AnnaVk4

Nana was, I must admit, relatively realistic for a Manga.

Firstly:

We meet Nana#1, later nicknamed Hachikō, as the story begins, a dumb-ass of a chick, more like a hopeless case of the human race.
That's either: WAY too horny or must have been high on SOMETHING for most of her life.
Falling in 'love at first sight' seems to be her strongest skill, as well as 'judging a book by its cover' and inevitably, is a pro at being the victim of breakups. Though sometimes she is cute, she can be a major headache for readers and characters alike.

Then we meet Nana#2, nicknamed the Dark Priestess by Nana#1's bestfriend, and seems to be the trump card of Black Stones, her band, and is generally a wild kind of chick, that at times has a heart made of gold and is a whole lotta fun when she is drunk.

And through circumstances these two Nana's meet and so is born the plot.

The writer has built strong, flexible personalities that flow through their story. More than the actual story, I liked the characters. Everyone of them had their own idiosyncrasies, their own habits, their own style and most importantly, their own life; in other words, realism.

The art was unique to the story and definitely, the artist infused their own style into the art and for that, this Manga is on a different level to most Mangas' and Manhwas' because of its originality. For the illustrator not to follow the mainstream style of art that most stories use is a great feat within itself and keen readers appreciate the effort; a lot.

Overall, the story does get slow but if you suck it up; you'll find that the story is not as over-rated as you thought.

Simplistic, to-the-point, pure and rather slow-paced is what I would describe this manga.

The story revolves around Sekiguchi, an overly friendly, pushy and happy-go-lucky guy, who is absolutely desperate on making friends with Kobayashi. Jokes on him though, Kobayashi has androphobia (fear of men). However, over time you see her slowly warming up to him, and not punch him each time he tries to talk to her.

The characters personalities are to the point, starting from chapter 1 you immediately know what you're dealing with which, no deep twisted personality to unravel first (which does not mean that there is no room for development!).

I really liked the art style. It is very simplistic, like in some conversations the classroom literally only contains their two tables. In most manga, this may just seem boring, however the fact that this one is fully coloured makes up for it, and really makes this kind of simplicity shine in my opinion.

Overall, it is a quick and fun read, however if your aiming to see some romance, then you probably have to wait quite a while longer. In the 11 chapters translated so far, they are still working on being able to even hold a normal conversation, and you won't see more than perhaps blushing once or twice. I would recommend it either way though.

Created by two renowned artists, Kazuo Kamimura and Ikki Kajiwara, you would be in your good right to expect good things from this but Shouwa Ichidai Onna could be summed up as Ashita no Joe if it tried to ruin everything that ever made it great.

It follows Shoko Takano, daughter of a man who tried to overthrow the government and had to leave his family. Due to his status, her mother will get senselessly beaten up by the police and die soon after in the explosions. Shoko, left all alone without a home or a family, has to survive by herself in the ruins of Japan.

Under the context of World War II and the cruel fate of an orphan, it's just the occasion for "A Woman of Showa" to be completely caricatural and to have no nuance at all in the depiction of its environment and of the people living in this era. None of the violence represented here has any meaning or nuance to it and is just there to somehow make you feel bad.
Literally everyone that is supposed to be slightly antagonistic to the plot is shown as a monster with a wide smirk, bulging eyes and contorted face. You get the police at the beginning stripping Shoko's mother and taking pleasure in making her a bloody mess, you get the Americans only thinking about sex, wildly raping women in back alleys and they're apparently so degenerate that they get all crazy about the puss of a 10 year old, you also get this ridiculous chief of women called Osei Yozakura who collects all their earnings and if they dare to try avoiding her, they get whipped, burned, cut in the private parts with a broken glass bottle and get their wounds rubbed in salt, whoosh!

Here comes a timeskip of a few years which is apparently enough for Shoko to become a master hitman with godly agility. She kills Osei and eventually ends up in a rehabilitation center which starts the second part of the manga. You get the necessary scenes of bullying (because it just HAS to,right?) so clichéd and overused that they're not worth expanding on. Tutors are of course also trying to humiliate the girls that they don't like, for example by making them stand buck naked outside all day and having to bow and apologize to everyone. Shoko is of course going to be respected and feared by everyone because she's just that strong, yadda yadda yadda. Oh and I forgot to mention to it but there's also a sappy romantic subplot between Shoko and one of her tutors that comes from nowhere and makes absolutely no sense but there has to be some romance in this type of story I guess?

Another timeskip, Shoko is now a young woman, she's out of the rehabilitation center and has become a….GEISHA???? I don't make sense of this part and never will because a timeskip is enough to justify changing a character completely in this mediocre manga. At least this part doesn't last long because the magazine it came out in, Apache, was discontinued, only lasting from July 1977 to January 1978 which is a surprisingly short amount of time, especially when a lot of big names like Baron Yoshimoto, Shotaro Ishinomori or Leiji Matsumoto had series serialized in it.

I won't talk that much about Kamimura's art on this review because it doesn't contribute to anything in this manga except making everything look gross and shitty and there isn't a single panel that I think looks good here.

Showa Ichidai Onna is the bottom of the barrel of anything Kamimura has ever been involved in and has close to no redeeming feature, it even seems more misogynistic than it is liberating . Avoid it if you can.

Erm...too short even for a one shot manga -____-
A Silent Greeting is a tragic story about waiting. It reminds me a story of Odysseus...
Art is really nice and colourfull

Go Nagai's 1973 shonen battle manga "Cutie Honey" is something of an odd relic. It comes from a time when the ecchi sub-genre was in its infancy, and mangaka were coming up with weird and bizarre spins on the "let's find a way to incorporate full-frontal nudity in our stories" approach. Enter Cutie Honey, a story about an android girl who attends an all-girls catholic school (full of very open-lesbians), while battling the evil forces of Panther Zora (the head of an evil organization hell-bent on world domination) with her ability to change into a wide variety of skill-based costumes.

With a weird premise like that, you'd expect Nagai to go off-the-rails in his execution of the concept. He most certainly does, but he somehow found a way to make the reading experience as tonally uneven, badly paced, and as pointless as possible.

Story: 4/10
The story is cliche and what you would expect from a battle manga, but considering this was one of the first of its kind I can give it a pass. However, what's inexcusable is the constant introduction of new abilities Honey can utilize, which kills most of the tension during the fight scenes when you realize she can pull another power out of nowhere and completely turn the battle in her favor. Another aspect the story fails in is its inconsistent tone, which shifts between dark and comical with the same level of grace as a busted-up car trying to start up again. Not to spoil anything, but the shift in tone between the two final chapters was so bad that I physically cringed, and the finale was so anticlimactic that I seriously wondered if there were several plot-crucial pages that were missing.

Art: 6/10
It's what you'd expect in an ecchi manga. Even if you're not into the full-frontal nudity, the art style has a cuteness to it that can only really come from Go Nagai, with his simplistic and appealing character designs. The manga is decently drawn for the most part, but sometimes the anatomy is horribly off, with faces and body not being drawn consistently (and not in a good way). Overall, the art is fine, but not really remarkable.

Characters: 3/10
Hoo boy.
You don't really go into an ecchi manga expecting complex characterization or development, but I wasn't expecting the characters to be THIS one-note. The titular Cutie Honey is driven by the typical "I want to avenge my dad" character archetype, which ends up making her about as interesting as a plank of wood with two balloons attached to the front of it. The side characters aren't much better, especially in the case of her best friend (whom we see her spending very little time with), who simply exists to serve as a damsel in distress or a motivation device, with very little characterization outside of those two purposes. The only positive I can find is that I might've gotten a light chuckle out of some of the side characters and their interactions with Honey, but I say light chuckle with at least ten invisible air quotes.

Enjoyment: 4/10
This is a manga aimed at horny twelve-year-olds and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. Cutie Honey is peppered with """attempts""" at comedy and scenes meant to trigger some kind of sexual response, most of which I found to be mildly amusing at best and unbearably tedious at worst. I did find myself enjoying the numerous battle scenes, even when considering the lack of tension in them, and the various outfits Honey wears are visually interesting and add some variety to the setpieces. But still, there's no denying that balance of enjoyment weighs in favor of "bad".

Overall: 4/10
I didn't have a lot of expectations going in to Cutie Honey, but I wasn't expecting it to be this lackluster. From the wildly inconsistent shift between comedy and drama to the crude sex appeal, the manga was quite the chore to get through. There's fun to be had, sure, with the cute art-style and amusing fight scenes, but these two strengths aren't strong enough for me to whole-heartedly recommend the entire package. Go Nagai had a fun idea that could've been executed in a fun way, but he fumbled and ended up creating something uneven and irritating. Not an awful read, but not something I'd ever go back to or recommend to anyone.

That said, there are a couple good things to come out of this property. The 90's OVA series "Shin Cutie Honey" is a really enjoyable watch, and from what I've heard the 2000's OVA is even better. If you're going to experience Cutie Honey, those two shows are probably your safest bet.

I have a bit of a soft spot for whimsy, so when I cracked this open with basically no context for what it was, I was happy to find a fun slice of life story about 4 high schoolers playing with kids toys. For a 21 (and 2 extra) chapter read, this series provided a light, enjoyable experience for the time that it took.

Those familiar with Dagashi Kashi might find this appealing for its similarities - and indeed it has a few. In both execution and premise, Bandai Kaname wa Asobitai is very close with Dagashi, but it is inferior. Characters in Bandai have less time to develop and are more one note, whereas Dagashi both has longer to develop, and better written characters. Bandai has average art, and Dagashi has great art. Bandai barely has a story, whereas Dagashi has time for both story and fun.

What I'm trying to say is this: Bandai Kaname wa Asobitai is a fun, whimsical, nostalgic romp that you can read in 3 hours. It isn't amazing - nothing to write home about - but it's the kind of series that you can enjoy despite that. But, if you're tight on time to read, I'd encourage that you try Dagashi Kashi before coming to this. However if you've either already read it or have the free time and you find the description appealing, you probably won't regret it.

This is honestly one of the worst things I've ever read. A youtuber I like recommended it, so I read it in a few hours.

Story
It starts out interesting, but quickly just turn into nonsense. There is no real objective besides surviving, then suddenly at the very end there is an info dump with a very unsatisfying ending.


Art
The art was really good, and one of the only things that I actually liked. It was slightly cutesy, which I thought was a good contrast to the situation. I also liked that they didn't add pointless fanservice, even though they could have at times.

Characters
The worst part. The first few deaths are mildly sympathetic, but as soon as they understand that the game is real, everyone turns black or white. They don't act like they want to survive, and will do things very unrealistically. The characters that do seem to want to live always are portrayed as evil, so it isn't sad when they die and those portrayed as "good" just sacrifice themselves. None of the characters are given any backstory or development, so we don't know anything until they die. After that, there are always like 10 pages with the main character brooding over them, even when they acted completely evil or stupid.
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In conclusion, I really didn't enjoy this. I had a similar feeling when I finished the Another anime and the Battle Royal manga, so if you enjoy those, you might like this. It did have an interesting premise, but that's about it. Perhaps the book is better?

Boku no Mei is a short shoujo one-shot about an introspective male protagonist and the awkward situation life has put him in.

The main focus is the interpersonal tension between the protagonist and his niece, and considering the circumstances, it's difficult to tell exactly what sort of tension it is, and what the implications are. It's very subtly handled, and definitely the strongest point of this work.

The weaker aspect is the pacing. The attempt to recount the protagonist's memoirs results in cramming a whole lot of information into just a few pages. It all goes by too fast; there's enough nuance to paint a general picture, but not enough to quickly "dip" you into the setting as good one-shots must try to do.

The art is decent. It's a bit too much on the simple side and the adults look like early teenagers, but it's fairly expressive and serves to give the characters some personality.

Overall, Boku no Mei isn't the sort of one-shot that leaves a lasting impression, but it's fairly enjoyable while it lasts.

Well, here is my take on this one. First, like the you can tell from the synopsis, the blonde girl isn't "pure" (or at least she doesn't look like) so as you can expect... this really lowers the rating so consider that before dropping this.

This story is sad yet wholesome, despite having the 2 sides of the coin it doesn't feels forced at all. The art is great and the pace is nice and it has a couple of plot twists that spice the things up.

This is the story of a young guy poor dude, with family issues and he gets picked on because of these things. Despite saying this, the story doesn't revolves about this last point despite being relevant.

Every characters has it's issues and it's fair share of time. You really get some development on them.

The art is nice and pretty detailed. The girls are cute, including the mc's mom, lol. The backgrounds are ok too, not much to say because it's a normal modern setting.

I really recommend to check this one, a really interesting story with a lot of emotions and character development. I really wonder how this will end, because I have no idea considering how the things play out in this story.

I really wish I could say I liked this series- the art was good, and the main SIDE characters are likable, but I didn't. The plot itself was VERY superficial, and sent a VERY negative message towards its target audience. The message the plot was trying to give out is to get friends, and to get a boyfriend, that a girl must change not only her appearance(become 'beautiful'), but also her entire personality as well. It also was giving the message that overweight people can never get a boyfriend because "no one will ever like them for their personality alone; it's just a fantasy", and that a quiet, geeky person will always be picked on, and never loved.
This message only contributes to the belief that beauty doesn't come from anywhere but the person's exterior appearance. A story like this should NOT have been translated in the US, as it could possibly lower teen's self esteem, and reinforces negative views on a person.
The second thing I don't like is that the protagonist was far too forgiving, and her actions are too unrealistic. She was OK with the fact that her boyfriend was dating two other women at once- which NO REAL GIRL WOULD BE. She never dumped him, like she should have- she fought the other two girls for him. She also put far too much effort into keeping him- and never got the same effort back from him. He really didn't care for her, yet she still never dumped him.
The only saving grace this series had were the protagonist's friend, and her 'boyfriend's friend. And even they weren't enough to save it.
Avoid this series at all costs, unless you like series with jerky boyfriends, and superficial messages.