Why do anime bloggers have such bad taste in anime?

Not interested in calling out specific names in this post, if you are skeptical of this claim, search for prominent anime blogs and look up the myanimelist of the author to see what they like. Without exception they have multiple off takes, like thinking Fate/Zero is bad or that the Evangelion rebuilds are better than the main series. Nobody is perfect of course, but you would expect more from people who like anime enough to write about it regularly.

Philosophical digressions into the topic of taste aside, I suspect the reason why anime bloggers often have bad taste is that they are too self-conscious while they watch anime. Not in the sense that they ignore obvious plot holes or bad writing, but that they are thinking too actively about stuff that should be appreciated at an intuitive level such as character design, music, or atmosphere.

How should great music be judged: by how it evokes a subjective experience, or by scientifically and rationally analyzing how certain beats evoke certain emotions? Clearly the former; the latter maybe could be done for fun but a quantitative ranking of the best songs of all time wouldn’t make much sense.

There is also the issue of IQ here: intelligent people will find it more difficult to suspend disbelief in the face of an implausible or poorly written anime, usually through no fault of their own — that is just how their brains work. If somebody is able to suspend disbelief in the face of a faulty series, this signals low intelligence or a lack of attention, so I suspect that some critics may be intentionally not suspending their disbelief to signal high intelligence.

Rational discernment also introduces biases, and a few series have benefitted from overrational and status conscious critics, such as:

• The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. For a certain type of person this anime is heroin, but the vast majority of us are not sufficiently interested in politics or smart enough to genuinely enjoy it; for the average viewer this series is a slog. It’s considered to be one of the best, but it should be known more as a niche series like Texhnolyze that appeals to a certain psychodemographic.

• Series that are too slow paced, like Mushishi and Monster. Intelligent and attentive people are not as bothered by slow paces, which is part of the reason as to why people are hesitant to call things slogs.

• Highly intellectual/conceptual series like Serial Experiments Lain or Kino no Tabi tend to be overrated by reviewers.

Others like Digibro have talked about the issue of reviewers having false stated preferences, but I think the problem is not so much that they are lying or selfdeceiving, but that overthinking and breaking suspension of disbelief for clouds judgement and causes people to enjoy anime less than they otherwise would.