The review scoring system has been revamped to give more precise, weighted, and thus, varied scores. The idea is to provide a better variation on the scores and a more in-depth reason as to why each item got said score. And preventing every four out of five reviews from scoring a seven... which, sadly, was a popular occurrence.

Every item reviewed starting from December 13th, 2007 and onwards will now be graded on a weighted system, divided into four parts: Enjoyment, Acting/Writing, Design, and Extras. All of the categories are graded on a scale from 0 to 10, with, obviously a score of 10 being the best. The scores are divided up as such:

Enjoyment: 40%
When it comes to watching a DVD, reading a manga, or playing a video game, the thing that matters to me the most is how much I enjoyed it. Was it worth my time? Was there a lot to like about it? Hate? If there's any music (DVDs and games), how does it sound? Does it fit with in the context of the show/game and/or scene? If there are future volumes, would I be encouraged to pick them up? Plain and simple... something I love a lot will get a high score, while something I end up loathing will get a low one.
Acting/Writing: 30%
Did the voices sound right? How does the English cast compare to any other casts available (DVD only)? Were the actors actually acting or did they sound like they weren't in? Was the dialog sound? Did it fit the scenes they written for, particularly in translated works? Obviously, the acting part doesn't apply to manga, in which the writing alone makes up this section's entire score. For DVDs and video games, acting makes up two-thirds of this section's score, while writing accounts for the remaining one-third.
Design: 15%
Do the background settings match up with the scenes? How are the characters designed, and do they work within the context of the media? Are they unique? Can they be told apart from each other? On the DVDs and in the games, where applicable, how is the animation? Were corners cut? Was the budget high or lousy? Did they even try at all? This section rates how the show, game, or manga looks.
Extras: 15%
Are there any extras? Are they worth the consumer's time? Were they produced well or just slapped together in a rush? Do they help extend the consumer's enjoyment? Extras are the little bonuses that you may find at the end of a manga, on a DVD, or as a reward in a video game.

In some cases, there might not be any Extras. This may result in the DVD, manga, or game receiving a score of 0 for Extras, especially if the reviewed item definitely would've benefited from having extras. In most cases, though, it makes sense not to have extras, and thus, the category will be scored with an N/A, and the other categories' weights will be shifted slightly to compensate. In such a case, they would be weighted 50-30-20 (Enjoyment, Acting/Writing, and Design, respectively) instead.

A scoring example:

Enjoyment: 5
Writing: 10
Design: 6
Extras: 3

This item's score would be calculated as thus:
(5 * .40) + (10 * .30) + (6 * .15) + (3 * .15) = 6.35.

Round to the nearest tenth, and the item's final score is:

THE FINAL SCORE
6              4      4
6              4      4
66666      44444
6      6  ..          4
66666  ..          4

Items that score an 8.0 or higher will be shown in green. Those which score between a 6.0 and a 7.9 will be shown in yellow . The few unlucky enough to be scored under a 6.0 will be shown in red.

Keep this guide in mind as you read the reviews and check out the scores!

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