Christian anime reviews and my rating system

Because I am someone who deeply believes media of all forms can play an important role in society, I have made it a point to vary my media consumption. This has most recently led me to a love for Japanese animation, or anime. While this is normally only looked at as being a bit weird, some people have questioned me on how a christian can enjoy anime. That particular question is not one that is easy to answer.

Normally I give a very generalized and somewhat canned response. This response somewhat address the two main concerns I normally see expressed. The primary one being the perception that anime itself is often immoral or perverse. To this I am quick to point out that most the western media we already consume isn’t exactly a bastion of Christian Values.  I would also add that not every show is exactly the same, as it turns out writers like to be creative. Rather than attempting to answer this question as a whole, I have decided to start a series of anime reviews. Alongside the actual reviews, I will includes bits on my own faith based perspectives.

While finding the perfect format and layout for the videos themselves will likely take a bit of trial and error, I do have a scoring system that is not likely to change much. I will be rating things on a 5 point scale that uses only whole numbers. This is my prefered method of review as I do not tend to feel the need to rate shows in any specific order. I much rather group shows based off the factors of enjoyment level and impact. This works well, considering that I can like many shows equally for entirely different reasons. When I do wind up with a preference, it is often temporary and changes based on my mood anyway. This makes any attempts at ranking them tedious and pointless.

Now for the scores themselves and what they actually mean.

Five points are given only to shows that I find particularly enjoyable in either concept or quality of execution. In addition they must also impacted me in a strong and meaningful way. This category is reserved for things that manage to dramatically alter my emotional state.These are the kind of shows I am left coming back to and thinking about for weeks if not years to come.   

Four points are for show that I enjoyed to a degree less than, or equal to, something I would otherwise give a five. However, they fail to leave an impact that last much longer than the show itself.

Three means I had mixed feeling about the show, while 2 and 1 means the show sucked. The only real difference here is that a one was too painful to watch more than 4 episodes, while a two I could at least finish.