Why are so many peoples mean ratings low?

i have a "no drop" rule because forcing myself to watch something bad helps me better appreciate the good

Can't speak for all people, but if you use the star or smiley rating system on AL the conversion numbers get a little wonky which can lead to a crazy low mean score. plus, someone might not consider lets just say a 6/10 as bad as you might., as far as i know with the star system (the one i use)

• 5 stars = 9.0
• 4 star = 7.0
• 3 star = 5.0
• 2 star = 3.0
• 1 star = 1.0

and with the smiley system im assuming it's like this

• :) = 9.9
• :| = 6.6
• :( = 3.3

There's obviously several other factors to this but surface level this is how i view it lol. there are several shows where the synopsis interested me then failed to impress and vise versa, you really just never know.

I know that this isn't true for most people, but for me in particular I have a strict rule that the average of all my shows should be as close to 5.05/10 as I can reasonably get it (only because 0 isn't a rating). This stems from the two ideas that 1) the average of all anime should be 5.05/10 and 2) I'm actually not as good at picking anime as I think I am and have over time gotten a rather representative sample of anime as a whole. 8 to 8.4 being considered a completely average anime is wild to me.

i'm writing this from my own perspective, but anecdotally, quite a few others on this site (and other rating aggregator sites like Letterboxd) share similar sentiments to what i'm about to type:

why is it that, in your case, only 1.5/10 of the entire 1-10 scale is reserved for media which you consider "slightly above average?" if you enjoy most of what you watch, you're limiting yourself to 15% of the range (it's a bit different than this because 0/10 isn't an assignable score, but you get what i mean) to numerically express your enjoyment.

i also enjoy most of what i watch, but i use the entire scale to reflect this. 5/10 is my midpoint for "enjoyment" and "non-enjoyment" coexisting with each other. i consider 8/10 and above to be full-fledged favourites. i'm not going so far as to claim that it's some inherent property of the numerical scale on online rating sites that a 5/10 has to be considered average — but in the same vein, the inverse which you propose surely falls under the same critique.

I'd consider my mean rating to be on the "better" side of things, but we all have different rating systems. I rate purely based on "vibes" and feelings and that will differ for other people.

Comparing my scale to yours, my belief is that 10/10 is a masterpiece that always brings me happiness / the strongest feelings whenever I watch it and I can't get it out of my head.

5/10 is just pure neutral feelings - I didn't enjoy enough of it and I didn't dislike it and whatnot. I don't consider 7 or 8 to be a good indicator of what's neutral/average because that leaves behind more than half of the rating scale.

There's also me slogging through the popular list, because I'll watch nearly everything I come across as long as the time investment isn't too much. I am also a strong advocate for the saying "you need to experience the valleys to appreciate the peaks." While it's not necessary, I feel like it enhances my experiences tenfold.

Sounds like you have a different perception of "highly rated". I just do 1-5 stars with a 3 (6/10 on your scale) being "yeah I liked it, someone else probably will too". In your terms "completely average" 8/10 is more like a 2/5 in my eyes

I rate things so I can easily understand how I felt about it at a later time. 1-5 keeps it straightforward

I don't really believe in 10/10s (because I don't really believe in perfection, as that can be subjective). If I give something a 10, it's because I've watched/experienced it for a long period of time, that it basically "grows into me", and I love it dearly. Even End of Evangelion still gets a 9 out of me, and that's a film that I can confidentially say changed me. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. But I refrain from giving it a 10 since by definition, a 10 means there's zero problems with it. It's spotless. And Evangelion is notorious for being convoluted.

I guess the way to say it is this: Gintama is subjectively a 9 or even a 10. But if I had to rate it critically, it's like a 7. But like, a very dear and special 7 to me. Hell, the series itself kind of embraces the fact it's not some masterpiece. Still pretty good, but not Paranoia Agent.

The highest I try to give things are 9s. 8s are the "sweet spot," 7 is my "when-in-doubt" good option, 6 is just ok, and 5 is mixed.

On to your point about watching things you know you'll dislike, funnily enough, I watched Darling in the FranXX expecting, hell, almost wanting to hate it/poke fun at it. And while there was plenty of dumb stuff to be found, I had to admit it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Not good, but it wasn't garbage. The middle chunk (eps. 13-15 let's say) was its strongest point.

To me, a 6 is what I'd call "completely average." Ideally, a film should be an 8 for me to say it's great.

My piece of advice is to not set your standards too high. Even a 7/10 can be an all-time favorite (again, see Gintama).

I'd imagine 8 Is above average for most users. Back when I rated stuff 5 was average, in the middle.

Why would 8 be average when by definition, 5 is the middlepoint between 1 and 10? And since 5/10 is an average experience, truly only series that go lower than that should be called something you "force yourself to watch". Though this is subjective. Some people don't want to watch average shows at all, and some even enjoy bad shows.

As for the usage of numbers in the ratings, it is subjective for most users. As for me, I attempt to compare the value of each show against one another and put them higher or lower with my own estimation. It might seem dishonest since many shows are incomparable to each other, but most people still rate shows over others anyway. With this in mind, I use the whole 1-100 point scale when valuing whatever I watch. A 100/100 is a special case for me, but otherwise I attempt to arrange every number to signify a percentage. Anything above 89/100 would be the top 10% for instance.

I also aspire to do writing, and for me, only seeing the good is not enough. I also need to see what I want to avoid and what I see as "not good writing". This is subjective too, but my list is intended to show my preferences and philosophy after all.

By your standard only half the scale is usable? I tend to prefer using the full scale, while I don't finish many awful shows the ones I do can certainly be below a 5. I think most things I watch end up being in the 5-7 range, but that's just because I don't start shows that look worse - not because they aren't out there.

Some of my biggest criteria when ranking a show is whether it does anything particularly well, has decent rewatchablility, or is even possible for me to recommend to someone - which generally means being in the top dozen or show similar shows I've seen. There are so many seasonal shows that fail on any or all of those factors.

I tend to be a completionist; if I start it, I will usually finish it. Of course, there is stuff I've dropped, but I've gone back and revisited them after some time to finish them

Or other times I think something is so bad I finish it because "it's so bad it's funny," if I took from my low scores, I'd def say I was thinking that during King's Game or I Got a Cheat Skill lmao

Also why would an 8 be average? At least in my head a 5 is average

Just depends on your definition of low scores. Your 8-8.4 is the equivalent to my 5-6 so my mean score is gonna look significantly lower than yours. I mostly look for things I think would like but even a 7 is my eyes is a pretty good show, just one that was more flawed or I enjoyed less than ones I rated an 8 or 9 as an example. Some people just use more of the rating scale than others.

Scoring is something I typically do when a series is done or I'm caught up and I've had long enough to think about what I'd rate it, which is typically :| (since I will go out of my way to try series that are unpopular or lower rated sometimes) face as I use the smiley scale. I complete anything that remotely interests me. Dogshit or not, I 90% power through it. You never know what's going to stand out or get better along the way. An example is my favorite series Kubera which is slow as fuck for like 300 chapters, but the payoff is immense, but I would never have kept reading if I dropped things prematurely. I'd give the first part of it a like 7 or 8. The more you watch or read, the more your score typically goes down as not everything is going to be a banger and up to standards you'll eventually develop. Especially if you venture into genres you typically stray from to try to broaden your horizons (for me I hate mecha, but I like a couple of entries in the genre). There's a lot that goes into me scoring something that I watched or read, but enjoyment is the main factor.

An 8 to 8.4 means it's completely average.

You've just answered your question. You are just overrating everything because of how you score. 5.5 is the middle point between 1-10 so that should be considered average. I personally don't even use halves so it's 5 as average. If someone can't use the whole scale then they tend to overrate everything. It's usually the people who haven't watched much stuff so that causes all new popular series to be overrated instantly.

A good rating system should use the full scale, not just the upper band. When everything is clustered together, it loses its ability to meaningfully differentiate quality. A 5/10 shouldn’t be seen as an insult, it should simply mean average. Not bad, not great, just middle of the road.

Personally, I rate each show I watch using four categories:
Story – Is the narrative compelling, coherent, and well-structured?
Characters – This mostly comes down to how much I like them.
Pacing – Does the show maintain momentum, or does it drag or rush key moments?
Enjoyment – How much did I personally connect with or enjoy the experience?

This system helps me stay consistent and makes it easier to explain why something lands at a 6 versus an 8. I might not love every show I watch, but I still try to rate fairly across the full spectrum.

short definitions for my scores

10 = the best ever
9.75/9.5 = peak
9.25/9= amazing

8.75/8.5 = really good
8.25/8 = good

7.75/7.5 = decent
7.25/7 = above average
6.75/6.5 = average

6.25 to 5 = mediocre
below that is straight bad

imo

my average score right now (79.45%) would be borderline good

I stopped using numbers because it feels quite arbitrary. I switched to smileys instead, because I think it lets me just say if I think something is good, mid, or bad.
Of course, there's a difference between two shows that I've rated as good, but since my ratings are mainly for myself, I know what the differences are very clearly.

It's your rating system that's flawed. If that's how you choose to rate then that's fine but it's not accurate to the full scale of a 10 point rating system. Average should be 5, that's how its always been for the most part, since even early anime days, it was just mutually agreed. The skew has been heavily shifted due to the influx of newer anime fans and people rating things incredibly high, as well as modern improvements to production.

I prefer to not drop anything, manga or anime if I can help it, and will generally try out most things even if it just has a single character or aspect I like. (I had seen 300+ shows before wiping my list, I'm trying to get it sorted and clean so its under W.I.P atm.) Because of that, and reevaluating shows I watched when I was younger, I turn out with a relatively low to middling average score.

An 8 to 8.4 means it's completely average

ok so as people have pointed it out, I also think that an 8 is something that moves me a lot, so a 6 is still a good rating in my eyes, the worst of the good but good nonetheless

also my purpose when I watch anime is to understand the medium, not to watch stuff that I enjoy, so I will try to go through every single thing I start, even if it ends up being the worst anime I've watched and I end up giving it a 0,5 out of 10

At basically a mean of 7.5, I think mine is rather high already when I’ve seen people below even 5, which is crazy to me.

Anyway, my rating style is a bit strange, as it’s more like out of 15 (1-5, then 5.5, 6, 6.5 … 10) I like it this way as it becomes more comparable to the mean scores on site and I don’t like giving low scores. The way I rate an entry is by comparing the feeling of its worth/ enjoyment to the other entries, so each score has a rough feel to it. A 10 from me is not perfection but simply my real favorites and everything below is scaled accordingly. So 10 is just the highest threshold and not actually 10/10.

I also like to have a current rating as I watch and it goes up or down as I continue, and if it stays in the lower leagues for too long then it’s likely a drop. The dropped anime keeps the rating and it tells me the score of when I left it and it tells me enough that those lesser anime really do make me appreciate what’s good to me.

Don’t know if this was worth anything to anyone but thanks for taking the time. It is an interesting thing, the way people score stuff

Other people who commented may have already mentioned these reasons, but here are a few possibilities:

1. Different Scoring Systems - Some users rate using stars or smileys. Their mean score is determined by how anilist converts these scores into the standard 0–100 scale.

2. "The mean score should be 5" - I think many users with "low" mean ratings simply use the full scale; therefore, they may not see a 5 or 6 as a bad score. For example, 5 is roughly in the middle of the scale, so some people treat it as a true midpoint—and I think that's fair enough.

3. Completionists - I sometimes feel the same way you do, and I suspect that some users are indeed watching and completing shows just for the sake of it. They might be completionists who sit through shows they dislike.

4. Too much anime - There could be users who have watched so much anime that they're essentially burnt out, yet they continue watching more and more of it (possibly out of habit or completionism). They probably just don't enjoy watching anime anymore, hence the low scores. I think this could be related to mental health issues.

5. "My taste is superior, I'm not easily impressed" - Users who see themselves as highly critical or discerning and purposely rate harshly to reflect that. Whether it's genuine or just posturing is up for debate. Elitism, basically.

6. Downvoters - Some accounts with low means might have been created specifically to downvote certain shows. Some people can't stand the idea of their favorite anime not ranking at the top, so they try to game the system. Of course, this theory falls apart if anilist actively bans such accounts—which I have no idea about.

I don't think my mean score is particularly low, but it's much lower compared to yours. Though one big thing about mine is, I will log most of the anime/manga/manhwa or whatever I have tried, even if I dropped it after 1 chapter. Also in contrary to what you wrote in the post, I rate average, but enjoyable shows as 7/10. Pretty much all the stuff I rated below 7 are series I personally wouldn't recommend or I just think are not worth recommending. The ones I finished, I obviously still enjoyed to a degree, but I simply don't think they were that much worth my time and with lower quality that ones I have given a higher score.

usually when I read or watch something I start to make an evaluation every 3 episodes/9 chapters based solely on my personal taste as you can see on my profile.
to expand my boundaries as much as possible I often and willingly entrust my readings and viewings to wheel of names, to avoid getting too conditioned by the things I'm sure I might like (then whatever I take periods when I decide voluntarily not to get too tired of this method).
the only rule I impose on myself is not to drop anything because that is the only way I can fortify my critical spirit, and I would say that after totals of readings and viewings my average is not bad at all (in the sense that I don't consider myself an elitist who flunks everything regardless in order to put high ratings on unknown things without appreciating even the mainstream)

This might be a bit of an odd take among what's been written here, but it is indeed an honest reflection of how I feel:

A numerical score is the least-important thing that should go into an evaluation, at least for me. The idea that you can somehow compress your entire aesthetic experience to a single number is something I don't find particularly helpful, both in terms of thinking about media and talking about it. I only maintain numerical scores because I know some people would rather just look at that rather than read the longer comments I write for my entries. When I post my stuff, I spend maybe about 3 seconds considering the number, and move on.

There is no universally accepted usage of any of the scoring systems on here as employed by users, so you will have people using the scoring system for various reasons. As such, I do not pay any mind to what someone's mean score is. It is almost always the better option to reach out and talk rather than draw a blanket assumption based on information that can easily get lost in transit.

And just to throw this out there - I also find pleasure in watching things that I don't like. It is genuinely fun to figure out why something does or does not work, and being able to share or explain that is itself a part of the experience. And as far as "how bad it must feel" to watch something bad? Perhaps if my personal identity or happiness were overly reliant upon what I watch, maybe that would be something worth pondering.

To put it another way, if watching a bad anime or reading a bad manga is the biggest problem in my life right now, that ain't so bad.

...That rating system you outlined makes no sense. Because 5/10 is right in the middle, and so average.
8 is undeniably above average, if not just outright really good.
The vast, vast majority of people cite 5 or 6 (because of school passing grades of 60) as average.
Some go for 7 as average, though I can't understand why 'cause at that point you can probably go for a less granular scale and be fine, but hardly anyone I see says 8 is "average," and for a very clear reason. It is far above the middle of the scale.

Also what the hell is this–? Sure first impressions are important, but not that much what– if a story is really, really good, then what does it matter if the start was kinda clumsy?

It doesn't matter how deep or interesting the actual story is if its first impression is terrible.

Also what point are you trying to make here? I just don't follow.

That being said, I doubt there are so many shows warranting a 5 out of 10(This is intellectual dishonesty, as I know the cause for low mean ratings is because these accounts usually rate everything from a 7 to an 8).

I think it's you who has the more uncommon rating system. For me, and probably a lot of other people, 8/10 is an absolutely amazing score. 5/10 is the average for me, and anything lower means that it's bad.

Using numerical ratings to judge art is extremely vulgar and philistine. No serious person would ever look at a painting or listen to a symphony and all their thoughts could ever properly be conveyed with just a number. But unfortunately newspapers need a short art review section for readers to show interest and it is easier for ''critics'' to just slap a number on it. It really is only a recent occurrence regarding the mass market and that seemed to rub off to average people as well.

Also most people just don't have taste (not in the high art or low art kind), but more so the kind of taste to not be interested in slop. Nobody goes into a restaurant to buy a dish they absolutely hate, but people are apparently fine spending money on the most mediocre films, games, anime..., even if everyone could have told them the poor quality of those works by just simply watching the trailer or reading a synopsis. I guess this quote sums it up quite nicely.

“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.” - W. H. Auden

simple, you just do not know how to rate. 8 to 8.4 means its average? really? so if you get an 8 for your test you think it's an average score? wtf would u do if u got a 6? start crying in class?

This made me curious to check yours cus I've been told my mean score is kinda high, and yours is significantly higher than mine.

My reasoning is sometimes I watch something that I don't expect to enjoy for two primary reasons; 1. I love being positively surprised, and 2. As someone else mentioned, it makes it easier to appreciate the good shows. I also rate shows differently to you, whereas a 5 is where I neither liked or disliked the show, anything above that is positive and anything below that is negative.

This is cool though, I love seeing different perspectives of things, and I think the way you approach it makes a lot of sense.

Personally, I use the star rating method because I find it easier than the decimal rating.
I think the decimal rating is really for those who want to capture every detail, and it makes things more precise, but incredibly time-consuming.
I don't know how Anilist converts the stars into the average rating; for my part, the ratings are clear.
5 are the ones I loved, the ones I could watch again and again; a masterclass in itself.
4 is for those who lack something extra to place them at 5.
3 is for animes I enjoyed for a while, but it's neither good nor bad.
2 is for animes that simply weren't my genre.
1 is for animes that shouldn't even exist in my opinion; they're rare but often problematic.

I think the star rating would suit you better simply because you only have a few ratings, since below 8, you force yourself to watch.

I rarely read synopses. I generally watch all the anime that come out in season if I can, starting with the one that interests me based on the art, poster, or genre, and ending with the one that interests me the least. As a result, the ratings are rough, but you have to look at a variety of things to appreciate what's best.

Like the fact that people rate series before they're even released, just because they've read the manga or because it's a later season.