anime news top ten and other rating sites.

[mgz]

occasionally i will use reviews on the series because sometimes people will hate a series for something that you enjoy in it

[agbaba]

actually when i started watch anime last year. I was simply watching miyazaki stuff cos i loved his style after watching spirited away. I watched samurai champloo and higurashi following friends recommendations.

Nowdays, I've been following ratings but also if I hear an anime has good music i'm inclined to watch it (thats why i watched blood+) and also still get recommendation by friend (Macross Frontier) and the occasional random anime, which I bump into (Paradise Kiss - not to sure why i decided to watch it)

[dirkformica]

and the occasional random anime, which I bump into (Paradise Kiss - not to sure why i decided to watch it)

Answer: because it was great and superior to 95% of anime tv series in general?

[maxoutmaxima]

Yeah, I don't like rating systems personally. I tend to check out anime-planet, read a synopsis or 2 about a series that I want to watch, see what other users say are similar series and go from there. Its great because a lot of times you can find similar genres or go totally off the beaten path.

[AceD]

i never go by rating, as a program the masses like/dislike...doesn't always mean alot.

...o and anime-planet / AniDB for me

[Natheria]

I tend to put more weight in reviews and personal recommendations by friends instead of rankings. They are allot more in depth and generally, people who are able to give a competent review, who can express themselves well enough in the English language that are willing to sit down and write something are often more trustworthy sources than the million other people who ranked Naruto or Bleach with a 10.  Even discounting all the narutards i generally consider the ranking system to be far too one dimensional anyway. While ranking has it's uses there are much better ways of getting good anime then that.

[Yorl]

Darn straight I use ANN.  I have the top 500 in a text file with the ones I've seen removed.  Only about 350 to go, lol.  I don't agree with the top ten, but after that it's reasonably accurate.  I've seen most of the anime insider top 50, which is a pretty good list if a bit old now.  ANN has considerably more users than any other site I've seen, and is a lot easier to navigate than anidb imo. 

[Crappy]

Last time I went along with rattings, I ended up watching Lucky Star... and wasted twenty minutes of my life.

Suggestions are ok, so long as the other person has REALLY similar tastes to mine.

I recommend using a close friend as a guinea pig  works for me.

[Transparent]

if im just randomly going through torrents looking for something to watch, ill check out aniDB ratings. 

[Lord of Fire]

I don't really go by ratings. I've asked some friends what they like and made a small list from that. Also, I have a personal intuition that tells me if I'll like a show or not and it has yet to fail me. Of course, there will always be shows I think I'll like, but disappoint me nonetheless, but no one is perfect.

Right now, I'm considering looking at what other people recommend based off shows I currently like.

[syntence]

Preference and ratings.

I use rankings because I don't want to waste my time with a show that I will never end up finishing, but that has got me before.. shows like Seirei no Moribito I would never watch (not really into fantasy type things, although I did enjoy Visions of Escaflowne) I watched because of the good rating on AniDB, and it ended up being a complete failure after 15 episodes..

It's good to not put too much credit into ratings, but I'd say about 80% of the time the rating justifies the show

[Stsin]

I download the first episode of each series every season (I still have a few from spring unwatched).  Then when I'm bored will sample some and judge from there (ignoring reviews beforehand).  Though some require more episodes to decide and some no longer than 5 minutes within.  I don't care which group it's from, since that can be decided later if decide to archive it....especially since many groups tend to drop part way through.

I tend to ignore ratings, but when I first started with anime, I went down the list of the top 200 from AnimeNFO (was the first anime site I came across then).  Glad I did because many of my favorites I would not have thought I'd like, by reading the description alone.

[at0m113]

Having watched most of the top 100 of AniDB/ANN, I'd say they're pretty good.  It really depends on how wide a range of taste you have.  It's also obvious that, as someone mentioned, newer hyped series are way overrated, as well as sequels sometimes (probably because the people who bothered to watch the sequel are the type to like it).  Anyways, after seeing most of the top end of the lists I just use ratings as a lower limit and watch what appeals to me, which mostly ends up being romances, comedies and scifi minus mecha.

Hopefully anime-planet's ratings system will come around soon as AP is easier to use than ANN and far easier than AniDB.  You might want AP's recommendation system too (although I've seen some really dumb recommendations and there's no apparent way to vote them down).

[bobjoe]

Having watched most of the top 100 of AniDB/ANN, I'd say they're pretty good.  It really depends on how wide a range of taste you have.  It's also obvious that, as someone mentioned, newer hyped series are way overrated, as well as sequels sometimes (probably because the people who bothered to watch the sequel are the type to like it).  Anyways, after seeing most of the top end of the lists I just use ratings as a lower limit and watch what appeals to me, which mostly ends up being romances, comedies and scifi minus mecha.

Hopefully anime-planet's ratings system will come around soon as AP is easier to use than ANN and far easier than AniDB.  You might want AP's recommendation system too (although I've seen some really dumb recommendations and there's no apparent way to vote them down).

Yeah, I find A-P to be the most user friendly (and speediest) of all, but I wish there was more access to the information, like there is on Anidb or MAL. If only you could view the year and number of episodes in the list mode, as well as see an average rating and such... And I wouldn't mind more ways to search, either...

[IX]

I usually go by "indirect recommendation", like a subbing group that I typically like picking up a show.  Chances are their tastes will align with mine.  Mostly down the similar route.

I went with mass popularity mentality recently, and ended up watching the first episode of K-On!.  Big, huge, giant, enormous mistake.  It'll take a little while before I go down that route again.

[at0m113]

Is spending 24 minutes to possibly discover a new series or genre you enjoy a huge mistake? Maybe I have too much free time.

There's quite a few I series I had to watch a couple episodes to have it either get better or grow on me.  Toradora! for example, or Azumanga Daioh.  And looking back it was totally worth it.