Monday, April 14, 2014

Single Chapter Reviews

Malacritico recently asked me what I think of single chapter manga reviews. I am responding here, because 140 characters is BS.

My feelings are complicated. I don't think a single chapter review style CAN'T work. Thats what linkara has been doing with american comics for years. But there are some important differences. American hero comics are essentially neverending, so to try and summarize a whole series as I do would be stupid. Most manga's do eventually end, though some go on for such unreasonably long periods of time that a comprehensive review becomes impractical. So for long running shonens, I can see the appeal of a by chapter approach.

Unfortunately, this also comes with its own problems. Weekly shonens are only about 20 pages long, significantly less than an average single american comic issue. The smaller format gives less room for characters to develop noticeably in a single chapter and sometimes very short events can be expanded to fill several chapters. So there is the distinct possibility that you might have literally nothing to add for a new chapter.

Also, in practice, I have yet to see a by chapter reviewer who DOESN'T use the vlog style. The informal, sit infront of camera, mostly unscripted review. And these are not an ideal style for reviews. Vlogs are great for recording how something made someone feel. But how a work made YOU feel is not all there is to a review. Context, back story, analysis. These are important. You have to give the audience some sense of how THEY might feel about a work, not just how it made you feel.

And from the very petty part of my heart, I am also quite jealous of people with hundreds of subscribers using this format. My show is scripted. I have to act, write jokes, arrange the manga into some kind of cohesive summary, and sometimes plan and film full skits. This is FAR more work than the Vlog. And yet these people get way more hits because they are constantly talking about something that is popular.
In the end, I am open to single chapter reviews of mangas, but have yet to see it executed well. Maybe someone can correct me.

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