Manga Review: Rave

Title: Rave
Author: Hiro Mashima
Release: Weekly
Status: Complete
Genre: Shonen, Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure, Romance
Art: C
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: Hiro Mashima’s previous long-running series had anime adaptation I truly enjoyed. I thought it pretty well-paced, had a great story and loads and loads of creativity thrown into it. And though I was disappointed that it had to be cut short at what I thought was the halfway point of the series I still thought it was an amazing series. Unfortunately, I was wrong about it being the halfway point and was thoroughly disappointed with the arcs that followed after the point where the anime stopped. Apparently the author decided to stretch things out as much as possible with subplots that really didn’t need to be there and recycle the same old set of clichés for EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN battle that I just couldn’t believe how bad the series got after that. Power levels didn’t make sense anymore, character focus was all over the place and the lacking art style didn’t help. Somehow it did all get better once the art style improved and the story shifted its focus back on the Raves and how the characters tie into the whole scheme of the universe but not after spending half of its publication on pointless subplots and characters. I would have given the story an A rating if the middle chapters were condensed and handled better but there was too much crap in between the great starting and ending arcs. Seriously, Rave would have made an overall amazing shonen series had it not been for the middle. Good thing he’s gotten better with tying plotlines together in Fairy Tail.

Manga Review: Yozakura Quartet

Title: Yozakura Quartet
Author: Suzuhito Yasuda
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This story takes place in a town surrounded by seven gigantic Sakura where humans and youkai live together in peace. This peace is upheld by a foursome who run an office purposed with taking care of youkai-related issues including rampaging youkai, rampaging half-youkai as well as babysitting kindergarteners. This office officially consists of a telepathic fox youkai, a kotodama user, the town’s 16 year old mayor and an ordinary human. Quite a solid series this one. There’s quite a nice assortment of colorful characters in this series with uniquely memorable quirks and they’re all given appropriate amounts of screen time. This does hamper with the plot’s progression a little bit since the author seems to prioritize them over the overarching plot. On the other hand, it does make for excellent story arcs but the series itself hasn’t shown us anything that looks like a halfway point for the story even after forty chapters. Now that I think about it, I honestly can’t predict what might come up in future arcs thanks since it still feels like it’s missing more key characters or plot devices that would determine the ending. As of the latest chapter I’ve read, we have the heroes, the things at stake, the key villain, the imminent and eventual threats but not anything that really ties them together or any urgency to take care of things. As good as I find this to be, I still feel it’s a little too early to expect this to end brilliantly but I’m certainly going to stick with this the rest of the way.

Manga Review: The Phantom King

Title: The Phantom King
Author: Im Dal Young, Yoon Jae Ho
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: B
Originality: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: If it were any other author I’d have to give this at least a C in terms of originality but Im Dal Young has rehashed the same old plot so, so, so many times now that I can’t understand why exactly he writes so many different stories simultaneously. It’s your run of the mill supernatural shonen manga set in a village where an incident involving shadowy monsters called evil took place years ago and centers around a bunch of survivors from then who came out of it with no memories of their past selves. Trouble has been starting up recently with the evil sealed up secretly in the huge rock formations just outside the village coming up one by one, possessing and killing people with significant levels of negative emotions. I found this to be the most lacking of all their works so far with the half-assed premise and storytelling so I wouldn’t be too keen on spending any time reading this if I were you. I really liked Aflame Inferno by these guys with the great characters and its atypical focus on them but I can’t see this turning out anywhere near as good as Aflame Inferno. Far too typical and shallow to even compare to it.

Manga Review: Mushibugyo

Title: Mushibugyo
Author: Fukuda Hiroshi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Historical
Art: A
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series features a main character happens to be a guy with a whole lot of spirit and the brute strength to back it up and he aspires to make it big as a warrior in Edo. One day, this guy from said city comes to scout him as a protector of the capital. He eagerly accepts and soon finds himself in said city but not quite for the reasons he believed. He’s there to protect the city alright but not from soldiers from another province, robbers from some band of ruffians or even fierce, ferocious, fearsome bears – he was brought as pest control. He is the latest in a long line of new recruits for the Mushibugyo monster bug elimination squad because of his talents in combat. Pretty mediocre really. The only thing I actually like about it is the art style. Everything else is substandard, especially the main character himself who’s only proved himself to be a one trick pony. Can’t see any reason to recommend this one.

Manga Review: Ookami ga Kuru!

Title: Ookami ga Kuru!
Author: Nanto Hanamaru
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing (Finished/Sequel)
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of two young men who run a branch of an organization dealing with the supernatural and the occult loving heiress who becomes their benefactor. The manga starts off with the young lady stumbling around in an old castle owned by her grandfather hoping to run into some supernatural phenomena, specifically vampires. Unfortunately for her, she runs into zombie-like ghouls instead. Fortunately though, the younger of the two slayers of the supernatural comes to her rescues and proceeds to bail her out of further trouble cause by the unexpected awakening of an unknown vampire. While this series doesn’t bring anything new to stories of this nature it does have a refreshing approach when it comes to the story. It doesn’t go full out on the secret monster extermination plot but goes about it by making work for the slayers more mundane and realistic than the usual stuff. The main goal of their activities is to protect people from the supernatural and that also happens to entail debunking hearsay and covering things up. This gives it a quite a good bit of humor to throw in there along with episodic plots that don’t always end typically which is why I find it refreshing to read. I’d even say it’s an attempt at deconstructing these kinds of stories which is always a nice thing to see, especially for those who know what to expect with this territory. No need to worry about it being short, the manga still goes on after the first two volumes only under a different name. Definitely worth checking out so I suggest you go and do just that.

On a side note, why do I keep running into German online and in the manga I read? You’d think I’d run into Japanese or Chinese more often than German but I keep running into it for some reason.

Manga Review: Bloody Cross

Title: Bloody Cross
Author: Komeyama Shiwo
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This story features several characters of supernatural origin who are aiming for the inheritances of god, artifacts filled with god’s power. The story starts off with a pair of mixed-blood angels who share a symbol branded onto their bodies that bind them to a curse that will eventually kill them and because of that both the guy and girl are seeking out one of the aforementioned artifacts to free themselves of their curse. However, the two are not trusting by nature and work together for the sake of their very lives as they are not the only ones after the item. That includes the pure blood angel that intends on using them to acquire these immensely powerful artifacts. This is a pretty good battle manga with its great art and fights but storywise, it’s a little clunky. It’s not exactly a mindless sort of story with its “who’s going to betray who first” thing but the motivations and detailing behind the actions that the characters take are mindboggling to say the least. With the exception of one character who seemed to have been upgraded to main character status(I would have preferred the girl to be the star actually) after the first few chapters, the characterization is pretty consistent here. The silliness is also a bit quirky with its timing and delivery but I think that gives it an interesting touch. Also, don’t expect much pretentiousness here. The premise and tension in the first few chapters may make it look like the usual angsty vampire manga but I’ve found it to be quite a fun read. Yup, I’ll take a slightly clunky joyride over emo sourpusses any day of the week.

Manga Review: Super Dreadnought Girl 4946

Title: Super Dreadnought Girl 4946
Author: Takeshi Azuma
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural, Romance
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: A
Action: A

Impression: This is about a hot blooded high schooler who’s not only short in the literal sense but also in his luck with women. He had yet to have a girl fall for him despite his chivalrous ways and his active attempts at finding one that would. The vertically challenged hero does eventually find one though in the form of a sweet natured young girl. However, that girl happens to be the secret giant supernatural lifeform that Japan’s government has put all their hopes on in defending themselves against similarly sized monsters bent on laying waste to their country. After an act of chivalry on the guy’s part, the girl ends the first chapter with a confession among the ruins of the guy’s destroyed school. There are a few aspects of this manga that really make it feel like the mangaka is just throwing whatever random thing he feels like into the plot but I can’t really say that takes away from the series very much. Sure it gets really overdone at several points in the story and you can’t help but cringe at how annoying some of them come off as but this series manages to pull together a fun energetic pace all the while. The characterization does feel somewhat shallow but since this series is going for the very end of the idealistic spectrum of the cynicism vs idealism scale, I’d have to say that in-depth characterization might actually take away from the experience. I hated those angsty chapters with the American spy so I’m pretty sure that the author should just stick with the fun and light hearted approach and avoid any attempt to dig out anymore unnecessary mood breakers like them.

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: SWOT

Title: SWOT
Author: Sugita Naoya
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen
Art: A
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: Another one of the latest rookie Jump series, one that’s going for the beat up all the delinquents storyline with an extremely hotheaded UFO-crazed lead whose dream is to one day work for NASA and the only way he’ll get to do that is if he’s the cream of the crop in terms of academics and gets into the University of Tokyo. The title SWOT refers to people who only seem to live to study and get good grades and that’s what this guy is supposed to be but his bad temper and astonishing strength gets him pulled into a lot of trouble with the punks in his school. I certainly like the fiery spirit this manga has but I hate how shoddy the characterization and the premise are. The guy is supposed to be super smart given his background but he somehow fails a test in a school with half of the student body being delinquents simply because he didn’t study for it. That compounded with the fact that he only transferred into said school because of an obviously misleading flyer makes his character one hell of a wallbanger itself. The other characters aren’t too bad but it can’t be good when it comes down to one supposedly brainy character holding the idiot ball for the plot to move forward. It’s rare to see a manga with this much spirit in it but it won’t go very far without the creativity to match it. I honestly can’t predict whether or not this series will make it past the 10 chapter trial period given the odd discrepancy in taste between the locals and the overseas but I doubt this series is going to deliver much unless it gives up the delinquent thing and go straight into battling aliens somewhere down the line. Now that I think about it, it would be interesting to see a Sci-Fi Shonen Battle manga series involving aliens.

Manga Review: Metallica Metallucca

Title: Metallica Metalluca
Author: Mizuno Teruaki
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Adventure
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This new Jump series is set in a wondrous new world where special metals with magical properties exist in addition to the known metals in our own reality. The main character is a kid from a mythical tribe of legend that has been said to possess this miraculous ability that allows them to mold any metal freely with their bare hands and he’s on a journey to become a great minea just like his father. Cliched plotlines and overdone character archetypes aside, this is one of those series that’s just bound to last. The demographics this manga is aiming clearly are the kids with its strange new world and mine ’em all approach and its proving to be a pretty good draw with all these interesting metals that author comes up with. There’s a lot that the mangaka can set up during its build-up chapters and use later on when the plot gets more interesting. If done right this could even rival One Piece when it comes to the creativity that gets fed into either manga though it will take quite a bit of work for it to match up all other aspects. This in my opinion is the most promising rookie series in jump out of all the new series they’ve been trying out lately. That’s not exactly a hard thing to do given how underwhelming most of them have been but unlike those, this series knows exactly where to bank its money in.

Manga Review: Lock On!

Title: Lock On!
Author: Tsuchida Kenta
Release: Weekly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: C
Action: C

Impression: This about a prodigious teenage photographer with an eye-patch who aims to achieve the highest levels of photography through snapping shots of people. One particular girl caught his eye and now all he wants to do is take pictures of the violent man-hating tsundere who has him pegged for a pervert. That’s the story from start to finish really. There were a couple of friends who got their time in the limelight but their stories were only just marginally better than the main characters themselves. That’s not a compliment towards the side characters by the way. The main characters were just horribly and annoyingly flat. Neither the story nor characters really evolve beyond their initial appearance as whatever character depth shown was shallow at best and redundant at worst. It reads like an overly extended oneshot and the author just couldn’t come up with anything new or interesting to add to the mix. Just where was this story going exactly? Who knows but I wished that they had axed it sooner. Jump must be in dire straits for new talent if they keep serializing new works that just end up getting axed within the first three volumes.

Manga Review: Lollipop Unlimited

Title: Lollipop Unlimited
Author: IMUSANJU
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: C
Action: C

Impression: This story is set in a world where being a maid has become a celebrated sport earning tons of money simply by doing a job that would otherwise pay them much, much, much, much more modestly. It revolves around this twin-tailed girl who, in spite of already being a top class maid herself, aims to be as just as perfect as her borderline-mythical idol. She even goes as far as to search for the very same uniform that her idol wore only to one day discover that her goal was much nearer than she expected it to be. All this would lead one to think this as a potentially ROFLMAO-level over the top comedy manga on the same level as the Legend of Koizumi or Seto no Hanayome with its setup that panders to those on the moe otaku side of the spectrum of manga fans. Well, anyone who would believe it to be such a manga must not have read it yet or is so obsessed with maids that they’d have to be hopelessly drawn in by that appeal. It is actually a series that tries to be hilariously silly with its premise and still play its shonen plot completely straight making it difficult to enjoy without wanting to slap something at some point. The fact that both factors get in each other’s ways and that neither were actually all that great to begin with marks this done as a case of subpar execution on the author’s part as I really think something like this could have been done so much better. In fact, if this series were a bit better my only gripe would be that there is a distinct lack of yuri in a series that tries to appeal to the male audience.

Manga Review: Yankee-kun to Megane-chan

Title: Yankee-kun to Megane-chan
Author: Yoshikawa Miki
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Slice of Life, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is about a delinquent who gets roped into helping a four-eyed idiot of girl study up for a test by repeated being harassed by said girl while he’s on the can. He eventually does give in and later finds out she’s been asking for his help so she could help someone else. This forms the basis of the relationship between the pair and leads them to both becoming more involved and respected by their schoolmates as they go on to doing the usual stuff for this kind of story. In my opinion, the manga starts off to rocky start with the repetitive slapstick comedy and obvious twists and turns in the clichéd plotlines that the author chose to go with but the story does eventually grow out of the dull routine it was going with and moved into more amusing territories – i.e. the four-eyed idiot runs for student council president and wins. Since then, the jokes and characterization have been pretty good for most part and the manga consistently stays fun and energetic. It does have its fair share of action and hot bloodedness too with all the hooligans thrown in there but I do find it somewhat lacking in terms of those heartwarming and tearjerking moments. I can understand avoiding the latter to avoid a mood whiplash but I feel that all the instances of the former have been superficial since they usually show up for the side characters instead of any of the main ones hence the lack of impact. It is a however does make a good read to pass the time so go ahead and check it out if you haven’t yet.

Manga Review: Kaitaishinsho Zero

Title: Kaitaishinsho Zero
Author: Kenmotsu Chiyo
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This series is about a boy and a girl who go around helping people out as dark doctors who destroy these demons who invade human bodies as parasites and bring about magical diseases. That reminded a lot of Hokenshitsu Shinigami so I wasn’t expecting much since that hasn’t really done interesting as of yet. However, it’s still a stronger shonen series compared to that so it could turn out nicely in the future. So far it’s been very by the book and plays a lot of tropes straight but it did get down to the main plot very quickly while fleshing out the main characters and the setting appropriately. The battles are drawn with a lot of spirit and they get taken care of quickly too so that’s a plus. Basically it’s a very typical shonen battle manga that doesn’t waste much too time floundering about by showing off how cool and nice the characters are. This is one of the new shonen series that I hope doesn’t get cancelled just yet since it hasn’t done anything that made me want to groan out loud so far.

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: Hanako to Guuwa no Tera

Title: Hanako to Guuwa no Tera
Author: Esuno Sakae
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: B
Originality: S
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a man known as the folklore detective who takes care of these urban legends known as allegories that come to life and threaten the peaceful lives of everyday ordinary people that have the misfortune to conjure them up. This series was created by the same guy who made Mirai Nikki and you can see that he has a penchant for coming up deranged characters. By that I don’t mean the main characters(though they do have their quirks) but rather the everyday “ordinary” people who are troubled by allegories. About half of said side characters will seem unsettling either because of their appearance, their behavior or both. The guy also manages to fit in some high octane nightmare fuel in here, the end of the fishmen arc in particular managed to shake me as much as Junji Ito’s Uzumaki snail people did. The ideas the guy put into this one were really interesting and the build-up had a lot of potential but the plot just went off the rails and crashed in the last few chapters. A shame really cause I really would have liked to see more of this series in spite of how interesting Mirai Nikki is.

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: Ao no Exorcist

Title: Ao no Exorcist
Author: Katou Kazue
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Supernatural
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about misfit who one day realizes that there’s more to him than he thought when the forces of the underworld knock at his door so Satan can take over his body in order for him to exist in the human world without destroying his host body just seconds after the possession works. Turns out he’s his half-human half-demon son and he’s what’s needed for him to exist in the human world long enough to take over the place. Things go down in the first chapter which leads to the boy’s adoptive father sacrificing himself so the boy can fend for himself and this causes him to join the exorcist organization his father was part of so he can kick Satan’s ass. This series starts off pretty strong and has plenty of interesting ideas going for it but I do have to say this series would have done much better if it were a weekly publication instead. By the end of the 1st year of its publication, it finished up about 30 weekly chapters worth of plot so I can’t help but feel it’s going too slowly. That could be taken as a good indicator of the great ideas used to build up the plot and the setting but it’s going to take maybe 6-8 years to get to the pay off. Basically, this is a pretty good shonen series to follow, sadly it’s weekly.

Manga Review: Aphorism

Title: Aphorism
Author: Kujo Karuna
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shonen, Fantasy, Horror
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is about a group of teenagers who enroll into this prestigious school in the middle of a city where the only real requirement is that the students are able to see this floating castle in the sky. Naturally, not everyone can see it and thus these kids find out there’s more to the bargain they’re getting. In exchange for a successful life after graduation, the kids must survive three years of getting attacked by these monsters that appear only in their school and only when the castle in the sky casts a shadow right over the school. But the kids aren’t entirely powerless against these monsters as they get the abilities based on a Kanji they write upon being inducted into this whole system. This has a lot potential and based on the first volume alone, the author is really good at executing the plot. The events are paced perfectly and you get caught up in the urgency and tension that the kids go through as they learn more and more about the strange phenomenon they are put through. If the future chapters prove to be as good as the first few then I’m changing the story and action scores to S’s. Really looking forward to the upcoming ones. Hurry up Shinnen!

Manga Review: Seven Ocean

Title: Seven Ocean
Author: Minazaki Suu
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen, Adventure
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is a short but sweet series about a guy who finds himself in debt after having been conned into giving money to some girl who had claimed to have needed the money for her dying father’s surgery. This leads to him becoming the captain of the ship of a different girl who lent him the money to pay his debts and now he has to help her hunt down these monster sea creatures in the seas. It’s one of those Shonen series that really knew what it was doing but was shot down in the prime of its life for some reason. From what I hear, the author was incapacitated - whatever that means. It’s got high a dosage of low-brow and slapstick silliness that normally doesn’t do much for me but it manages offset the downsides with a pretty interesting premise, awesome action scenes and some pretty solid characters. But like I said, the only real downside is the abrupt ending. Fortunately it ended in such a way that a sequel not too unlikely.