Is ANN the worst anime site on the internet?

[relic2279]

The headline is not my opinion, but I just read some guys post and wanted to hear your thoughts. He does have a couple valid points. Especially about the 2ch, and ANN dissing fansubers (most of their ad revenue comes from licensees selling DVD's/products)

http://www.mod16.org/hurfdurf/?p=52

ANN is the second worst anime site on the internet

Some of you might have heard about a site called animenewsnetwork.co m (I wrote a bit about them in my last post). As the name indicates, it is a site that aims to publish anime news (lol); in fact it claims to be the internet’s most trusted anime news source (I wonder who they asked trusted them). A reliable news source to me is one that does its own research and journalism, and checks as many sources as possible. ANN, unfortunately, does not do this.

Claiming ANN does journalism is like claiming fansubbers create anime. ANN:

    * Copies R1 industry press releases; usually verbatim, without comment or criticism of their content
    * Translates 2ch gossip and Moonphase comments and reports them as “news”
    * When they do the above, they invariably cite the source as “2ch” or “Moonphase comments” and link to the respective site’s front page, which makes it about as easy to check the source as if they had cited “the internet” as the source
    * Bowdlerizes English blog posts/other news site posts and reports those too as news
    * Trolls people in general and fansubbers in particular with snarky comments in the Answerman column
    * Makes unpaid volunteers earn advertising money for them by maintaining their anime database
    * Writes season previews that are obviously based on warez/fansubs (don’t try to tell me all of your season preview writers live in Japan and speak Japanese, ANN) while having an official position amounting to “fansubs are the root of all evil”
    * Builds the entire site layout around gigantic R1 industry ads
    * Refuses to publish anything remotely industry-critical since it would hurt their advertising income (for example, they have not published anything about the fact that Funimation outright lied in a press release recently)
    * Accuses people calling them out on their bullshit of being tinfoil-hatting conspiracy theorists (Danish)

Most news sites would at least try to pretend they are neutral and independent. ANN does not. Most news sites would be at least vaguely ashamed of doing very little but bowdlerize second-hand sources (blogs, moonphase comments, 2ch gossip, etc etc). ANN does not seem to be.

If you look at the last ten main news items at ANN’s front page right now, you get the following:

    * Moribito Returns to Adult Swim — At Least in Repeats
          o Vaguely rewritten English livejournal post plus some links to older ANN news. Original first-hand source linked to inline but not cited as source.

    * Japanese Box Office, May 9-10
          o Translation and currency conversion of a Japanese box office listing plus some very brief comments.

    * Fullmetal Alchemist Not Streaming from Funimation.com (Update 2)
          o Information about a link on Funimation’s webpage is not currently working plus some links to older news items. Updates with more information and the fact that the link is working again contributed by people who seem to be volunteer outsiders.

    * Funimation Cancels One Piece Simulcast (Update 2)
          o Verbatim copy of a Funimation press release. No mention of the fact that said press release contains at least one blatant lie. Updates contain reports that links elsewhere are broken, too.

    * Key’s Angel Beats! Anime Promo Videos Streamed
          o Presumably a translation of a 2ch post plus some links. Source cited as “2channel” with link to the front page and nothing else, so original source is impossible to check.

    * GTO: Shonan 14 Days Marks Return of Great Teacher Onizuka (Updated)
          o Another presumed translation of a 2ch post plus two sentences or so of background and licensing info. No useful source, as usual.

    * M and N, Heart no Kuni no Alice Listed by Amazon.ca
          o Bowdlerized English blog post that states that Amazon is listing something that may or may not be released by Tokyopop. No link to original firsthand source (Amazon).

    * One Piece’s Newest Episode Leaked Before Japan’s Debut (Updated)
          o A considerably more accurate portrayal of the “Funimation debacle” events. No mention of Funimation’s lie about “strict security measures”. No source cited other than Tofusensei and some other third party; presumably because the actual source (Tokyotosho/word on the IRC street) is unquotable by a Serious Business news outfit since they couldn’t possibly have contacts with those dirty fansubbers.

    * Anime Network Taken Off Comcast, Put on DirecTV (Updated)
          o Rewritten press release/official forum post plus a few sentences of background info.

    * Gokusen the Movie’s Trailer Streamed Online
          o Slightly rewritten notice about a new trailer, taken from an English news/blog site (including the exact same original source links), plus the usual three sentences with background info.

In summary: maybe two of these news items contain any actual journalism. The rest are copypasta and rewriting/translating news other people wrote about. The citing of sources is really wobbly at best; in several cases you either get no reliable source at all, or at best a link that gives you a link that gives you a link to something that could be a first-hand source.

Why is this shit so popular? Pure momentum? Probably. I guess once you’re big you don’t really have to do anything but sit on your butt, receive news tips, browse 2ch, check RSS feeds and rewrite stuff other people researched for you.

When I accepted that interview offer I had mostly one thing in mind, namely to troll Funimation. I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined how hilarious it would actually end up being given Funi’s amazing screwups, but neither could I have imagined what a golden opportunity of trolling ANN it would give me, either. At least that’s one thing I suppose I should thank ANN for.

[Tatsujin]

It's a piece of shit website. I only go there for extra information on anime. I hit Wikipedia, AniDB, myanimelist.net, and other good sources to view anime. And yes, they suck hardcore for dissing Fansubbing. Assholes.

[vuzedome]

It ain't the worse.
The worse is Sankaku Complex.

[iindigo]

But don't you know? Fansubs are evil! They force people to learn a tiny bit about the show's country of origin, how unthinkable! And they're unprofessional and are a mockery of the industry and kill DVD sales and put animators on the streets and kill children and puppies and and and...
 


Oh yes, and almost forgot... the R1 companies are holy and can do no wrong! Whatever decisions they make must be right, and anybody that downloads fansubs should be ashamed for stealing from the poor companies. Also, it's entitlement if you expect them to do a decent job with releases and provide options that don't suck.

[quekmeister]

But don't you know? Fansubs are evil! They force people to learn a tiny bit about the show's country of origin, how unthinkable! And they're unprofessional and are a mockery of the industry and kill DVD sales and put animators on the streets and kill children and puppies and and and...
 

...and kittens. ANN still has its uses, like Sankaku has its uses. It's not like anyone actually reads their news releases. I only go there for Anime News Nina and Astro Toy.

[Tatsujin]

But don't you know? Fansubs are evil! They force people to learn a tiny bit about the show's country of origin, how unthinkable! And they're unprofessional and are a mockery of the industry and kill DVD sales and put animators on the streets and kill children and puppies and and and...
 

Is that true?! Oh my god! No way! Maybe thats why I don't buy all these new products! I'm amazed at myself ... Maybe I should stop watchng anime all together. Let's see what happens then. Oh wait, why don't you guys join me too?!

[erious]

ANN database is pretty damn good though, and the main reason I actually visit them. It's true that almost none of their "news" are original content, but at least they collect them in one place, so that's sometimes useful too. However, where the website truly fails, is when you decide to check their non-news articles. Reviews, columns, all that. THAT is where you can see how bad ANN is. Most of that is either blatantly uninformed, obviously biased, or simply dumb.

[AceD]

never go there, rather use anidb / anime-planet

[iindigo]

Yeah... aniDB doesn't loads a lot more quickly and isn't covered up with ads too, which is a nice bonus (and yes, I know adblock). It's exceptionally fast and clean if you use the Google stylesheet.

[erious]

never go there, rather use anidb / anime-planet

Yeah, but good luck finding detailed staff information there for anything other then popular titles.

[Path]

ANN does tend to have fairly comprehensive lists though, unlike most sites; that by itself makes it worthwhile to use, if nothing else. That the site is basically a promotional area is rather obvious, and I doubt anyone actually uses the site for news.

[Mirgond]

I used ANN when i updated the Blacklist for the Wiki, but thats the only real use i see in that site, the nice info on every anime about license holders. Maybe to get Staff information, but nothing else.

[CanasX]

I actually used the site for detailed anime information and until recently I used it to keep track of what anime I fully completed. Now I use Anime-Planet for that, and it's better for that kind of purpose. However, Anime-Planet doesn't have all the anime of ANN. Like I didn't see the Blue Gender movie or CCS: Leave it to Kero which I saw for some dumb reason. Anyway I had no clue that ANN was so against fansubs. But I do remember reading an interview with Shinji of Crunchyroll and they were chastising him and Crunchyroll for supposedly streaming anime fansubs. I'm not sure on exactly because I never used Crunchyroll before. That was the first time I had heard of them and I've been watching for 5-6 years. I don't really look at their news reports either.

Anyway since they hate fansubs, to hell with ANN then!

[Sosseres]

I will have to agree that ANN is among the sites with better information about license holders and cast/producers for series. Besides that there is no point to the site in my mind.

[morrefule]

ANN is has its place.  It is great for quick information, and headlines.  And if you just want a quick update on the Anime world, it is a very easy place to get it from.

It isn't the best, and is not the most detailed.  But i do use it often when I need to look up something quickly, the search function seems to work better than most others out there.  So if i forget how to spell something (which happens a lot) it normally will still find it for me.

[Mag-X]

I only go there for their database when I'm trying to find out about a show. I set up Opera so I can search their database from my address bar, so I never even go to the front page anymore. I wasn't even aware they called them a news site. I've never read any of the articles.

[Lupin]

ANN disses fansubs but they use fansubs for their season previews. I remember seeing a screenshot of Queen's Blade in one of their previews that used Aasa subs and their raster project subs 

[Zalis116]

TheFluff and others on the blog have been misinformed about ANN's fansub stance -- it's not "fansubs are the root of all evil." Source. This, for instance, is wrong:

After all, they don’t allow discussion and posts of anything related to fansubs anywhere. They will only allow fansubs when it lets them to make money from the fansubs’ content, as you mentioned with the seasonal previews.

While linking isn't allowed and fansub-world dramaz are frowned upon, I've been involved in plenty of discussions of fansubbed series, fansub groups (where the sub group has relevance on one's experience with the anime), subbing technicalities, and comparisons of fansubs & R1-subs.

As for worst anime site on the Internet? Well, there seems to be an agreement that ANN has some redeeming factors, like the Encyclopedia/database part. You'd think the "worst site" would have no redeeming value whatsoever. One's perception of ANN's "politics" depends on where you stand on fansubs, R1 subs, "supporting the industry," English dubs, piracy, ethics, morality, etc. To people who favor R1 subs/dubs and don't download, sites like this one, AniDB, Suki, /a/, and the like may appear to be the worst. I don't care for the moe/loli/eroge-fan trolling, myself.

And what's so bad about Sankaku Complex? There's no better place to go when you're in the mood for real-life images of wet breeze-blown Japanese see-through schoolgirl uniform pantyshots with bare feet.

[Path]

And what's so bad about Sankaku Complex? There's no better place to go when you're in the mood for real-life images of wet breeze-blown Japanese see-through schoolgirl uniform pantyshots with bare feet.

Sankaku doesn't get enough love; t'is the perfect haven for us depraved souls when we need something to cheer us up.

[Southrop]

Every site has it's uses, imo.

ANN has very detailed information regarding cast, staff, production, companies involved, etc. Generally, they have an episode count for ongoing series when AniDB doesn't, and it is usually right (for series that I've kept tabs on, like Sorakake ending at 25 episodes).

Sankaku Complex has a very large collection of images, you can't deny that, though they can usually be found on other sites too. Sankaku also "reports" on some more controversial news that ANN doesn't touch on, like the Equity Now stuff (* Southrop curses Equity Now).

I generally use AniDB more than ANN, but both are valid sources of information (for now). ANN also has information about licenses, unlike AniDB. Anime-Planet is mostly useless to me. I barely use it, despite having an account there.