Anime Watch: Beyond the Mainstream Fluff
When it comes to a great Anime website, the community must be involved. Mostly comprised of a ton of people who haven’t learned Japanese as a native language, we (yes, I’m definitely included) don’t know what’s *good* until someone brings it from the land of the rising sun and we watch it. If no one bothered to subtitle Dragon Ball Z, we would never have enjoyed the billions of hours of action – and the 10 minutes of storyline (lol). Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’m being spoon fed what to watch… I just realize that I am restricted to what other people choose to translate. Let me vent explain (for the sake of venting explanation):
Say you were channel surfing on a weekday during prime time. Let’s also assume you have 100+ channels to choose from. And then, all of a sudden, you were only limited to watch the channels that your neighbors are watching. That’s great if you’re a 24 / CSI / Grey’s Anatomy (omg guilty) fan, but what happens if you REALLY REALLY wanted to watch something about, let’s say… moving to the Pacific Northwest (shhhh it’s still a secret). Well, there so happens to be something like that on HGTV, but you wouldn’t be able to watch it, because no one in your pool deems it worthy to watch. It’s not popular, therefore you cannot watch it. See?
For the Anime News Network, my website of choice, this is where the community comes in. Just like any other website with ratings (Yelp for restaurants, Amazon for books), these Anime fans rate what they watch religiously, as they would expect their peers to do as well. They also sound off in the forums about series that *should* be subtitled, commissioning a group to do so, or learning to do it themselves for the betterment of the community. If they’d only apply that drive to something else. LOL.
I have never been betrayed by their choices and I frequent their Rating stats page frequently, just in case I’ll miss something worthwhile. I’ll also jump on AnimeSuki.com and check to see which series has the most activity. That’s more hit or miss, but that’s the price to pay for “just released” series.
Currently, my most recent favorites, Mushishi and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya of have hit the top 10… without much surprise. If you’re new to Anime (or just watch the stuff on Toonami tsk tsk tsk) I hope I helped explain how us fanboys and fangirls get our stuff first without wasting any precious time!
HOORAY Anime. 
~Spec
