How to Improve AnimeNewsNetwork.com

[http://www.otakunovideo.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/6a00d83452397c69e200e54f63944c8833-800wi-300x224.gif|300x224px|Anime Newspaper]

AnimeNewsNetwork.com provides an invaluable service as the premier anime news service for English-speaking anime fans, and its crew does an excellent job of reporting facts and otherwise corroborated news stories (or at least clearly identifying its sources). I'm glad ANN exists, and hope it continues for a long time.

However. ANN presents itself as a pro news organization (particularly judging by the size of its staff). So, let's apply a few professional standards.

Warning: I'm going to rant.

First off, why don't ANN's news stories credit the article's author? Every regular newspaper includes a byline, and with modern blogging software, this should be trivial; surely ANN's backend includes individual logins for each author.

It's important to know where your news comes from. Anonymous news articles are harder to trust than ones in which someone's name is on the line. This is standard industry practice, so why hasn't ANN adopted it?

Secondly, I've noticed an interesting bias among ANN's news. I may be completely wrong on this, but there certainly are frequent news stories about new manga by boy's love, shoujo, and yuri authors. No problem! But where are the stories about, say, new mecha manga? Surely Bandai still publishes new Gundam manga. Or seinen series. Considering the sheer number of announcements regarding a new title by BL author X or BL author Y, there seems like an imbalance to me.

Finally, ANN's reviews are so subjective they frequently communicate only personal taste. They usually rely on value words; here are a few excerpts:


 * "there is a great story...here" (source)
 * "[The title] remains an enjoyable entry in its chosen genre" (source)
 * "Most of the [music] selections are forgettable" (source)
 * "juicy fight animation" (source)

What on earth do those phrases mean? What's a "great" story? What's "juicy" animation? When a reviewer writes that a manga had a great story, all I know is that the reviewer very much liked the story. But why? What's a great story to the reviewer; a story that's complex, or easy to understand, or character-driven, or plot-driven, or mysterious? Often, ANN's reviews content themselves with a simple value word like "great" or "enjoyable," then move on.

Worse, there's a tendency in many of ANN's reviews to see genre conventions as flaws. If a harem anime includes character archetypes typical to its genre, this is an automatic mark against it. There's a bias towards originality that I don't think is appropriate for anime, which often uses common tropes as launching points for interesting character dilemmas or plots. Anime doesn't particularly try to be original, but then I've argued this before.

These problems are exacerbated by frequent simply mediocre writing in the reviews -- one plot thread was described as "not very well explained." So, "poorly explained"? Or, "there isn't much action in this'' OVA." So, there's "little action"?g''

I don't mind problems like that on other anime review sites, because other review sites don't make (significant) money, and don't set themselves up as professionals. These writing issues I list above are basic Strunk & White, Elements of Style problems that have been part of basic college-level editorial classes for decades. I know; I was taught them as part of basic classes for my college degree.

So, that's my list. What's yours?