Okay so first, let me be clear, I love using mal. I feel like out of all the sites, it has the best, most consistent anime ratings.

Ngl tho, the only thing I use it for is checking if an anime is rated around an 8, otherwise its prolly not worth watching.

But even on mal, theres still the problem that some animes can be overrated, or overhated.

(overrated asf)

So thats why I made yall a little list you can use to decipher the REAL anime rating.

Anime contents × audience sensitivity
Straight of the bat, some animes are just rated lower cus it has some weird •••Show in it. Lets say prison school for example, that •••Show was peak.

So imagine yourself as someone whose first anime was redo of healer (me). You dont care abt some dommy mommy chocking people, if you alr had to watch the fingerbraking and rod choosing (completely optional btw)

But looking only at the contents isn't enough. The effects of (for example) incest on the animes mal rating also depends on how sensitive the audience is to this stuff. So if we factor that in, this will be the calculation:

Content factor × audience sensitivity level = rating displacement

MAL rating + rating displacement = actual rating

Content factors:
Slight incest 0,3
Extreme incest 0.8
Fanservice 0,05
Extreme fanservice 0,4
NTR 0,2
Slightly pedo 0,2
Extremely pedo 1
(If the anime got more than one, just pick the one with the most prevalence)

Audience sensitivity:
Goes from 0 (not sensitive) to 4 (extremely sensitive)

larp level fandom
So some animes are just rated much higher than they should, the main reason for that is the larp.

Some animes just attract anime larpers, people who only watched like 4 overhyped animes and then start glazing it like some expert online. Like no •••Show you rlly liked it, its one of your first animes. BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN IS THAAT GOOD!!
I mean I really liked domestic girlfriend cus it was one of my first animes, but I didn't go all out acting like an expert and rating and recommending it to people.

So if you use the results from the previous calculation and factor in the audiences larp level, you'll get this:

Actual rating - larp factor = actual actual rating

Larp factor is from 0 (no larp), to 0,4 (extreme larp)

The truth
Okay but in all seriousness, you shouldn't even listen to others that much. When searching for an anime, just scroll insta, ask ai or just google a bit and find something with a theme thats strikes you, grabs your attention.

Although I do still recommend checking if the mal rating is around an 8, its not like its mandatory. Oh yeah and reading MAL reviews before watching is a bad idea, it'll just spoiler •••Show and there will always some self proclaimed anime critic shitting on it, ruining your experience.