also seeming to imply that Index always ranked below Boogiepop in those weeks, which is false, as the 4.6 (episode 20 of Index) is ranked above the episode it actually matched up with, episode 9 of Boogiepop. If we go back one more week for a full 5 weeks, we see that Boogiepop episode 8 (4.1) also ranks below Index episode 19 (4.4), by a fair margin (#14 vs #9)

Your claim that ranking things by people's preferences (and not just raw averages) means they are random numbers does not make sense.

That you can cherry pick a very small set of points (mostly incorrectly) and don't really understand how it works does not mean it is wrong.

Your use of averages also assumes a) the people watching one show are roughly the same as those watching another and the numbers are of roughly the same size as each other and b) the averages are not susceptible to foul play both for and against any shows. The first is a poor assumption, given what staff have said about the variation in the numbers of people watching various shows in previous seasons, and the second has proven false many times (Note: I'm not necessarily saying this is happening in this particular case, just that the community ratings have in the past been susceptible to manipulation that rankings are not).
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