RoodyChan2

I've just finished reading Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria, and I'm still in shock, this is most likely the greatest thing that I've ever read. There's hardly anything mainstream about this light novel; it's full of settings and situations that I've never encountered before in any other manga or novel.

Story

The story is truly captivating, there were so many times when I just burst out laughing because of the author's twists and totally absurd ideas that I wouldn't have imagined happening. It's the uniqueness of the story that really made me fall for it. I absolutely was not expecting such a well planned and beautifully executed storyline. Once you get into it, you will think, 'wow, this author is a genius'; and it's no wonder HakoMari is such a highly rated novel. You will cry (if you have a soul), and your jaw will drop. As the synopsis for HakoMari suggests, the story has to do with time repeating itself. What if you were stuck in a loop, and the same day just kept repeating itself thousands of times, and you and one other person are the only ones to keep their memory after each reset? There would be an immense bond shared between those two people. What if you had to endure 400,000 repeating days alone and in absolute solitude, and had gone mad after the first couple of centuries? Oops, I've said too much. This novel isn't a plain love story as one might think, it's got plenty of blood and guts as well.

Art

I won't comment too much on the art, because there wasn't much of it. The art that we did receive was great, though. It gave me a basis for my mental images of Maria, Kazuki, Daiya, and the others. Maria is drawn as beautifully as she is described.

Characters

The characters were fleshed out so well that I'm sincerely going to miss them in my everyday life. Speaking of everyday life, this is our main character, Kazuki Hoshino's obsession. We're shown that this man will do anything to protect his everyday life. It's a bit silly, why would someone go so far to protect their everyday life? What even is this, "everyday life"? Well, it's probably not what you're thinking it is. We eventually find out that there's much more to it than that. We find out that it's definitely not an exaggeration to say that Kazuki will do anything to protect the person most dear to him. I still get chills when recalling what he endured to be with the one he loves.

The other main character, Maria, is so perfectly fleshed out that I don't need any drawings to picture her appearance, thought process, and personality. I probably fell in love with this character who only exists in written words. When she was in tears, I was in tears, when she was happy, I was smiling.

Every single character got a lot of attention, one could even grow attached to the side-characters. There were no useless
characters. No one was there simply to fill up space, and every character had a purpose and personality.

Enjoyment

Needless to say, I was extremely sad when I finished HakoMari. That's not to say that the ending wasn't satisfying, though. I just didn't want something so interesting to end. I'm not sure how the author was able to have such a "random" story, but have everything make such perfect sense at the same time. I've never read anything like it, and I won't forget about this light novel for some time.

someday one boy just want to the find peace place but the world give so many obstacle.

First thing i saw this manhwa from 2020 Challenge and then some reviewers take this 10 out of 10. I'm confused this cover what story is about. after i just read it 3 chapter, i wanna read it and go though what story teach us.

story and character give me think about how best anime will be. All charater make sense and story is stand alone from drama manhwa.

art so cool so amazing. it have less picture but it give more detail and emotion as well.

all of rate i will give 10 except art is 9 caz it have lack of line resolution and no color. (i plan to give 8 but this's look like get along the story tone)


overall 10 / 10

This is one of the few mangas that I can describe as perfect. It's realistic with little touch of very hard SF. There are no idiotic ideas about astronaut recruitment. There is hard work, brutality of life, death, and yet it's still light and funny.

This manga is must read for everyone for everyone who likes topics of space and space exploration.

I'll keep this review as brief as possible. Most likely, you're reading this because it's from the same author as Inuyashiki and Gantz, you should know what you're getting into. (Violence, Sex Scenes, etc.)

The premise itself is interesting, there's an online website on which you can vote on to have a real-life disaster happen and the secondary protagonist can turn into a giant.

The main issue with this manga is the characters. I just hate Rei, I feel like the author tried to create a relatable protagonist but I just hate him, he just feels 1-dimensional. None of the other characters act like how they would in real life either, they act how the author wants them to. He portrays everyone who you cant see as just pure evil (the twitter users and voters.)

Personally, I wanted to enjoy this manga but I just can't, I've been stuck on the same chapter for months, I would read like half a page and just stop.

STORY: 6/10
Let's make this clear, this is pretty much an ero-manga, borderline hentai manga with tons and tons of sex scenes. So those looking for a good old vanilla story to read and experience, you're barking up the wrong tree. The manga is basically told in an episodic format and I believe some panels were carried over or touched upon by the characters. Though, that isn't anything special either. In a nutshell; female lead (our protagonist/narrator) begins her college life and is forced to find a suitable groom to bring back home to her family. The bulk of the manga is showing the readers her endeavors to fulfill her goal. The story is set in a mature university/college setting with the majority of the panels occurring at school or at the character's homes. The sheer amount of sex scenes pretty much overwhelm whatever is left of the story so... take it as you will.


ART: 6.25/10
I found the artwork pretty decent considering it was published in 2006. Though a minor complaint is that despite taken place in a post high school/mature environment, the art didn't really match. Sure they were college kids, but they looked like high schoolers to me. They were drawn a bit on the childish side; i.e, tiger fangs(?), round and chubby faces, silly body proportions and etc. As for color pages, I don't recall any specifically that stood out, if they were any at all.


CHARACTER: 5.5/10
The black hole of this manga for sure. Outside of being mindless, lustful and sex-hungry creatures, the characters were pretty much flat as an airplane strip. Of course given the nature of the manga itself, I don't know what I was expecting though. I still did enjoy their antics and the ridiculous situations they got themselves into but none of these characters were memorable. The female lead has some spunk in her but that isn't really a compliment of her "character".


ENJOYMENT/OVERALL 6.75/10
Despite the stupidity and the sheer ridiculousness of some chapters, I did enjoy reading it. Now this enjoyment, I'm not sure what it really stems from. Was it because of the ero aspect? Was it due to the the fact that it was stupid to the point of being remotely funny? I can't quite put a finger on it for now but I know for sure that this manga is not something I'd bother reading again. Overall, nothing spectacular as it's simply something to "read" and move along.

Reading this manga is a bit weird, I thought this was legitimately a yuri/sport manga because it dealt with the subject of the MC having issues of having huge breast but meh, it's just another trash ecchi manga that tried to sell you on the idea of having on a real story. the main focus of this story is the character's breast and how she is shy around having big breast. Does anything interesting happen? nope. is there character progression? nope. Is there a central focus on bowling? nope. it's just porn and honestly, the mangaka is better off making some doujin otherwise there is no reason to read this manga if you're not stroking it really hard.

I remember seeing Lost+Brain a few years ago and bookmarking it because the plot summary was interesting. After reading it years later, the only thing I felt about it is that it had a lot of unfulfilled potential.

The main thing about this manga is the comparison to Death Note and they are plentiful to see like the art style, main characters being geniuses, some of the plot elements and motivations for why the main character does what he does, but it's done in a way less interesting way, by an inferior cast of characters. The characters were just bland with no charisma. The two sidekicks to Ren have almost no characterization to them except that one is smart (he almost never shows it) and the other was helped by Ren's hypnosis and becomes obsessed with him (Like Misa from Death Note). Ren on the other hand is just a genius that wants to control the world with his motivation being introduced half way though the manga. Our other main character Itsuki is less of a bland character but it's not by a lot. He tries to stop Ren, but is always one step behind and for most of the manga it feels like he is following him from behind, rather than stopping his plots. His niece Yuki is not anything to write home about either. The other characters are basically useless and do nothing.

The story at it's base is interesting with hypnosis and what power it has to control an individual, and a lot of techniques are explored which helps the reader understand hypnosis better. Also I have my personal feeling that there is a subplot with how television can brainwash into believing everything they say without questioning it, as it is the way Ren uses it to achieve his goals, but I may be reaching here. The main problem I have with the story is again with the characters, as without any interesting characters the story gets dragged down and I can't begin to care if either Ren or Itsuki succeeds in their goals.
The art is decent, but it not anything special. It does it's job, it's clean there isn't anything more to say about.
In the end the manga isn't a disaster and because of it's short length you can read it in a day. If you are a Death Note fan and want to read something that has a similar plot and similiar MC (or straight up rip-offs) you may find something good in it, but it won't be something that you will remember.

This is my first review, so if you have constructive criticism I would love to hear it.

I haven't seen any very in-depth review of this manga, so I might as well try. Also, I feel this needs to be said because I don't see it anywhere, but trigger warning for rape mentions, an implied rape scene and implied incest in this manga. There's a few minor spoilers, but they're very very minor. There's an spoiler-free final veredict which sums up everything I said though.

Story: 4

The story is Dolls Code's absolutely weakest point. Let's go over it for a bit: the story is about a group of highschool students who have committed crimes and are now captured inside an evil school where they have to solve a variety of "Saw"-like challenges; the one who collects the most points during these challenges will be the only one allowed to leave and the rest will be left to die, basically. They also need to identify the fake "puppet" student to make sure he isn't the one win.
It has a very interesting premise that's enough to lure anyone into at the very least checking it out, and the writing does a very good job in immersing the reader into the story and keeping you curious, but the serious flaws cannot be ignored. Firstly, the premise itself has no justification at all in the world of this manga, the intent behind the main villain shaping the school in this "Saw" dynamic is never explained, and in fact, the more the story progresses the more you begin to realize it doesn't make sense for him to proceed this way to achieve his objective! At the same time, it is not explained why the villain had any knowledge about these kids and their crimes without having connections to the police, and the list goes of inconsistencies on. Secondly, although I completely get that this is just a two-shot, I must say the pacing feels incredibly rushed. The manga goes from plot-event to plot-event, without leaving any time for the reader to breathe. At first, this is enjoyable as it allows to read the manga faster, but after a while it gets a bit annoying. Due to this fast pacing and the already plot-centric rather than character-centric focus this story has, every friendship bond formed between the characters feel forced.

Characters: 5

The characters are, for the most part, likeable. They all have their own set of traits distinguish them from the rest of the cast, which is a very positive point. However, they remain at this: just a handful of certain traits, mashed together in a mediocre attempt of giving them personalities. Everyone in this manga is just an archetype. We have the typical good-guy anime protagonist, the mischievous twins, the smart hacker, the shy shota and the happy-go-lucky bishie who flirts with everyone giving some homoerotic subtext. The only character that I found unique was the no-organs dude with trust issues. Each character is given a backstory that explains why they did what they did, and these actually do work and make the viewer feel sympathetic for them. But character development doesn't exist in this manga, even if it wants to make you believe it does. Allow me to explain: during the course of this 10 chapter manga, the attitudes and behaviors of the characters do indeed change... but its sudden and mainly "off-camera" (meaning that they act a certain way in a chapter, and the next one they're suddenly a different person). Despite being static, none of the characters are annoying and they're enough to carry the plot. I WILL say that I find it incredibly disturbing to add a rapist character to the mix, and try to make the viewer sympathetic of him as well, like, geez... I get everyone is a criminal but in the end they had a, if not justifiable, at the very least understandable reason for their crime, (even the guy who committed a murder did it in self defense after being threatened), except for the rapist guy (which is good, as rape is so far the only crime I know which I find t be never justifiable). The fact that he is shown as "redeemed" in the end without ever explictly regretting what he did is pretty messed up.

Art: 6

I will admit that the art is good in this manga. The character designs are indeed generic, but given that the other aspects of this manga is pretty mediocre, they do stand out. Since that this was serialized with the shoujo demographic in mind, all the characters have a pretty face. And in fact, they don't suffer from same-face syndrome, something very common in anime aimed towards a female audience, which is a point to its favor. The art can also appropiately create a darker and creepier mood when it is required. The background design is nothing special, but since this manga occurs with the interior of an school as the only setting it is understandable.

Enjoyment: 6

Given that this manga has a very simple story that you don't really need to wrap your head around, and that the characters are indeed likeable like I mentioned, the negative aspects of this manga didn't really bother me as I was reading it, and I only noticed them when I thought about afterwards from a more analytical point of view. It is enjoyable as long as one has the mentality of this being just a "reading it to kill time" type of manga.

Final veredict (spoiler free):

For a two-shot, it really feels like this manga was severely biting more than it could chew. The premise itself might be interesting, but the character development is non-existent, the story lacks depth, and the pacing feels completely rushed. However, it features decent art and you will find the character backstories sentimental enough to walk out having developed a bond with at the very least one of them. I am confident that this manga would have worked way better if its focus was not in the plot, which is weak from the very beginning as it is never explained to the audience, but in the characters, who had way more potential to be fully fleshed. Although not 'good' per se, this is a pretty harmless read as long as you approach it without above average expectations.

China Girl is a little story about a guy (Kamijou) who suddenly falls for the foreign waitress of a local restaurant (Xianglan), and his quest to overcome the barrier of language and culture in the name of love.

I really liked this manga. It's nothing you won't have already seen somewhere else, mind you, but it's short enough for the story to not get stale or boring. If you're reading this to check if you should read it or not, I'll save you some time and tell you to do it. It's only 9 chapters, so it won't take you much longer than an hour to finish it.

Now, if you want more details, here are some quick thoughts about it:

- Kamijou is your typical romance protagonist, but he's likeable enough for us to root for him.
- Xianglan is endearing, and for how little the manga lasts, she shows a lot of character. You can see why Kamijou falls for her.
- While Kamijou's vision about love seems childish and dumb at first, I loved how the later chapters show he is truly dedicated to that ideal. He knows it's dumb, and that it'll only cause him pain if things don't go as he wished they would; but he won't pretend he has feelings for other people that he jut doesn't have. Especially if he knows it'll hurt them too in the long run. He shows some unexpected maturity that elevates his character just in time for the finale.


TL;DR: This manga is short, but sweet. It's only 9 chapters, so just give it a read.

I started by reading the Anime, and oh my, that ending. When I read the manga I was much more content of how that ended. This manga is missing some key parts that could of made it really good, such as the random characters that didn't really have to do anything with the story line. The art was also not up to par with some other manga, but overall I really enjoyed this over the anime.