RoadZero9

(NO SPOILERS BELOW)

Introduction
Kamisama Kazoku is a fantasy novel. From the title you can already get a glimpse of what the story is gonna be about: "God Family." The main protagonist, Kamiyama Samatorou is a son of god. His Father, Osamu (commonly called as 'Papa') is of course, a god; Mother Venus(Mama) is a goddess, older sister Misa and younger sister Meme are both goddess candidates. And plus, Tenko whose mission is to protect (more like, uh, stay together) Samatarou until he grows into a real god. And these 6 people are living in an ordinary house in Setagaya, Japan, just like a typical family would live.


Kamisama Kazoku (shortly KK from now on) is a story depicting this family's ordniary (O RLY?) lives, human-yet-god Samatarou's "boring" highschool days, and many other friends around him.


Characters
You could say almost all light novels feature crazy settings and characters and it's quite difficult to compare and rate stuff, but I'm pretty sure that you'll agree that KK's characters are unique. Everyone in the family has his/her own special background/personality. Which makes the story more fun to read. :)

Style of Writing
KK is the 3rd light novel series I've ever read, following "Toradora!" and "Watashitachi no Tamura-kun". The two series were both by the same author/illustrator (and translator;;) and so the overall style was quite similar.

So when I started reading KK, I felt right away that this was indeed different. (duh) But seriously, I thought "wow, I never knew you could write a novel like this." The "light novel" genre itself means it's written "light", and there isn't much of a limit to the format of writing. Typical light novels feature dialogues between characters, reminding me of Anime or Manga. (No wonder these three are closely related huh. :P) Adding to this, what I found interesting was how the "viewpoint" was freely manipulated.

Of course, there were parts in Toradora also where the viewpoint was naturally changed to 1st person when trying to describe the character's inner thoughts. But in KK, there are instances where the author himself seems to be talking to the readers; for example: "I'll leave to your imagination about what comes next." ^o^~

The author sure has some sense of humor. As I was reading the book, I could really see that he was trying hard to think of creative ways of saying stuff. Like, he didn't just stick to a plain way of describing "a big boob," but instead chose to write "a boob that'd be faster to count from Z than from A." I could also notice his little-bitty humorous intentions here and there, such as starting each chapter with the sentence "Kamiyama Samatarou is a son of god," or titling each book volumes with 4-letter kanji word (spin-off stories unnecessary for the main story progression dont follow this rule). Reading his postscripts at the end of the book was quite fun, too.

But yea, seriously, this author guy is a capable one. According to his author-intro or website, he seems to have written a book, song, game scenario, and even does illustrations. Wow.

Illustrations
The illusts in this book was done by Yasuda Suzuhito, who's also known for his "Yozakura Quartet." I quite liked his drawing style and character designs. Plus his pastel-toned colors and half-toneish textured pictures looked nice.

But I wish that there were more illusts included, especially in the middle parts of the series (vol.4-6?) it felt like there wasn't enough illusts at all. And some of the illusts that were there was kind of 'abstact'. I don't know if it was intentional, but in some points it just felt like he wasn't putting in enought effort. Oh well.


Overall Impression
Now that I have written it, it looks like I've only put out praises for the book. But it's true that I quite liked the story, and was really into it while reading. It's not just another typical harem-school-fantasy-supernatural-love-comedy, but something different. KK is a "bildungsroman" novel, and as the plot progresses, Samatarou encounters various events (tests?) that trains him of becoming a real god, and learns to understand the many hardships humans have to break through in their everyday lives. I think there is a profound meaning that the author was trying to communicate behind all the fun story.

The value of life.
The weakness of man.
And how we should be thankful for every little thing we currently have.

And so here ends the review. Sorry for being such a baad writer, but oh well, it just turned out to be like this cause I was trying to write without any spoilers to the story itself. (believe or not.. :P)

(review taken from my blog: http://www.xenosium.com/161)

“Past Heaven” is better then the prequel “.traeH”, but not much better.

The place with the most improvement is the art work. The art work is much crisper then the prequel one-shot, and the characters facial features are more defined. In some ways though one might not recognize the characters as Ayumu's hair style's changes since the first one-shot. I'd normally wonder why the style change occurred, but I also recollect how Ayumu looked to much like a character I saw another writer design and thus Ayumu's style is actually now the writer's own.

Characterization wise there are still problems. In this one-shot Ayumu and Yuu end up switching roles. Chipper Ayumu ends up with the angst ridden personality and Yuu ends up with a more perky personality. Yuu's attitude change can be explained by Ayumu becoming her friend, but Ayumu's is a bit harder to pin down. Her stalker attitude becomes quite manipulative and she shows a darker side. The way Yuu accepts the truth she finds out as well as the way Ayumu treats her after she rejects Ayumu's confesion.

This one-shot continues the mess from the prequel one-shot and makes it worse.

There's a simple recipe for quick and easy pathos: take a group of cute young children, put them in a dangerous situation, and then have them be made to do things that no child should ever have to do (usually killing people). There are series that take this formula and make it something more than cheap emotional manipulation; that really make a compelling story out of it; that may even be worth watching or reading for people who are a bit squeamish about bad things happening to children.

"Anonymous" is not one of those series. It's ultimately very shallow; it's got no real point beyond "look at these poor children; don't you feel sorry for them?" The fact that it's a series of loosely-connected one-chapter anecdotes probably doesn't help: the storytelling feels rushed and at times confusing, and there's little time to really get invested in the story or the characters. That's really one of the manga's biggest problems -- in what is supposed to be a character-driven tragedy, the reader needs to feel for the characters. Using children is a shortcut, but it's no substitute for solid characterization. The one story that works decently is "Smile," a serving of more traditional action fare about a bodyguard who falls in love with his charge and outwits her enemies so that they can go riding off into the sunset. It's hardly original, but it's much easier to do an entertaining light action story than a compelling exploration of the psyche of a tormented child soldier/spy/assassin, especially when you only have thirty pages to do it in.

There's one other relatively-upbeat story, "Sprout," but it's problematic in ways that "Smile" isn't. The protagonist of Sprout is injured in combat, losing the use of one hand, and is retired from active duty; instead, he must take on a teaching position, training young children for missions. At first he can't stand his incompetent charges, but he eventually comes to care for them, and they all learn to work together as a team. This seems sweet and all, but given what we've been shown so far of the lives of the children in the Anonymous organization (i.e. nothing good), are we really supposed to be happy that the protagonist of Sprout has succeeded in perpetuating the cycle?

The setting is fairly vague -- that is, it's clearly Japan, but it's not clear whether it's supposed to be "our" universe or some alternate one. The first story features successful human cloning, due to which I originally assumed it was meant to be set in the near future, but the second-to-last story (the only one with an explicit time period) is set right before and right after the Russian Revolution. Since the stories have no recurring characters or clear relation to one another beyond all being about the Anonymous organization, it's difficult to tell whether they're all set in the same time period or not; if indeed they were meant to be, the author left the establishment of the era a bit late.

The art is not painful to look at, but it's very generically cute, and the proportions are inconsistent. The biggest problem, however, is with the character designs, which all look very much alike. It's hard to tell the characters apart, a problem which is exacerbated by the fact that almost none of the characters have names. To give credit where it's due, though, the artist does design some nice outfits, and the boys' Anonymous uniform is definitely cool-looking.

This manga was really very disappointing, and if you're considering reading it I'd suggest picking up Gunslinger Girl instead. It has the same "children brainwashed into being assassins" concept, but better storytelling, stronger characterization, and nicer art. Anonymous, short though it is, is a waste of time.

I'm kind of surprised that, at the time of writing this, there are no complete reviews for Big Order. The only two that exist are preliminary reviews. I can't blame them either. The manga honestly starts off engaging and strong, but soon fizzles out into a manga of nonsense, time wasting, and idiocy. The story itself spirals into shit almost immediately after like, the second volume. I, however, persevered through the trash, and can proudly say I finished the manga from beginning to end. This is the first "complete" review of Big Order.


Though story is listed first in the scores, let's start off with art. The artstyle of the manga is... poor, but average at best. For someone reading and reviewing it in 2020, the art looks outdated. The manga debuted in 2011, yet I've read older manga that have better art styles. Even with this outdated style, there are some choices I can nod to. On almost every scene with Eiji in it, his territory (I will "expand" on this later [pun intended]) is consistently drawn. This was a nice little feature, as it was always a reminder that other order users can always see his territory, and in scenes where Eiji loses his power, seeing there be no territory under him reflected his vulnerability. I did not like how the Orders themselves are drawn. The weird skeleton design they all have looks very bad, and it is reminiscent of the bad CGI of the anime.

Moving on to characters, throughout the manga, it is VERY clear that Eiji's companion, Rin Kurenai, is just a mirror of Yuno Gasai (even down to the hair color, which Esuno didn't even attempt to hide). Eiji Hoshimiya's character formula is also not too far off from Yukiteru Amano, except one (in a Powerpuff Girls-esque incident) got a little bit too much of the crybaby and idiot genes than the other. If you didn't already know, Mirai Nikki and Big Order were created by the same mangaka. These character similarities are NOT a coincidence. Big Order debuted only a year after Mirai Nikki, mind you. Sakae Esuno clearly thought, "If the characters are not broken, don't fix them" because reading two volumes of the manga will show you that Gasai and Amano's personalities were just transferred over to Kurenai and Hoshimiya, but then Esuno realized that they didn't fit well with the story, but it was too late to turn back, so their personalities got worse in an attempt to make them better. Main problem is I really hate how Eiji acts. Even when it is clear to literally everyone in the world that the bad guy is [SPOILER], Eiji still has that "they can still change themselves!" mentality that all protagonists have, except this character is proven evil and cannot be turned good. Eiji even goes so far as to want to kill himself numerous times to potentially save this character, even though they don't give two craps if Eiji dies or not. My secondary gripe with Eiji is that he doesn't fully take advantage of his Order. Eiji's Order is Bind Dominator, which gives him the power to command any living being or inanimate object to do anything. Wherever he walks, that space permanently becomes his territory, and if he encircles an area, everything in the circle is under his control. Honestly, when watching the anime (and at the beginning of the manga) I thought this ability was badass. Even though I hate the series, I do still think Bind Dominator is one of the coolest abilities a character can have. Unfortunately, Eiji only encloses an area once in the series, and after learning what he can do, every other character is smart enough to not get caught under Eiji's dominion. The rare occasions they do get caught, instead of giving them creative commands like, "Become my ally and do not betray or try to harm me" (like he did with Rin) or "Tell me exactly where [spoiler] is right now and how to defeat them" he says something dumb and useless like, "Stop shooting". Bind Dominator has so much potential, but Eiji never quite learns how to use it to its full power. It takes him about seven volumes to figure out he can manipulate air too and create shields from air pressure or whatever. I would have loved to see Eiji find out more about his abilities, but as someone who has read the entire manga, I can tell you, there is nothing.

Okay, now we're getting into the story. There are going to be a couple of minor spoilers here and there, but if you're considering reading this in 2020 or beyond, then you clearly need to do something better with your life. Big Order starts off making no sense. I only stuck around for the action and clung on to the hope that Eiji would use Bind Dominator in a badass way. After being disappointed in both of those areas, I honestly don't know why I kept reading. Probably because I didn't want to leave another manga on my eternal "reading" list. A lot of the things in the novel could have been avoided if the characters weren't so fucking dumb and one dimensional. Eiji literally has nothing on his mind other than to protect his sister for the entire fucking manga. Esuno even tries to incorporate some romantic elements into the series, but Eiji IGNORES the two women who love him and instead pursues his sister more. There is even a very odd scene in volume 9, I believe, where Sena suggests to Eiji that he loves her incestually (which, if you didn't know they were siblings, is totally plausible) but he denies it. The ending is so, soooo stupid. Like, the story is shit in general, but the last two volumes made me want to put the manga down altogether and delete it from my list. Initially, the plot is: Bad man wants everyone to have their wishes granted (Everyone to have Orders) and Eiji has to stop them. Then, it turns into: Bad man wants to turn the spiritual energy of God into the material world and kill everyone, and somehow Eiji must fight God. Yes, you heard that correctly. Eiji Hoshimiya has to FIGHT GOD. Oh, but get this: Yoshitsune Hiiragi just SOMEHOW predicted that the enemy would summon God, and has the perfect plan to combat him. Seriously? How the fuck do you predict someone is going to summon God and fight with him? That's such a random move that no one could possibly predict, nor refute, it. The story is so incredibly stupid, what made Sakae Esuno even want to write this? Surely, this is a bad April Fools joke. There are a hundred things wrong with the story, but that would deserve an entire review itself.

Enjoyment factor is very low, a two. Sometimes it's stupidly hilarious, like so bad it's funny. Other times I just don't want to read it anymore. I won't spend too much time talking about this, because the review is already long as is, but I think you can tell how much I enjoyed it based on the previous paragraphs.

Overall, Big Order starts off very actiony and promising, however, it becomes apparent that it is a Mirai Nikki clone and that Esuno just wanted to cash cow out the same characters in a different story. I'd actually recommend watching the anime over reading the manga. At least the anime ends your suffering after just twelve episodes, but the manga drags on for ten volumes (which is actually not too short but not too long, but this story could have ended way sooner than it did). This is probably the only case where the ANIME is BETTER than the manga. I know, shocking. Anyway, if you've gotten to the end of this review, thank you for reading, and I hope you don't read this manga. Like, seriously, don't read it. Please don't. Save yourself from 10 volumes of misery.

**I have already finished reading this manga**

First off, if you are just looking for a happy-go-around romance/slice of life manga, stay the fuck away from this one. Saiteihen no Otoko is noticeably different from the majority of other manga because it actually tries* to be a true horror story, with very messed up contents that might just appeal to horror thriller fans. This is quite rarely seen in the medium of manga and anime.

For something that is only 3 volumes long, there are a tons of narrative contents told. The pages are filled with twists and turns, leaving readers on the edge of their seats. The manga never loses its intensity, though there is a clear departure of tone in the second half of story, opting for a less scary but more “shounen” tone. Compared to numerous other mystery manga that I have read (with shitty ending), it actually gives a great finish. Not masterpiece, mind, but quite good. At least I found it satisfying.

Being a psychological horror story, there is a heavy focus on MC’s (unstable) state of mind. The MC's 'loser' characteristic is vastly exaggerated. Still, it’s entertaining (in a shounen way) to see how even a person who resides at the bottom of social hierarchy can exhibit moments of heroism, at crucial moments.

The art is hit or miss, depending on whether you like drawings of messed-up faces in this mangaka's unique style. Regardless of your preference, the artwork contributes to the horror suspense atmosphere perfectly.

tl;dr

Overall, for its on a whole satisfying story, unique art style, and an interesting MC loser-kun, I award it with 8/10.

For ultimate recommendation, I point you to Ibitsu, also a short horror story.

It is a masterpiece on an artistic level, few works can be brought to its graphic height since Boichi is a true master of the drawing. And it is also a work that perfectly dominates the themes that it intends to reflect to become a sleeve of fast-paced action, overflowing sensuality and an unstoppable rhythm.

It is not a profound work, but it is tremendously entertaining, it has some of the most spectacular scenes that can be seen today and has enough plot to hook, and even leave the door open to a sequel, or a link with other works from the universe of Boich

Holy cow Batman, this is a horrific train wreck that can never be salvaged and it is insanity that this is rated as high as it is at the time of writing this (7.36). Alright, let's start this review of a waste of internet space and waste of time!

Story- 1
Okay, where the F do I start? This is the classic story of poor girl meeting molester whose rich, rapist who can get away with anything, the empowering guy who helps monsters, and showcases Stockholm Syndrome in the best light! Now, I'll be serious for a moment-- Wait, that's actually the story, poor girl becomes literal sex slave to a rich teenager who loves to molester her and is absolutely blind to the cruel things that happen to her in part due to her cowardly nature which makes her incapably of telling anyone that she's going to be raped. The execution of this manga is horrendous and makes me want to cry, because the plot at the very VERY beginning sounds interesting, however about 4-5 pages into the first chapter you realize exactly where the story is going to go: right down Rape street which intersects Stockholm lane.

Art- 3
Honestly, I kinda like the art style, however each character is drawn like a genetic freak with bodies that look like they've come out of Left4Dead. Honestly, I'd rather tie my eyelashes into knots that look at this abomination again.

Character- 1
Okay, if I could rate it lower than 1 I would, as each character is a waste of human cells, if they were alive at least. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that characters could exist in real life as each one would end up either in jail for multiple counts of rape or molestation, or the victims of rape and/or murder. As I stated earlier, the heroine is a pathetic excuse for a heroine, and she is about as useful as a paper towel that has been soaked in gasoline, and you are going to use it to put out a fire. The male main character is just as bad, as he is completely ignorant of what is happening around him, and loves to molest the main heroine and create people who suffer from stockholm syndrome. This manga helps us realize that there are no heroes/heroines in this world, and humans by nature are terrible and should be wiped out. Wait, that's not the point of this manga's characters? Whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaatt, no way!

Enjoyment- 1
I think I've been able to explain why I hated it with what I said above, but in case you didn't realize it, I did NOT enjoy this one bit. Every character was either a rapist or a sociopath, the story was worse than filth (wait hold up, that would be insulting to FILTH), the art is absolutely trash with no redeeming qualities.

Overall- 2 (but really 1.5)
Okay, I was pretty harsh on this one, and with good reason: it was TERRIBLE. I read some of the other reviews, and it seems that they were written by people who enjoy being abused BDSM style. So if you, the reader of this review, is anything like me then you should avoid this manga (and this author actually, as all of their work is like this one) at all costs. The only reason I read this one was because I had hoped it would be better than it actually was.

To reiterate, I did NOT enjoy watching a girl being abused and molested over and over again until she developed feelings for her captor via the Stockholm Syndrome principle. I did not enjoy reading this and again, if you are anything like me, then you'll hate this piece of garbage.

Seikon no Qwaser is my favorite manga series. In my opinion it is one of the best battle shounen series there is (other battle shounen do execute things as well as Seikon no Qwaser, maybe even slightly better, but SnQ is still the one who speaks to me the most).

Thought I should start with the art since I don’t have much to say about it besides the fact that seeing it evolve over the run of the manga is very interesting and later on the high contrast art, where a lot of things are either completely black or white without much grey, looks very appealing.

Moving on to the fights, a crucial aspect of a battle shounen, the most important thing about them are the qwaser powers, which allow their users to control one specific element of the periodic table and are fueled by soma, a substance that is not technically breastmilk (at least in the manga) but serves as a stand in for it in terms of fanservice scenes involving it.

The information above regarding qwaser powers is what you can find everywhere, what you won’t find anywhere, unless you read the manga, is how well developed the concept of these powers is without ever needing to give us an exposition dump. We learn the details of how these powers work, such as the 5 levels of control over it and their wave like behavior, slowly as we go through the story.

The best thing about qwaser powers is how almost all qwaser have around the same “power level”, with the only ones who seem stronger or weaker than the rest being mentioned as such. Due to having to manipulate chemical elements fights come down to how much of that element can be found in the surrounding area, whether or not the fighters know each other’s elements and fighting styles and how does each qwaser make use of their element instead of coming down to who has the higgest “power level”.

As I mentioned previously, in SnQ we receive information regarding qwaser powers slowly rather than in a big exposition scene, this is something that doesn’t just apply to said powers, we rarely ever get big exposition scenes in the series that aren’t relating to real world events since those are the only ones that are harder to integrate organically into the story. One of the strengths of this series is how we receive new information naturally as it progresses and how well set up and foreshadowed things are.

The characters are also interesting and the main cast gets a lot of development and growth over the course of the series, which is easy to notice due to the way that certain scenes parallel each other in this manga, letting us see how the character has changed by responding differently to two similar situations.

Finally, it should be mentioned that SnQ brings up some philosophical themes, mostly regarding utilitarianism, deontology, free will and determinism as the story goes on but explaining those would require spoilers so all I can do is mention them in hopes that it will peak your curiosity.

For a more in-depth analysis of the series (containing spoilers) check my blog on MAL.

So people who start to read this will find it the most beautiful and frustrating manga..maybe it was because i was sided with one team and forgot the overall fun..so reading it twice gave me a good heads on the manga overall..so hear is my review of the manga..as i write this review the manga is completed.

Story:
as i rated the story i very good..good arcs and bad ones too..mostly good i would say. School Arc and College Arc ( Misaki Part) these two arcs were handled really good the rest may seem sloppy but if u have no idea on what love or romance is u would find it entertaining..as for when i read the manga a second time i found this sloppy arc fantastic..maybe as i told before i was lopsided on who should end with who..so reading this manga u need a free and open mind. to accept things happening to the protagonist .

Character:
the character developments were really good and i found three character's written exceptionally well
1. Hina Tachibana
2. Misaki Ogura
3. Miyabi Serizawa
I'm not saying the rest of the characters were shit but these three were fucking fantastic.personally for me this character had huge impact on me as well as the story but i also feel every character in the manga plays an important role too..the character are also given the required importance too and with a satisfactory fan-service treatment too.

Art:
i have absolute respect for art because it was that good it was surreal and damn boy the sex scenes were fire ..the art was good and i find no complaints in that.

Enjoyment: (S_P_O_I_L_E_R)
The Hype , the tension , the rush and that excitement was definitely present but i cannot say for all the story arc that was true..as i mentioned earlier there were two story arcs which kept me on my toes..sometimes you may feel really lost story wise..but those moments turn out be the most exciting ones.. (SPOILERS AHEAD)
my moments would definitely Hina breaking up with him and accepting him as her lover because it so well written and depicted in beautiful manner.

Overall:
a fantastic read i really loved the small pure moments and big special ones..to truly enjoy this manga u should definitely have an open mind..when i fast read the manga i was lop-sided with Hina this Hina that..but after reading it the second time..i understood the true meaning of manga and how well the love triangle plays..the ending of manga was more than satisfactory for me..it was a blessing one wish i had is that if i had found this manga lot sooner i could have spent a lot more moments with it..but binge-ing it felt great too..finishing off this manga was really good and had the most intricate and beautiful love triangle and a suitable ending too

Story: 8 This is an interesting gundam story cause the main gundam's purpose is to hold a giant camera. We focus on our MC who is a journalist who always seeks to find the truth of the world. Usually this could come off as too cheesy of character trait but in gundam there are a lot of philosophical arguments on war and this series makes sure to use that to make our MC have difficult choices.
Art: 8 The good thing is that the design of the gundam when it's in recording mode is very pleasing to look at and all the other character's support gundams also has great design. All the characters look very distinct and the action for a mech manga is surprising good, probably cause the mc is constantly in fights.
Character 8: I really found all the characters in this manga to be quite charming, our MC and his partner have a really fun relationship and the main people our MC is reporting on are always interesting. This very much is a manga where you get to see what everybody else is going during these great wars of the main series.
Enjoyment 8: I surprisingly liked it, it's a fun, interesting take on the gundam series but still has a good amount of robot action.
Overall 8: I would definitely recommend this series if you are wanting to consume more interesting gundam side stories, the manga is full of fun characters and has lots of interesting gundam designs in it with a fun overall story.