It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this concept most definitely applies to art. There are as many possible reviews as there are viewers, but beyond "Thumbs Up," or a numerical ranking, a person can evaluate art on many levels. The most important levels for most consumers are technical quality and appeal. While there are other levels that can be considered, such as product packaging and revenue potential for industry pros, this is not an industry magazine, so I will conveniently ignore those for the purpose of this column.
Before I elaborate on my choices for consideration, I have to declare my own personal bias that is leading to the writing of this column. In writing my own reviews I struggle to present as many aspects as possible, so I really get annoyed by flippant reviews that dismiss important aspects of titles or that are heavily biased without the courage to admit to a bias. For example, there are emotional reviewers whose evaluations are based on gut reactions, animation purists who evaluate purely by the number of frames of animation per second, and business folk whose evaluation is based in dollars and yen. There are other, hidden biases that also must be considered even if a review seems balanced because of unnamed conflicts of interest, such as when a magazine reviews titles that are released by the same company that owns the magazine. In my opinion, biased reviewers that can identify and expose their own biases to a reader, can still provide a relevant and interesting review, but those with hidden agendas may not be able to resist the temptation of misleading a reader. In a similar sense, those readers who can uncover biases will have a much better perspective and understanding of the actual contents of the product than those who merely read the words at face value.

Technical Aspects
When reviewing the technical quality of a film, it is important to understand the techniques of the art form, the styles, and if possible, identify the intentions of the artist(s) who created the project. Manga is considerably less complicated than anime, so the technical evaluations basically consist of: strength of art style, appeal of character designs, story, staging (how the story is told), and composition of the page (how the art is presented). For anime, one must add: music (quality and appropriateness), direction (similar to manga composition, but also adding in the movement of the camera, and effects), animation direction (what is moved and how), and voice acting (quality and appropriateness). These generalizations are by no means comprehensive, and people with technical slants probably can add a million more subcategories, but for the purposes of most general reviews and this column, it will have to do.

Appeal
Appeal is perhaps the easiest aspect to determine for oneself, and the most difficult aspect to evaluate for others. Firmly entrenched within one's biases, appeal is a measure of whether the technical aspects were put together in a fashion that works overall. Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip, DILBERT, revealed in an interview that from his reader responses (both good and bad), he determined that 20% of the readers cared about the gags, 20% of the readers cared about the art style, and 60% enjoyed strips with a relevance to their life. His example for proof involved a strip about accounting that Scott Adams, himself, considered below average and boring, but that had very positive reviews by his readers who were accountants. This assertion can be adapted to anime and manga by expanding and generalizing his statements to:

	20% of people are most influenced by story quality and story content (Horror, Humor, Political Drama, etc.)
	20% of people are most influenced by art (Animation, Character designs, Art Direction, etc.).
	30% of people are most influenced by relevance to the life they are living (accountants)
	30% of people are most influenced by relevance to the life they wish they were living (superheroes)

Everyone will fall into one or more of these fuzzy categories, and reviewers who know themselves will be able to extract their personal biases from their reviews and present readers with a balanced review. Meanwhile, readers who know which category they fall into, will be able to ignore the aspects they don't care about in reviews and put a product into their own frame of reference.