What are my 5 stars for?

Art

First star represents the art. I’m a visual person. If I don’t like what I see, I would most likely not continue reading. This is why the first and last manga that I’ve read in black and white was Naruto.

The first manhwas I’ve read were Noblesse and Girls of the Wild’s around six years ago. I never looked back ever since.

This is subjective. I cannot describe the art or the style of what I like. They vary according to my mood. My favorite art so far is Heaven Official’s Blessing. Starember’s

Plot

Second star represents the plot. It’s got to have a hook to reel me in. And it has to keep me on my toes to get interested. Is the pacing too fast or too slow? Did the series of events made sense? How are women treated? How do women act/respond? For the most part, I like complex plots but sometimes, my brain needs a break.

Sometimes, there are annoying part/s of the plot that I can overlook. This depends on my mood. However, when a huge part of it doesn’t make sense to the point wherein the outcome of an event or the series of events are affected, I stop.

Protagonist

The third star represents the protagonist. Is he/she likeable? Do I see a potential character development? Is he or she a strong person to begin with? Is the protagonist a pushover? If so, does that change over time? What are his/her flaws?

I definitely prefer strong protagonists but I give weaker ones a try from time to time to see if they get stronger and wiser over experience. If it’s been way too long and there’s little to minimal character development, I’ll ditch the manga. Too long doesn’t mean 100 chapters. It could be the succession of events, the “time” that passed in the plot itself or just the chapters. Again, it’s subjective. At the very least, if the protagonist doesn’t change, the plot or the other surrounding characters better be good enough to keep my interest.

Oh and one more thing, I don’t perfect characters. I want to see a flaw. It makes them human and realistic and relatable.

Villain / Problem

The problem to the protagonist does not have to be a person. It could be a situation the protagonist have little to no control over or their own shortcomings.

Questions that come to mind would be:

• Based on the protagonist’s capabilities, does this impose a sufficient challenge?
• Does the protagonist fail or does he just keep winning whatever happens? If he does fail, does he learn from them?
• Does this give the protagonist a character development? If so, by how much?

Entertainment

This actually comes before I break down the entire story. Was it a page turner? Did I genuinely enjoy reading it regardless of the other four criteria? Did it invoke any emotion or better yet, an array of emotions from me?

Final thoughts

Why do I even bother to rate these manga / manhwa / manhua, anyway? For fun. Digital entertainment is cheap and/or free but that doesn’t mean I have to be passive about it. I enjoy taking a step back to break down and analyze a story. Plus, I don’t have friends who want to discuss these things with me. They read it and move on with their lives. Well, you know what? I can’t. So here we are. 🤣

If you’ve read what I wrote until here, feel free to click around. Have fun! 💛