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[This review is spoiler free!] TL;DR: If I had to rank the Overlord series, the LN is supreme. If you are a detailed oriented person, I would definitely recommend this. If you are curious and don't like lots of words, the manga is the right one for you. If you are interested and like good animation (and that's about it), the anime could be it for you!

I would like to preface this review by saying that I have not finished Overlord in its entirety. I have watched the entire first season and skimmed through the second season of the anime. I've also read 13 chapters of the manga and just barely started the Light Novel today.

This review in particular will be mostly focused on the light novel and manga, respectively. If you haven't or are considering watching the anime, don't. Honestly, don't even bother with the manga either.

In terms of writing, the light novel is superior in every way, shape and form. The chapters are long, and detailed. Although I've just started the light novel, the amount of detail greatly impressed me. It was more than enough to convince me that Overlord might actually be somewhat worth the hype it gets. Everything the anime and manga lack can be found in the light novel; although, it is also told at a considerably slower pace.

In the first chapter of the LN, a single NPC maid that is never mentioned again gets probably 1000+ words of pure description. From her slender build, to her "ample bosom", all the way to her expressionless manner and the former guild member/mangaka that designed her maid outfit. That is the level of description we are talking about. Albedo, the fan favorite, gets 5 beautifully descriptive paragraphs about her looks alone too, In terms of writing, the LN outshines any other forms of Overlord. However, if you hate reading and get tired of looking at words for an extended period of time, the LN is **NOT** for you.

Even I, a big fan for LN and reading, grew a bit tired after the first chapter. It felt like it went on forever, and ever. Reading all 90+ of these will definitely be a treat though.

The LN expands on so much more lore and background than the manga or anime could ever dream of. Not only does it give a better perspective on the real world that Ainz and his former guildmates lived in, but it better details his motivations.

To begin with, in the anime, I thought Ainz was simply looking for his friends just to do so. He was very quick to accept the reality of the situation and settled in without a second question. Without a doubt, this aspect is still present in the manga and LN, however there is a semi-proper explanation about it, which I greatly appreciate. Any details you might be confused about or simply curious on could most likely be answered from reading a chapter of the LN. (Add: The characters are a lot more fleshed out too.)

As mentioned earlier, if you are not interested in a ton of words, you should then look into the manga, which is the second best thing. Compared to the LN, the manga feels like more of a cash grab. However, this doesn't mean it's a bad thing. You can expect some chapters that break the fourth wall though and tell you to buy the newest volume though. Overlord got adapted into an anime surprisingly fast compared to other hit series, which isn't totally shocking. Nonetheless, the manga is much faster paced than the LN and anime.

This does have it's own faults too. During certain arcs, characters will mysteriously pop in and out of scenes at their convenience. At first, this puzzled me. The anime does a better job at explaining these random appearance, but they can be easily overlooked. If you are someone like me, who watched the anime before reading the manga, you might feel like the pacing is **too** fast, however, after the 7th or 8th chapter you will quickly adjust to it.

Comparing the anime to the manga, I definitely liked the Ainz manga design. Although the manga tries to be too edgy at times by hinting at sexual punishment and rape at times, the darker and less animated/cutesy Ainz is definitely my preferred. After the anime adaption notice, I found the art improved a bit which was also nice.

If you've read this far into the review, I take it you are interested in the Overlord series. You can read my anime Overlord reviews, which are also located on MAL. Given how harshly I've critiqued Overlord until this point, the manga and the LN (mostly) certainly are something. I reviewed season one of Overlord to be mediocre at best, and season two to be a total snoozefest. If you truly are interested, start with the LN if possible. If you aren't into that, the manga isn't half bad either!

(Almost anything is better than the anime, in my opinion,,,)

An Ideal World is a delightful little manga. It centers around Ayou, an apathetic, cynical, and overall unhappy boy--I mean, "young man"--and his fantastical quest for self-discovery. His quest may be literally out of this world, with clear allusions to Alice in Wonderland, but the issues at hand are down to earth and very relatable in the real world. Ayou's inquiries and the advice he receives from his friends and others pierce the very heart of the long-standing philosophical question on the meaning of life, and Ayou's journey eventually plays a role in finding a deep understanding of human existence.

Yeah, heavy stuff. But actually, it's not that heavy at all. The whole philosophy of the manga is seamlessly woven into the story and presented in the most natural way. There is a legitimate reason for all this philosophical talk, and that is because life is frowning down on our protagonist, Ayou: he is bored of routine, frustrated with his averageness, tired of being underestimated, and in the end wonders if all the BS in life is worth it. His significantly pessimistic outlook on life takes a toll on his morale and motivation, clouding any perception of a future worth striving for.

At first glance, Ayou may look like your typical pessimistic loser who chooses to dwell in thoughts of his own hopelessness and self-pity, but he actually realizes that he needs more in life, something to give it flavour and meaning, and that he has to do something to reach that goal. I found it refreshing to not have a depressing and self-loathing protagonist for once; one that knows he needs to change but doesn't know how, not because he has been ignorant of his pitiable situation and has suddenly woken up to reality, but because he's already aware of his situation and seeks to change it.

Of course, all this changes when he reaches "wonderland," an ideal world where everyone is happy and always looks on the bright side of things. And of course, this is just what every depressed person wants, to be surrounded by a bunch of perky, optimistic people. But in time, Ayou starts to see things from their point of view, and he learns that his "unluckiness" is all in his head, and that all it takes to reach happiness is a simple change in perspective. The message was simple and beautiful.

I felt the way this manga handled the issue of an identity crisis very realistic. Not only is it concerned with helping Ayou find a direction in life, but the advice is open enough to be received by everyone, and that means you the readers. The author gives very profound and hopeful advice, and reminds us with always-welcome Chinese philosophy that life is worth living.

Entertaining, illuminating, somewhat preachy, but definitely worthwhile, I would recommend you get your hands on this little gem of manga.

I picked up the manga after the first episode of show aired, am a little disappointed am no sadist but I do want to watch the world burn, his torture method's were a bit lack luster like ye it was a lot of instant pain but for him being drugged for three years and was basically a sex slave like there was some pretty bad stuff but I would had 100% done much worse like mind break probably even further realistically it wasn't good but I am just sick in the head or something probably why I liked it so much.

To put in a word: disappointing.

The set-up is intriguing enough, a classic whodunnit scenario with incredibly high stakes, and connections to a bigger conspiracy. The back-and-forth between the protagonist solving the mystery and the hostage situation in another school also helps keep the pace up.
Yet, even very early on, small problems surface – problems that gradually snowball.

It begins with a huge information dump as characters are introduced in a flurry, with nothing significant to remember each of them by. We then immediately start getting treated to flashbacks and diverging plotlines.
By the time the culprit is revealed later in the story, we barely remember who is who, much less care about any of them at all. Not least because the story is structured in a way where the characters are only developed at such a late stage of the plot that it no longer affects how you feel about the situation at hand.

Alongside a cast of characters with no personality, are background fodder that are so cartoonishly despicable, that they bear zero redeeming qualities, and fail to incite any sort of empathy. All these flaws culminate in a conclusion that features an embarrassingly ineffective speech by the "good guy", during the final confrontation, a plot twist for a character everybody has already forgotten, and an ending that makes the entire series feel pointless.

Easily the best thing this manga has going for it is the art, with its sleek lines and compelling depictions of violence. Just the detonation scene in the first chapter bumps this series up a couple points. However, facial expression are somewhat sacrificed for the rendering quality, which is huge blow when the characters already feel so wooden in their personality.

In the end the whole series feels like a flashy spectacle with no heart that tries to muster up some emotion when it's already too late.

Roboco is a series that surprised me. At first glance, the art style of the main characters (especially Roboco) threw me off and made a lot of people (including myself) not want to read it. But after giving in and giving this series a shot I have to say, it ended up being really funny.

Roboco is the star of the show with her wacky antics and funny dialogue. I was also surprised by the two bully characters. At first, they seem like your generic school bullies, but they end up being the nicest characters in the story which is pretty hilarious. Some of my favorite chapters so far are the Promised Neverland parody and especially the two chapters that make fun of Shonen Jump.

Overall, I didn't think much of this series at first glance but I ended up enjoying it a lot. And the series seems to be selling well in Japan for a gag manga. Overall this message of the manga is to not judge a book by its cover, both in-universe and out.

tl;dr: An story about someone turning their life into a train wreck, that is enjoyable to watch unfold due to the set of screwed up and unlikable characters.

It is difficult to explain why I like this manga and I totally understand why it has such a low score. The protagonist is a horrible person, and the main heroines while I did like a reasonable amount I do admit aren't good people either. Really, no one in the manga is a good person, so they're not characters you can like or empathize with, but they're not characters you can enjoy hating either. There is character and relationship development, but as there isn't a particular fondness for these characters that doesn't have a lot of impact. The plot is ridiculous in that there's always something crazy happening, which doesn't really fit a manga like this, and to some degree there are things that feel inconsistent, but more so than that are completely random, especially the ending. There is a really high melodrama and angst. Now despite all this, I still feel the author completely achieved the objective of what they were trying to do, in that the reason I like this manga can be best explained by the opening, sometimes it's just really enjoyable to watch things burn. The protagonist may be an awful person, but watching him of his own violation send what seems like something happy and perfect hurtling towards destruction, watching everything falling apart and all the craziness that ensues, and ultimately seeing a glimpse of how things were in the aftermath was quite engrossing and engaging, and ultimately a very worthwhile read in my opinion. The art was also really good most of the time, especially the color pages, though there are some spots where it noticeably got terrible. 

I have always had trouble keeping characters and their names straight. This Manga made my life a living hell for all of its 7 chapters. I just finished reading it and I can recall one character out of the 8ish + that were introduced.

Summary: It is only 7 chapters long so its kind of hard to expect a whole lot out of this manga, however there are many that pull it off well (such as Our Happy Hours). It debuts the lives of a club and their relationships... I think? I'm about 67% confident that they are all in a club together, and that is how the characters are friends and how they meet. Other than that, the story just kinda focuses on different characters each chapter and follows them as their relationships develop.

Art: Seemed Decent enough to me.

Character: ... Well trying to flesh out all of these characters in 7 chapters is fairly impossible. So it doesn't happen.

Enjoyment: After I finished reading this I had a semi-pleasant feeling in my chest. However sitting next to that feeling were the feelings of extreme boredom and glee that I finally finished reading this. (not meant in a particularly good way)

Overall: Short and weak story mostly due to its shortness. I could easily see this being a 12-25 episode anime or at least a 30ish chapter manga (at the bare minimum) for the story that they were trying to tell. But since its not the attachment I felt to most of these characters was nil.

TL;DR: Too short, no attachment/little empathy with characters, kinda dull.

Its cute enough I guess, worth a read if you ran out of anything else to read.

This is my first review, so, be gentle, guys.
Manga - 87 Clockers
Genre - Slice of Life, Drama, Sports, Comedy, Shounen.

To be perfectly honest, I'll be totally biased here. I absolutely love this manga! It merges the two things that I see as the entire purpose of my life. Manga and PC Enthusiasts.

It is still an ongoing manga. In fact, it has barely begun at only 10 chapters at the time of writing this review. But regardless, I had to write this review. To put it simply, it is quite detailed, in the information that it has. Perhaps, it was researched for the manga, perhaps, it was through the Mangaka's personal experience, I'm willing to bet on the latter. Only because, this isn't a field you'd normally be interested in researching. You need the drive of a true enthusiast to enter this field.

Plot - The story is that of a music degree major, Kanade. A violinist, who thoroughly enjoys his violin. In his third year of Music College, he's a an average college student. But, he has no drive, no real motivation to do anything with his life. Thinking about what sort of job he might do after college, if not go overseas to train under a maestro, he walks to his home. Which is when, he sees a girl barefoot in the snow. This chance encounter changes his life. He enters the world of Enthusiast Overclocking and E-Sports.

Character Development - Well, 10 chapters isn't normally enough to give proper development of the characters. But here, even within 10 chapters, I feel endeared towards the characters. It is really good so far. The characters and their relationships to one another is pretty complicated at this point. But, I'd like to presume that a clearer picture will be painted, given enough chapters to develop.

Art - The art is well, good. I cannot go out and say that it is amazing and stuff. But, unlike some I've read, it is pleasing to read. Definitely not annoying to look at. The best part about the art in my opinion is the very well detailed Computer Components. From the CPU, to the Motherboard, to the RAM, to the video cards, to the Nitrogen Coolers, it is definitely well contructed and depicts a proper picture of how those things work.

Conclusively, I'd like to say that: Since this is a new series, one cannot perfectly judge it for what it's for right now.
To sum it up: Basically, what Bakuman was to the Manga Industry, 87 Clockers is to the PC Enthusiast Industry.
I really like it. I love the concept of it, bringing this extreme end of PC Enthusiats to some spotlight. Only time will tell, if it will be a hit or a miss.

I hope Kanade gets Hana!

Rating - 8.4/10(Subject to change, as I plan to edit and change it once the series ends.)

One of Naoko Takeuchi's other works, Maria is a beautiful tale about a girl falling in love.

Though typical in story, Maria makes up for it with the tone and characters and slight mystery presented. It leaves you guessing at parts, and smiling at others. I always end up reading this manga when I come back to anime and manga because of how simplistic yet timeless it is.

Saiga Riki-Oh is 21. He is in prison for just his first offense. He received a three year sentence for assault, and was imprisoned the year previous. He possesses a robust body, superior intelligence, and a remarkably violent nature. He is marked as a particularly dangerous criminal requiring special attention.

He has five bullets stuck in his chest.

One time, Riki-Oh punches a dude so hard his arm goes elbow deep into flesh till his fist tears out the other side. Minutes later he punches another dude so hard the man's ribs burst out of his side from the impact.

He has a six-pointed star mark on his hand.

Another time, Riki-Oh punches the air inches in front of a dude whose face recoils as if hit by gale force winds distorting his face with airflow. Afterwards blood spurts out of the man's face anyway, such was the tremendous air pressure caused by Riki-Oh's fist.

He can reattach his own severed tendons in the middle of a fight.

Later in life, Riki-Oh karate-chops a guy in the back of the neck so hard the man's eye pops out.

He likes long walks, sentimentalism and leaf-whistling.

One day Riki-Oh uppercuts a dude so hard his fist punches through the man's chin and out of his mouth. Later to make up for it he 'touch fists' with his homie but disintegrates the dude's arm and punches through it.

This only scratches the surface of Riki-Oh the manga. Underneath the surface are concepts of prison privatisation, a controversial labour source for nations run like ruthless corporations unwilling to accept loss of prisoners due to their collective-self amounting to profit for the Japan Prison Industry and its sociopolit-

BULLSHIT.

You just want to see Riki-Oh decimate another human being into a bloody pulp like a depraved chef decimates ingredients in preparation of a three course meal for a banquet of serial killers.

You want to see Riki-Oh punch cars as they speed at him. Punch hearts out of chests. Punch elephants off their feet.

You want manly art with muscles the size of truck tires, a cast of ugly misfits waiting to be mutilated and debilitated, gaping bloody wounds repaired with barbed wire ripped from chain-link fences.

This is even before whatever semblance of reality the manga had a shred of is completely taken over by telekinetic super-powered brawls, because destroying the human body in physically possible ways gets too boring for author Masahiko Takajo and artist Tetsuya Saruwatari.

Riki-Oh's story eventually, and quite successfully, moves from the prison setup to the apocalyptic cyberpunk dregs of Japanese society run amok by mega-corporations and pollution, while inexplicably weaving religion, or in one bizarre turn of events, an atheistic/theist communist/liberal sibling/Christ conflict, and Armageddon itself into its blood-drenched pages, culminating in Katsuhiro Otomo levels of post-apocalyptic vistas and destruction.

It is in this dystopic futurescape that this violent saga throws hysterically crazy twists and revelations at you, the ones in volume 8 in particular, that are so outrageous you have to save Riki-Oh the trouble and punch yourself. Punch yourself to stop your own laughter from killing you, tears streaming down your bruised face; a face content with the barely believable knowledge that this manga was written, drawn and published by grown adult men.

Riki-Oh might mistake your laughter to be out of spite and not joy, so your punch will be punched and decimated by him. That's what he does.

Riki-Oh the manga will punch pretty much anything, man; animal, inanimate object, your face, your friend's face, your friend's pet's face, and it'll put hairs on your chest.