Gin-iro13

I love this manga because the writing behind the story is absolutely brilliant. There is so many pieces in play which would make you think that it is almost too much going on at once but Oda (the creator of One Piece) is able to tie all of it into his story and bring back things from years ago into the current story. While lots of chapters serve the purpose of setting up for something in the long run, there is usually at least one hype moment per chapter, and sometimes Oda goes all out with the chapters. Overall this series provides the feels because of the close bonds between the main cast of characters, there are plenty schocking reveals and unknowns which causes the whole fan base to theorize and go crazy over, and there are epic fights with the unique set of powers the characters in the one piece world have. I would definitely recommend this series if you have the time for it (or even if you don't have the time for it just try to read it still lol).

Story - 9/10
I will admit. The story was a bit slow to me at first, but once I caught on to it, I binged the HELL out of it until I had nothing left to read. An awesome plot that leaves you wanting more. I was spoiled part of it, but it still had me reeling.

Art - 10/10
Of course, the art can be Duwang-ish at sometimes, but most of the time, the art is phenomenal. Araki put all of his skill into putting this out.

Character - 10/10
This section will be longer than the others. SBR has an antagonist, but it has no true villain. All of the characters are doing the things they are for their own selfish reasons which allow me to understand why every character does the thing they are. Valentine was definitely the antagonist of SBR, but he wasn't anywhere near a villain. Though being the President of the Fucking United States, I tell you, I feel like his character was enjoyable every time he was on the page. I felt this with many other characters such as Johnny, Gyro, and Diego.

Enjoyment - 10/10.
Topkek entertainment.

Overall - 10/10
At first, I wondered why people said SBR is the best part of JoJo. After reading it, I see every way they are correct. Besides DIU, this is my favorite JoJo part. Definitely worth a year catching up to get to this masterpiece.

This manga is literally insane. araki did a very good job. I love how the drawings are done and the storyline is also really amazing. even the backstories are amazing. the story is about two people named: Johnny Joestar/Jonathan Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli/Julius Caesar Zeppeli that are traveling around America in a race called the Steel Ball Run race. if they win the race they will get 50.000.000 dollars but what they don't know is that the race is not just organized for entertainment but to obtain the world's greatest power. the president named: Funny Valentine wants it but he doesn't want to get it himself so he hires a few people in to collect the body parts of the saint, you might be asking who the saint is but I won't give an answer to that question because you have to read it hahaha. Johnny and Gyro want to collect it too after they knew what was happening.
beyond that, there are many epic battles and really hard decisions to make in the manga. this is a must-read even if you don't like reading books like me and friends of mine who have read this manga too. and now go get ur ass up and read JoJo's Bizzare Adventures: Steel Ball Run. but first, you must have watched part 1-5 and read part 6.

link steel ball run manga: https://mangadex.org/chapter/24458/1

Imagine a society where there is no gender, no race, no scarcity of resources and where beings are immortal. How would such a society function? Would such a society be a utopia? Would members of such a hypothetical society still fight with one another? What could even serve as a cause to fight? And if there is fighting, how would members of such a society reconcile with one other? How does one forgive an immortal enemy? These are just some of the heady themes that Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Jewels) has to ask of its reader.

Set on Earth, tens of thousands in the future, when mankind has gone extinct – 28 immortal jewels, all of them equal and genderless protect their small island from mysterious Lunarians who wish to abduct them for unknown reasons. One of these jewels – Phosphophyllite – a good-natured jewel – possessing no redeemable qualities, is our protagonist. The series follows this jewel’s journey as it develops from useless to useful to… well… something else completely. I won’t spoil it.

The first third of the plot can be summed as the “slice-of-life” portion of the series, the part where readers are most likely to drop the series for either being uneventful or for having wacky art. Personally, I’d recommend the anime for this portion (which I have reviewed separately) and then transition to the manga. The second third of the series is the build-up and the last third is the payoff. And what a splendid payoff it is! I won’t spoil it.

Houseki no Kuni is inspired by Buddhist concepts of suffering (dukkha), compassion (maitri) and nirvana (moksha) and is a reflection on how people who genuinely have love for one another can still end up being hurt and causing hurt. With this in mind, the series documents how society, through the suffering of Phosphophyllite, slowly enters in a downward spiral of distrust, anger and violence. And the series does this so well that it is simultaneously beautiful yet tragic, exciting yet foreboding and comic and yet deeply disturbing. While the series gets the ball rolling slowly, it is remarkably well executed. I can safely say that if this series is able to end on what it intends to deliver – the series could end up becoming as one of the finest manga that I have had the pleasure of reading my past 15 years.

So, what’s not to like?

Well, as mentioned earlier, the art is not that great. The characters are often indistinguishable from one another and some fight scenes look downright amateurish. Which is surprising because some manga panels are downright jaw-dropping gorgeous. In any case, be prepared for some sub-standard art. Also, some of the sub-plots (e.g. involving Ghost Quartz) while cohere philosophically are rather jarring (that is to say, that the subplots exist solely to make a philosophical statement rather than to take the plot forward). Finally, if you’re a reader who prefers their manga for fun and light reading or are generally put off by plots that have religious subtexts, this is not the manga for you. I, personally, come from a country where Buddhism has had a presence for over 2500 years, and where it has left and indelible presence on my country's culture, so I can readily relate to what this series has to offer. Highly recommended. 9/10.

*This review stands as of Chapter 90. I will update the review once this manga ends.

As of reading, there are 9 chapters translated afaik, so I'll write this with that in mind.

Do you like tiny, ridiculously small yuri hands? How about moeblobs? Transparent ripoffs of Haruhi Suzumiya characters? Chibi high schoolers that look like they're literally nine years old? Well, we have that here. At least I didn't have to watch them have sex, I suppose, so there's that. I hate to say it, but I really had to force myself with this one, and I pretty much only held back from dropping it because I wanted to review it fairly.

Anyway... this was mediocrity incarnated into manga form. It has cute stuff aplenty, and apparently people eat that up, but it's that empty, banal kind of cute you can find literally anywhere. The translation is poor quality, and from my mediocre knowledge of Japanese translation, it seemed like the underlying writing wasn't great to begin with. Other than that, it's an incredibly basic 'cute girls do cute things' manga, with some vague pretense of being Girls' Love. It's not tagged as such on here, so I'm guessing that goes absolutely nowhere, but other places do have it tagged as shoujo ai. Either way, it has essentially nothing going for it besides 'd'aww precious cinnamon rolls', and you can find those anywhere, so I can't rate it higher than a five for that. The engrish and the fact that one of the main characters is literally a transparent copy of Yuki Nagato from the Haruhi Suzumiya series, felt like enough to knock at least one more point off.

If you want to try to cure your depression, maybe give it a shot if you can handle Engrish and sickening moeblobs. Just watch out, because it might end up curing your insomnia instead.

Gods love to teleport or reincarnate people in to other worlds and make them heroes, we all know that. But accidentally teleporting a whole house (and the family living in it) to a fantasy world is just not cool. The kids have school and the daddy needs to work!

Story: No, the protagonist is not a hero! He is just a simple employee in a small guild office that is on the edge of shutting down... (there's a lot of bigger, well known guild offices in the city after all) He's in charge of getting the merchants to give their quest to this small guild branch which has like no adventurers that even goes there. Will the protagonist save this small guild office by getting in some quests and attract some adventurers to take those jobs!?

This "isekai" story is so damn weird and really original, but the question is if you like management stories about the adventurers guild itself rather than a hero that actually completes those quests. Again, this is not a hero story, it's simply about a 40+ year old man with three daughters and wife that lives in a house that was suddenly transported to a fantasy world. Hero summoning? Chosen one? When you have kids, you can't work at night and you can't live a dangerous life like that!

Art: The wife's hair is blond, and she's got huge tits! But it says in the book that she's a silver haired beauty. So I looked at the cover again, and yep, it's definitely blonde. How effing hard can it be to get the hair color right!? Overall the art is cute and slightly above mediocre, but to make a color mistake is like finding a dead rat in a restaurant, the taste of the food doesn't even matter, you won't be able to enjoy it.

Characters: Okay, so the protagonist is really exaggerated. He is apparently huge, mean looking and has a dark voice. Everyone is consumed by fear by looking at him. But personality wise he is actually a likable character, like a typical overprotective dad. The wife and daughters are all cute and have their moments. But the characters are nothing special and they won't be remembered for very long after moving on to another light novel series.

Overall, this story is not for those that want an adventure story. It's all about management and business talk. Sure they are in a fantasy world and there's plenty of slice-of-life elements with the kids, but that's not the main focus of the plot. I find it a bit boring, I never could enjoy fantasy / business fusion like Outbreak Company. But at least this story has a sex-crazy Husband & Wife combo to make things interesting with their litter of kids.

If you're coming here for a big story then forget it. This is simply a collection of one of Tezuka's first hits, a collection of comic strips published in newspapers. For what it is it's good. Tezuka was 17 when he drew these if I recall correctly, but he was credited at the time as around 22. It's amazing that he had an opportunity to get his work out there like this at such a young age. The jokes in the strips... Well they're really good in the case of comic strips in newspapers, I'd definitely read these over Garfield any day.

It's crazy to think about how it all started for Shuuzou Oshimi. Before works of deep psychological content like Aku no Hana, Chi no Wadachi and even his most recent manga, Okaeri Alice. Shuuzou Oshimi did some pretty .. curious manga. It serves, on the one hand, to see the evolution of his art, themes chosen to approach and characters, and if it were to put a current work and a work like Sweet Poolside side by side, it would be difficult to believe that it came from a master of psychological horror.

Speaking of an aspect that has changed a lot, his choice of themes, in manga like Sweet Poolside and another called Avant Guarde Yumeko, both have addressed many futile themes. In Yumeko's case, clearly in a tone of joke and satire, Poolside has a bit of that joke in the middle, however, it is still a proposal applied in a standard way, without satires. And what is your proposal? Well, there are two protagonists, a boy named Ota, who is in his adolescent phase but does not grow any hair on his body, resulting in becoming a joke of his colleagues giving him nicknames and wanting to touch him. The other protagonist is a girl named Gotou, who is the opposite of Ota in this aspect of ... hair; Gotou has hair on various parts of her body. Aware of this, both abhor the existence or non-existence of hair on their bodies and soon their paths cross, with this, Gotou convinces Ota to shave her body, advancing more and more in phase. A futile topic, with nothing to be properly explored, you can’t charge or expect anything from reading, very weak. Most curious not only of Sweet Poolside, but like the manga of the time, they tended to have a strange sexualization in the face of these futile themes like hair removal and it is something that made me very uncomfortable. In the final chapters it tries to build a kind of cliché drama but with a theme like this it is impossible to take itself seriously. But a positive point, although small, was the comedy of Sweet Poolside, it was a side of Oshimi that I had never seen before and I could have a good laugh.

Another aspect that has had a great change is the art, certainly the work that can be noticed the biggest change is in Aku no Hana where there is clearly an exchange of drawing strokes and use of them, but here we have the standard art of Oshimi from years ago. No gibberish, no details, no style that helps in setting the manga. A lighter art, but without the charm of today, and without its own characteristics. As it did not address psychological and heavy topics as today, I do not see art as terrible, but it is very weak even individually.

The characters are a mixture of irritants and some without grace, the protagonists do not aspire to charisma, Ota followed the pattern of Oshimi in the sexualized time of his manga, a boy discovering himself and the like, but not in a profound way as nowadays, but in a very average way and still with these themes that do not help. Gotou gets involved in a decision to share her love with the boy who shaves him and a boy he talks to during swimming lessons who seem to have some contact, but she is a very weak character. There are other characters that help in the plot, but more to ridicule Ota and rub in our face the motivation for his anger with his body, like Sakashita who constantly wants to touch Ota, Nakayama who is a complete sucker and leaves Ota naked and shows publicly his absence of hair and his parents who are not so supportive, constantly mocking his son. There is also Ninomiya, Gotou's love interest, but he has the same pattern of dialogue so he is boring.

This manga is to show how Shuuzou started with low quality but evolved into a great manga, the manga is horrible, but I was happy to read and see the evolution that my favorite mangaka had.

A lonely young woman is convinced that the world will end in 10 days, when she gets asked out by her plain-looking neighbor. Thus starts a very sweet, short romance about a young woman focused on death, and the nice guy who is trying to get to know her.

Story: Simple, short, and sweet. The woman goes out with the guy on a whim, then they have some rocky times as they get to know each other. Very little plot, but enough for the length.

Art: The art is very unique, and not necessarily in a good way. The characters are all simple, and at times a little funny looking. Still, it does fit the tone of the story, in an odd sort of way.

Character: I love the characters here. The girl starts out kind of a jerk, but has reasons for acting that way. The guy is just sweet, and the best friend character is well done. Nothing horribly original, but extremely well done.

Enjoyment: A very fast read, with not a lot of drama, and a nice happy end. Makes for a very pleasant experience.

Overall: If you like vanilla romances with a bit of a twist to them, this is a really fun manga.

I actually found the manga through reddit, where a certain scene from chapter 1 was being cycled through some of the subreddits I followed. A chivalrous knight doing chivalrous things in a train? I had to check it out.


Story:3
It started out alright, talking about chivalry and bravery using it to motivate the characters and then it sorta became forgotten in favor of some half-assed setting involving what looks like a lesser known order of knights which happens to be the bulk of the obstacles the MC faces. Despite being an ecchi shoujo-ai, the fanservice is weak and the the girls don't actually seem all that social, romantic or otherwise. I can't tell what the manga's trying to be. It's not exciting (in any context), it's not funny, and it's not slice of life. Everything feels lukewarm.
The plot doesn't bother to explain why there's a school that exists to train young girls to compete in what essentially comes down to any-Euro-weapon kendo. Mostly, it's just girls flirting (if you can call it that) with each other and making poses. 80% of interactions break down to variations of "Who's the strongest here?" "Let's see you keep up with me." "How did she do that?" and "Who is this girl?". The dialogue doesn't really move the story and at times seems to actually slow a slow story. It's really boring. I'd give it a 4 if it was the average amount of bland, but the writing is bad enough that I could probably enjoy it more by ignoring the text completely.


Art: 4
There's not much to look forward to. The action is minimal, despite the premise. Fight scenes consist of blurred weapons to simulate motion and blurred arrows or oblongs to simulate striking. Despite the characters saying things like "fast!" there's no way to visually differentiate how quickly anyone is moving. On the other hand, the armor does look nice and the character poses do certainly look like the stuff you see in medieval reenactments, though the author admits to being an active member in that community. The author doesn't seem to do much to highlight anything other than the armor so everything else seems really bland in comparison.


Character: 3
So off the bat, you're introduced to this character who's timid, calling herself a 'small animal' all the time and we later find out that the girl is probably a masochist. It's a really annoying combo. The other characters either flirt with their underlings or flaunt their supposed competitive title and/or ranking and achievement just before the generic mysterious and strong MC acts all humble and defeats them pretty much effortlessly and everyone's left wondering who she is. The only people that seem to have a clue are the elites who seem to never get enough of her. I've had buttered toast with more personality than all the characters. It's only been 5 chapters, so the characters might develop become interesting later. As it is now, they're really shallow and generic.


Enjoyment: 2
The story started off sounding like it was going to be one of those cheesy shoujo-ai princess and white knight sort of story. I was convinced that it was going to be about a girl who somehow gets her own personal knight to protect and care for her. Typical fairy tale stuff, but better than whatever the heck this mess is. That first chapter where the MC kicks ass and acts like some kinda ally of justice? A really bad indication of what the rest of the story will be like. The whole 'I'm a knight, of course I have armor, a weapon, and a helmet' thing that looks like it'll be a repeating joke? Haha, nope; not a trace since chapter 2. The circlejerking of the elite and everyone looking down on the MC? Everyone seems to actually like and/or respect the MC despite some of them telling her otherwise. The story also keeps reminding the reader that there's a lot of unseen backstory rather than make an actual effort to move the plot forward. There are so many small things that could have been great for developing a character or the story, but the story throws it away in favor of beating around a bush. It's been a consistent stream of potential good followed by letdowns.


Overall: 3
This manga is pretty much a desperate attempt to combine ecchi and shoujo-ai with a setting that showcases European weapon fights in armor. There's so sense of realism and there doesn't seem to be any supernatural or fantasy elements, which any of these would be the meat and bone of any action manga. All the same, the story couldn't possibly survive without the "action" because of how bland it is. It's like the story doesn't even know what it wants to be. The saddest part is that the bonus page at the end of each chapter is actually more entertaining than the chapter itself, barring chapter 1. It's just the author's note on how medieval combat reenactments work. Avoid this manga for now. Come back when volume 2 is finished. If the story hasn't picked up by then, forget this manga.