My thoughts on writing Anime/Manga reviews

I don’t know what to write

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Writing reviews can be hard, even more when you realize that there are hundreds of people reading them. There are so much things to consider when writing a review, Does it appeal to people? Are you being honest with your own feelings? Does the review justify the Anime/Manga? And that’s what I’m going to be talking today.

This is something I’ve been meaning to write for a while now since I’ve been writing more reviews recently and how my thoughts about writing a review has changed since I first started. Before we start let’s take a look at what reviews are.

“A review is an evaluation of a publication, service, or company such as a movie, video game, musical composition, book”. Reviews are basically a way to voice your opinion on that particular media, in this case Anime/Manga. Using reviews you can tell your view of the story and interact with people who share the same opinions and views as you.

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What motivates someone to write an review?

Writing an review can come in all sorts of forms especially in the Ani-blogging community. There’s the whole series reviews, episodic reviews, first impressions and your thoughts on it halfway through the series or just a simple final thoughts. Although the latter three are just our thoughts it still manages to voice your opinion so maybe a brief review.

If you follow this blog for some time, you might know that I’m not much of a episodic reviewer and the first impressions are also something I started recently. I’ve tried episodic review a year ago but soon lost motivation soon(mostly because I was lazy).

So what does motivate someone to write an review? This can depend on a lot of things. Whether the writer wants to make an underrated series more talked about, whether they just want to keep their writing spirit and flow up with episodic reviews, whether to express their opinions or because they just enjoy reviewing series.

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Why I started writing reviews?

When I first started this blog, I had no intention of writing series reviews moreover I didn’t even have a plan on where I was going on with this blog. Gradually I started to explore more and began writing about Anime/Manga and that’s when I discovered the Ani-blogging community. When I saw all the other Ani-bloggers, I really admired them because they used to write episodic reviews every other day and when you head over to their “Reviews” section, it used to be filled with reviews and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

My perception of all that was “If I could write more reviews then maybe I can be as cool as the other Ani-bloggers”. I know it’s a childish thought but it’s true. After that I started writing my own reviews, I think my first ever review was on Domestic girlfriend(not the best start) and as you can see it’s not much of a review rather just a post about random points I picked up from the manga. At that time why I wanted to write reviews was because my perception and was just writing them for the sake of it with no real motivation. All I wanted to do was enjoy the series and If I had to enjoy the series I must stop writing reviews or that’s what I thought.

This year was different. I promised myself I wouldn’t force myself to write a review just for the sake of it, that’s why I never wrote a review on “Bleach”. I was so deeply involved in the series that I wanted nothing to ruin my enjoyment and that’s how writing an review is something I never thought of that is until I started reading “Kyou kara ore wa”. I loved the manga so much and when I saw that not much people knew the manga, I took the responsibility to introduce it to the community and what better way than dedicating a whole post to it, giving an review that would make people want to read it. Surprisingly it worked and a lot of people actually talked about it.

And from there my motivation only increased. I wrote a review on my first novel, a movie and etc. Writing reviews became more fun than before, if you look at my recent reviews on Aria and Tokyo Ghoul you’ll see that I’ve gotten even deeper into series in the reviews. While breaking down the series, I’ve learned a lot about what the author’s intent, seeing it in different perspectives and all while enjoying it more. Even though Aria took me a long time to finish, it is one of the best posts I’ve written all because I enjoyed writing it and was motivated to make it amazing.

By now I’ve written a considerate amount of reviews and I’m proud of it. I have also gained some experience on writing reviews, so what makes a review good.

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What makes a review good?

Writing reviews is one thing but how to make it appeal to an audience. A review consists of a lot things, the story, the art/animation, voice acting and etc. It’s always good to start with a brief rundown of the series, this is a basic introduction to show the people whether the series is for them or not.

For the review of anime/manga it’s best that before you start, you mention whether the post is Spoiler-filled or Spoiler-free. Spoiler-free reviews are more popular since it gives the strong and weak points of the series without ruining anything and if it is to their liking then they can continue without any hesitation. I’m not a spoiler-free review writer, if I were to write a spoiler-free than the post would be nothing random things that makes no sense. Writing a spoiler-filled or a spoiler-free review depends on the type of writer you are.

Next it’s best to give your thoughts on the story, characters, art/animation, the ending and etc. Giving your thoughts means giving an in-depth evaluation to each category by including any specific details that caught your eye. What was the thing that stuck out the most, the character designs? the voice acting? the musical score? And finally rate your enjoyment. Did you like it? Was it bad? What were the things it were lacking?

Make sure to grade it on an easy scale so that readers can easily recognize. I give my grades at the starting of the review so that even if my review is a spoiler-filled one, they can easily decide on whether to watch the series or not.

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Writing a review totally depends on you, you can write it if you want it or not. I may not be the best reviewer but it’s still fun writing about it and I feel happy when I get to introduce the readers a lesser known series.

Leave in the comments below what your thoughts are on writing Anime/Manga reviews.

Thank you for reading.