The issue of criticism is one which applies to any blog with a readership. Like you, even after so many years blogging, I have yet to develop a thick enough skin (how does one go about doing that anyway?). Where a criticism is constructive and relevant, I tend to make the corrections dutifully, but uninformed or unduly caustic criticisms tend to suffer swift executive action ;P

This is subjective, but I agree reviews are hard, or at least they are hard to do properly. Maybe I’m an artsy-farty academic, but unless I am browsing for an overview of a new anime/manga, I will not read “reviews” which simply consist of a synopsis of the plot coupled with screenshots. With reviews, I look for something deeper, more involved, and more thought provoking. I recognise that they take hours to craft “properly”, and that’s partly the reason why I don’t tend to do them a lot. :P

Print journalism, in the professional field, has become mainly divorced from the “effort” and “care” that used to go into an article because of the demands of modern media practices (so my editor tells me, sometimes people don’t read the whole newspaper, and so sometimes the journalists see it as hopping from one article paycheck to another).

Blogs are different because they can be more personal, but they risk being more uninformed.

This is it for me, personally. It is interesting to see how often an ANN review seems at odds with a review coming from other sources, but it also depends on the perspective of the reviewer. Too often, I do get that feeling that the reviewer would rather be reviewing something else instead of what they produce, and I think that can hurt how the final product comes out. And also shown, it does affect the opinions that people can have for the reviewer as well. That said, I wish we could somehow see where the ANN reviewers are coming from more often than not.

2. Hmm…are ANN dumbing down or is it the readers? Good question. For all I know, the dip in quality may be perfectly acceptable for the intended readership, and that readership doesn’t include those of us who are critical of their recent efforts.

3. There was a case fairly recently actually where I contacted the admin of a multi-author blog about a certain contributor, and the incident was dealt with…the admin guy was really pleasant about it but it still felt like a bit awkward issue for me to raise. It worked out okay in the end, but the ramifications could have been less pleasant if the site in question were as high-profile as ANN is.

Which makes me wonder…if ANN is the Anime NEWS Network, shouldn’t they focus more closely on news articles and editorials rather than individual reviews of the latest releases? As a reviewer who’s been forced to take a break recently, I have to say the grind of sequential reviewing can get monotonous!