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Vagabond is perhaps the very epitome of a great manga. It has everything: action, suspense, excitment, drama and even a little romance - everything that is packed into Eiji Yoshikawa's amazing original story.

That's not to say it is to everyone's tastes. While I personally love Takehiko Inoue's drawings, the imagery at times is very graphic, bordering on grotesque at times. Limbs, guts, heads fly off in the heat of battle, the drawings are literally so good it's sickening. If blood is not really your thing, you might be better leaving this on the shelf.

For those who don't mind a bit of blood however, read on, because while Vagabond at first glance just seems to be yet another manga based on the era of the samurai, this manga has a great deal of depth that literally sucks the reader in.

For example, in countless manga involving fights (and in particular, American comic books as well) the reader is presented with a rather generic range of characters - the good guys... and the bad guys. This isn't the case with the characters that appear in Vagabond however. The characteristics of people inhabiting the world of Vagabond, their emotions, desires, despairs, fears etc. are all painstakingly realised that Vagabond on a whole seems to be a lavishly painted picture. All characters have their reasons for what they do, they all have both good and bad elements to their character which only further adds to the realism that the drawings provide.

In your stock-standard fighting story the death of the "bad guys" is inevitable, and one does not stop to ponder this into too much detail. However, in Vagabond when Musashi cuts someone down both Musashi and the reader are left to think and question the "correctness" of his actions. You really feel for the deaths of those that fall. As Takuan, the monk appearing in the story, says, all people killed by Musashi were just that, people. They are people with families, wives, children, pets, they are people who had hopes and dreams, or people who just somehow lived day to day.

However the real reason Vagabond is a favourite manga of mine is because of the main story thread, the growth of Musashi himself from a reckless 17 year old youth who plunges directly into the battle of Sekigahara seeking unparalled strength, to a well rounded young adult who learns how to pick his battles.

The contrast between Matahachi and Musashi is beautifully done. Matahachi and Musashi, two friends, start the manga off on the same footing and set off to be one thing -"Tenka Musou" 天下無双 ('the best in the land'). However Matahachi and Musashi soon walk down separate paths to acheive this goal. Matahachi chooses to pursue frivolous momentary pleasures, while Musashi instead chooses to devote himself to bettering himself.

Both make mistakes and suffer setbacks along the way, and both have their own ways of dealing with this - Matahachi digs himself into further into trouble while Musashi rises above the setbacks he faces and strengthens himself to unbelivable proportions.

After surviving numerous duels to the bitter end and overcoming many internal conflicts (the decision to leave his one true love, Otsu to pursue the life of the sword), only one swordsman still stands in Musashi's way...

Sasaki Kojiro - a deaf and dumb swordsman who literally lives for the sword...

While the story does drag at times (the Yoshioka arc), on a whole Vagabond is packed full of both emotion and gut-wrenching sword battles. It's relatively short on dialogue, but the images Inoue presents speak volumes. A picture is really worth a thousand words and this manga is a manga that attests to this. If only other manga could be this deep as well. Every single volume of the manga really leaves the reader pondering about what they've read for a long time after the manga has been put down.

Put simply, there is not a manga that I could recommend more.

The Horizon is a short, albeit powerful manhwa written by Jeong Ji-Hoon. It is a story that does not stray from bleak and devastating themes but rather embraces them, which functions to propel the story even more. These themes include: war, life and death, and thankfully, love, hope and moving forward.

STORY - 8/10:
The story is nothing innovative as it only takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, which has been done numerous times in the past. However, what differentiates The Horizon from many others is the way the story carries itself. It doesn't just tell you what is happening, but rather beautifully guides its readers into its storytelling and atmosphere. It is a concise, yet strong story that serves to deliver its themes, thus permitting us readers to invoke our own interpretations and to hopefully integrate these messages into our lives.

ART - 10/10:
The art in The Horizon is simple, yet complex. There are beautiful, minimalistic (and sometimes complex) panels that bring me to awe, but may quickly shift into dark, immersive, and heavy panels in only a few pages. The art is not of extraordinary like in many of Inoue's works (i.e., Vagabond.), yet Jeong Ji-Hoon utilizes art in a compelling manner that best suits a grim story such as The Horizon. The art accurately reflects the messages the author wishes to spill to us.

CHARACTER - 8.5/10:
There are a few notable characters in The Horizon, however, many other characters (i.e., The Strange Man, and the Man in the Suit) were not as fleshed out as the main characters: the Boy and the Girl, respectively. These characters nevertheless still present their purpose in the grand picture of The Horizon. These characters are realistic. These characters live in a post-apocalyptic war setting which only propels them to bear the thoughts and perspectives they already do. They are not perfect but that's what makes them realistic.

ENJOYMENT - 10/10:
To be completely honest, The Horizon is an amazing read and I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the small world and story Jeong Ji-Hoon's progressively unfolds. I couldn't stop reading through the chapters (if I wasn't already on the brink of my emotions) and cannot recommend it enough for others.

OVERALL - 9-9.5/10:
The Horizon is a powerful manhwa that portrays its themes and messages exceptionally. It is a breathtaking experience that I recommend you to dive into at least once (it's rather short). Although many may not find fond of such a desolate and dark story, there is still "meaning" within the "meaningless." But you'll have to read to find out why.

Shishou Series is a horror Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shuu Katayama and Uni, which also has a great novel, as well as an anime adaptation that turned into an audio drama due to the lack of financing. Anyways, the story revolves around a freshman, who experiences a number of spiritual encounters, because of the club that he joins. In this club, the freshman Boku meets many strange people: one can predict future, the other is a detective, then a girl that is into Satanism and finally the weirdest one, the Shishou.

I know what you are thinking; get out of here, horror is a joke. There is hardly an anime that can be called scary; it is better with manga. However, none of them are scary, more like, some of them make you feel uncomfortable, when reading them. This is what Shishou Series is, it is not that it will make you scared, it just makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, especially when you read it somewhere at night. Right, almost forgot, according to the author of this manga, most of the events in the manga are based on the true events experienced by him.

I will not lie, but some of the stories are just lame. However, there are still plenty of the stories that are truly frightening and very entertaining to read. You might see a nightmare, or two, if you read that manga at night. There is also a quite unusual group of club members that make this manga even more fun to read. Indeed, the novel still does a much better job that the manga, but you should still check the manga, it is quite an experience.

Interesting military manga, going deep into logistics of war through a curtain of comedy. Characters are well defined, although until this point it has not gone to the past of most characters (surprisingly, the most detailed background descriptions are those of the antagonists or secondary characters).

Half gag manga and half pure military story, it's a nice read if you liked the more "strategic" or "negotiation" side of Youjo Senki or Pumpkin Scissors.

A particular thing about this manga is that the author designs one military vehicle in each chapter, dedicating a full page to explaining it's capacities, pros and contras. The author is definitely a war otaku.

08:05 no Hengao-san is A one-shot Manga that involves a boy and a girl that pass each other on the way to school for the past six years. The female being Aki.

Story 5/10:
It feels like when it finally gets to something interesting is where the one shot finished. If it was more DETAILED with a few more pages adding more emphasis to everything it would have been more of an interesting read.

Art 6/10 :
The art style is quite rough but quite charming. And therefore it's helps MAKE it enjoyable to read.

Character 8/10:
Even though it's a one shot, if it CONTINUED I think the main character Aki would be quite interesting if they had done a longer series on the matter.

Enjoyment 6/10: I think that unfortunately as it's quite short it feels like they skipped over some things that could have made it way more enjoyable. But for a one/shot it isn't that bad a concept.

Overall 5/10:
There are much BETTER one shots out there that weren't so rushed, but the concept was pretty adorable, and I really wish I could read more.

This manga was the greatest disappointment in recent memory. The hype and push it got pre-release was more then possibly any manga ever, only for it to drop with not even a whimper.

Story: 4/10

You may be confused to see two common complaints about the setting. It has too much exposition, and that it doesn't have enough exposition and is confusing. The reason both of these complaints can coexist is simple, the setting was explained horribly. When we needed exposition we got none, leaving the reader not knowing what was happening, and when we got exposition it was given in the most convoluted and uninteresting way.

The concept the series has of sci if and fantasy mixed had great potential, but it was totally squandered. It also really kills suspense when the power levels start at planet buster and the characters can regenerate perfectly from every attack.

Art: 3/10

The art of this series is probably the worst in recent memory. Though many manga come out with objectively weak art like One Punch Man (Web) and sometimes Hunter x Hunter, they always manage to be able to make sense and not be annoying to look at.

Samurai 8 does not, the manga lacks line density and shading meaning everything looks white, like its a marshmallow world. There is no grit or depth to anything. The first few chapters have partical effects everywhere which just makes the page overloaded and is actually annoying to look at. The backgrounds are very detailed, but it just makes the pages feel full and overwhelming. The artist seems to have caught this problem, and started doing better after the initial first volume of chapters. But it's still not solved entirely and I have to wonder how the artist, writer, editor, or board of editors at jump didn't notice such a glaring issue. The character designs are very simple and flat. I'd be surprised if this artist could draw realistic humans, his proportions of characters seems off and overly skinny and moe blob like.

At the same time Kishimoto does the paneling and story, and carries over all the issues Naruto's paneling had in its final years. Very static panels, not a lot of big ones, showing characters at more of a distance, and not showing scenes it assumes the audience can predict. It feels like it's missing a page sometimes. These techniques exacerbates the flaws the art has.

This isn't a mecha series, but there is something similar to that in the animal guardians who become suits to characters. Their designs are amazingly weak, over complicated, and unmemorable. (And also totally white)

Character: 5/10

This manga basically solidifies the most stereotypical shounen character tropes into the setting. There is the main character, his master, a supporting female he protects, and later a villian he wants revenge on. The only thing it's missing is a classic rival character, something like that has been introduced, but it's so boring and has little development I'll give the manga benefit of the doubt it's a side character and not their serious attempt at a rival.

This simplicity would be fine for a classic style shounen battle manga, the problem is these characters are incredibly boring and weak in comparison to how these roles are filled by countless other shounen before it. Including many running in the same magazine simultaneously.

Without spoilers, a major death happens early in this series, but compared to how that same style of plot point played out in countless other shounen series including Naruto (multiple times), the emotion and impact just isn't there.

The comedy in this series is truly god awful. Lots of people complain about the comedy in later parts of Naruto, I personally had no problem with it. But somehow this is far worse, and really really forced. Kishimoto's classic sad back stories are back, but he tries to rush through them in less then a chapter. Compared to the more famous tragic back stories in early Naruto, or even in other shounen, the ones here are weak.

Enjoyment: 3/10

This manga is the definition of wasted opportunity. The artist clearly puts a huge amount of effort into all the detail, and the writer a lot of effort into the world and setting. But it's managed so poorly it just hurts the series.

In years to come people will forget how hyped this manga was, but it was truly something. It's pre-release trailer got a million views, people had been speculating about Kishimoto's next work ever since he said he had a great sci fi idea. The series launched with multiple color pages in a row, and huge ads on newspapers and in stations in Japan, and thousands of ad slips in other manga volumes.

It's low reception was so baffling to people it brought back the old speculation late naruto haters had that the real reason naruto was a success was because of Kishimoto's first editor.

Overall 3/10 , wouldn't be surprised if it's axed or moved to some lesser magazine to quickly finish its run and sad existence. Would NOT recommend.

UPDATE: Samurai 8 has been cancelled. Because the ending is rushed I have lowered the score to 2/10. I hope Okubo and Kishimoto can come back from this, either working together or separate. If not, I wish them the best in their future.

This manga for lack of a better way to explain it is by someone who doesn't seem to have even a basic grasp on story telling. The manga basically has one kind of good aspect, which is in showing the relationship between Moolchi and Kangee, which was cute at points. However, that doesn't matter much, because the rest of the manga is complete garbage. The plot is completely arbitrary going in random directions without setting any sort of cohesive narrative. The characters, beyond Kangee, are arbitrary, inconsistent, and impossible to care about in the slightest. The action is also weak. The art has a good sense of style, but it doesn't really do much with it, and it's also kind of rough, so overall it doesn't look that great. 

tl;dr: Bad enough that beyond that there isn't much else to say.

This manga has a premise that I think could work quite well. At a high level it's pretty much Tora Dora, but with very different characters in the roles. However, it doesn't do all that well on capitalizing on that at all. The biggest issue is that it doesn't develop relationships all that well. Suou and Hime have a good premise to develop a relationship. However, most of the relationship development between them feels superficial and one sided on Hime's end. The relationship between Suou and Kizaki is developed even less. Rather, we get very little development of her at all beyond some hints to her family, past, and such. Hence, while it is reasonable for Suou to be in love with her from the beginning, that still does nothing to develop any investment in said relationship with the reader. Hence, as the manga wrapped up, there wasn't really any ending that I think would really work in being satisfying, and as expected the ending is a major disappointment. On top of that, the side characters were really unlikable, the comedy beyond a couple good moments was pretty off, and the art was just okay. 

tl; dr: A manga with a somewhat interesting love triangle that doesn't properly develop any of its sides. 

https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=48483

Genre
Action Drama Ecchi Fantasy Historical Mature Romance Shounen supernatural tragedy

it has rape/attempted rape,blood and gore so not for faint of heart.

story- our mc is a normal child living in a ancient city who somehow gets associated with a strange girl and a interesting story about love and war follows.

art- average art

characters - our guy mc is just normal not dense not perverted, female mc is shameful,daring and mentally very strong.

enjoyment- well i still cant decide if i enjoyed it or not...the attempted rape scene really broke my heart and the ending made me cry buckets.

8/10

UFO Robo Grendizer... why the hell did I read this again? Oh yeah, I made the educated decision to read every main-line Dynamic Productions mecha manga that I could get my hands on... why did I do that?

Anyways; UFO Robo Grendizer is the third manga in the Mazinger series. It is by far the most entertaining, and largely because the villains are called Vegans... you can see the potential for funny out-of-context panels that creates.

Grendizer doesn't do anything out of the norm for a Dynamic Productions mecha manga. You got a central robot with some kind of toy gimmick, a generic evil force with some kind of world-dominating plot, robots punching each other with children strapped to their fists- wait hold on, what? Jokes aside, of COURSE there's loads of unexpected violence and gore in a series clearly aimed at selling plastic toys to small children; it's a franchise with Go Nagai's name on it, why wouldn't there be?

As far as the plot goes, there's something about an alien duke or prince from another planet arriving on Earth to alarm and assist the humans in fighting the dreaded Vegans, then some unexpectedly dark stuff happens in a plot involving robots turning into frisbees, and Mazinger and Great Mazinger show up a few chapters in to get their crap punched in by Grendizer. It's absolutely nothing to write home about, but it is pretty amusing at times.

At a brisk 5 chapters in length, Grendizer thankfully doesn't overstay its welcome. If you're looking for some 1970s manga cheese, Grendizer delivers.

All in all I'll give UFO Robo Grendizer a rather generous 5/10. It is far from an essential reading but it is super funny seeing where Getter Robo got the design idea for the giant UFO mechs that appear in its later series.