About L.B. and Otaku Review

I started writing reviews on a consumer opinion site around 2002. After finding my own voice and that I actually quite enjoyed writing reviews of anime I had seen, I decided to create Otaku Review and launched the site August 31st 2005. Since then, Otaku Review has grown in its mission and now delivers reviews, interviews and the interesting news of the day with a healthy dash of snark to roughly 3,000 unique visitors every day. Having now consumed almost 200 titles to completion at the time of writing (10/09), I still hold firm that I am not an expert. All I am is a fan who owns a website filled with my opinions which you are free to disagree with.

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Mission

Otaku Review strives to provide entertainment to its readers with entertainment through news and reviews. I am, however, not a reporter but a blogger. As such, I see my position here at the site to be as a filter. I find the anime news as other, more capable, sites report on it and then filter it through to my readers. The tone of the site however is snark with a model based off of other successful sites such as Anime News Network and Indecision Forever.

I always try to make it clear whenever I am stating my opinion and not hard fact. I have no desire to misrepresent myself, other sites or members of the anime industry both in Japan and the US. Along that same vein, I also strive for accuracy in all of my material but once again, I am not an expert nor am I a professional. If you find a mistake within a post, please feel free to comment and alert me to the error or email me so that I can correct it.

How Reviews Are Scored

When I first started writing reviews, I really had no model to start with. If you look at my reviews as they appear chronologically, you’ll notice a very serious trend of evolution from how they first appeared and how they appear now. As I have watched more anime, seen more influences, learned more about the creators, etc so has my process of opinion forming changed.

When reviewing any sort of release be it a DVD, series premiere or movie; what I am looking for most of all is a sense of balance amongst the various elements. A series can have amazing characters but if the story is boring, who cares? Likewise, a story can be absolutely brilliantly written but if the animation is terrible why am I going to stick around? I wholeheartedly believe that a series can only get by on one strong element for so long before another aspect has to balance it.

What I Enjoy

It’s always nice to know if your tastes match those of the reviewer you’re reading so here are some of the things that I enjoy in anime: Shinichiro Watanabe, parody comedy, dark dramas and Yuki Kajiura.

What I Dislike

And here are a list of things that will always be graded a bit more hashly in reviews: pointless and incessent fan service, mech series, Evangelion