Andrew, I've had enough of your attitude. This is an official warning. Tone it down, please. This forum is public, so I don't care for your colourful use of language. Our club meetings may be for people of an older age group, but this forum is open to everyone. Any more of this, and I'll consider banning you from using the forums.

Discussion ends here! Please get back on topic!

Here are Elfen Lied's stat's on myanimelist.



Discuss.

Fine fine, I'll mind the language. You might consider changing the rules if that offends you, I rechecked them and oddly that isn't mentioned. There's little point trying to explain anything else.

Now to your raised "Discuss" point (care to provide more context for saying it?). If we take internet polls at face value, I'd be worried; IMDB has less fanboy-ism (in fact; more downmodding of things), but they're decidedly strange about certain things, where sheer popularity may rule largely over quality with newer things covering the top 250. Avatar got an 8.2; 8.2? Mmmmm...(this is where all the scores centre around 8 or so; exceedingly rare to get 9's).

Basically; poll votes usually tend towards being 1 or 10. You can see this kind of thing here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/ratings - but it pretty much matches most of the top 250; the average is never a bell curve, but simply about how many people didn't vote 10 which brings the score down from being a 10/10 (see the higher percentage voting 1 over many other options; bell curves don't work like that). This means things might peak at 8 and 9 in any case; even the outstanding films critics and the public adore, but this taints the middle range too - 8 and 9 might be high, but there are a lot of 8's and a massive amount of 7's! The average you could say is "pretty high" for scoring on IMDB.

(Yes, there is the other end of the scale where it is a large amount of 1's and few higher votes for the bottom 100...not nearly as common though; people don't actively watch crap and vote on it, you leave that to the critics).

Going onto myanimelist, the score is hidden behind a "weighted score" note without any usable data ("weighted score" doesn't make much sense to me; and it is absent from the FAQ); but no doubt it'd follow Avatar's kind of scoring, with a vast majority of 10's from the fans, with not nearly enough other reviews at all to average it out (both voting types requires logins too; casting out a massive amount of the population) - after all, that is a pure fan site; the lowest rated thing appears to be http://myanimelist.net/anime.php?q=&type=0&score=0&status=0&tag=&p=0&r=0&sm=0&sd=0&sy=0&em=0&ed=0&ey=0&c[0]=a&c[1]=b&c[2]=c&gx=0&o=3&w=2&show=1580 - 2.74 (1580 items in - those before it appear to be unscored), followed up immediately by 4.38 rising after 5 more to...5...then another 200 to an easy http://myanimelist.net/anime.php?q=&type=0&score=0&status=0&tag=&p=0&r=0&sm=0&sd=0&sy=0&em=0&ed=0&ey=0&c[0]=a&c[1]=b&c[2]=c&gx=0&o=3&w=2&show=1740 - 6 - interesting to note really, since that is 1580 items into a 5040 list that are rated 5 or more. This isn't a great bell curve by any measure of the imagination - even if that included scoring all the first 1580 items as between 1 and 5 on a curve; we're not half way through the items but are half way through the scores...

Taking this on board you might say if it is only scored 8.27, it might well be actually, on the scale of things there, more average then possibly previously thought; in this case it still is in the top 200. I wonder if the length helps, or it's age (it's hard to tell; you have to individually check each one for amount of votes).

That's looking at the numbers (hey you wanted a different discussion!). It's very difficult to tell how useful that number is individually; it appears basically as just a number.

Personally, my opinion reading some of the reviews they do let you see (rather then presumably what most people do and just score it); it does come down a lot to a lot of 10's from those who provide no reason for it; there is actually a larger range of more middling and poor review scores in the written section. It'd still be tainted by a lot of perfect 10 scores, but perhaps would be more meaningful; however, some of them are just gushing utter praise with no mention of the downsides (and on the other hand some low-scored ones mainly point out only middling things or complain about violence). The actual psychology of scoring though means if you ever do put a score down (ie; have watched all the episodes) you tend to score things higher since you've put in the time and effort to actually finish it; or at least that seems to be the case with the cursory evidence presented.

So, does that make sense? not taking a number as face value of it's actual quality but instead perhaps just the popularity? (Time perhaps is a better test of quality; something Battleship Yamato for instance lacked). I'll admit that the series at least is unique in a way, and caters to some markets you'd typically think watch a lot of anime, so perhaps is well placed to score highly on such a site. I'd love to know the social makeup of the site more; perhaps the age of most people on it is reasonably in the teens; I'd not trust them to have seen too much in the way of variety when it comes to everything to make a valid decision that, yes, this by George, is the best Anime will ever get.

Basically though it boils down to it not meaning much in the grand scheme of things, and I'll take a written review over a score anyday.

If it helps any, I seem to remember the guys over at ADV saying Elfen Lied proved to be a good seller for them both in the UK and the US (and Germany) ...

EDIT: Just spoke with Hugh; Elfen Lied was one of ADV Uk's top ten bestsellers, and for most of its run was in the top 5.

Guess it was pretty popular then.

So, good timing perhaps? It wasn't released this year, and psychological anythings are few and far between (in this case also mixing hardcore violence, stark nudity, cuteness, love harems, comedy and everything else: in that way it is unique); I'm fascinated by the distribution methods also limiting what is popular too; some series are not released with dubs, or at all, in America or the UK for many months or even years after airing on TV in Japan, that and the way of watching anime legally in the US and UK are pretty limited sadly.

In any case, there's never enough information beyond an indicator that something is just popular (why it is popular can vary beyond it being good; marketing alone accounts for the vast majority of sales of any entertainment media; although perhaps anime has more word of mouth...hmmm). With anime you also get the issue that it isn't widely reviewed (even less so then TV, which has so few critics it is hard to find when a TV show is "critically acclaimed" unless it wins an award).

Still fascinating; top 5 for so long and that.

Don't quite know what you mean about good timing; it was released over 5 years ago and had been a consistent good seller.
If you check most of the larger anime sites you'll also find it receives pretty high favourability ratings.
From personal experience as well on both the internet and in real life at events and conventions I've very rarely found a person who didn't like the series, and most listed it amongst their favourites.

So, since anime is an entertainment media and so many people have been entertained by it, can't really say its not done bad for itself really.

*shrugs* it's most bemusing to me if you don't think it was the timing or anything; obviously it works for many people. Do people say why they really liked it? That'd be interesting to know; the series straddles to many lines to make it appear as really truly popular to me; certainly from a drama and action perspective it isn't exactly massively high quality writing and plot (apart from possibly being vaguely unique in combinations of stuff) but there must be something people really liked...maybe one of the things I listed above.

However anecdotal experiences don't really count for much in a discussion like this though; after all if we go by our own club, I'd say about 90% of people didn't care for it or even went to the pub early!

Well, by that style of discussion then we could equally say your point of view is worth nothing, because all you've got is that happy little place in your head going for you, while the rest of us have those things called 'cold hard facts' working for us.
Have fun in there.

Oh btw:

Andrew wrote:

QUOTE:
Fine fine, I'll mind the language. You might consider changing the rules if that offends you, I rechecked them and oddly that isn't mentioned.

Common sense
Before posting, please ask yourself the following question: "Am I making a post which is either funny, informative, or interesting on any level?" If you can answer "yes" to this, then please post. If you cannot, then refrain from posting. Please do not use racial slurs or phrases designed to offend people. This includes racial, sexual, religious, and gender slurs. Please do not swear. Try to use an appropriate topic for any thread you start, and when you reply try not to wander off topic. Please do not post others' personal information (phone number, addresses, emails, etc.).

Damn, they hid that well didn't they.

Andrew wrote:

QUOTE:
I'd say about 90% of people didn't care for it or even went to the pub early!

Have you got hard evidence to prove this? I had no idea I was just about the only person left in the room enjoying it. On average, over the last few months, our attendance has been at the 26-27 mark. That being the case, 90% of that is 2.6-2.7 people who enjoyed this series. We'll say 3, to be fair. Just from talking to people at the pub, I can name more than 3, which disproves that statement.

Please be more careful with your estimations.

I have to say that most of the members I have spoken to about this series seemed to enjoy it

I personally also enjoyed it (despite the faults)

i can see that some people may not find it to their tastes but everyone is entitled to their own opinion

Point 1)

QUOTE:
since no one reads this no one will tell me I did wrong

Someone does read this

Point 2)

QUOTE:
Perfectly valid to swear on a forum isn't it?

No it is not. Observe

QUOTE:
Common sense

Before posting, please ask yourself the following question: "Am I making a post which is either funny, informative, or interesting on any level?" If you can answer "yes" to this, then please post. If you cannot, then refrain from posting. Please do not use racial slurs or phrases designed to offend people. This includes racial, sexual, religious, and gender slurs. Please do not swear. Try to use an appropriate topic for any thread you start, and when you reply try not to wander off topic. Please do not post others' personal information (phone number, addresses, emails, etc.).

Point 3) It is important to reiterate

QUOTE:
i can see that some people may not find it to their tastes but everyone is entitled to their own opinion

My turn
I feel like I'm going back to year 9 English by saying this but the purpose of Elfen Lied, as a story, is to entertain. The word 'entertain' can be a misleading one especially when a story you're engrossed in can bring negative emotions to the surface. This is precisely what Elfen Lied was meant to do, I think some people, unknowingly might say they didnt enjoy it when really they are just as affected by the anime as the people that 'enjoyed' it. The anime seems to on regular occasions provoke disgust and anger and it is completely possible for it to wear off on us (it has been dragged out over a 13 week period rather than blasting through it in one go).
For me this anime did exactly what it set out to and, although some aspects made me mad I'm glad it made me feel something because that's the point and that's why it's in the like column.
Some people arent that bent on telling you how they feel about something so what people say can be misleading therefore, hearsay is not a valid basis for a judgement.