A Guide to Minitokyo Reviews
Minitokyo’s primary focus is on images. There are extensive galleries for scans, wallpapers and indy art for users to
browse and download. However, there is also a small section, mostly missed, that focuses on something a bit different --
reviews.
About Reviews
Reviews are submitted by Minitokyo members. Any member (who is not muted or banned) may submit reviews, as well as
comment on them. Reviews provide an additional way for users to contribute to Minitokyo and gain credits, especially for
members whose skills fall more towards writing than visual art.
A review is meant for a member to talk more about a given series, and to give either a positive or negative
recommendation for other members. All reviews follow a general structure (with sections focusing on story, artwork,
sound and fun) but individual reviewers will each have their own style of writing in a review. A good review will
explore the a variety of aspects of a series and give the reader a solid impression whether they should check out the
series.
Accessing Reviews
You can access reviews in several ways:
Front page
The bottom section of the front page will show summaries of the latest reviews submitted to Minitokyo. Reviews remain in
that slot for one week after submission. If the area is empty, that means there are no recent review submissions.
Reviews page
You can also visit the Reviews section directly at http://reviews.minitokyo.net/. Here you’ll see summaries from the most
recent reviews as well as a way to browse all reviews, or sort by rating.
Series Pages
If you’re looking for a review on a specific series or game, just go to that tag’s landing page (you can either
search for a tag or browse the anime/game tags.) On the landing page, if a review is available you’ll see a
“Review” tab along with the Wallpaper, Indy Art and/or Scans tabs. Clicking on the tab will show all the reviews
available for that series or game.
Users’ Pages
You can see all the reviews an individual user has written by visiting their user page. If they have written reviews,
you will see a “Reviews” tab (and the number of reviews they’ve written.) Clicking on the tab will load a list of
their reviews that you can browse.
Commenting on reviews
Just like other aspects of Minitokyo, you can comment on reviews. Just scroll to the bottom of a review and you’ll see
a text box where you can leave your remarks. You can comment on any aspect of the review, whether you agree, or
disagree, or only agree with some aspects. Remember than spam commenting is not allowed, and if you’re found spamming
review comments you may find yourself with warnings, mutings or even a ban.
Reporting reviews
All reviews submitted must be written by the submitting member. It is okay if the submitting member has published their
review to other sites, as long as the version on Minitokyo conforms to Minitokyo standards. If evidence of plagiarism is
found, the offending review will be removed and there are possible consequences to the user such as warnings, mutings
and/or bannings.
All reviews should be proof-read and spell-checked for quality. A few typos are acceptable, but consistent errors is a
sign that the reviewer has not checked their writing. The same way there is a quality standard that all scan, indy art
and wallpaper submissions must meet, there is a quality standard for reviews, which are to follow standard writing
protocols as if you wanted to submit this review to a local publication. If you find errors in your own review, you can
fix them with the “Edit” link in the top right corner of the review.
If you believe a review violates Minitokyo policy, either in content or quality, you can report it with the “Report”
link found in the bottom right of each review.
Writing a review
Once you’re ready to submit a review, go to http://reviews.minitokyo.net/submit (or hover over the Reviews link at
the top of the page and choose “Submit Review.”) You’ll go to the review submission page. The first box you need
to fill out is the “Series” box.
Finding the appropriate series/game tag
If you’d like to contribute a review to Minitokyo, first make sure there is a tag for the series or game you want to
write for. You can either search for a tag directly with the search box, or browse the tag categories for the specific
one. Tags will exist only if there is at least one scan, wallpaper or indy art for that tag. If the tag you’re looking
for does not exist, you might want to try finding a suitable scan on the web, and submitting that to Minitokyo. Make
sure to properly tag the scan (and request in the Tag Request thread to have it set as an appropriate series/game tag).
If you’re able to successfully get the tag created, then you can submit a review for it. If you’re unable to get a
tag created, then you might have to wait a while until someone else submits something for the tag. Generally, current
and popular series/games will have tags; it is the really old, obscure, or very new series/games that will not yet have
a tag.
Fill in the appropriate series or game tag in the “Series” box.
Choosing the right category
The second thing to fill out is to mark what aspect of a game/series you’re reviewing. You have four options:
* TV: This is for the TV part of a series. Generally for anime that originally
airs on TV or cable. Most series have half-hour episodes that number between 13-52 but some series have longer episodes
or more of them. Occasionally this is used to review a live-action drama associated with the series.
* OVA: This is for the OVA (OAV) part of a series. Generally for anime that goes
direct-to-video. OVA generally has longer episodes and a lower count than TV. You can also mark this if you are
reviewing a movie.
* Manga: This is for the manga (comic book/graphic novel) part of a series.
* Game: This is if you are reviewing the game part of a series. In the review
you might want to point out which console you played the game on, especially if it’s available on multiple systems.
You may mark more than one box if you wish to review multiple aspects of the series. For example, you can review the
Tales of the Abyss game and TV anime series in the same review, or you can review both the movie version and manga
version of Nausica. You can also decide to review only one aspect of a series (just the manga for Sailor Moon). A final
option is to review different aspects of a series in separate reviews, such as one review for the OVA of Record of
Lodoss Wars, and a second for the TV series of Lodoss. It is up to you to determine what you want to cover.
Review sections
Each review has four sections that need to be filled out. Each section is rated separately and the total score will be
an averaging of those scores.
Story
The story section covers, well, the story. Don’t retell the story here, and keep descriptions of the story to a short
synopsis. You don’t want to reveal too much about the story! There are many aspects of a story you can discuss in this
section. Pacing -- was the story rushed, or take too long to get to certain plot points, given the total length of the
series? Was the story interesting enough to keep you watching or playing, or were you ready to give up at some point?
Was the story predictable, or were there enough plot twists to keep you guessing? Genre -- was the story appropriate for
its genre, and how does it compare with other series of a similar style? A romantic drama will have a very different
story progression than an action-packed mecha show. How is the character development and interaction?
Art
The art section covers all graphical aspects of the series. Here you can explore things like character designs, costume
designs, world and environments, special effects, and all sorts of other details. How consistent is the work? If it’s
stylized, does the style work for the story and series as a whole?
You may cover different aspects of art depending on what part of a series you’re reviewing. For TV/OVA you might look
more at special effects or integration of cel art and CG (if applicable.) For manga, you might want to take a closer
look at the finer details such as how well sound effects are integrated or the quality of toning. For a game you might
want to discuss field layout or dungeon design.
Sound
The sound section covers all aural aspects of the series. This section is primarily to review music and voice work on a
series, but you can also discuss things like sound effects. For music you can explore opening/ending themes as well as
background music or even character music. For voices, you might want to discuss how effective or annoying the actors’
voices are in helping portray their character. You can also look at different languages, such as the Japanese voice
acting compared to English or French, if you’re watched/played in multiple languages.
If you are reviewing just the manga part of a series, the sound section is basically not applicable (unless the series
has a radio play or character singles associated with it.) In that case, you can use the sound section to review some
other aspect of the manga -- just make a note of it at the start of the section. For example, you might take a closer
look at costume design or character development.
Fun
The fun section covers how enjoyable a series is. The first paragraph or two you write in the Fun section will appear as
the blurb for your review, so you might want to start off this section with a summary or conclusion of the review. If
you want to rewatch/replay a series (or would never do so in a hundred years) this is the section to explain why. It’s
also a bit of a miscellaneous section so if there is some aspect of the series you want to write about that’s not
covered in the first three sections, you can jot them down here.
Ratings
Each section of a review has a separate rating. The final score is compiled from these four scores. The score ranges
from 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. A rating of 5-6 would be average. When you give a section a
rating, make sure that you explain why you gave it that score in the section. Justifying your score will make your
review more useful for readers, so they can understand just why you loved or hated each aspect of a series, and figure
out whether this is a series they’d like to see/play for themselves.
Screenshots
You can add up to 4 screenshots of the series. Each screenshot can be a jpg image up to 1920x1080 in size. These are not
submitted to the scan gallery they do not need to follow scan gallery submission guidelines. However, the images should
be relatively clean, neat, and not too ecchi. The staff reserves the right to remove/replace screenshots they feel are
inappropriate.
You’ll need to upload screenshots from your computer. If you find screenshots on the web, be sure to save them to your
computer so you can upload them. Note that adding screenshots is optional, so don't worry if you can't find
any good pictures.
Submitting a review
Once you’ve finished writing everything (and attaching screenshots if you have them), hit the “Submit Review”
button. That will post the review to Minitokyo. Within a few minutes you should see your review on your userpage as well
as the top page of Minitokyo.
Editing a review
After submitting a review, you might want to make changes, perhaps to fix a few typos or to tweak a rating. To edit a
review, first go to the review (the easiest place to find it is from the Reviews tab on your userpage). You should see
three tabs on the right of the page, “Read Review”, “Edit Review” and “Delete Review”. Clicking on “Edit
Review” will bring you to a page where you can change any part of the review you’d like (it is basically the same
page as “Submit Review”.) When you’re done editing, just hit the “Submit Review” button at the
bottom.
Deleting a review
If you decide you don’t want to have your review on Minitokyo anymore, just click on the “Delete Review” tab,
confirm the deletion, and it will be removed. If for any reason the “Delete Review” tab isn’t working, you can
also report your own review, and ask a moderator to delete it for you.
Tips and tricks
Here are a few tips that might help you when writing a review.
Use a word processor
The Minitokyo “submit review” form is just that, a big form. If for some reason the page refreshes, or you
accidentally close the window, you’ll lose your in-progress review. It is suggested you write the review first in a
word processor (hopefully one with an auto-save capability) and then paste the review into the Minitokyo submission
form. This will also give you a backup copy of the review in case anything happens to the version on Minitokyo.
Another benefit of a word processor is that they usually come with a spell-checker and sometimes even a grammar checker.
Running these utilities will help prevent embarassing typos, although you have to be careful that it’s not overzealous
and “fixes” character names.
If you don’t have access to a paid word processor like Microsoft Word or Apple’s iLife suite, there are a number of
free word processors available, such as Open Office (downloadable), Google Docs or Zoho Docs (both online web apps, and
require an account.)
Be concise
Don’t write “War and Peace” for your review. You should be thorough, but you don’t need to go over every little
detail. Find a balance between information and wordiness. Not all readers have a long attention span.
Read other reviews
If you’re not sure what or how to write a review, read other reviews first. Read reviews written by a variety of
people. See how they cover each aspect of a series. This should give you a better idea of how to lay out your own
review. And if you’re still not sure, ask for help!
--Updated Rule--
Spoilers and Language
Since this has never been a major issue, we have avoided putting this up. However, since this has become an increasing
problem for more members, we have made a new rule. Any reviews that contain major spoilers will be asked to immediately
edit their reviews to remove said spoilers and/or bad language. If the edits do not occur within a week, the review will
be deleted. We encourage all members to write reviews, however we discourage
those that shun away people from watching a series because it was spoiled or because inappropriate language was used in
the review.