Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

Well, another year has passed and man…it was not a good one. I will skip rehashing what I said in my last update, but this year is going to hopefully be a year of growth for Animated Observations. I have a lot planned for this blog, and I hope you’ll be excited about it as well. But first, the boring stuff.

College…

“Two semesters left until I finish my Bachelor’s degree” is a sentence that, at least subconsciously, I knew I was probably going to have to write at some point but never actually thought about, and yet, here I am. Those who have followed me for a while now will probably know that the start of a new semester usually leaves me at least a little bit busy. I generally try to prepare content ahead of time, but occasionally, such as last semester, it does not work out.

By the time this update sees the light of day, I will probably have already started school. However, for this semester one of my classes is entirely online, and I only go to campus 3 days a week. This will hopefully give me more time to focus on both writing articles, creating content, and also the small, unimportant task of looking for a job 🙂

Tik Tok

While I still very much enjoy blogging and my normal format of sharing my terrible anime/manga/game opinions, I do still want to branch out creatively, and so I have decided to be hip with the kids and make a Tik Tok for Animated Observations. I’m literally 22 years old and writing that last sentence has aged me at least 40 years.

“What kind of content are you putting out on Tik Tok?” a reasonable person might ask. To which the answer is: Idk, probably a bunch of memes, but in all seriousness, I am hoping I will have time to do shorter form reviews and maybe practice some editing along the way. It will be a major work in progress, so I will not blame anyone who decides that it is not for them.

Introducing the Animated Observations Rating System!

Now, I have been writing and talking about anime and various other things on this blog under various names for the better part of four years, and while in some of those reviews I may have conceded some sort of numerical score, I have never used them consistently.

The reason I am introducing one now is to give people a more straightforward idea of how I feel about a particular piece of media. “The Observation Deck,” the format I have more or less settled on for reviews, is necessarily more chaotic and less structured than a typical review, bouncing between different topics that seem important to discuss. These categories/scores will be an attempt at giving a more direct answer of “is this a good piece of art” or “does it at least have some value.”

I also want to say upfront that nothing about the inclusion of these scores is going to fundamentally change the way I do my reviews, it will simply be an addition on top of all the things I talk about. As well, at least for the time being, this scoring system will only be used in longer form reviews and will stay out of essays and other reaction-based stuff such as “Initial Results.”

In favor of keeping this update relatively brief, I will quickly go over the categories, associated scores, and general philosophy behind each one. I have chosen to use a 0-100 scale and seven associated categories. The overall theme revolves around going from below the earth into outer space, with scores getting better in proportion with the metaphorical altitude. Without further ado, here they are.

30 Miles Deep

This is a category reserved only for the worst of the worst. A piece of media in this category has little to no redeeming qualities and is genuinely offensive to watch, read, or playthrough. It can burn under the pressure of the earth for all I care.

Crusty

A piece of media in this category is also extremely bad. However, unlike in 30 Miles Deep, there are maybe one or two ideas worth salvaging that are just executed very poorly.

Lost in the Ocean

While I may not like it that much myself, I can at least understand why someone who likes something in this range would enjoy it themselves. There is enough good or interesting here that I at least have to concede that. Something like Beastars, which I do genuinely dislike, would end up in this category.

Surface Level

While the phrase itself has taken on a number of distinct meanings in art discourse, the category of Surface Level in the context of my reviews simply means any show that has roughly as many positive qualities as it does negative, or at least could be argued as such. It is solid (all pun intended), but not much more than that.

Achieves Lift Off

This is the range at which I would say a piece of media generally starts consistently being more positive than negative. A show that Achieves Lift Off has a solid foundation but maybe does not do as much as it could in developing its story, characters, writing, gameplay, etc.

Space Bound

A piece of media that is Space Bound has built upon its positives even further. It achieves a lot, and may even be innovative in some spaces, but just barely misses the mark for being, in my eyes, perfect or near perfect.

Stellar

The category of stellar is reserved for media that does everything or virtually everything right. Since I usually do not go out of my way to watch things that I know people have said are bad, on top of my generally more positive bias, there will probably be a decent number of properties that end up in this tier. However, that should not at all diminish their quality, as I would still consider them the best of the best.

Of course, no rating system is perfect. These categories and number ranges are completely arbitrary. One show that is Surface Level and another that Achieves Lift Off might only be 2-3 points away. The categorical distinctions are more for portraying my general feelings while the numbers are there as a more absolute metric. Overall, I hope this new system will help to create a little more clarity in my reviews.

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Have any questions about the new system or what I’m doing? Wanna let me know what you’ve been up to? Feel free to drop a comment down below.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

As always, thank you to our Patron Jenn, they are incredible!

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!