cutting straight to the point. While we're having some personal resources trouble in the chapter JR deparment I decided to switch my attention a little from our original goal and focus on individual reviews again.
Actually, this project goes so much against the RA's original goal that I figured to name this project "Reviewer Academy" to underline the different aspects of both projects. If bene won't be against it, I'll make a seperate thread for the academy, if not, we'll continue in this thread.
---------- Post added at 05:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 PM ----------
Added an "Art Corner" to the OP. Will gather all the banners in one place.
---------- Post added May 02, 2012 at 12:46 AM ---------- Previous post was May 01, 2012 at 05:46 PM ----------
'kay, let's get this started.
Before anything else. I welcome everyone one of you and am proud that you decided to go down the tough road of a reviewer. However, before we continue I want to make something clear. The goal of this whole project isn't your reviewer status. The goal is to make fullfledged reviewers out of you guys and get you the responding reviewer status that comes with it.
So, if anyone simply wants to get bold username using the minimum amount of resources involved ------------------------------------->
Now that we made that clear, let's continue. Throughout the course of our little project I will gradually beat reviewer logic into you, while giving you assignments which will in the end result in you becoming reviewers.
The first thing that I want you to do is
Update your MyAnimeList profile and send me a link
and in case you don't have a MAL account,
Create a MAL account and then update it and send me a link
I added a poll. Obviously, we will expand the influence of the RA further and further and that's why I wanted to know what you guys think about the series that we should pick up next. One of the already existing series or a totally new one?
---------- Post added at 10:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:04 PM ----------
Size: Anything between 500x200 and 600x300 Text: "Bleach" and "Joint Review". Font and size is completely up to you. You can also add the MH logo if it fits the composition in your opinion. Content: If you mange to find enough HQ fanarts for the Vandenreich and especially Buckbeard then please make a buckbeard-centred one. If that's not the case than a quincy-themed banner will do.
---------- Post added at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 PM ----------
Okay, vaga decided to leave our team of soon-to-be reviewers and stick with JRs only. I got everyone's MAL now. Will post your next lesson in a bit.
---------- Post added at 09:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------
So, to give you a general idea of what your are going to do the next couple days/weeks. I will write a series of small lessons, each of which will have a theoretic and practical part to it. In the theoretic parts I will explain you the various techniques behind writing a review, while in the practical ones you will be faced with a real task that you will have to finish within the set deadline.
---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------
Lesson 1
Theory
In this lesson we will talk about the general aspect of a review. What is the goal of a review? The goal of a review is to give the reader a deeper and more thorough interpretation of the reviewed work (chapter, manga or one-shot). This is usually achieved due to the reviewer's better overall understanding of the work as well as his trained abilities to correctly formulate his thoughts and ideas.
See? The first point of a review requires that the reviewer actually has something tell the reader. A reviewer knows things and sees details which our everyday readers don't. If you think now that the all reviewers were born natural geniuses who had their reviewing skillz even before they could talk and write then you're wrong. Nobody is a natural born reviewer, and everyone can become one with the necessary will and training.
To sum it up. What a reviewer does is pick out the details out of a specific work and shows them to everyone else. In other words, the things that you didn't pay any attention to when you were a simple reader are now the very same things that you will pay attention to. You do that by re-reading a chapter (multiple times), you actually read the whole chapter, read every speech buble and watch at every panel. You look at the work as a whole and you investigate every arc/chapter in detail. You formulate theories and you make up predictions. You read other peoples thoughts and compare them with your own (!). There are a lot of different ways and techniques to adopt to this whole reviewer business, but they all can be summarized with one simple thesis: You know things, that the other's don't.
This is how we step to one of the first milestones in your reviewing career. From this point onward, whenever you read something, you will not only read it for yourself, but you will also pick out the details from a certain series/chapter/one-shot which you might use in a future review. In the beginning this will obviously be a strange feeling, and some of you might even say that you don't feel any difference in your reading experience, but believe me, with time passing you will more and more use those techniques I already mentioned above to the point where you will do it sub-consiously.
Practice
For this lesson's practice part I prepared two little tasks for you. Their goal is to acquantaince you with the format of a manga review and make you write your first stand-alone review. Yes, you've read correctly. At the end of this lesson you will have already written one completely individual manga review which will go into your reviewer portpholio.
Let's start with the first part. The format of a Manga Review. The format of a manga review consists of a rundown of several small "sections". The first section is a list of all the technical aspects of the reviewed work. Author, Artists, Number of chapters, etc. After that comes the first part where you will have to formulate your own stuff. The first section is called "General Overview". As the name suggests, you will summarize what the work is about in this section. Remember, that ALL MANGA REVIEWS ARE SPOILER-FREE!
Once you have finished the "General Overview", you face the main dishes. There are 6 further sections, called "Art", "Plot", "Characters", "Theme", "Originality" and "Overall". That's it. No more, no less. Here is a template of a "clean" review. Aside from actually writing your thoughts about each of the sections, you also rate each of the sections on a 0-10 scale.
HTML:
[b]Title:[/b]
[b]Genres:[/b]
[b]Author:[/b]
[b]Artist:[/b]
[b]Publication:[/b]
[b]Start Date:[/b]
[b]End Date:[/b]
[b]Number of chapters at review:[/b]
[b]Number of chapters read by reviewer:[/b]
(if you have trouble finding any of this info, contact me, and I'm sure I can get it for you)
[b]General Overview:[/b] A quick overview of the plot, be careful not to give any spoilers away. This should be a paragraph or two at most.
[b]Category Ratings:[/b] (1-10 scale)
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/art.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Art:[/b]
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/plot.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Plot:[/b]
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/characters.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Characters:[/b]
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/theme.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Theme:[/b]
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/originality.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Originality:[/b]
[IMG]http://mangahelpers.com/images/reviews/overall.jpg[/IMG]
[b]Overall:[/b]
Title: Genres: Author: Artist: Publication: Start Date: End Date: Number of chapters at review: Number of chapters read by reviewer:
(if you have trouble finding any of this info, contact me, and I'm sure I can get it for you)
General Overview: A quick overview of the plot, be careful not to give any spoilers away. This should be a paragraph or two at most.
Category Ratings: (1-10 scale)
Art:
Plot:
Characters:
Theme:
Originality:
Overall:
So, your first task will be: I will pick two titles for each of you and you will rate each of the 6 sections I mentioned. You won't write anything, only make two sets of 0-10 ratings. The deadline for this task is 5th May.
The next task takes things one step higher. You will write one full manga review for a one-shot I will specify for you. Yes. At this point of the story you have learned nothing about reviewing and this is exactly why you have to write a review at this point. It will allow you to monitor your progress and visiualize your strong and weak points. So, go out into the proofing area, read whatever reviews you like, pick out every piece of information you can and try to involve it in your own review. Make the sections short, long, funny, boring, write whatever you want. The important thing is that you start writing. Deadline for this task is 6th May.
I will post the specific series for each of your task today a little later.
---------- Post added May 04, 2012 at 01:37 AM ---------- Previous post was May 03, 2012 at 10:47 PM ----------
I think it's awesome. The dot in "Bleach." gives everything a nice a little touch. What can be improved IMHO is the "Mangahelpers Joint Review" text. IIRC that's a standard Times New Roman, might be Georgia, though I'm not sure. Whatever, that needs to be changed. For starters, "MangaHelpers" looks better than "Mangahelpers". I suggest you simply experiment with a couple of fonts until you find one that fits. Try making it bold. Also, once you've finished with the text it is necessary to give the whole banner a darker feeling. Try making a new layer filled with black and experiment with the overlay settings.
Gimme a moment, I'll think of something more concrete.
---------- Post added May 07, 2012 at 08:23 PM ---------- Previous post was May 06, 2012 at 09:03 PM ----------
OK. from the looks of it, we'll need a FT banner in the near future. I'll post the details just like with the bleach banner in a bit.
---------- Post added at 08:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 PM ----------
Size: Anything between 500x200 and 600x300 Text: "Fairy Tail" and "Joint Review". Font and size is completely up to you. You can also add the MH logo if it fits the composition in your opinion.
(didn't change much, did it? ) Content: I'm thinking of making a Fairy Taiil B Team themed banner. There are just too many BAMF members in that group not to use them.
---------- Post added May 09, 2012 at 02:06 AM ---------- Previous post was May 07, 2012 at 08:25 PM ----------
Okay, reviewer team. Get ready, because I am going to make you finish your parts.
Hi there! Sorry for taking almost a month to finally get here! Being on a trip, finishing school for the summer, getting used to a new job.. everything suddenly kept me off from the computer! D:
I'd love to review D.Gray-man if it's not to late It's been a while since I've actually written a review(without smilies O.o), but I hope I'll get used to it fast My English may not be perfect, but I shall do my best
My time zone is Central European Summer Time, or GMT + 2
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My English may not be perfect, but I shall do my best 
