This one is an interesting question as a reviewer and one that made me think about the shows I’ve covered and reviewed and shows I’ve chosen not to. Remember, if you have a question for me you can complete the simple survey here or at the end of the post.
Is there a series that you would actively chose not to review? As in you just didn’t have enough thoughts about it, or you didn’t feel inclined to write about it even if you enjoyed it?
From Anon
There’s a couple of reasons I’ve chosen in the past not to review particular anime series. The first, and most important one, is that I don’t want to review content on my blog that I haven’t watched through an official channel or by purchasing the DVD. Which actually means a large number of anime I watched a decade ago, I can’t review until I manage to track down a legal stream or DVD of because back then downloading and file sharing were about the only ways I could access large amounts of anime content (that and YouTube).
These days I pretty much don’t watch shows unless they are streaming on a service I’m subscribed to and that lets me watch most things I want (or at least more than enough). However, for those following my blog at the end of last year, it would have been obvious I was watching Banana Fish and really quite enjoying it. Alas, I wouldn’t review it episodically, and even though I’d love to do a full series review, that’s just going to have to wait until I can actually buy it given it is only streaming legally on a service I don’t have. Trust me, as soon as I get real access to it, I’ll be reviewing.
As for other anime I haven’t reviewed, mostly anything I watch week to week I will write a full season review of once it is done airing. Sometimes this takes a bit longer to get around to but if I stuck with something for a season there was usually enough to talk about to make it worth my while. Though I will admit some anime have ended up with fairly short reviews when I’ve not really had a great deal to talk about.
This season, I made the choice not to review How Clumsy Are You, Miss Ueno? after episode 1. While that post got a lot of views and I did watch episode 2, I realised fairly quickly the show was not to my tastes at all and I’d mostly be rehashing the same criticisms over and over again and so I chose instead to simply cut it from the final watch list. A lot of cute girl shows and slice of life shows meet the same fate, mostly because episodically I usually just don’t have much to say about them that isn’t repetitive.
Still, I try to cover a fairly large range of anime and mostly if I’ve managed to sit through something there’s something to say about it. Mostly. I really enjoy writing up my thoughts on the shows I’ve watched because I rarely have someone in my real life who is watching the same show, or even if they are they usually aren’t up to the most recent episode, so I love putting my thoughts out there and bouncing ideas and theories off others in the community about where something it going. I think for the most part I’ll happily cover most anime just to have that conversation which just adds so much fun to the viewing experience.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
Aww… I really wish the availability of anime here is the same as in your country. I also want to support the ones I watch legally, but I only have Netflix and Crunchyroll tho the amt of anime available for me in CR is few because of licenses. 😭
It would be lovely if we could get rid of regional licencing and countries could wake up to the fact that the internet is global. They want to make piracy out to be an industry problem but they take no steps to fix distribution which would effectively shoot any argument for piracy in the foot.
So true. I think many of us are willing to actually pay especially if we have resources. I know that there are DVD/BD releases but those cost so much more since there are shipping fees to take into account. :<
I’m very much the same. I like to support and promote (even if the review isn’t necessarily a good one) stuff that I’ve consumed legally. I think it’s really important for the industry too. I think sometimes I would personally choose not to review an anime I’ve seen and enjoyed because I want to preserve whatever joy I get from it without potentially ruining that feeling by getting too analystical with it, if that makes sense? Other times I just wanna bask in the joy it gave me as it can be special. Good examples of this are Initial D and GTO. They’re my fave anime of all time, but I probably won’t ever review them. This was a pretty cool question. 🙂
I will admit, I still haven’t written an actual review of Evangelion or of Bleach because I jut don’t even know where to start. I’ve watched them so many times and love them to pieces and I just think I’d end up with a love letter rather than a review.
Ooh that’s the perfect way to describe my feelings about my faves as well. 🙂🙂
My review of Evangelion: I hate Shinji.
My review of Bleach: I hate Orohime.