Anime Review Sites

psicic

We all have our favourites - sites that review anime and give us an inkling of the quality of what we're downloading/buying.

I've only realised today, however, that whereas once I'd check opinions on at least five sites, now I usually check only on one. Since some of the best references are now gone, missing or transformed into something far less than they used to be, I was wondering where other people went to find out about anime shows?

The most useful and honest from a fan perspective seems to me to be:

Them Anime

Also useful:

Anime Fu

Raziel

Cheers, psicic, I added T.H.E.M. to me favorites (it turns out that I already had Anime Fu in there!)

BTW, Happy New Year, and I hope everyone had a really nice Christmas, too!

CuLT

Hmm, I generally don't read anime reviews; I read introductions to series that I might like to see and then, after having seen them, discuss them with friends either irl or on discussion forums.

I probably should read more reviews, but many reviewers of anime either have absolutely no ability to form coherent sentences, or are far too cynical to be useful.
That said, briefly looking over themanime.org has made me comfortably reassured about my own opinions and conclusions drawn from watching shows; but I find the discussion forum format much more useful as a means of teasing out conflicting views and hacking away to see what you can glean from them.

I'm just worried that I'll never get a good discussion here if people think I'll ban them for disagreeing or arguing with me over anime (which I would/will never do).

Zen 2nd

I'm just worried that I'll never get a good discussion here if people think I'll ban them for disagreeing or arguing with me over anime (which I would/will never do).

You have banning powers? I'd argue with you any day of the week. I don't think I've ever read an animé review to decide what to get.

I go onto a forum and ask whats the best animé out there. They usually post back a list of stuff so I ask which one as guns? Then make the list smaller. Plus sometimes when I'm in HMV all of a sudden I see a shiney box of an animé I've never heard of before (but the box looks cool) so I pay for it and go home a start watching it and then start loving the show. Its strange I nearly could have not bought that DVD, but now I think I could have missed the chance of seeing Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Art_Wolf

When I first started watching anime, and money was in short supply , I checked up reviews first. Now I generally check out a fansub first and if I like it I will order it when it comes out.

carbonkid

I stopped buying anime ages ago cause theres just too much stuff i want and most of the stuff i really like is in a series not a film now and would cost a small forture if even available so i just download it or get it off a friend who already has. Word of mouth is how i discovered my favourites ^_^

CuLT

I try to purchase from Irish retailers wherever possible/reasonable simply so that they will see that the products are in demand.

I try to buy something from a series/film that I enjoy, even if it's an artbook or wallscroll; anything to support the creators on my currently limited funds.

Laguna

The only anime review site I bother with is www.point-blank.cc

psicic

Wow! I never realised it was ‘old-school’ to check a review site!

I find it vital to check review sites because I order in from abroad a lot and anytime I've searched (OTHER) forums for an answer, the impression I've always got is that the majority of posts are something along the lines of:

some feckin 11 yearold wrote:

'OMG! that show is teh leet! but didn't have any tenacle rape! tenacles ftw! lol! wtf! hax0r the planet! w00t!

or else

some guy probably a bit too much like me wrote:

Well, the ethnic diversity just isn't present in the background scene of frame 241 and 242 and I think this shows the introverted nature of the Japanese. Even though frame 243 has a black person in it, she's only going to walk across the screen to buy a newspaper. I was reading an academic text written by I.M. Madeup about this aspect of Japanese culture. Aparantly if you go back to pre-Meji Japan and the Ainu you find blah...blah...blah...

and then on page 13 of posts, you find one guy who actually gives a decent enough picture of what a particular show is like. :rolleyes:

I'd be genuinely interested to know which are the forums (apart from Boards.ie) that people use/check.

Laguna wrote:

The only anime review site I bother with is www.point-blank.cc

Brilliant! That's one of the sites I used to use that got wiped from my favourites and I couldn't find again! Thanks Laguna!

CuLT wrote:

I try to purchase from Irish retailers wherever possible/reasonable simply so that they will see that the products are in demand.

You're either very - very - VERY - rich or going for sainthood.