Pete says:

But aside from that, way to spoil. I happen to think that too many bloggers dance around too much, yet their efforts are futile. Jeff Lawson’s no-spoiler policy comes in handy sometimes, but only because he is very strict about it, so I can visit his place in complete safety. But Steven, also on my favourite list, is neither consistent nor safe in application of his spoiler policies. The “spoiler tags” are a joke, and not just because rely on JavaScript, although that’s a part of the problem. It simply is impossible to discuss anything anime in a satisfactory way and not reveal anything spoiling. Jeff made his choice and he’s watery and oblique. Steven has made it too and he’s meaty and informative; it’s the high time he stopped pretending with the tags.

Actually, I do have a policy, but it may not be totally apparent, because there's a degree to which it is intuitive and variable.

First, when I'm watching a new series and doing what amounts to "live blogging", it's pretty much impossible to say anything meaningful without at least some spoilers, so I don't try to avoid them. I do sometimes put things below the fold or in spoiler tags, but any kind of episode-by-episode blogging pretty much is going to be either dull or spoilerish, and there's no worse crime for a blogger than being dull.

Another point is that "revealing things" isn't necessarily the same as "spoiling". Giving away stuff that intrigues people and allows them to decide whether they might want to watch isn't the same as giving away stuff which would ruin the watching experience. That's why I've never revealed the huge surprise near the end of Vandread, Second Stage. It isn't necessary to know about it in order to make a decision about whether to watch the series, and to reveal it even in spoiler tags would be wrong. So I've mentioned that there is such a surprise, but have never said what it is.

A different point is that my threshold of "spoiling revelations" varies depending on the series. I don't, for example, worry about revealing things about DragonBall Z. Either someone else is already a fan in which case they know about the things I'm saying, or they aren't and probably won't ever watch the series, so it won't matter. Anyway, you can't ruin something that's already ruined.

Which is also why I don't worry as much about revealing spoilers about series I think sucked, which I am actively trying to dissuade others from wasting time and money on. That's why my review of Maburaho revealed quite a lot more than my reviews usually do. Nonetheless, I still didn't give away the ending, except to describe in oblique terms why it royally sucked. That's also why my review of Gasaraki pretty much gave away the whole game. Gasaraki is a trainwreck that no one should buy. (Princess Nine is even worse, and that review had a lot of spoilers in it too.)

I had to wrestle a lot with how I described the ending of Magikano and I still have second thoughts about that one. I fear I might have given away too much.

I know that my own viewing experience for several series has been retroactively ruined in several cases by horrible endings. (Cowboy Bebop, I'm looking at you.) So when I came up with my standard review template, I included a section where I described whether I found the ending to be satisfying. That section is nearly always the hardest to write: how do you describe the ending without describing it? Usually what I do is describe my emotional reaction to it, without going into specifics of what happened. (Such as the fact that the end of ep 25 of Petite Princess Yucie filled me with murderous rage at the writers, but after watching ep 26 I forgave everything.) That was why that section of the Magikano review bothers me; it was hard to explain why it didn't totally work for me without giving away substantive points about it. I think I rewrote that one three times before ending up with what I posted, and I'm still not totally satisfied with it.

I generally try to be more careful in the reviews that I do here in the blog. If I'm "live-blogging" a series which I think a substantial percentage of my regular readership has already seen, or already knows a lot about, I don't restrain myself anything like as much. There's a certain pleasure in watching someone else watch-for-the-first-time something you yourself have seen and enjoyed, and that's part of why I do my live-blogging thing; I know that some of you enjoy seeing such series again (again, for the first time) through my eyes. In comments relating to Ranma 1/2, GaiasWill said:

This is a pretty old series, especially by anime standards. My personal feeling is that the statute of limitations on spoilers has long expired for this one. It "helps" that there really isn't much of a story.

I don't know that I'd go that far, but it's mostly correct, and that's why I haven't been sweating it as much as I might for a new release.

But in the end Pete is right: you can't talk about a series in anything but the most oblique and airy way if you refuse to reveal anything critical, and he's also right that I've decided that being meaty is more important than being discreet.

But in the end the goal of this is for everyone to have a good time. This is ultimately a review blog, and part of my "job" as a reviewer is to help my readers decide what they should watch, and help them enjoy the experience after they've chosen to watch. If I give away too much, then I ruin that watching experience instead of enhancing it. That's the line I try not to cross, and that's when I haul out the spoiler tag, or simply shut up.

It's a balancing act, and I'm sure I've fallen off the tight rope more than once, on either side.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 05:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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