ZorroGuevara8

I started One Piece 33 days ago, and just now I read the latest chapter. And to be honest, I don't even remember the last time I was this entertained.

One Piece is a romantic tale of pirates, or at least, that's what it appeared to be at first. But as the story continues and you began to understand the world of One Piece, you see just how much effort has been put into creating something this diverse.

The story touches upon various sensitive themes like racism, slavery, annihilation, without romanticizing them... and the way it all continues to connect is something I find quite fascinating. Although, I could easily see how some people may find the story of One Piece a bit too coincidental...

Though, as much as I liked One Piece I do have a few concerns about the characters. Even thought the series has been ongoing for more than 2 decades, the characters keep using the same kind of pick up lines they used when they first joined the crew. It often feels like the characters have become a little stale.

You feel an emotional connection with when you are seeing their backstories and although they do have their moments and character developments.

What's missing is the subtle character growth!

Well, maybe it's the editors at Shuesha that are making Oda use the same old jokes. So I don't think it'll ever change.

But I do want the series to use more sarcasm and less repetitive comedy.

Anyways, this is just a few of my fresh thoughts now that I have caught up with One Piece. Its 4 am right now.

I am just gonna call it a day and watch some youtube

I am a very big jojo fan. However I am an even bigger Part 7 fan.

It's a well known fact that Araki at first wanted part 7 to be a part of a different series and it shows quite clearly. There is a big shift in the tone and pacing compared to part 6.

Story: 9/10
The Story stays entertaining all the way through. The horse racing at the start of the part would be serviceable enough on it's own but as the story progresses it gets much much better. "Who shot Johnny Joestar" is still the most confusing stuff I've seen in a manga in a while.

Art: 9/10
Jojo art is interesting because it isn't necessarily the best looking I've seen however Araki's ability to adjust his style to the tone of the manga is outstanding. The close ups in part 7 are probably the best in all of jojo and the stand designs definitely reach their peak in part 7 too

Character: 10/10
Part 7 has the most well written characters in all of jojos , and that's not even a hot take. Funny Valentine is my personal favourite character in the whole series and Johnny is a close second. Characters in shonen are usually clear cut as either "good guy" or "bad guy" but now that part 7 is a seinen the morals of characters are allowed to be more flexible allowing characters such as Funny Valentine and Sandman to be villains whilst not really being evil

Enjoyment: 10/10
The comedy in part 7 is godlike. The interactions between Gyro and Johnny are so funny and even Pocoloco has some great moments. The action is riveting and the story is gripping.

Overall: 10/10
I would 100% recommend reading part 7 and reading jojo parts 1-6 just so part 7 has more weight behind it. Truly a masterpiece

The key of success for many shounen anime is usually how well the anime is adapted from the manga. So when people are disappointed with the results of the anime, they usually resort to simply just reading the manga and follow the storyline through that. One Piece is a result of one of the few rare cases out there where the anime adaptation has followed the manga almost tooth and nail, with pretty much nothing lost within the translation between the two. With the anime receiving high review results here on MAL, I decided to take a closer look at the manga, and as far as shounen stories go, see if One Piece lives up to the accepted truth that the manga is better than the anime. This is not going to be your standard review. Because of the popularity of One Piece, where most fans know what it is already about, I will delve into more of the concepts, ideals and symbolism that sets apart One Piece from its counterparts.

We begin with the story. At this point in the game, I'm sure everyone who's reading this review or simply have been a fan of anime, know the general gist of what the plot is behind One Piece. If you don't, I will be the first one to say that you're probably living under a rock. Either that, or you're living at the north or south pole, isolated away from the anime civilization itself. Without straying too much off topic here, One Piece is a story about Monkey D. Luffy and his ragtag group of pirates, all trying to accomplish their respective goals, enduring hardships, heartaches, laughs, sadness, happiness and everything in between. As you read from chapter one and all the way through the latest arcs, you'll be unveiled to so many creative story developments, places, people and idea. That is what makes One Piece so fun, the creativity of it all. Eiichiro Oda (the manga-ka) has created such an amazing and unique world that it is something that you will have a hard time finding in other anime, if at all. Though the story seems simple at heart, as you read deeper into One Piece, you'll be unveiled to secret plots and hidden agendas that will have you shaking your legs in anticipation to see how everything will mesh together in the end.

The big difference in regards with the story of One Piece as compared to other shounen is the fact that the story actually gets better as the series progresses longer, breaking the age-old cliche that shounen titles usually carry, where the story will start to suffer the longer the series goes on. Oda has managed to introduce a plethora of different sub-plots that he flawlessly weaves together with the overarching aim of the story about friendship, the sense of adventure and the joys and heartaches that come with the pursuit of your dream. It takes awhile for the sub-plots to start developing, as Oda will subtlety leave hints and clues early on in his story that will blow you out of the water when you encounter them much later. This clearly shows that Oda knows exactly where he wants to go with the story.

One Piece has fallen under heavy scrutiny from all kinds of anime fans because of the different art style that Oda utilizes in his epic story. Honestly, it is a hit or miss. I have found that you will either love it or hate it and as a result, will either love One Piece or hate the anime. As unfortunate as that sounds, its the simple truth I have discovered about the art style. However, I do urge you to give it a shot because if there is anything that grows on you, it is this art style. As you read more and more and get used to seeing the art drawn "One Piece style," you'll - hopefully - grow to accept and love the style. The art style starts off not so great, but again, as the story develops, you can easily see how Oda and his assistants were able to refine the art to something that works, and looks, beautifully.

Going into other aspects of the drawings, everything is relatively easy to follow, especially the epic fights as compared to other shounen manga out there. It's a nice change of pace where you can actually understand what's going on. Backgrounds are given a nice amount of detail and character designs are original and fresh, with different arcs having characters with different clothes and such.

Arguably, the biggest strength of One Piece, that brings it over the top, is the characters and their developing relationships with one another. Luffy's crew has the most original and different mannerism characters you'll ever see in shounen anime and its a wonder how they all get along in the first place (then again, they all don't get along). Though Luffy is your typical shounen hero who is not bright, a black hole for a stomach (though in One Piece, his huge appetite has an actual reason behind it) and courageous when needed, what sets Luffy apart from other shounen heros is his hilarious personality. His comic relief is so funny that you'll be laughing out loud at some of the things he does. The same can be said about the other crew members, and really, every major character in One Piece itself. All characters have a defining trait or quality that you'll either love to pieces or hate with a passion. Watching as they interact with one another and often times their completely opposite personalities clashing with one another, it only provides great room for developing relationships between the many characters in One Piece.

And it is these great developments between characters in One Piece that leads to the biggest theme the encompasses One Piece - friendship...or as stated a seemingly infinite number of times - nakama. However, the word nakama, though commonly referred to as friend, comrade and such, has a deep-rooted meaning that cannot be described in words. More than friends, bonds running deeper than blood can tie people together, you get the picture. In order to understand the meaning, you really need to immerse yourself into One Piece and until you hear/read Luffy (who, by the way, is the only character who can say I will protect my nakama and look cool in doing so) say exactly that.

When you come right down to it, what sets apart One Piece from other long-running shounen is the plethora of genres that not only exist in One Piece, but really come alive and apparent. To begin with, an essential part of One Piece is it's comedy. While other shounen try to input comedy as much as possible, usually it doesn't live up to expectations or is very scarce within the story. One Piece is filled with comedy that, as I stated up above, will make you laugh out loud. And this is only accentuated by the great drawings of Oda himself.

However, as much as the humor is a big part of One Piece, there are also many stunning events that will draw a lot of passion out of you, whether it be a feeling of sadness, happiness, anger or simply have you staring in the page at awe, Again, I cannot stress this enough that One Piece is a story that has every single plot element you can wish for. Well, with the exception of a true romance, but because of the nature of the characters, it's kind of hard to see a budding romance evolve. And as a result, Oda wisely has left it out to date. You'll see a everything from mystery, suspense, drama, a little dash of horror, etc.

Overall, for roughly every two or three die-hard fans of One Piece, you'll probably find one person who can't stand the series. Which pretty much goes to show you that regardless of what rumors you may hear about how amazing or how ridiculous One Piece is, it is something you must experience for yourself and give it a fair chance. I will play devil's advocate and say that One Piece is slow to start off with, where the story really doesn't pick up until the Arlong Arc. Until Luffy recruits the first four or five crew members, then the hilarious character interactions start coming alive. And coincidentally, that is when the plot starts to hit its stride, with Oda starting to leave his hints of what's to come later. It does take some patience.

If anything, I urge you to read up to there and a little further so you can get a sense of what's to come. If you still can't understand why its so epic, its safe to say you may drop the series. However, when you compare One Piece to other shounen anime of its kind, and really, all anime and manga to date, there is no other story out there as epic, as emotional, as developing, as truly amazing as what Oda is telling in One Piece.

Well, the summary tells it all, this is just a short one-shot about Kaiji trying to pay his debts off without going to the ship. Since it is a one-shot, there is definitely not much at all to say about this, especially without spoiling anything.

If you were expecting any mindgames you usually would have expected from Kaiji, then no, there's nothing like that. Overall, i don't really even see the point of this one-shot. It's not terrible, but it doesn't really offer anything new or mindblowing.

If you're a Kaiji fan, then you might as well read it since it's so short, but otherwise stay away and read the actual series. This isn't even good for giving a small taste of what the real series is like.

If you don't like non-linear, disjointed storytelling without a consistent, literal narrative, don't read this. It's confusing even if you can sort of follow what's happening. The art's nice though. Second, even if you do like stories like that, it's still a weird fucking story.

I enjoyed it for its absurdity but I have very weird standards so most people probably won't like it very much. It's low score seems to support that.

You can read this before or after you've read the manga, hopefully it'll help you make sense of this story.

TL;DR at the bottom.

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The story starts off with our very normal Japanese high school boy MC accidentally ending up in Wonderland. Somehow. It's never explained, but it's not important. He comes across a man with bunny ears, named White Rabbit, and is taken to a castle to meet the Prince of Hearts. He finds out he is going to marry the Prince in the place of his first fiancee, Alice (yes, that one), who ran away. Why is a black haired, Japanese boy a suitable replacement for Alice, a white, blond haired girl as a Prince's fiancee with two e's? Well, his name is Arisu, you see. So he's good enough. It's all good. Don't question it.

Anyway, he goes along with this, and ends up trying on the dress he's supposed to get married in and making himself pretty, enjoying "his" reflection and how feminine "he" is (this is important), and then inexplicably decides to run away after all. "He" encounters the first Alice, who can travel through dimensions, and stays there as a guide for novice dimension hoppers. Like Arisu. Alice shows off some powers before they both get captured by the Prince and crew and then explains that because they're from another dimension, by coming to Wonderland *what they think becomes reality for them.* Alice has control over this. Arisu doesn't.

Alice takes Arisu back to "his" home and they stay there for a couple months before Alice decides to return to Wonderland for her dimension hopping license, as it's apparently illegal to hop dimensions without one. She takes Arisu with her in case she needs to use "him" as bait to distract the Prince and his servants. Turns out the Prince is over her. He's smitten with Arisu, who is most definitely not into him nope. Oh wait, except "he" is. And is also a woman now.

Still with me?

Ok, so at this point, the linear narrative kind of dissolves. What you need to keep in mind from this point on is that

a) Arisu and the Prince are connected because they love each other

b) Arisu hops dimensions based on how she feels

c) the chapters where the Prince and White Rabbit are living with Arisu at "his" parents' home (her mom and dad still think she's a boy) and have part time jobs is their "home" dimension. The ones where shit is totally different is when they're in another dimension or hallucinating or something.

So the "main" arc is that the Prince is in love with Arisu, and even though she's in love with him she doesn't want to admit to it or accept that she wants to be a woman.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because, at its heart, this is what the story is about. There's a lot of disjointed, alternate reality warping in this story, and a lot of it is symbolic. Some of the chapters are clearly semi-hallucinatory fantasies created by Alice to represent what she *really* wants. Some of them are fever dreams the prince has while he's sick. Some are real dimensions one or more of our main characters end up in. Usually because they're chasing Arisu. The trick to following this story is to know which is which. Follow what's happening in their home dimension and you'll be able to follow along better. Ask yourself "is what's happening figurative or literal" a lot.

This kind of progression goes on for awhile, and then the Prince proposes to her and she freaks out and ends up in another dimension where she meets a *different* prince, the Prince of Spades, who claims he knows her and is madly in love with her. She's like "whatever" and goes back home, and then later on that prince kindaps her and explains about his history with her and why he's in love with her. It's never explained why he has this history with Arisu, but I think he fell in love with a different version of her and that version is... somewhere else? Idk.

Anyway, once she's kidnapped, the Prince of Hearts (her prince) gets beat up by the Prince of Spades, and then claims he's going to take back his castle, which has been conquered in his absence (he left it behind to live with Arisu in her dimension), to try and save her. And then the manga ends. That's it. Thaaat's all there is!

:I

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TL:DR trans girl with dimension hopping/reality altering powers goes on a prolonged, multi-dimensional drug trip to try and run away from the fact that she's both a girl and in love with this Prince guy from another dimension. Then she gets kidnapped by a different prince in love with a different her and THE END

This manga is a great extension of the original Devilman and provides some definitive answers that were desperately needed. It follows an all-new cast of protagonists who must deal with the threat of a demonic invasion. The characters include a cult of satanists, an evil tree salesman who turns into a demonic tree and a shark who grows out of a woman's stomach. The tone of this manga nails it for the most part, consistently dark and brooding, while having moments of lighter human comedy.

Go Nagai's art in this manga is a massive improvement. The humans no longer resemble a wacky cartoon, but are finely drawn, delicate and this makes their transformations into demons have impact. There are segments of this manga that are simply fantastic, such as the whole sequence in Hell that may be one of the best Go Nagai sequences. This manga focuses strongly on the disturbing aspects of the demons, if you're into body horror you'll love this aspect.

There are many one-shot villains who are fairly enjoyable, though don't measure up at all to Jinmen or Sirene due to lack of development. This is one of the sourer points of the story as despite having fun designs the villains tend to get a single chapter, are quickly dispatched and those who get longer than that feel sidelined compared to the returning villains from the first manga. While it is very nice to get some development on those characters, this manga ends up feeling as though it adds little of its own in terms of characters. However, it does fix many of the plot holes and does a great job of expanding the lore.

The fights are still lacking however, if they can be called that. The best Go Nagai gets out of the fights is one character shooting an energy beam or doing a flashy attack that usually wins the fight or fails, happening about 5 times in the whole manga, to give an idea of their simplicity. Mostly conflicts are resolved by a deus ex machina or bashing the two characters together like action figures until one is the winner.

The main character, Jun, is put through the ringer of abuse of all kinds. This is handled both more tactfully and at the same time, very crudely when Jun is constantly raped, as is the second protagonist. However Jun is more developed and three-dimensional than her male predecessor, overall the characterization is a big improvement. There are some interesting characters such as the disturbing swimming rival to Jun, the family at the center of the satanist cult and a dumbass who thinks he's the real Dante. One sequence I feel best describes the middle part of the manga is a paranoid demon hunter who unknowingly becomes a demon and slowly comes to this realization while hunting down protagonist demons who are themselves hunting the evil ones. Segments such as this and Hell are more successful alluding to philosophy than the original Devilman and I'm surprised how underrated this manga is compared to that one.

Lore is a huge part of the appeal in Devilman Lady, as this manga develops practically everything introduced in Devilman. This includes explaining the afterlife and the hierarchy of both the God and Satan sides. This is a crucial chapter in the franchise to explain the overarching conflict that defines this series. This is a must read if you liked the original Devilman, to make sense of the ending and get some closure on the story, especially when it brings back so many old characters. I've read plenty of other Devilman mangas and this one is far and away the best. (Most of the others just seem terrible.)

The big problem in this manga is the ridiculous ending. Like the original Devilman, Lady has a massive series of plot twists that spoil what the plot had set up to that point. In fact, the new protagonists are completely invalidated in a way that defies description. If you think about what this manga adds to the lore, it basically changes one thing, and you wouldn't lose anything from centering the story around Devilman in Hell. Is it a cop out? Is it a subversion? Go Nagai's writing transcends these labels. One thing's for sure, it is not good.

I did enjoy Devilman Lady and the ending was not enough to completely spoil the experience. The tone and atmosphere is well executed, but the pacing is pretty scattershot. The new villains just aren't as memorable as the couple of good ones in the original. It's a shame as with development in the middle part of the manga, dedicating 2+ chapters to these one shot villains instead of always ending it in 1, these could've been elevated from seeming like filler segments. As most of the enjoyment comes its relation to Devilman, it's mandatory to have read that first.

I liked the first series Hoozuki-san Chi no Aneki it had a weird premise but great characters and the constant teasing of Gorou by Haru was funny but sweet.

This series is a sequel to that and my god what the hell happened? Seriously?

Story: 2/10
There is an imouto now. That is mostly it...
The author does try to put more depth into the story later on but his god damn fetish just keeps getting in the way of actual plot. It is kinda like she wanted to make a hentai but couldn't.
Once Volume 5 begins the author starts to completely ditch a story and it just becomes a day to day story. The author seems to forget the plot thread she left and just doesn't care anymore

Art: 6/10
To be fair the art is really good and is most definitely improved from the first series. I do find it difficult to differentiate between the sister and Mizuno at certain panels though.
However, once volume 5 begins the art style changes dramatically probably and it honestly it is very jarring.

Character: 2/10
If you loved the characters in the first series then you honestly might just hate them now.
Gorou has become much more of a pervert now to the point where you don't root for him anymore...
Haru has become so drastically different from the first series that I honestly thought it was another character. Her tease in the first series was weird but funny but in this series she is suddenly much more slutty now...
Aoi is the new character and the imouto and she is competing with Haru on how much they can jack of their brother Gorou...
Any other returning characters are just their personality from the first series dialled to 11 or turn up to 500%. Except Mizuno who is probably the character from the first series who is still as good as you remember her from the first.

Enjoyment: 4/10
There is some fun in the series but it is on the border of just being an hentai so don't read this series in a room with others...

Overall: 1/10
Just what happened...
Seriously...
What is wrong with the author...
If you read the first series Hoozuki-san Chi no Aneki then don't waste your time reading this series cause it is no where near as good as the first one. The author doesn't care anymore so you shouldn't either

This manga, like it seems a lot of manga has interesting concepts, but ultimately the implementation felt like a mess. I like the concept of a ghost coming back in time and how that could interfere with the development of a relationship, and furthermore where such a plot could lead. I also found it interesting how the characters of the past and future version were so different, and thought that that was a good set up for solid character growth. However, as it went on, none of this was materialized on. The rules and mechanics of being a ghost and everything surrounding that were arbitrary, and hence the plot felt random as well, all the way up to the ending which felt incredibly unsatisfying in that it felt rushed and also in that the memory aspect felt largely unnecessary. The character development and relationship development was random too, in that it barely happened, and things just ended up falling into place. On top of that, I'd have to say that while the premise was good, the characters placed in the roles didn't fit all that well. Also, the humor was some times okay, but largely was not even that funny. The art was also only okay. 

tl;dr: An interesting premise that loses its way really quickly. 

First things first - Izuna can help purify my chi ANY day of the week.

Now that that's out of the way...the story in Sweet Revolution was an odd one
(not to mention the title itself and what it has in any way to do with it, but that's BL for you), it felt like the second part was a completely different story than the first but with the same two main characters...in the middle it very quickly switches from a stereotypical school setting to a mysterious otherworldly realm (if you read/watch a lot of manga/anime, one simply accepts this), and after that leap they do not mix again. Still, the pacing was good and the story fun to follow, and it unfolded in a really intriguing way. Let's get to the important part though: Tatsuki is a spicy meatball, but IZUNA - oh baby! WHY NOT MORE IZUNA? For the record I feel like the author shares this sentiment, considering the Afterword is literally just an entire page about the speculation on whether Izuna is the pitcher or the catcher (you never really find out, by the way, to the disappointment of probably every single person who has read this book). The two main characters were interesting enough, Tatsuki was at least more than one-dimensional and got more complex as the story went on, while Ohta was very much a classic uke. The author is really good at building mystery and intrigue about what exactly their dysfunction is in the first part, which made for a real page-turner (also pretty sure the part when Misaki goes up to their apartment made me actually go "whoa" out loud). The mangaka is really good with using shading and subtle visual cues to create atmosphere (for example, the interior of Tatsuki's apartment is always dark or dimly lit by a single light source, which heightens the ambiguity about what freaky shit he is into up there.) The second half of the story was a bit predictable at that point but, you know, Izuna, so whatever. At the end I was satisfied overall with this book and thought it was an interesting, original, well laid out story with nice art and some verrry nice bishies!

To begin with each manga has 2 or 3 short seemingly independent stories. The characters etc are the same but each story doesn't seem to affect the following one. They are interesting and each develops fairly well but they are stand alone. This changes in volume 3 however. And whilst the plot development in this manga series is fairly scarce in volumes 1 and 2 it picks up in volume 3 and 4. The short stand alone stories are extended into one story and a main theme seems to develop. The underlying storyline about the relationship between Cross and Matsuri is only minimally built upon, enough for it to still be there in the background.

As for character development, in this area Cross does better, but it is still fairly sparse so far. The only character we seem to see develop is Cross himself, the insight into his youth was the most helpful to aid readers to understand this character, but other than that we as readers aren't given much. It's fairly clear that he feels something for Matsuri but the glimpse of this we get is quickly snatched away and one could speculate she feels for him too, but again we haven't seen much.

There are a few things which I feel let this manga down. It has taken a long while to get going and even though the storyline is now constant it still feels slightly disjointed. Hopefully the early stand alone stories will be tied into this new story line to give a wider arc, and make their presence have a point. There's also a lot of action pages, and whilst some enjoy this, I do like to have at least one bit of speech on every page.

That is not to say that this isn't a good manga. There are sections of some really nice writing, and some very pretty artwork which is always nice. The characters hold a lot of potential and this has been a very well researched manga with concepts being brought up that can be quite interesting.

All in all I would say if you don't mind the chapters not completely joining up and you like a little bit of action with occult tendencies, then this is a good read. I would say don't expect to become completely engrossed yet but I'd give it a read.

Nanashi Moriko *Not quite a Cross fan girl but did go out and buy the manga to find out what happens next*

27/05/07