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  • Good question. This doesn't just apply to manga but to other types of media as well (like anime). I mostly consume AV media like anime and film however so maybe take this comment with a grain of salt.

    what even is the purpose of a review? Are reviews recommendations or are they intended for people who have already wachted/read?

    The content of your review will depend on who your reader will be. You could have either one of the audiences, or both to some degree. A review as a form of recommendation means that you have to indicate what kind of "taste" you think the work appeals to. For example, I could say Bakemonogatari appeals to people who are interested in avant-garde cinematography. It helps to compare it to other works so that the reader has a point of reference.

    If it's intended for people who have watched or read it, then your intention is to invoke discourse surrounding the work. For example, I can say that I dislike DARLING in the FRANXX for its inability to fully challenge gender norms of the mecha genre and explain why using detailed excerpts from the work. This sparks discourse and helps readers make judgements about the work. They may or may not agree but that's the point. Your job now is to collectively (and subjectively) define what new standards of media should be.

    Second, what level of spoilers is considered acceptable, if its something greatly enjoyable and unexpected but it happens on the first 10 chapters, should that be mentioned?

    The level of spoilers will depend on who the review is for. Is it for people who have not yet seen or read it? In that case, it's better to be ambiguous or just hide content in spoiler tags.

    If your intent is for discourse (for people who have watched or read the work), then go crazy. Start your review with the ending if you want to. Say how much you dislike the open-ending or mention how thought-provoking the image presented in the third panel of a manga chapter was like. IMO, the more detailed it is, the better you can support your argument for the work.

    Third, what are the areas that should be focused on? Are there any kind of common templates or is it pure freestyle?

    This depends on the writer and it's entirely subjective. The area of focus entirely depends on you and what makes you value a certain work. It could be characterization, plot, image, sound, timing, social relevance, etc. You could also choose to focus on the strength of the work. You aren't limited to one area either. You can be as expansive as you'd like. Typically, most people focus on narrativity and image, and use things like sound and characterization to compliment their arguments.

    Personally, I'm not a fan of the template reviews found in MAL where they rate a work's animation, story, characters, music, etc individually, then give an overall rating but this is usually how a standard template for reviewing works anyway.

    The Cynic Clinic's review on Azumanga Daioh uses the same format (but in a good way). He begins by briefly explaining what the work is about, discussing a strong point of the work, in this case, characterization, and relate how the other elements support that strong point (i.e., how the lack of a romance plot makes the show more relatable, how the visual style emphasizes the characters, or how the music and sound reflects the quirkiness and fluffiness of the show). He finally concludes with a summary of his points. Through the review, he ties in all the elements of the work together to focus on one thing: characterization. This style is very effective for people who haven't seen it yet and it's insightful enough for those who have.

    What I really like are essays and reviews that have a central theme or idea to it. They're much closer to an "analysis" of sorts but I find that they're much more valuable if your audience is people who have already seen or read the work (as we mentioned earlier). The Cynic Clinic released this video essay on Bocchi the Rock appreciating how its radical style challenges the common notion of what adaptions should be like.

    Try to experiment and see what works for you, though generally, I'd at least try to avoid writing like the popular MAL reviews. I'm not devaluing these reviews but oftentimes they lack research, critical thinking, and appreciation for what isn't the norm.

    Related, if someone has any guides on hand, or books, even if they are for other kinds of media, could you please tell me about them?

    I really like Dunkey's humerous Game Critics video. The Cynic Clinic has a lot of good videos like 4 Resources That Shaped The Way I Understand Anime, People Don't Know How to Talk About Animation, and Nobody Cares How Many Anime You've Seen.

    Sorry if this comment is lengthy. I know I mostly talk about anime (despite this being a manga community) but I hope it helps somehow.

  • Thanks for answering. I figured it was a registrar thing. How bad do you think the situation will be for other .ml domains?

    I'm guessing fmhy.ml was using Freenom but lemmy.ml and lemmy.ml were using a different domain registrar, hence the situation right now.

  • A final thought. I know Debian has a testing branch. Anyone have any experience using that as a daily driver? Is it viable?

    I've used Debian testing (bullseye at the time) before and it was a pretty pleasant experience. I like how much control I had over it compared to Ubuntu at least.

    With that in mind, what distros would everyone recommend?

    I like Arch and I don't have much trouble maintaining it. It's just a yay every now and then. The only issues I've had were upstream packages introducing drastic changes like when Nerd Fonts changed their naming scheme so I had to fix my ~/.Xresources manually. I use i3wm so it might not be an issue if you use some popular DE like Gnome and KDE.

    Have you looked into OpenSuse's Tumbleweed or Leap? They might fit the bill, but I don't have much experience using either.

  • Out of curiosity, other than fmhy.ml, lemmy.ml, and lemmygrad.ml, what other Lemmy instances were using .ml domains? Also, how are the latter two still running but fmhy.ml isn't?

    edit: This has triggered a chain of comments I wasn't expecting. I'd appreciate it if someone can answer on a technical level. Is the latter two using a different registrar or name server which is why it still works for them?

  • Paranoia Agent's OP and ED are creepy and really good. Probably not underrated but I don't know anyone else IRL who's seen it.

    I also really like Haibane Renmei's ED.

  • Boost and Infinity. Then Teddit and Libreddit for the browser.

  • I want a large pixel art of Lemmy Kilmister.

  • I don't know if I count but I'm a communications student. Information technology is somewhat related but this field isn't pragmatic when it comes to that. I'm probably one of the few students here who's interested in studying (alternative) media platforms over media content.

    It's rare to have dicussions on things like copyleft, privacy, open-source software, and decentralized communications platforms, all of which I genuinely believe are worthwhile topics in this field.

  • I used to name my cloud VMs after Monogatari characters but now I just settle with xxn.domain.tld so it's easy to remember when I need to SSH into one.

    • xx = shortcode for which service the VM is from (for example Azure = az, DigitalOcean = do)
    • n = VM number from 1-9

    do2.domain.tld

    • Lemmy
    • Red Discord Bot
    • Matrix Synapse
  • I've tried a bunch like ranger, lf, vifm, sfm and even some different ones like clifm. I always come back to nnn though. Nothing beats its speed and config options.

  • The one that comes free with my domain registrar.

    I also like Riseup but it needs an invite. I also like mail alias services like SimpleLogin and AnonAddy. People should use those more often.

    I don't like how Gmail's tagging system works (All Mail and no "archive"). As for Proton and Tuta, I don't like how I can't use other mail clients other than their own web interface. If you only access mail via a web browser, then it's fine I guess.

  • Interesting. I might try this out later.

  • I see. I'll give it a try then.

  • I heard there were some issues with bridges but I might try it anyway.

  • I like Matrix. I have one running on a really low end VPS mostly for bridges (painful to setup but it works) and some family members but I haven't enabled the calling or video calling features. I also have never joined any public rooms. I use a different account for that with a public instance.

    I'm only concerned about performance issues. It doesn't perform bad for me right now but I'm afraid if I enable calling or join larger rooms, it'll be a pain. I've heard Dendrite is supposed to be more efficient so I might try that. I also might try XMPP as I've heard it performs and scales better.

    edit: I'm also looking into Revolt but it isn't decentralized and I don't think it has bridges.

  • I’m kinda surprised there still isn’t like a discord UI clone matrix client

    Check out cinny.in. I use this on my desktop browser and it looks similar to the Discord UI.