kekekeKaj's Profile - MyAnimeList.net (original) (raw)

THE IMPORTANT STUFF

Firstly, NO RANDOM FRIEND REQUESTS PLEASE!

And with that out of the way, hi! Welcome to my profile!

No doubt you're here because you've read some review of mine and-- what? What do you mean I only write about old anime which no one cares about?! I've written reviews on anime as recent as from the past five years I'll have you know!

Okay, fine! You're probably here because I've modded your review then? Alright, just a sec...

*disappears*

*reappears in more professional looking attire*

Hi! I'm your friendly neighbourhood SpidermanReview Moderator-man! Or at least one of the many. If you've got an issue regarding review moderation, please first familiarise yourself with the review guidelines:

https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=575725#post1

If this doesn't answer your query, please press 3 on your number pad.

Or alternatively leave me a private message after the beep.

*BEEEEEP*

PS don't post on my wall as such matters are not for public consumption. k thanks.

THE LESS IMPORTANT STUFF

About me

I spent a significant part of my childhood growing up in East Asia, where watching anime is part of the norm - going around claiming you watch anime is like saying you listen to music - who doesn't?

So it wasn't until I was an adult in the west that I started thinking myself as an anime fan. The beginnings of this can be traced back to prehistorical times, aka, around the turn of the millennium, when digital fansubs were just taking off and being distributed on this new fangled thing called the interweb or something. I guess this makes me a dinosaur by anime fandom standards.

Anyway, my horizons broadened when I came across this website called animenfo (it was like MAL minus the personal list functionality) from which I discovered a ton of other anime I could watch.

After watching an anime, I used to read load of reviews on the site to see what other people's opinions were. Reading so many of other people's opinions made me itch to write my own (this was before MAL even existed). Kinda ironic, since I was so terrible at writing I had a phobia of essays when I was in school.

Animenfo eventually went into decline (and has now sadly ceased to exist), so I moved over to MAL, reposting most of my reviews here and editing them in the process the best I can (some are probably beyond help).

And here I am, still here many years later. Now with the power to pass judgement on other people's reviews mwhahahah--*cough cough cough*. I'd like to think I've become at least competent at writing reviews now, but I'm so busy these days I don't have much time to watch anime and write reviews any more.

Feel free to check out my reviews if you're one of the rare breed of anime fan who's interested in reading about anime that didn't just come out last month. I've written a lot, but I'll be the first to admit the quality of my reviews are a bit uneven; a lot of them make me cringe, especially the early ones. However, there are a few which I am quite proud of, so if you don't feel like digging through the trash, the next section contains a sample of what I consider to be my better efforts:

Sample Reviews

Rating system

I don't find the MAL rating system suit my needs well enough. I'd really be happier if the scale went up in steps of 0.5. Also, a glaring fault is that 10 is described as "masterpiece" and 9 is "great". There's a big jump between being great and being a masterpiece - I can think of lots of anime that I would describe along the lines of "that was a great anime!", but very few would qualify as "masterpiece". This means that too many anime ends up falling into the 9 catergory because they couldn't make it to a 10 - in my opinion, if something is rated as a 9, it better be goddam better than just a plain "great". Even though I dislike the MAL scale, the dilemma is that if I use my own scale rather than the MAL scale, it will be misleading for people who don't read this long winded explanation of how I like to rate things. So here's my compromise: I've chosen to rate stuff using the MAL system to avoid confusion, but I also have my own scoring system, which I express using tags against the anime.
I have recently adopted a new personal scoring system that goes from -ve numbers up to +ve numbers. The more positive the score, the more I like it, the more negative, the more I hate it. The advantage of this type of system is that, despite being unconventional, it's intuitive. It's works better than the 1~10 scale, where everyone has their own way of rating and it's hard to tell exactly what's "neutral" - you get people saying "that was alright" and give something a 7, or "it's good but it's got some flaws" then rating something a 9! I guess people can still do that with the +ve/-ve system, but I feel the problem is less severe. Oh yeah, and I've chosen to have no upper and lower caps on my scoring system, as it's always possible there are even better/worse anime out there that I haven't come across yet.

The mapping between the two is roughly as follows:
[Note that these should be viewed more as "tiers" than a linear scale]

+4 or higher <--- The "godly" range of anime. Theoretically possible but realistically unattainable levels of goodness.
+3.5 <--- these are my absolute favourites (e.g. the whole Crest/Banner of the Stars saga)
+3.0 = 10 on MAL scale <--- Amazing (e.g. Monster)
+2.5 = 9 on MAL scale <--- these anime are definitely something special (e.g. Cross Game)
+2.0 = 9 on MAL scale <--- Great - these anime have something a bit special about them.
+1.5 = 8 on MAL scale <--- Very good
+1.0 = 7 on MAL scale. <--- Good
+0.5 = 6 on MAL scale <--- Fair
0 = 5 on MAL scale <--- Neutral
-0.5 = 5 on MAL scale <--- Mediocre
-1.0 = 4 on MAL scale <--- Bad
-1.5 = 3 on MAL scale <--- Very bad
-2.0 = 3 on MAL scale <--- Terribad.
-2.5 = 2 on MAL scale <--- Crap
-3 = 2 on MAL scale <--- Amazing...ly crap
-3.5 = 1 on MAL scale <--- virtually unwatchable
-4 or lower <--- unholy levels of Shite

Favourite anime lists

--- Top 3 ---
Crest of the Stars & sequels
Last Exile
Nodame Cantabile & sequels

--- 2nd Tier Favourites ---
Full Metal Alchemist & Brotherhood
Gankutsuoh
KGNE
Monster
Space Brothers

--- Best of the Rest ---
Cowboy Bebop
Cross Game
Death Note
Hikaru no Go
Noir
Planetes
Welcome to the NHK
Yu Yu Hkausho