This notification will not be a surprise to you if you’ve read my review on Mushoku Tensei, in which my first impressions were mostly positive. The first couple of episodes are mostly harmless, though it soon become an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but with the predator as the hero. After I reached a breaking point with the protagonist molesting his sleeping cousin, I amended my review to an unprecedented 1 out of 10.

This wasn’t the first time I had an issue with my scoring system, but it was the largest crack forming in the foundation. The longer I review, the more I find that a simple ten-point scale is not sufficient for me to approve or disapprove of a series. I’ve already pointed out that review “culture” doesn’t allow scores below an eight to be good, and even though I’m conscious of that, it still feels like all of my reviews wind up being 7s and 8s. This sameness is just starting to wear on me.

So here I am to tell you that I’m scrapping the ten-point system, and introduce my new scoring convention.

Shoot, that’s usually where I insert a picture to more naturally break up my different talking points, but I don’t have any pictures. Oh well. I need to attach a hefty caveat to this new scoring system; it’s subjective. Now, obviously all my reviews are subjective, but a number one through ten is at the very least quantifiable. If I tell you that a movie was a 3 out of 10, you could get that I didn’t like it. We’re done with that.

My new scoring system focuses on five adjectives that address the quality of the piece, and three degrees of intensity, based on the kind of experience you’re going to get out of it. Our adjectives will be Egregious, Mediocre, Fine, Pleasing, and Fantastic. Our qualifiers will be Boring, Neutral, and Entertaining. Thus, a show that is of terrible quality, but is so wild and amusing that you enjoy watching it, it would be Egregious Entertaining. The chart is quite similar to the alignment system in Dungeons & Dragons, now that I think of it.

	Boring	Neutral	Entertaining
Egregious	Seven Deadly Sins	Mushoku Tensei	Domestic Girlfriend
Mediocre	Neon Genesis Evangelion	Sword Art Online	Darling in the Franxx
Fine	Maid-Sama	Assassination Classroom	Akudama Drive
Pleasing	K-On	Danmachi	My Hero Academia
Fantastic	Oregairu	Re:Zero	Attack on Titan

If you’re mad or confused about a show’s placement, I want to clarify that boring is not necessarily negative here. Something like Oregairu is just slow paced and thoughtful, while Kaichou wa Maid-Sama or K-On are both slice of life series where the story takes a backseat to watching the characters interact with one another. This equation of Boring = Nothing happens might unfairly affect slice of life, but it can also mean that way too much is happening, and it’s all turning to white noise, like Seven Deadly Sins. And there you have it, the new official Otaku Exhibition Scoring System.

I hope that this will at least spice up the reviews, and it will help you make better informed decisions about what you’ll watch. Knowing ahead of time whether or not you’re in for a methodical story that rewards patience or a nonstop roller-coaster ride is the kind of important information you can’t get from a simple number out of ten. So keep an eye out for my Spring 2021 reviews, which will receive their score courtesy of the new chart. It won’t affect your regularly scheduled programming, as most of them are already written or in production, so it should just take some small tweaks.

I appreciate the patience and understanding that goes into wrapping your head around this monster of a dumb scoring system. As such, I won’t even plug my Twitter @ExhibitionOtaku and how you can follow me on WordPress to get notifications whenever an essay goes like, and I definitely won’t mention that you can like my essays and reviews because they’re my sole source of motivation. Until next time, thanks for reading.