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Story about a bully that in turn started to get bullied, understood the pains of bullying and tries to repent his past misdeeds.
Story filled to brim with seeking forgiveness, bitch slaps, kindness, coming to terms with one's own personality and bitch slaps again.
I loved it. It has a sweet-sour taste, VERY consistent pace (oh how I pity you readers that had to wait for chapters release), and overall promotes the idea that everyone is innately a good person, that even if does something wrong, does not realize it. It is in a nice 63 chapters packet, so if you feel bad about the way social interactions go in your life, that's a nice manga to binge.

Watch anime instead.
Reasons- Quite good music, details aren't really lost there.
Read manga in case you really love it since Manga can be read at own pace and also provides slightly different epilogue.

** spoiler alert **
If not for the epilogue I would have given this a 7 instead of 8.

Having already seen anime couple years ago I knew what to expect when I started reading this and was surprised to find out that Light, being a protagonist was actually a very lucky person.
Examples of this are- Him meeting fiancé of the FBI agent before she could meet L and then general assumptions of things going exactly as he planned.

For me the manga peaked when L and Light were together, I liked both the characters and it just felt like good times.
The way Light had planned everything before giving up ownership was another peak, the whole thing with Rem having to kill L was a masterstroke. And that is why I think the manga is a must read.

What I didn't like is the America part. I couldn't bring myself to care much about Near or Mello and just the chaos as Light spends time reacting to them.
It only got better when Mello was mostly out of the picture, story was back in Japan and it Light vs Near.
Except now coming to the end, it was Near who was lucky and not Light.
Near discovering x-kira doesn't have a Shinigami was too forced.
It was very wrong of Near to risk everything bringing everyone in that warehouse because X-kira/T having separate pages (like a piece Light literally had) instead of relying on Notebook would have ruined everything.
So author makes up with that with a theory of Near having written T's name in Notebook in advance.

Overall 8/10.

Hello all,

This is my first time writing a review and I can say that this reminds me so much of many many good Anime startups like SAO and I can say that I was mesmerized when I first started reading it. I was going from chapter to chapter with such hunger for more, took me 8 straight hours to catch-up and I could simply not get enough of it.

Story: 10/10

Simply grabbing you by the neck and chockeslamming you, like a wrestle mania moment. When you start with the first chapter you simply can't get enough of the weak character, who is always depressed and scared of dying but he finds his way with hard work and blood to the very special place.

Art: 10/10

The coloring of the chapters and fights is very very good and gives you an exact feeling what will it look if this was turn to an Anime which I would pay to see to be honest.

Characters: 10/10

It presents not only the main-character as a weakling but shows the compassion of the people around him. Also showing how he goes when he starts to obtain power and his character slowly evolves into something more, a true bad-ass-hero.

Enjoyment: 10/10

As I said few times already, I simply can't shake off my hunger for it. It is really amazing manga and I wish to continue reading even if they go full "One Piece" number I will not get bored of it.

Overall: 10/10

Nothing left to say but give it a shot and start reading it! You will not be sorry, Solo leveling is simply on a next level compared to other mangas.

Teenagers revolted by the system without any respect for teachers and authorities, addicted to drugs, who instead of complaining on twitter, ride futuristic motorcycles and get into big trouble with the government. These are the tools of Katsuhiro Otomo to express his criticisms against Japan and the post-nuclear world in AKIRA. And it is a lot of fun how marginalized and abandoned adolescents by society are the main triumph of the plot to mock the government's oppressions.


Tetsuo - a teenager with the personality of a school terrorist - awakens paranormal powers after running over an elderly child, who has escaped confidential Japanese government experiments. Kaneda - leader of the teen biker group, whose Tetsuo was a member - needs to prevent Tetsuo's psychotic breakdown, armed with unbridled paranormal powers, from destroying any sign of life that comes his way and even worse, reactivating the sleeping AKIRA - another being with powers even more immeasurable than those of Tetsuo.


We read the clash between Tetsuo and Kaneda, set in a post-World War III NeoTokyo, guided by a political and revolutionary narrative. While on the one hand Tetsuo becomes more violent, powerful and unsociable, with the blind support of the army colonel and his team of scientists, Kaneda is allied with Kei and Ryu, members of the Nezu political party that opposes the military.


In 112 chapters and 6 volumes, the plot can be divided into 2 parts;
The first half supines the mysteries and establishes its cyberpunk universe with motorcycle racing, chases through the sewers, escapes from prisons, enemy being hurled into the air with telepathic powers, wall and rocks exploding with paranormal waves, and Tetsuo pissed off with everything, while the reader screams inside:

WHAT IS AKIRA?
by every person reading


In the second part, he clarifies his mysteries in an absurd and surreal way, heading the narrative to unexpected places, with catastrophes at all times. Instead of people being thrown around by the power of the mind, now it's buildings falling down and ships exploding. Motorcycle racing has become motorcycle racing ... with missiles. Everything from the first part is boosted by 1000x and the Tetsuo is even more pissed off.

"- THIS TIME TETSUO WENT TOO FAR!"
by Kaneda


The characters are similar, to the point of looking like generic versions of Kaneda and Tetsuo. Kei looks like the female Kaneda. Her brother, Ryu, looks like Tetsuo with a mustache. Every soldier, monk, bandit is like the other. It is normal to ask yourself "Who is who?", Especially in the busiest parts. Despite improving in the second half, with the features gaining more details like - scars, wrinkles, bulging eyes and etc. - and the hair being "combed" in a more stylized way. In addition to new ethnicities and different types of fat, muscular, skinny people gain space.

Akira's macro point is the urgency of the plot in which heroes need to stop Tetsuo, and the way things change from Eleven from Stranger Things to Vegeta from DBZ as credibly and interestingly as possible.

"KANEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!"
By Shima Tetsuo


"TETSUOOOOOOOOOOO!"
By Shotaro Kaneda
The manga highlights the anime that popularized it and or any other generic version of its work (coff ... Stranger ... Things ... coff).

GOOD FOR HEALTH BAD FOR EDUCATION

This review is up to chapter 45.


First of all, if you haven't read Shingeki no Kyojin yet, go do it. I'm not usually this enthusiastic about shounen manga, but SNK has managed to become the exception, simply because it's so damn good. Why? What makes it better than other works in similar genres? Well, my little ones, SNK is so well thought out. Meticulously so. From the plot to the characters, everything has just that extra layer that pushes SNK to become an outstanding piece of writing. There are plot twists often, and boy, can they catch you off guard. All of the characters contribute to the development of the story and each other. I'm picky when meeting characters, and even though this manga has about 1,000,000 of them, it is easy to differentiate and love even the most minor. This is definitely a story that I would buy and read over and over until the pages are worn.

And, well, as for the art.... There are some 'inconsistencies' that kind of annoy me - mainly that they way jaws are drawn from profile makes their faces look like tomato cans - but aside from minor things, it is a refreshing style. Isayama's art doesn't have "copy/paste face" - meaning that the only thing that physically changes from character to character is the eye size -- rather each character has their own specific features. It doesn't sound like that much to ask for, but this is regrettably rare for anime/manga. It's actually quite daring, and I can appreciate a good oasis in the desert of generalized faces.

Overall, this is the kind of manga that makes you think. I've been reading for a long time, but never have I spent so much time going over possibilities and predictions in my head. Not only that, but you genuinely care about what's happening. It's the kind of story that your jaw drops, your eyes widen, and your heart beat wildly with anticipation. And as for the fandom, it has an amazing range of artists, writers, thinkers, and crackifiers, and I enjoy every second of being apart of it.

Simply put, Shingeki no Kyojin is fantastic; a regular 10/10 would bang. I'd recommend it to anyone, even people who don't read manga. Go. Go read it now. Then friend me so we can talk about it into the wee hours of the morning.

Kasahara Konomi. During middle school, she won many puzzle tournaments in Japan. Thanks to her hobby, she enjoyed her school life; she thought she did not need anything else. She was wrong. Her hobby resulted in poor academic performance, so she had to reconsider her life choices. Thankfully, her hard work pays off and she enrolls in Hanamiya girls’ high school.

I will not try to hide the fact that this manga is quite unique. I mean, how many anime and manga about sport climbing do you know? Kasahara Konomi is a hikimori, who only plays games. Her life shows her that everything is not easy and one cannot just play games and do nothing else. She spends less time on games, trying to pay school enough time. But one day, she also finds out about sport climbing and falls in love with it. It is an open secret that playing games for many years, has not helped her muscles in any way, and sport climbing requires one hell of a physical training. Nevertheless, during her first day as a club’s member, she finds out that there will be a tournament soon and her senpai recommend her to take part in it. And so Konomi’s new passion is born.

I do not have anything to criticize this manga for, but I find it extremely disappointing that this manga is about girls only. Also, many websites include ecchi as one of the main genres of the manga and it is quite obvious, if you start reading it. A huge disappointment that this manga tries to be interesting, but fan service is somewhat superfluous. Like, how can you climb with such boobs?

All in all, if you want to read a manga about lewd girls climbing, this might be what you are looking for. But if you are looking for a good story, try something else.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
If you are informed of Corpse Party PSP games or seen Anime Ova or seen the original manga, then you won't need to know much about story. If not then read synopsis.

Anyhow, while I loved original Corpse Party for its very disturbing horror element, this one takes more of an ecchi side. Which I also quit enjoyed, it was quite simplistic, lewd and certain things were actually quite kinky. That's all I can tell about story of this one. Probably the finale and some story elements were somewhat underwhelming, but aside that I enjoyed it. Though I must mention that corpse party with ecchi focus, got eventually quite disturbing as got element I despise regarding sexual things. But it would be spoiler, so cannot mention.

✦Art
Very nice pantsu, lots of nice fanservice, kinky moments. Anyhow, quite liked artstyle. Now and then felt odd, but aside that quite hot. Also the "horror creatures" were also quite alright.

✦Character
Well, all sort of cast. Same cast as original, so won't have to mention much. All I can say is that their persona was pretty much same, ecchi element was simply visual diffference, didn't effect most of characters personality. So yeah, varierty of stereotypes.

✦Enjoyment&Overall
What can I say, wasn't as amazing as original. The disturbing horror story game/manga, but was enjoyable fanservice ride.

Weekly Shounen Jump is the most famous manga magazine in the world, with series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Yugi-Oh, Bleach and Yaiba, just to name very few. It’s a magazine that always seems to have a hit title on their sleeves, and this can give people the idea that Jump spends a lot of time curating their manga, making sure that only the best of the best are published, but this is actually far from what really happens.
On the contrary, Weekly Shounen Jump has a new batch of manga every three or so months, and each batch comes with two to four brand new manga. And every time a new manga starts, another ends. This creates a magazine where most manga that debut ends at around four or five months after they start. Only the manga that managed to create a core audience and have decent sales in their first volumes survive. It’s important for a manga to have an initial buzz.

And Time Paradox Ghostwriter had that buzz. It had the luck of starting the exact same issue that Kimetsu no Yaiba ended, so people point at it as if it was the manga that came to take the place of one of the best selling manga of recent times. And while, yes, it was the manga that came to take Yaiba’s literal spot in the magazine, it was just another one of a batch that happened to start when Yaiba ended. But that didn’t matter, people were reading the first chapter and talking about it.

The first chapter is about Teppei Sasaki, a mangaka that is trying his best to get published in Shounen Jump, but keeps getting rejected, because, despite writing decent manga, they always feel generic. The editor asked him to write a manga that only he could write, but he fails every time.
After many tries, Sasaki is ready to give up, but during that night a lightning strikes his house, burning his microwave and this somehow puts an issue of Shounen Jump inside it. Not any issue, but an issue from 2030, ten years into the future. The magazine has a lot of manga that Sasaki does not recognize, but most importantly, it features the very first chapter of White Knight, a manga that according to him is literally the best thing to ever exist ever and your favourite manga is dumb and stupid when compared to it, and you if you don’t rate it the objective 10 out a 10, I’m blocking you. When Sasaki wakes up the next day he realizes that the issue is gone, so he concludes what any sane person would, he was dreaming. But in that dream he read a fantastic manga, one that he could now put into paper. He adapts it to a one-shot and everyone in Jump loves and publishes it. But when he comes back home he has the issue of Chapter 2 of White Knight waiting in his microwave. He was not dreaming, and worse, he just stole someone’s work.

This is the premise, and it wasn’t too long for people to point out similarities to Bakuman and Steins;Gate, which I think helped getting more buzz, but the manga is incredibly unique as is. Sure there are elements, being a manga about mangaka in Jump, it would of course have some similarities with Bakuman, which talks about the exact same thing, but the story itself is very fresh. This, together with the fact that the art is incredibly solid, clean and gorgeous, making it one of the best in the magazine, made people be sure that this wasn’t just another manga to be axed soon. Time Paradox Ghostwriter had potential and it could be one of the next pillars of Shounen Jump. And as the next couple of chapters came out more people seemed to get into it. Looking at Anilist and Myanimelist rankings, TPGW was easily one of the highest ranking debuts in the magazine this year. It seemed like TPGW was set to be a success with a solid fanbase…

OR WAS IT?

Sorry… I… I like Vsauce, I wanted to do that.
But this was just the reality of the western audiences, the reality in Japan couldn’t be further apart. See, remember when I said that Sasaki just stole a work? Turns out that Japanese audiences didn’t particularly enjoy a shounen main character doing that, and they let it know.
And I understand, but I think the way the manga tackled it was interesting, the mangaka showed remorse when he realized he stole a work and, yes, he continued to do so, even after meeting the original writer of White Knight on his timeline (who eventually becomes his assistant), but he did had his reasons. The main one being that by having the one-shot be published he destroyed any chances of Itsuki Aino (the original mangaka) to write it in the future. So only he could do it in his timeline.
It doesn’t completely excuse him, but he never seems to be doing it out of spite, and the story never really tries to pretend that plagiarism is good. Over the course of the story you can catch glimpses of Sasaki slowly making White Knight his own work.

It didn’t matter though, the Japanese people, you know, the ones that actually buy the magazine and the volumes, didn’t like the premise and they made sure to let it know, especially on the internet. To the point that the first volume tried to remove any mention of plagiarism. Which… I haven’t read the volume version, just the mangaplus weekly translations, but I don’t see how you can do that on a manga where it’s part of the core premise…
Either way, even with this, the volume got bad reviews and bad sales, although, surprisingly, not the worse Jump volume of that month, because thank God that Guardian of the Witch exists, and thank God more that it’s axed already.

This pressure to appease the audiences and gain some fanbase wasn’t present just on the volume version of the manga. The chapters started suffering too. You could tell that the mangaka was trying very hard to go through the plagiarism “arc” of the story as fast as he could, so he could potentially deliver something that the audiences could relate more to, but the result was an atrocious pacing. Each chapter started to spawn months of the story’s timeline and things just happened, and then moved onto the next thing that should happen.
In one example, we are finally introduced to a chapter that Sasaki will have to write completely on his own, a chapter that he has 7 weeks left to write. It is a big deal and we spend about a chapter and a half exploring the fact that he’s going to that, just for the manga to then skip months ahead and not mention this INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT POINT TO THE STORY ever again. It seems that almost every plot point that is introduced in the middle part of the story lacked a proper build-up and a proper conclusion.

It didn’t save it, of course. The manga was scheduled to be cancelled on it’s 14th chapter, which is incredibly early, even for early cancelations and the earliest I personally remember seeing.
When a manga gets axed, I’m not expecting a perfect ending. The mangaka was not able to tell the story he wanted to tell and they probably set up plot point that will not be resolved. They can either go for an open ending or a rushed one… but TPGW’s ending… it was good. It was really fucking good.

Maybe because the manga was rushed in the middle, when the fourth to last chapter starts to wrap-up the things, it doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere, and maybe because the mangaka has nothing else to lose, the pacing goes back to normal, and you feel like the story can breathe again. The following chapter is probably my favourite and the mangaka even manages to throw a small remark at the fact that he didn’t had the time to tell the story he wanted to. It was probably the best ending he could go for, it was a fantastic read, it was emotional and it was more than I could ask for.

I did want to give this manga a better rating. Or rather, I’d like this manga to have had the time it needed to tell the story it wanted the way it wanted. There’s a lot of axed manga in Jump that are cancelled because they are too generic, or have too many flaws, and sometimes because they are too niche. But Time Paradox Ghostwriter was rejected because people didn’t want to accept it’s slightly morally grey character, even though they will openly accept Light’s murdering ways in Death Note. It was never that TPGW couldn’t tell a good story, Hell, I think the last four chapters show a capability to do just that, but it never was given that chance, and that is sad. The start and the ending are solid, but sadly the middle has too many problems for me to raise the score higher than the one I’m giving it.

Gunhed isn't one-shot material and it isn't material for three chapters. The overall plot was quite interesting, but the execution ended up being pulled back from what it could have been because of the fact it could have easily have been six chapters at least. The art was also highly detailed, particularly for a something from the late 1980's. Characterization was also weak because of how much was crammed in at once and it felt like the reader only got a glimpse of the world. It left me wanting more as well as feeling disappointed because I liked what I did see.

I decided to read this after reading Sarah Horrock's review of Der Wergelder, where she writes:

"I think one of the disjunctions in Samura’s work, is that at times Blade of the Immortal was a thin veneer over the monstrous abyss lurking in the back of Samura’s predilictions as an artist–and the extent to which he is removed from that darkness is the degree to which his work loses its beauty. My hope going forward with Der Wergelder is that it moves closer to Brute Love and Bradherley’s Coach..."

Of course, going by some of the reviews here, it seems apparently no one realized that Samura was, firstly, a pre-dominantly erotic artist, and, secondly, a pre-dominantly erotic artist of Sadism. Anyway this serves as a reminder that, before you even read anything, go research what the Mangaka normally does first. You don't want to be wandering into any of Shintaro Kago's other works, by accident, after reading Paranoia Street, for example.

Anyway I'm inclined to agree with Sarah Horrock's here, in that Samura's style is a beautiful style, and half of the Beauty comes from the disjunct between cruelty and the lingering quality of the Art. The result you get is this strange mix of Anne of the Green Gables (which, Samura himself writes in the post-notes, that he was inspired by, the fucker), a Prisoner of War rape-drama, a series of brutally depressing vignettes, Germanic culture, and figments of transient beauty and humanity among scores and scores of suffering.

Within these vignettes, you get several points of view, each fleshing out the whole scope of the setting even further. You have the view of the orphans, the view of the guards, the view of the prisoners, the view of the members of Bradherley's Troupe etc... Very missing though is the POV of the aristocrats themselves, whose motives create an inhuman void that pushes much of the cruelty forward, although some moments do underline what they could have been feeling at the time.

It has always been my predilection to view the best type of artist as one who can come down from an observer's point of view, weaving together events in an anti-judgmental way. There's an interesting quote about Macbeth from the TV comedy Stings and Arrows, where a character mentions that what is terrifying and cursed about Macbeth is that Macbeth, as a play, is not a work that commentates on Evil, but a work that portrays Evil, and in that regard, Samura himself sits coldly away from the events of the narrative. The scenes he draws are eroticized, but unfeeling beyond any measure, and this is a plus, because he doesn't shy away. In opposition, an artist like Shintaro Kago blatantly makes fun of all the Sadistic impulses he has to create zany brutally slapstick comedy.

And, the result, is that Art like this is frequently misconstrued to serve moralistic purposes. People forget that the depiction and narrative is separate from the plot. The plot itself is cruel and unsavory, but the depiction, and the structure of the events and how the story is told, weaves itself around in a completely different way. Human Brutality is supplanted with Human Nature, and that, is the core difference between an Act of Evil, and a Portrayal of Evil.