Today marks the third week of my professional anime reviewing career. As you might have noticed, I’ve been reviewing Free!, Bakumatsu Rock, and Nobunaga Concerto every Wednesday on Anime News Network.
I hinted earlier that I’d share some lessons learned when I had them, and boy have they hit me like a ton of bricks in the last few weeks. Let’s take a look:
Practice makes perfect
I mentioned in my introduction that I’m not very experienced at reviewing, but I didn’t honestly think that meant I wasn’t any good. I’ve been getting paid to write for the majority of my 20s, and I guess I’ve kind of gotten a big head about it.
But I had to work hard to get my reviewing up to snuff. Did you know I had to rewrite my initial Free! Eternal Summer review THREE TIMES before it was ready to be published? Nobody likes a writer with an ego, so instead of balking I listened carefully to Zac and Jake’s suggestions and I haven’t made the same mistake twice.
It’s hard to learn a new skill in front of a huge new audience that doesn’t know a thing about you and isn’t likely to have any sympathy. That’s professional writing in a nutshell though. I’ve written down all of Zac and Jake’s suggestions in an effort to swim rather than sink.
You can be opinionated AND fair
When you look at the shows I’m watching, perhaps you notice a bit of “one of these things is not like the other.” It was kind of a long story how I ended up with two “manservice “shows and Nobunaga Concerto, the one show none of the other reviewers wanted to touch.
Nevertheless, I’m really happy to have gotten picked to review anime for ANN, so I gamely picked it up and watched 6 episodes in a day. I don’t like it very much, but I’m working hard to explain exactly what my problems were, as well as give it the points it deserves for things like the power ballad ending song and beautiful backdrops. You might think I’m hate-watching if I give something a D; but that’s boring. Readers can tell when you’re nitpicking. But if you can back up a bad review with clear examples, that makes your opinion more reasonable.
However, Nobunaga Concerto has a small but loyal fanbase, and they made their disagreement very apparent in the comments. Which brings me to the third lesson:
Context is everything
I don’t know much about Nobunaga. Like, at all. I did some Wikipedia reading before starting the show. So to me, it looked like the show was just throwing random plotlines and characters at me with very little notice or development. Fans said I had it all wrong.
Well, I’ve done some research and they’re basically right. Nobunaga and his friends are so extremely well-known among Sengoku Era history buffs as to be personality tropes by now. If you’ve played Sengoku Basara, watched Nobunaga the Fool, etc. you need no introduction.
It’s like saying “I don’t get it, they should explain this better!” every time Gundam Build Fighters parodies the original Gundam material it is based on. The whole point is that they’re throwing in Easter Eggs for the diehard fans.
This is why Zac wanted us to choose our own shows; so we could pick anime we already had the necessary context for reviewing. And that’s very likely what I’ll end up doing in the fall.
Of course I won’t be dropping Nobunaga in the meantime. But I’ve learned that nothing exists in a vacuum—entertainment is dependent on its source material. I hope I’ve made that abundantly clear in the reviews that I’m putting up from now on.
Screenshot via Nobunaga Concerto
12 Comments.
The whole “Easter Eggs for the diehard fans” thing is evidence towards a given show’s appeal being deliberately narrow. Most people seem to think that if it makes the fans happy, what’s the problem? But I’m starting to feel like every time we get a show that is that much more insular in some form, that’s one less show we could have had with a broader and more welcoming appeal — and one that doesn’t require as much heavy lifting to decode, even by other fans.
Serdar (GenjiPress) well here’s what I said in the ANN comments to Nobunaga Concerto fans, and I still stand by this:
“You could make an argument that the reason I’m having a difficult time with Nobunaga Concerto is that it’s not for people like me, only history buffs. However, if the show has such a high bar of entry that people without the requisite education can’t understand it well, it’s not going to earn widespread popularity, and I’m not going to review it as if it were something that will.”
Spot-on. It’s deceptive to talk about such a show as if everyone can, or should, enjoy it.
While the bar of entry may appear high to you, please understand that this history is taught to all Japanese and they are pretty much very familiar with it. The bar of entry is much lower than you think.
@The_Bug:disqus that brings up a VERY interesting point—who am I rating this show for? I felt that my audience is one of English speakers. Japanese people would certainly disagree with my reviews, and it’d be kind of like a Japanese person criticizing an American show for casually referencing George Washington as if he’s well known.
You’re right. It’s important to account for your own audience, but it doesn’t hurt to inform them that stuff might go over their head if they’re not of a certain background. You are in fact reviewing anime which is almost always primarily made for Japanese people to consume. Should you respect the knowledge of Western anime fans to understand Japanese cultural things? I really don’t know the answer to this, but it might be important question to consider. There might be a fine balancing act between informing and patronizing.
@The_Bug:disqus I try very hard in today’s Nobunaga review to make this about my own experiences and not to project the idea that other fans might be as ignorant as I am. The #1 rule at ANN is “don’t talk down to fans and don’t be mean,” so that’s always at the front of my mind, too.
@The_Bug:disqus ALSO: I just found out this show bombed in Japan. So maybe it’s not my lack of historical knowledge that makes me dislike it?
[…] from the life of a reviewer. Otaku Journalist’s Lauren published a short article on important things she’s learned from her first few weeks of professional anime reviewing. […]
Congrats on the reviewer job with ANN! Critics exist everywhere, so don’t worry.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed Nobunaga Concerto, but I get your concern with the lack of info detailed in the show its self. I know only a little about about the Sengoku period and the show has sparked an interest in learning more about the events Nobunaga and his cohorts participated in. There seems to be little in the way of non-text book (read expensive) literature available that specifically deal with Nobunaga in English. Regardless of my lack of understanding I haven’t been too confused or concerned by the lack of information given with the show. I do have this feeling that the way they are portraying Hideyoshi may not be particularly accurate. But I may be wrong…
Either way, the only things that have bothered me with the show are; the animation used (not that big of a fan of motion capture cellshade) and the fact that the main character could instantly ride a horse like a boss. 8-)
I think its a fun and light history lesson in an incredibly important period of Japanese history.
[…] I don’t always make good picks. For example, I chose to review an anime, Nobunaga Concerto, that I didn’t like from the start! I don’t know what was worse, having to watch it every week, or letting down a slew of readers […]
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