The Astronomicon recently linked to my overlong scoring system write up from several months ago, which reminds me that I never completed it and started ranking animé. One reason is that I realized quickly that the +/- portion of the scoring wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to give each series separate scores for objective and subjective rating, and the +/- would then be incorporated into each as a modifier to the base score. And various real-life distractions kind of dragged me away from it anyway.
I was already working on a full series review for Kanon, which has recently been licensed in R1. I wrote about the first third of it last night, and then got lazy tonight. What with this reminder, I think I’m going to hold it off a few days while I try to whip the 2nd part of the review system into shape.
Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m real good at planning to organize, somewhat less good at executing it. We’ll see.
It’s interesting how few of the series you rate I’ve actually seen (or even heard about). I tend to agree with most of your assessments, especially Divergence Eve.
Early on, I didn’t have much of a plan when it came to buying animé; I read a few reviews here and there, (esp. ANN’s) and tried to get a sense of whether the fandom as a whole liked or hated it, or if the description of the series sounded like something I was interested in. Over time, though, I noticed that if Steven said something was a good series, I tended to end up agreeing, for many of the same reasons. Not always, but it’s one of the best heuristics I’ve got so far. Jason Miao is a distant second–we have significant differences over homicidal emo lolis for instance.
So a lot of my early purchases stunk, and my more recent ones are off the beaten path, but higher quality. Of course, no two people have the same tastes, so I found I liked Kanon, despite its lack of action or plot. Well, it wasn’t totally without plot, like Lucky Star, but it wasn’t earth-shattering, by any means.
Steven Den Beste is one of the great treasures for the anime fan. His reviews and blog ought to be in the top five of anyone interested in anime.
I must confess, though, that I’ve lately begun to…stray…