Manga Review: Release: The Emancipation of the Self

Title: Release: The Emancipation of the Self
Author: Sagara Naoya
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Sci-fi
Art: C
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: C

Impression: This is an odd series that I happened to find. It’s got the makings of something interesting but it’s very hard to discern the direction the series is taking. Emancipation of Personality features an amnesiac who was said to have been living in Tokyo for the past 5 years but is unable to recall any of it. The people in his life seem pretty normal making this seem like a story of an ordinary amnesiac living in modern times who has some dark hidden depths but then he has people coming after him who kidnap and bring the guy 70 years in the future where he actually comes from. I figured it’d be more of a psychological series based on the title and it turns out it’s a sci-fi of some ex-assassin who just wants to go back to the home he’s known as far as he remembers it. I feel like the author has a particular plot in mind but threw in some unnecessary elements that just didn’t come out right in ink and paper. First volume in and three more after, I just couldn’t come to grips with how the main character was important enough to drive the plot and as such I diagnose this series with a case of messy writing and lack of a properly done setting. I would have preferred to read more about his present life than what he did before that since the sci-fi bits just aren’t very well thought out.

Manga Review: Natsu no Arashi

Title: Natsu no Arashi
Author: Kobayashi Jin
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Supernatural, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Romance, Historical
Art: B
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series comes from the author of School Rumble and it’s about a thirteen year old boy and the experiences he goes through during one particular summer. He meets this high school girl from a bygone era who claims to be a ghost from 60 years prior to the summer they met and with his help, the two of them are able to leap back into time. Aside from enjoying the perks and hijinx that time travel brings, they also go back to the bombing days of World War 2 to save people from the burning mess that the conflict generated. For someone like Kobayashi Jin who’s famous for his comedy (and infamous for the ‘pie’ ending), you’d never think he’d be capable of threading a story with so many different elements thrown into it so seamlessly. The guy’s great at coming up with memorable characters and hilariously epic over the top jokes but he’s not too shabby with telling serious stories either. The first few chapters only hint at how intense the story gets later on in the series. He doesn’t even bother to make the humor as zany as School Rumble’s hence the B score for the humor department. It’s quite telling when SHAFT’s adaptations of the series are actually funnier and sillier than their original source. Don’t take it as though I meant it doesn’t have it silly moments. Those are certainly there but storytelling and characterization are the focus of this series here. Definitely worth reading but you shouldn’t expect another School Rumble in any way. This is a dish of an entirely different flavor but as far as I can tell it’s turning out to be a great one.

P.s. Check out Kobayashi Jin’s profile. He actually does look like Harima Kenji of School Rumble!

Manga Review: Variante

Title: Variante
Author: Sugimoto Iqura
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Horror
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a girl who wakes up on a hospital bed one night after having gone through a very traumatic experience just a few days before only to find that she did not come out of it quite the same. The arm attached to her left shoulder is no longer her own as it’s been replaced by a mutated, semi-sentient shape-shifting one that’s capable of fighting off grotesquely deformed monsters whose. The girl faces an uncertain future in the care of a mysterious organization responsible for quietly taking care of these monsters where and whenever they show up as she can only prove herself valuable to them in two ways: eliminating the monsters so they can retrieve samples or she gives up and becomes a sample herself – a living sample. Despite that Shonen-esque premise there, this is definitely a Seinen title as the girl does not get a break and has to face the horrors of her new life as nearly everyone around her regards her as a monster. I don’t have any gripes about this series really. The premise, story, scenes and characterization worked together satisfactorily and I can’t find any significant contradictions here but it never goes beyond what I expected it to be. The realism thrown into the story certainly helped maintain its quality throughout the four volumes that were published but it also restricted it in what could be done. It’s a decent series but you’re not going to get anything you can’t find in any other manga of this kind of plot.

Manga Review: Fourteen

Title: Fourteen
Author: Kazuo Umezu
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Seinen
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Good god this manga is freaky. Fourteen is about a chicken-man hybrid being born from a vat of genetically modified chicken meat as a curse from the animals of the Earth. Humanity’s dominance now permeates every fiber of the entire planet and it is now a mere shadow of the beautiful world it used to be. The chicken-man becomes deeply involved in events that will shape the future of humanity as the oncoming apocalypse approaches ever closer with a series of mysterious disasters that will all culminate in the extinction of the human race its last generation of offspring finally reach the age of fourteen. I kid you not when I say the first volume will freak you out with its excellent scenes flavoured with equal parts of horror and grotesqueness. The rest of the horror never comes as close as those first few do but they’re still pretty disturbing all the same. Despite its out of date style, the artwork works amazingly here and will just pull you right into the terror that the author infused into his series. I’m even willing to look past at all the research the author didn’t do since what really matters is the fear and not the fact that the author gets so many things wrong that political and economical minded people will want to bang their heads against the wall. This manga rises above its apparent lack of research and, in my honest opinion, does more than just rival Junji Ito’s brand of horror making it an absolute must read for horror lovers. Incidentally, I’d just love to see SHAFT pull out an anime of this. Shinbo’s crew is perfect for this series.

Manga Review: Until Death Do Us Part

Title: Until Death Do Us Part
Author: Double-S, Takashige Hiroge
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is the story of a blind swordsman with prodigious talent at swordplay and the little girl girl who asks him to protect her till death. The little girl is a precog and sees her future lies in the hands of her violent protector. Together they face the hordes of mercenaries sent after them with the help of the underground anti-crime network that the swordman works for as the girl waits for the day that she saw in her visions, the day she gets married to the man. This is quite an interesting series with a good set of characters and an intriguing premise. The action scenes are just incredible and are refreshing to watch, especially if you’re a fan of swordfights. I do have to complain about the pacing though, there’s a lot to look forward to with the setup they’ve got here but the manga goes at as if it were a weekly series when it’s really a monthly publication. Moreover, you don’t really get the feeling that very much time has passed in the manga. There’s also the fact that the character development takes a backseat to the action despite how much better the series could stand to be if it put a little bit more focus on the characters growth, particularly the girl, and their relationships in subtler ways instead of giving shallow but dramatic actions. All in all, it’s a pretty good manga but you’re going to ask yourself “That’s all so far?” when you hit the latest chapter.

Manga Review: Eden – It’s an Endless World

Title: Eden – It’s an Endless World
Author: Hiroki Endo
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: C
Action: B

Impression: This manga is set in the future where a mysterious virus has wiped out a major percentage of the world’s population and human civilization is slowly recovering from the first outbreak. The story follows various characters throughout the many years that take place over the series and the strange new world that has come out of the disastrous epidemic that struck the Earth. The story is definitely engaging and the overarching plot is certainly interesting but I hate how this guy treats his characters. I’m not talking about the high body count, the dozens of kick the dog moments, the ridiculous amount of squick thanks to the drugs, sex and sci-fi tech. No, those actually made the story more enjoyable. It was the way he keeps switching the focus from one character to another for entire arcs and later completely forgetting about them and their development later. It’s like the author was a total schizophrenic when it came to which characters were actually important. The most jarring instance of this was having the most prominently featured and most developed character in the series set up for his role in the climax only for him to have done basically nothing and other characters who didn’t even have half as much screen time as him taking charge of the plot. While the characters who are involved in the finale do have more significance towards the setting at that point, it still doesn’t help the fact the feeling that you just wasted your time reading about half the stuff in the series. Then there’s the guy’s sense of humor. This is a seinen series set in a crapsack of the world portrayed with a very realistic and gritty art style and yet he still does lame, badly-timed jokes using art you’d expect to see in a comedy manga. Also, what exactly was the point of this series? Life goes on? Sorry, but that’s a terribly weak message. I’m not even sure if that even qualifies as one, more of a fact if you ask me.

In-Depth Manga Review: The Lucifer & Biscuit Hammer

Title: The Lucifer & Biscuit Hammer
Alternative Titles: Hoshi no Samidare, 惑星のさみだれ
Author: Mizukami Satoshi
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Length: 10 Volumes, 65 Chapters
Genre: Seinen, Slice of Life, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance

Synopsis

This is the story of Amamiya Yuuhi and the year his usual routine was disrupted by a truly unprecedented turn of events best explained by the following monologue:

“One morning when I woke up, there was a lizard in my room. We stared at each other and the first to break the silence, was him.”

He has just been pulled into a, as described by another talking animal, truly outrageous yet mundane heroic epic where they as the Beast Knights have to fight monstrous constructs made of Earth created by the mage Animus who literally has the power to smash the planet into bits and pieces. The lizard knight has come to him to recruit him in a war that will determine the fate of the planet and he has been granted psychic powers as well a wish in exchange for his participation in the conflict that he could very well lose his life over. Unfortunately for Noi the lizard, Yuuhi is more inclined to see the world destroyed than to fight for its continued existence as he utterly loathes everything in it. The nihilist soon experiences the conflict firsthand, almost having been killed only to get saved by Asahina Samidare, the monstrously strong princess that he was told to protect. Even after his close encounter with death, he still refuses to take part until the high school girl that saved him just the day before comes to him shows him the huge ass hammer in the sky that threatens to smash their planet to bits. She then makes a show of trust by letting herself fall off from building so that Yuuhi would save her before going splat on the ground. Having gained his attention, she announces to him she’ll never let the Biscuit Hammer destroy the Earth. Why? Because she’s going to destroy the Earth, with her own fists. That’s when Yuuhi pledges his unwavering loyalty to her. That’s how this tale of the Earth’s destruction begins.

Art: A
At first the art doesn’t look very impressive and looks substandard but it grows into a uniquely expressive style that perfectly captures the ambience of the scene as well as the emotions and thoughts of the characters. This takes a real while but once the author finally settles into it, even the fight scenes start to look awesome. By that, I don’t mean that the attacks start looking as complex as the ones you’d see on Bleach or Naruto. Nope, the attacks stay relatively simplistic in comparison to most shonen series. It’s more towards where the emphasis lies in those scenes. Instead of putting the focus on the attack itself, he likes to concentrate on the bits that lead up to and follow after the attack itself. This technique of his captures those “Oh, crap!” and “Hell Yeah!!” moments so perfectly that it’s very easy to overlook how plain the attacks look.

Originality: S+
This is about a group of people who have been granted psychic powers to fight alongside invisible talking animals who are lead by a princess to fight the mage and his golems so that his planet destroying superweapon of a biscuit hammer won’t smash the Earth to bits with a hidden third faction within the group of protectors that secretly plan to destroy the Earth themselves once the mage has been vanquished. Interesting, no? And that’s just the very tip of the iceberg by the way. Time travel, reincarnation and magical girls get thrown into the mix too. Besides very the quirky set-up Mizukami-sensei came up for the familiar save the world plot, this particular author also understands what expectations that his audience will have for him and how he can use those expectations to keep his readers surprised, amused and excited for more with every chapter. What you get is a work that superficially resembles standard shonen fare only to be filled with just so many subversions, aversions and inversions of the usual tropes that you can never tell how the following chapter will turn out. I myself have failed miserably in trying to predict what he’s got in store for us, even right up to the final chapter.

Story: S+
Mizukami-sensei is no doubt a master storyteller. The tale he spun here has so many threads and so many layers woven so cleanly and tightly into it that he must have had this entire tapestry laid out in front of him even before it began serialization. Right from the very first few chapters, you get these small insignificant details that hint at things that only get revealed dozens of chapters later. Some of these brilliantly subtle bits of foreshadowing get played off as one time jokes only to come back in full force in a totally different context with entirely new implications. These hints are pretty easy to remember and you just can’t help but be impressed at how insignificant he made them seem. The romance between Yuuhi and Samidare may seem have been muted for much of the series but it builds itself up bit by bit in small but very significant segments that focus more on the trust shared between them rather any actual signs of infatuation. This all pays off when we finally get to see what they meant to her and how much she loves Yuuhi in the finale that it finishes off the climax of the series with an incredibly moving moment between the two of them. The last ten chapters of this series can only be described as the most satisfying finale ever. Not only did we get to see everyone go all out in the last battle, every last loose end gets tied up nicely and we’re treated to an epilogue that satisfies like no other. I’d even go as far as to say that no one will want to write any “improved” fanfics of this simply because the story was just that good.

Characters: S+
The story features a huge cast of unique characters ranging from the nihilistic college student Amamiya Yuuhi to the incredibly laidback and affable Animus. Though they themselves have some eccentric qualities to them, the knights get portrayed realistically enough as normal people who just happened to get dragged into an unbelievable situation. In fact, with the exception of three especially quirky knights, everyone would be even blander than the side characters had they not become knights. We get a total of twelve knights, not all lasting till the final showdown and they all get enough attention to show how they’ve grown as people throughout this series. Hardly anybody stays the same person they were when they were first introduced into the series and their individual motivations for participating in the war get fleshed out and developed in brilliantly subtle ways. The characters grow on you as discover how “human” they’re made out to be, a recurring theme in this series. Even “growing up” was another motif explored in this series and it wouldn’t have worked out as well had any of the main characters stayed the same. The clearest evidence of this is the main character himself as goes from being a weak-ass nihilist with a deep-seated grudge against the world to an outright hero, the one that Noi was looking for as his partner.

Humor: A
Mizukami-sensei has a pretty goofy sense of humor. The jokes he throws into this series never reach ROFLMAO levels but are still pretty funny. It’s more in the range of “Huh… wait, what?” and “What the hell is he doing?”. Much of the humor is derived from the characters themselves. It could be an odd quirk, a surprising skill or even an unusual way of handling things. Most of the time, the jokes involve the expectations we have for how things should be going and more often than not add to whatever character is responsible for the chuckle you let out. The goofiness of the series, as lighthearted as it may be, never gets in the way of whatever scene is taking place regardless of how intense it’s supposed to be. They fit in there so naturally that it keeps things from getting too cheesy or overdone and occasionally strengthens the power behind the scene itself.

Action: A
I give this a B for its first half, an S overall for its second half and an honest to goodness S+ for its finale. The first half takes its time to build up the premise as well the characters while also moving the conflict well along enough that the slice of life scenes blend nicely with fight scenes, both feeling equally relevant to the story. Things start shifting into higher gears once the mage and the princess, the driving forces of the whole conflict, show up as that’s when everything that’s been established in the story by that point start to develop and really come into play. The fights start escalating as both the knights and the golems become more and more formidable with every battle demonstrating the ingenuity of their respective tactics making for some very entertaining fights. Even the character-centric scenes become more engaging as they get tied in even more with the war they’re fighting. This trend continues on even into the showdown as both sides take their fighting power to heights never seen before in the series and every bit of build up pays off in the most satisfying of ways. To use an analogy, the story is like a snowball going down a hill, it starts off small and gets bigger and bigger as it goes down and at the very end you get to see just how much snow was in there.

Final Impression
This series started out quirky, developed brilliantly and ended magnificently. Not even one single chapter ever feels wasted. At this present time, you will NOT find five manga series that you can even begin to consider as works superior to this one. For most, they’d be hard-pressed to find even one. I have absolutely zero gripes about this story and am thoroughly satisfied with its end. It is a sad thing to see that this still remains so horribly obscure and underrated as it is when it truly deserves the popularity garnered by the likes of Bleach and Naruto. The fact of the matter is that this guy never fails to deliver the scenes as emotionally powerful as he meant them to be and possibly even more than he did. This series will make you laugh, cry, cheer out loud and even feel all warm and happy inside, all when you least expect yourself to. Nothing short of a great series is capable of that. Hopefully GAINAX is smart enough to pick this up for an anime adaptation soon and that it at the very least gets picked up for an official English translation by a credible company. This story is without a shadow of a doubt, a true Masterpiece.

Manga Review: Zennou no Noa: The World of Lost Memories

Title: Zennou no Noa: The World of Memories
Author: Ono Youichiro
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Two years prior to when the story takes place, a mysterious incident occurred in Tokyo that caused over a million of its residents to suffer amnesia and lose memories of who they were before the entire event. Those who have lost their memories because of such are now living in an underground city beneath Tokyo called the Tokyo Geofront and are called KID’z due to the childlike nature of the majority of the victim. One such victim is the protagonist, Ikurumi Noa who stands out among them for having an abnormally high level of intelligence even after losing his memories. One day he finds himself involved in a chase after a suspected arrest only to find out a bombshell of a revelation about his former self – he was the one that caused the memory loss incident. Once that happens, we learn more and more about the character and how he’s not all that he appears to be even before he learnt of this vital piece of information. Being an expy of Lelouch, he goes and outsmarts the officials with over the top and unbelievably shrewd plans using his wits and gadgets to come out on top. It’s not just him, the entire setting and flow feels like it was ripped straight out of the second season of the hit series and retooled as another story. I basically see this as a cross between Code Geass and Flashforward with its main character being Lelouch without his Geass and the Blackout-like incident that started it all. Another similarity it shares with the American tv series is the fact it seems to have been cut short at a paltry three volumes despite having a formula that could easily make it a very popular series with a fanbase that would have shared many members with that of the Code Geass fanbase had it gone further. Definitely worth checking out if you liked either of those series.

Manga Review: Kyousou no Simulacra

Title: Kyousou no Simulacra
Author: Yoshimura Hideaki
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Sci-Fi
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a guy who got adopted years ago and after having bonded with his new little sister, he had broken his promise to her and left her to die in some unfortunate incident. Now, years later during his search for his adoptive older brother he comes across a girl who claims to be his dead adoptive sister and finds himself caught up in a deadly tournament between the dolls said brother created to bring back their sister. Initially, the story’s premise felt way too generic for me to get interested in and the first few chapters made me think that the mangaka was going to keep up with the usual tropes and develop the plot and characters in the most predictable of ways. However, that soon changed when the older brother stepped into the scene and the death tournaments became the side plot for an even more interesting main plot that brought in a lot more factors into the plot. The characters don’t stay stuck with their debut personalities either and develop depth surprisingly quickly too so every chapter since then doesn’t waste any time to move things forward and that’s good to see. I also like the bits of madness thrown into the fighting scenes and the characters too. Personally, I feel any manga that has an antagonist that can throw a Rocket Punch is a good one. This goes under my list of recommendations so I would suggest you go check it out. Additionally, Simulacra is an actual word and is latin for “likeness” or “similarity” which clears up a couple of things since the scanlators didn’t explain what it referred to.

Manga Review: Cloth Road

Title: Cloth Road
Author: Okama, Hideyuki Kurata
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Sci-fi, Adventure
Art: S
Originality: S
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is set in a world where fashion, of all things, has been turned into a gladiator-like sport where the fighters where these high tech clothes sewn with threads made of nanotech material. This story follows two long lost twin siblings who meet each other as the brother’s mentor falls ill and he now has to find a way get the money they need through the fashion battles. It falls upon the sister to use the clothes that the brother designs to win a match and get the money and though he is reluctant at first, he decides go through with it and save his mentor. I’ll give this a lot points for its amazing setting and the unique characters but it does take its time in moving the plot in favor of focusing on the details rather than moving the plot. I won’t say that’s a bad thing but I would have given the action an A score if it didn’t take half a year’s worth of chapters to get started on the adventure bits and the main plotline. I get that this story is meant to be very character-centric and the authors have done an excellent job with everyone here but there’s a lot of potential right there in the world the story’s set in and I’m not just talking about the fashion fights but the actual world too. However, in spite of the slow moving story, it’s still a very promising manga that’s really worth checking out.

Manga Review: Gintama

Title: Gintama
Author: Sorachi Hideaki
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Sci-fi, Comedy, Slice of Life
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: S
Action: B

Impression: Just checked what this long running Jump series was about since I’ve seen enough sigs and mentions to know that it’s considered to be quite funny. It might seem odd but I’m not really into samurai themed manga even though I do Kendo so I kept away from this one for a while but I gave in when I was running out of things to read. The story’s set in a retraux feudal future where aliens called Amanto have settled down in Edo and our main characters live in this world’s version of the Kabuki-chou red light district as freelance workers.

That’s a pretty odd mix so I decided to stick with it after reading the ridiculously messy hodgepodge of a first chapter this series had and sat through what I can only describe as seven volumes worth of shit fit into the first five volumes of the series. Thankfully there was at least three volumes of good in there too so I went onto volume six. Things started to get better around that point with the author setting up the arcs and punch lines better and dropping just enough of the non-sequiturs and low brow humor for it actually be funny. He even manages to come up some incredibly hilarious stuff about every three volumes that literally sent me into fits of laughter. I am never going to forget the toilet sandpaper bit for the rest of my life.

The story on the other hand could stand to be more linear as I can’t really see where this is all heading towards to since the author keeps throwing in these arcs that could easily be mistaken as filler on the anime. That being said, the guy actually does come up with some good scenes when things get serious and by that I mean really good. The guy has a knack for spinning what seems to be an inconsequential joke chapter into full blown arcs with fleshed out antagonists to sympathize with and plotlines that somehow manage to blend silliness, intensity, emotions and manliness perfectly into solid stories.

To get to the point, I think this series is actually quite underrated compared to the big three and that it's style and length are quite the turn-offs for new readers. Check it out if you haven't as you'll probably come to like it. If you can't stand the style then just skip to whenever the Shinsengumi step onto the scene and prepare to laugh, that'll ease you into the series.

Manga Review: Esoragoto

Title: Esoragoto
Author: Usi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Sci-Fi
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: C

Impression: This is the story of a boy who gets caught up in an inter-dimensional breach and meets this girl from another dimension who has come to fix it. She’s all thumbs when it comes to technology and ends up maiming the equipment mission control gave her so she has to depend on the guy’s camera since it’s capable of recording what takes place in the parallel dimension where the trouble is coming from. What sets this series apart is obviously the fact that it comes in fully colored pages so we get to see how vibrant the worlds and events in this series are. It reminds me quite a bit of FLCL with the setup they’ve got going except it’s a lot less screwier with this series. It’s also paced pretty damn slow for a monthly publication and I guess the full color pages may have something to do with that but it could seriously stand to pick up speed soon.

Manga Review: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

Title: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
Author: Asahinano Hitoshi
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Slice of Life, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: S+
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a robot named Alpha who runs a coffee shop in a future earth where much of the world’s landmass has become submerged due to the rising sea levels and human civilization has more or less regressed to the level of the mid 20th century’s. Despite the seemingly post apocalyptic setting that the world has become, this series focuses on the daily life of Alpha and the people around her. We see them living out their lives in this strange new world that the author presents to us and that’s all there is to it. There’s no overarching plotline, no ultimate goals, no hidden agendas or even meaning behind what happens in the story. Despite how lackluster and pointless that may make this manga sound, this series proves itself to a brilliant piece that manages to evoke the very same sentiments of its characters in the readers themselves. Whether it’s fascination, melancholy or even nostalgia, this series will, more often than not, creep up on you and play with your heartstrings in ways that very few series would even aspire to. More than anything, this series will make you feel the passage of time and the inevitability of changes around you and that's what makes this series so incredibly poignant. Know that this is coming from someone whose emotions are rarely ever swayed by anything at all and that anything capable of doing so deserves a look at. It is in my opinion the prime example of what the “Slice of Life” genre really is and how even the most bland idea can be spun into something amazing. However, if you still won’t take my word on this, I would suggest that you give this a read and see if you can stop yourself from continuing any further.

Manga Review: Metal Heart

Title: Metal Heart
Author: Yoon Jae Ho
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen, Sci-fi, Romance, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a Korean otaku who is a genius at a fighting game called metal heart and because of this he gets called in by the company who made the game in order to test out the sequel. Or so they say. The actual reason behind them calling him in would merit a spoiler tag but I’m too lazy to do so and as such I will say that for whatever reasons, the robot the company made to emulate one of the game characters ended up emulating the character in the dating sim version of the game. Now the boy, along with the company, has to go through a real life version of the game in order to reset the robot back to the default setting. It’s got an interesting set up here and while the author does play around with some tropes throughout the story, the twists range from clichéd to refreshing chapter to chapter. The general flow does work well enough to keep me interested in the story and it does show quite a bit of promise in for future chapters(whenever the scanlators get back to this) so it’s nice manga to pick up.

Manga Review: Narue no Sekai

Title: Narue no Sekai
Author: Marukawa Tomohiro
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Sci-Fi, Slice of Life, Romance, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series is about a young human boy who meets this girl who claims to be an alien who just saved his life from another shapeshifting alien in the form of a dog and this incident stirs his interest in the self-proclaimed alien. His world is then rocked to its core when her claims proves to be true but this only serves to bolster his desire to get to know the girl better and get closer to her. Now this is a particularly interesting series as it started at the turn of the last millennium and yet somehow is so full of tropes and refreshing ideas that if it weren’t for the art style, you’d think that this was a recent work cleverly taking advantage of the clichés established in the past decade. The first few setup chapters were a bit rocky but after the characters dynamics get established you’ll find that this is pretty a damn good Slice of Life series that just happened to involve aliens. Speaking of which, the characters themselves are quite entertaining to watch and their characterisation doesn’t suffer from being predictable clichés, something that I wish I could say for newer works which sadly don’t play with said clichés enough. To sum it all up, this series was ahead of its time at the period of its conception and still stands to outdo newer series that are of the same vein as this one. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the chapters for this series.

Manga Review: Void

Title: Void
Author: Nanatsuki Kyoichi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Sci-Fi, Shonen
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Humor: C
Action: B

Impression: This is story set in world where people with powers exist and the story revolves around the actions of one particular superpowered masked man who steals the ability of other superpowered humans as his own for the sake of his own survival which ends at 5 chapters. Sure, a manga about Sylar does sound pretty damn cool but sadly that’s not what’s here in this series. What it is however is an overly ambitious series that started off in a vague and unlikeable manner and ended its first arc in an even more ambiguous and unsatisfying manner. The premise gets set up over the first few chapters and then takes a different turn down Rushed & Overdone Street from as retcons gets dropped in from there. Retcons! In the first five chapters of all places! If I hadn’t read that this series was still ongoing I would still have thought that arc 1.0 was the swift end of a canceled series.

Manga Review: Makaidou

Title: Makaidou
Author: Owada Hideki
Release: Monthly
Status: Owada Hideki
Genre: Shonen, Comedy, Sci-fi
Art: C
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This comes from the author of Gundam Sousei and The Legend of Koizumi and as such I was expecting more of his over the top GAR-silliness that he’s got going but alas this publication seems to be one from before he had developed it into his signature style. Basically this is about a no good punk who one day finds a catalog that will change his life for better or worse. Prior to finding this catalog he was warned by some old coot that the book was the handiwork of the devil but he goes and ignores the warning anyway only to find out that it’s a catalog that sends him future gadgets from the past so that he can become one hell of a prime minister in the future. Yes, this does appear to a re-hash of Doraemon only a lot less charming and a lot more over the top. That being said, I do see some potential for this series but that probably won’t happen unless the mangaka got his style together during the course of this publication which doesn’t seem likely. Only the first few chapters are out in English for this series so I don’t know whether or not this will live up to the potential I see in it but I do have to say the latter half of the scanlated chapters are better than the first few so who knows.

Manga Review: Evangelion RE-TAKE

Title: Evangelion RE-TAKE
Author: Studio Kimigabuchi
Release: Doujin
Status: Finished
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Doujinshi
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: S+
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: S

Impression: This is what has come to be known as the BEST Evangelion doujinshi of all time for its amazing storyline and characterization that matches and builds on the original flavor of the original series. The mind-screw is not quite up to snuff of the original series but that is more than made up for(In spades I might add) with its masterful storytelling, captivating characterisation and spectacularly powerful scenes. In five short but incredible volumes, the story surpasses the original epic in the best ways and ends it in such a way that it provides a perfect way to explain all the different adaptations of the story, both canon and fanmade. It is a highly satisfying read that makes you wish they continued it even further but alas the perfection that is its ending is not easily topped. There is a soundtrack for it and an extra epilogue volume but the focus of that volume is different in a way, not quite as satisfying but it does add a nicely done layer to complement its prequels. In short, this is absolutely and undeniably a must read for every Evangelion fan out there.

Manga Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Title: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Author: Sadamoto Yoshiyuki
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Sci-Fi, Mecha
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the manga adaptation of the infamous Evangelion anime series which follows the original story almost to the letter. When I first tried reading it, I was turned off by the manga’s painfully slow pacing since it took the entire first volume to show just enough plot to fill up one anime episode which is a no-no for any monthly publication. It did finally pick up speed around when Asuka showed up and they did that dance thing. In comparison to the few videos I’ve seen on youtube and the End of Evangelion movies I can safely say that the characters are much more likeable in this version of the story since they don’t spend as much time pouring the angst on us. It also seems to be missing whatever scenes that made Asuka and Rei so worship-worthy to the fanbase cause I honestly can’t see very much appeal here. If I didn’t know that Asuka was a famed Tsundere I wouldn’t be able to pick up whether or not she actually had romantic feelings for Shinji. On the other hand, Rei’s relationship with Shinji was fleshed out quite brilliantly and her character development proved to be fascinating though I still don’t what’s so appealing about her. Personally I felt the real strength of the cast lies with the side characters rather than the main trio as they managed to show off just as much depth with less screen time. In summary, this story really does deserve all the praise it gets for all of its fascinating characters and developments and it seems the author is pulling a twist ending on the fans as it seems to be going for a different direction from the previous two endings GAINAX pulled on us.

Manga Review: Blust

Title: Blust
Author: Yusuke Murata
Release: Oneshot
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen, Sci-Fi
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This story features a young mercenary who has undergone some mad experiments and come out alive with curry-powered nuclear blasting hands. Yes, nuclear energy somehow comes from curry in this story. This is a oneshot by the artist behind the Eyeshield21 manga and it was done during while it was still being serialized. By the time it was published however, the manga was getting too damn repetitive even though it was on its last few chapters. I liked Eyeshield21 up till the Christmas bowl but everything after that was simply staleness being recycled over and over again. That’s why it was completely refreshing to see that they were still able to come up with a oneshot as good as this. The dynamic art style is perfect for battle scenes and based on the great mix of humor, plot and action I found in here, these guys could come up with a really good shonen battle manga in the future. I’m hoping that it’ll happen soon.