Review Writing as a Balancing Act
I had originally written an article titled “What makes a review valuable?” which involved proposing that very question and then listing a few of my own ideas about possible answers while exploring the constant compromises and balancing acts one must strike as a reviewer, but the article came off as confused babble so I trashed it. This is a relevant topic of late, with a few posts here and there posing this, or similar questions related to review writing (this one I recommend in particular), but I think the problem with my first attempt at this article is that I saturated it with meta in an attempt to force it to be relevant, which is completely unnecessary. Relevance isn’t something that needs to be forced with impeccable timing and a smattering of meta. If it’s interesting, it’s relevant.
The other problem with my first attempt at this article is that the question “What makes a review valuable?” isn’t one that I’m best placed to answer myself. I can propose a few ideas and go through a few of the challenges to writing regular reviews that are both credible and valuable to read, but ultimately this is a question that needs to be discussed rather than just “answered”, simply because different people will have different ideas about the topic. So, the question I’m posing to you is, what makes a review valuable to you?
I think there’s a couple of ways people can look at review writing. It’s, in a sense, therapeutic. Cynically, it can be seen as a justification for wasting hours on a pointless hobby. But I think one of the things that separates a well written review from something that comes off as self-serving drivel is a sense of purpose as far as serving your reader and offering unique insight in concerned. That’s not to put review writing on a pedestal as some sort of noble quest for taste and artistic value to light the torch in a world of mediocrity and ignorance… a little bit of masturbation (for lack of a better word) can be a good thing, since it adds colour and personality to an opinion. The number one motivation when it comes to writing reviews will inevitably be “self”, but the reviews that I always enjoy reading the most are the ones that offer insight, either by reasonably justifying an alternative perspective to my own or pointing out something that I missed, especially when it’s subtle, yet clear in hindsight and not superficial (as an aside, I think in general a good review quickly reaches beyond the superficial). As a review writer, producing insightful and engaging reviews is something to strive for, IMO.
Toradorable!
Reason, I think, is particularly important to review writing. Reviewers will have just as varied tastes as their readers, and it’s not good enough to just expound an opinion without backing it up with something that your readers can at least relate to, even those who don’t agree with your contention (but who are, at least, open to an alternative viewpoint… reviewers probably aren’t interested in serenading fanboys, nor should they be, IMO). At the same time, this does not imply that review writing is an emotionless report of one’s observations… reviewing is still commentary and opinion is, and always should be, the crux of a review. A reviewer needs to be reasonably convinced of their own assertions, which, I think, requires careful consideration of the material. Before putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard in a modern context) a reviewer should think deeply about the material, try to engage with its themes and characters and, if these things are just not engaging, ask why and figure out where the creators failed. This process, I think, almost certainly serves your readers in the end.
At the same time, honesty is another component of reviewing. What you present must be your own opinion, the conclusions you arrived at without influence outside of the material itself. It’s an honour thing, in part, since on the internet, only virtue separates reviewers from potential trolls. That, and respect for your readers, which comes back to the idea of “reason” I spoke about earlier (“respect” doesn’t mean telling your readers what they want to hear, as I said earlier, reviewers shouldn’t serve fanboys, IMO). Nonetheless, if reason is at the centre of one’s review writing philosophy, then an honest opinion or an honest reaction can be presented in such a way that may be valuable to readers, whether they agree with you or not. This, though, requires a balancing act, one which almost no one will execute every time. On the one hand, you need to be honest and assertive with your opinion, on the other, you need to be respectful and reasoned and, by extension, humble enough to accept the possibility that there may be an alternative viewpoint that’s even more logical or insightful than your own.
Being informed and having a good understanding of the medium as a whole is also important, IMO. There’s, however, a consequence to “being informed”, which generally requires significant consumption of a medium, and that’s burn-out. I think one of the conclusions that came out of the discussion that followed the article linked above is that burn-out is a hindrance to writing reviews that don’t come off as self-serving. Personally, I think a bit of burn-out isn’t the worst thing, since it puts a reviewer in a state of alertness and a critical frame-of-mind, the opposite of complacency which doesn’t serve reviewing. Again, this is something of a balancing act. How do you remain informed and keep up to date with a given medium (particularly one that evolves as rapidly as anime) without burning out from those annoying cliches that don’t change? I think a genuine and lasting enthusiasm for the medium is important. Reviewers are ultimately fans, and once someone’s lost that, what chance do they have of speaking to other fans in a way that’s understanding or even reasonable? One can think about “elitism” in a similar vein. A bit of elitism isn’t a bad thing: a critical reviewer will generally demand more from an anime than the average anime fan, which I think puts them in a sharp frame of mind, but if it’s excessive to the point that you come off as disrespectful and reduce the people who you could possibly have an informed discussion with to the same level as the mindless fanboys/haters (different sides of the same coin), it’s disengaging and, consequently, pointless.
Reviewing is a social phenomenon, I think, which ideally involves an exchange of ideas and considered criticism and counter-criticism, all leading to reasoned discourse and discussion, insight and an appreciation of varied viewpoints and, ultimately, the material itself (in a perfect world). There’s a lot of reviews on the internet, and one of the biggest challenge that a reviewer faces (as well as one of the biggest accolades they can attain) is rising above the white noise. A lot of people talk about following reviewers with a good reputation and similar taste, which is why it’s important for a reviewer to consistently put out work which is informative, insightful and engaging. That’s why I’m starting to come around to the opinion that good reviewers write for their readers almost as much as they write for themselves. But, this is yet another balance that needs to be maintained in review writing. Go too far in one direction, and it’s masturbation. Go too far in the other, and it’s pandering or apologetic.
(As a footnote, I don’t pretend to be the perfect reviewer. I know that I could be better at a lot of the things I’ve discussed here, which is why I’m using this post to gauge people’s attitudes towards reviewing… because I want to improve and consistently put out reviews that people find valuable).
I find reviews exceedingly difficult to write, so I don’t. It has to do too with my methodology, which is to take an idea and mine the text/narrative to substantiate it. This does not make for balanced reviewing. I suppose that’s why ‘We Remember Love’ and not “We Remember Discerning Taste;’ as a very astute conversationalist told me recently.
The balance you talk about, so tough. So tough that I find it hard to read a lot of reviews because when it’s lopsided it hurts to read them. Truthfully, I end up relying more on recommendations from live conversations to find shows to watch [->]. Reading blogs is a form of entertainment in itself, but its utility is highly variable.
I always face the problem of balancing what I really like and what I should like about an anime before I write a review about it. Let’s say for Umisho; it’s an anime that technically shouldn’t get a high grade because frankly speaking, the characters are bland and the storyline is too simple. Yet, I actually like the anime because the low-brow comedy strikes me, although I appreciate some high-brow comedy as well. I would ask myself “How would I write a review which I know shouldn’t be graded highly for technical flaws, yet I should since I find it enjoyable?” I don’t find it an issue if I can grade an anime highly if I find it to be technically brilliant and it’s one that I really enjoyed watching, and grade something lowly if it’s technically terrible and I find it to a chore to complete watching it.
I think the main aspect of reviews that separates them from others is that reviews are for readers to gain insight on the anime in topic in a mainly objective point-of-view, which is distinctively different from anime blogs which in my honest opinion, is something the writers just feel like saying, ranting inclusive. The opinions in reviews aren’t always in consensus with the opinions of the readers, and in fact it should remain that way. Just like how an anime can’t please everyone’s tastes, it’s the same for a review. Agreeing and disagreeing is what I think makes reviews more interesting to read because as a reviewer and a reader, I would appreciate if I can see what others have to say about my opinions and then I can look back at my opinions from a different angle.
So what do I think makes a good reviewer? Well, I think that a good reviewer is one that knows what message he/she wants to convey to the readers, and how he/she reasons this message persuasively and reasonably. Plus, while it is true that striking the “perfect balance” in writing a review everytime is frankly impossible, endeavoring to strike it as much as possible is an important characteristic for a good reviewer. I believe that I still have a long way to go as a reviewer, as I’m still learning how to analyse an anime in order to write a good review.
There’s two things I look for in a review in order for it to come across as helpful to me. One is a bit of a subjective criteria in that I like to be able to look upon a review as fair if I am going to use it as a gauge on the material it’s looking at. Of course what one finds to be fair will always vary by the person, but for me there are certain tells that I’ve learned to look for when seeing if a reviewer has an excessive ulterior motive that is colouring their review.
The second and usually less subjective criteria is that the review feel personalized and like it’s coming from the reviewers own thoughts and reactions and not just an echo of a popular opinion or a counter to it. If a review comes across as such to me then I see little point in taking it too seriously. Though normally I tend to go with the review that covers the most middle ground on the debate between thee excellence and crap of a given work because more often then not it’s going to be the most accurate one. Oh and even then I always look for a second or even third opinion that looks at something the other doesn’t have or looked upon differently because I see it as foolhardy not to have at least one other view to compare and contrast.
Now I’ll briefly talk about myself for just a quick moment. Lately I’ve been trying to get away from writing up on the anime that I watch in a way that comes across as an attempt to assign a numerical rating to it that is just going to be subjective anyway. I’ve come to prefer in-depth analysis as a way to give an impression on an anime by simply disecting a show as thoroughly as I can while trying to leave enough room for the reader to make what they will of it. Of course I now have my Straight Up Saturday’s which is just pure unfiltered opinion to make up for that.
By the way:
“reviewers probably aren’t interested in serenading fanboys, nor should they be, IMO”
“respect” doesn’t mean telling your readers what they want to hear, as I said earlier, reviewers shouldn’t serve fanboys, IMO”
It shouldn’t be, but unfortunately it has almost become so. Remember that Jason Miao guy I linked you too…..yeah…..god we think so much alike it’s actually starting to freak me out….like everything to our rationalizations on anime analysis to our goals as anime fans in general and that drive towards self-improvement.
@ghostlightning
Yeah, but there must be some blogs in your feedlist that you keep coming back to, and chances are that some of them dabble in review writing. There must be something they do that separates them from the rest. What do they do different from/better than everyone else? That’s the interesting question.
@AC
I think this comes back to the idea of the “guilty pleasure” (a topic for a different time). I think a good reviewer recognizes that “entertainment value” and “critical quality” aren’t always the same thing. When an anime is entertaining, it must be succeeding at something, and due credit must be afforded but that doesn’t mean it might not be flawed in some way. Nor does that mean it’s necessarily in good taste (although that’s almost as subjective a concept as “enjoyability”).
I think a good review is a mix between reaction, which is a subjective thing, and critical analysis, which some people refer to as “objectivity” (incorrectly, IMO). Reaction sets up and colours an opinion, while critical analysis adds weight and reason to it. This is yet another balance to deal with in review writing, but I’d say it’s better to err on the side of analysis. Add weight to a review since people are interested in the meat and bones of what you have to say. That’s kinda why I suggested that a good review quickly reaches past the superficial.
@Kaioshin Sama
Yeah, but Miao is a douchebag, that’s not news. He obviously writes fanboy reviews and openly admits it, but he just comes off as an obnoxious twit and I don’t take what he has to say much seriously. I think there’s an interesting contrast between him and someone like ghostlightning who also admits to writing fanboy driven articles, yet doesn’t come off as anywhere near as obnoxious. I’m not sure what ghostlightning’s secret is, and whether he’s struck some sort of balance in the articles he writes himself, but I’d guess it has something to do with his obvious enthusiasm for what he writes about.
Since I’ll safely assume you’re not watching either Ristorante Paradiso or Cross Game… everything except our tastes itself, it would still seem. :p
Personally, I don’t see any great point of being “balanced” or “objective” in a review since it infers that we are making argument off of some sort of model which quite frankly isn’t the case. The reason we don’t usually write heavy handed, vitriolic reviews is because this is not the style we’ve built ourselves on, we are are (apparently) trying into tap into a very specific portion of the fan base, and we’re honestly not that good at writing such reviews. I believe a reviewer who comes across as childish or fanboyish is because they either fail at some basic analysis or they simply don’t have a strong enough grasp of prose to convince others that they have a valid opinion. So, it’s ultimately about how we color our review more than what is argued, though I admit that genuine insight is still highly valued (but exceptionally uncommon that it’s infeasible to create a site purely based off it).
Now returning the larger question of what makes a review valuable, I think that it ultimately boils down to the entertainment value. Essentially, can a piece of writing hold a person’s attention whether it be by wit, humor, strong reasoning or being such a massive prick that it’s amusing. And you can’t just amuse a person once or twice; you need to do it consistently, and over time as people become used to satisfying their periodic fix of review reading, they will keep coming back even if you fall into prolonged periods of mediocrity. Also, once you’ve got a person’s attention, there is also a social networking component where we reach out to our readers (often fellow bloggers) and create a reliable viewership based on a sense of kinship.