dgw
VIP
10

462 followers

The Internets
33

The Great Passage

Arithmetic mean of my scores for the season: 8.2727…
What I think the show as a whole deserves: 9.8

10 it is. What a stunningly beautiful series.

I would happily welcome a second season, but I highly doubt that will happen. The story is finished.

loading replies
Yuri!!! on Ice

9.5/10 (if only trakt supported that)

By rights, I should give this season an 8 (my per-episode ratings average out to 8.41). But I enjoyed it a lot more than that. I don't feel like a 10 is completely justified, since I did have a few bones to pick with the narrative, but a 9 is a bit shy of what the show deserves.

Given the "SEE YOU NEXT LEVEL" tag at the end of the season, I can only speculate that a second season is planned (or at least, pitched). I would gladly watch more of this.

loading replies
Orange
9

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

I feel ambivalent about rounding this show's raw average of 8.6 up to a 9, but really…all that keeps me from giving the series a 10 is the Bermuda Triangle nonsense and the somewhat weak writing at the very end. The rest of the show is very strong, and it deserves the 9.

loading replies
Elfen Lied

I just (manually) imported my history for this show from MyAnimeList.

Writing a detailed review would be impossible now without rewatching the show (I watched it 6 years ago, in 2012), but I can say this: It must be a damn good show, because I watched it all in one day.

Well, it was technically the same day. From my perspective it was two days—first four episodes late at night, then sleep, then finished the show that evening—but even with time to sleep and do other stuff that day, from start to finish, it took me less than 18 hours.

You should probably watch this anime.

loading replies
My Senpai Is Annoying

Average episode rating for the first season: 8.0
If this gets another season, someone please ping me!

With the exception of that frustratingly stale final episode, this is a really fun and cute watch. I certainly hope it can get a second season, even if it didn't seem to hint at one.

loading replies
Kim's Convenience

Average season rating: 7.6

It kills me that the spin-off of this show (which one of its co-creators left to pursue) centers on one of the white regulars. Doesn't that fly directly in the face of what Kim's Convenience represented for Canadian (or any other) television? More stories about more diverse people?

Such a shame. Give us a Janet or Kimchee spin-off, smh.

loading replies
Boy Meets World

Average season rating: 8
(also the median and mode, but who's counting?)


Boy Meets World makes some oddball choices along the way (e.g. recasting Topanga's parents three times, for example), and takes off in a few really dumb directions (e.g. Cory the jealous asshole, or Eric as competitor with Wheatley for Best Moron) in the later seasons. But it's still part of my childhood, and there are a lot of good parts to counter those pieces that—now that I'm more practiced at actually watching TV instead of merely viewing it—bug the adult me to no end.

loading replies
Cheers

Average season rating: 7.6363…

I'm sure that would be a more interesting number if I went and averaged all of my individual episode ratings, or at least the raw season averages (instead of the rounded versions I set as my Trakt ratings), but it's still interesting that ultimately, my rating rounds off to the current site-wide average of 8/10.

Of course, Cheers has flaws. Sometimes the writing (and therefore characters) was a bit inconsistent, but it's not about the individual episodes. Watching Cheers really is comforting, like walking into a bar "where everybody knows your name."

loading replies
Yuyushiki

(Cross-posted from season 1 to the main series page, for visibility.)

I started watching this show so long ago—2,063 days!—that I wasn't rating individual episodes yet. In fact, I didn't even add anime on Trakt yet, preferring to keep anime exclusively on MyAnimeList at the time.

But I did rate 5/12 episodes, which I watched after starting to rate every episode I watch, and most of those got an 8/10. So I really don't know how it took me five and a half years to finish this anime. It's a lot of fun! Guess I'm just as distractible as Yuzuko…

loading replies
Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average episode rating for seasons 1 & 2: 7.96875

I'm hedging by specifying which seasons this applies to, in case there's a surprise third season, but after almost 8 years it seems quite unlikely.

The average would be higher if the series was a bit less fast-and-loose with the rules of its universe. For example, some episodes pretend like cell phones don't exist, which gets pretty old the tenth time Kotoko is late for something but for some reason doesn't text or call Naoki to tell him. It doesn't help that Naoki in real life would be lucky if his parents even tolerated how uncommunicative he is, let alone a wife he vowed to love for the rest of his life.

Just in general, it's ridiculous how often stuff happens just because one character or another just doesn't communicate some important piece of information. I can suspend my disbelief only so much, even if this is a live-action manga adaptation.

Even so, the show's cute as heck, and it's a great feel-good watch. Even if I'd feel like punching Naoki five times a day if I lived in this show's universe, because he's such a schmuck sometimes.

loading replies
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average episode rating: 8.0

I started this show in late 2017, and continued through episode 22 in early 2018 before taking a five-year pause. There's honestly no good reason for that. Initially I held off on the last two episodes so I could watch them together with a colleague (we were both in a community theater production, and this would have filled the time between performances on our double-show Saturday). There were several reasons for that plan not working out, unfortunately, but I kept waiting like an idiot.

Meanwhile, for most of the last five years, one of the insert songs has been my default alarm ringtone—across two phones. Thrice during the last episode, I looked at my phone wondering what alarm I'd forgotten about setting. :joy_cat: (That song was used a lot in the finale.)

Having finally finished the series, I wish I remembered the plot details better. The wrap-up leaned heavily on certain characters getting "big reveals" that the audience already knew, so the show skipped over the actual information to avoid annoying viewers with old information. If I need to fill 18 hours sometime, I'll consider rewatching.

loading replies
Last
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average episode rating: 8.125

Overall I found it an entertaining ride. The characters were the real selling point, especially Hae Jin, the Chairman, and friends.

Nitpicks:
* Overuse of identical musical tracks
* Other lazy audio work (including playing fast and loose with both diegetic and non-diegetic tracks in the same scene)
* Exaggerated fight scenes, especially blood (seems ironic that knife blades must be blurred, but this amount of blood is fine)

I can't seriously fault the series for heavy stereotyping. It's based on a webtoon, so I hardly expect hyper-realistic characters.

loading replies
Charlotte
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

This is my customary cut-and-paste of an anime first-season review to the series page, because a sequel seems unlikely to happen.


Average episode rating: 7.69230769

I'm quite happy to round this one up. Early on, my ratings were low-balled because of, uh… Actually, I don't remember why. That's the problem with taking three years to watch a 13-episode anime, I guess.

About halfway through, my ratings really spiked, though. If you can call going from mostly 6's and 7's to mostly 8's and 9's a "spike"… But the show definitely got my attention at that halfway point, and there's no excuse for taking so long to finish except—just maybe—that I didn't want to run out of beautiful P.A. Works art to watch, so I slowed way down. (I've definitely done that before with shows I like, putting off finishing them for months or even, literally, years, to make them last longer. I'm a weird one.)

This is one of a handful of anime that I think would be worth rewatching to see how my opinion of it might have changed.

loading replies
Rush
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

(Cross-posted from the season 1 comments, since the show ended after just the one season. In doing so, I noticed that the current average Trakt series rating of 76% precisely matches my average episode rating. Quite interesting…)

Average episode rating for the first (and only) season: 7.6

I'm happy to round up. I wasn't sure about the show at first, but it grew on me. Then, when I had really started caring about what happened to the characters, it ended on a season-finale cliffhanger.

Network television disappoints me, when they don't give a show enough advance notice of cancellation to at least avoid setting up for a payoff they'll never get the chance to deliver. Even if there's not enough time to tie up all the existing loose ends, they can at least avoid creating more if the upcoming end is known.

loading replies
Lizzie McGuire
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

I can't quite average all of my episode ratings, because I skipped a few at the beginning. But I think it's safe to give the show as a whole the same rating its seasons earned: 8/10.

Sure, along the way there were a few duds, but so many of these episodes are just superb and not to be missed.

loading replies
Breaking In
8

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

It's a shame that this show was cancelled mid-season. It really started to hit its stride in the latter part of season two, in the episodes that FOX never aired.

loading replies
Happy Endings

Happy Endings most certainly didn't get one (it was canceled after three seasons), but it still put in some solid work along the way.

The characters manage to stay likable despite an excess of silliness, and somehow the writers avoided pigeonholing (most) of the characters based on stereotypes. (Alex seemed caught in the "dumb blonde" role, unfortunately.)

If Happy Endings wanted to do itself one favor, it should have been pushing the big story arc along. Three seasons of playing "will they, won't they" with Dave and Alex got pretty long in the tooth by the start of season 3.

loading replies
The Good Place
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

The ride is fun. Ted Danson (Michael) was a nice treat, and I'll hopefully find some more things in which to watch William Jackson Harper (Chidi) perform. Just don't expect rock-solid philosophy; the last season really left some holes there, I thought.

loading replies
The IT Crowd

More Richard Ayoade is always welcome, and I wish NBC had not dropped its plans to air this…

loading replies
Liv and Maddie

I enjoyed this show for what it is. It's perfect for throwing something on while eating lunch or the like—entertaining without requiring too much focused attention. In return, you get scattered rewards in the form of really nice character development, some A+ jokes, and a good feeling when things inevitably turn out fine in the end.

Honestly, I'd rank this among Disney's better sitcoms.

loading replies
Flip Flappers
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Rating average: 7.46153846

I see great strides here from the studio that inflicted Sora no Method on the world. There are echoes of the same writing problems—the story's pretty convoluted, and you'll be lost easily if you miss any details—but less pronounced than the previous series. (Dimension W, I can't speak to…it's still on my watchlist.)

Flip Flappers has a lot to recommend it, even if it's only for the visuals. Papika will worm her way into your heart if you let your guard down even a little, and you'll get to visit a number of fantastical worlds with Ichimichi Mao's voice to guide you and Cocona along. While I don't know if I would call it "Superb" (a Trakt 9) or even "Great" (8), it's definitely a solid "Good" (7) plus—if Trakt allowed half-points I'd be giving this a 7.5.

loading replies
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 6.857142…

Really starts to lose the plot with the abrupt changes in later seasons, but starts out nicely enough. By the end I really was just watching for Salem.

loading replies
Schitt's Creek
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 6.5
(I do not feel like averaging all 79 episodes)

There's no doubt that the performances are always great. Everyone in the cast inhabits their respective roles so well, it's often impossible to think of them as actors.

Comedically, though, it's a different story. Obviously there are as many different tastes in humor as there are people on our blue globe, and not every joke will appeal to all of them. In this show's case, its style and my taste in humor didn't always see eye to eye.

Ans that's OK. I still am glad I watched Schitt's Creek for all the little character-based inside jokes I can use around the Internet in memes and such.

loading replies
Better Off Ted
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 7.1923077

It's fun. Pretty superficial humor, even by sitcom standards, but funny enough in places.

loading replies
How I Met Your Mother
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 6.888…

When it's good, it's truly great. But the questionable decisions add up over the years, which drags down the overall experience.

loading replies
HaNaYaMaTa
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Of the episodes I rated individually*, the average was 7.125.

It is very much CGDCT, with a couple spots where the cuteness got thrown out the window in favor of pretty over-the-top drama between characters that's barely forgivable given that everything is exaggerated in anime like this.

So yes, there were a couple episodes I just didn't care for at all. Clearly I also had some trouble maintaining interest early on, since I took a year-long break between episodes 3 & 4, then it took SEVEN YEARS before I got around to finishing the remaining 8 episodes.

I'm sure the true average score, if I were able to include those first 4 episodes, would be lower. I somehow doubt that it would be enough lower to change the rounded-off value needed for assigning a Trakt rating out of 10, though.


* — This show started before I was tracking anime here, and possibly even before I started rating every episode I watch.

loading replies
Superstore
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 7.333…

Superstore is a solid show with great heart. You won't like all the characters all the time, and some of the stories are pretty dumb, but that's just life in the sitcom game. At the end of the day, if you still don't care about these people, you have no heart. :upside_down:

loading replies
Flight of the Conchords
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Average season rating: 7.2166666…
Average episode rating (since it's easy enough to calculate over just 22 episodes): 7.227272727…

No matter how I calculate, it looks like this show deserves a 7 from me.

As I said in my season 1 summary comment, it's not always the easiest show to get into. I'd put off watching it in favor of other things because there's a certain amount of energy that goes into appreciating the humor. At least, for me there is.

Honestly, I thought the show got easier to watch toward the end of season two, but then it ended. :/

loading replies
Very Small Business
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

(Cross-posted, with minor edits, from the season 1 comments.)

Well, averaging my ratings for all six episodes of the series gave me: 7.333…

Funny, that's pretty much what I was going to give the show. I'd be rounding up from closer to 6.5, but it is an entertaining diversion. The series isn't very long, so you'll be done quickly whether you howl with laughter at every episode or sit staring blankly at the screen.

loading replies
School Days
7

Shout by dgw
VIP
10

Having just imported my play history and rating from MyAnimeList, I feel it's important to say:
If I watched this show today, I wouldn't rate it as highly. My rating methods—and the way I think about anime, in general—have changed a lot since 2013.

But, since I never re-rate shows without rewatching them first, and I don't want to rewatch School Days… Here we are. Stuck with a too-high rating for a show that I didn't actually like that much.

loading replies
Loading...