ShinXShinra3

“Do you have the courage to face the truth?”

Too often, artists promote their own inexperienced and narrow-minded agendas in their stories, shamelessly condemning the actions and decisions of those living in circumstances they couldn’t possibly imagine accurately. Hiromu Arakawa, thankfully, is not one of those artists. Where her ignorance would have left holes in her story, she did research and conducted interviews. When opportunities came during the story in which she could pronounce judgment on one type of people or belief, she refrained from making naïve and arrogant assumptions. As her characters experience the sorrows and joys that come with facing the truth, that crouching monster who laughs in derision as it reflects one’s own soul and reveals the stark realities of life, she herself refuses to embellish the facts.

That is not to say that Fullmetal Alchemist is any kind of allegory. This series goes so far as to include characters named after each of the seven deadly sins, and most of these characters, in many ways, come to embody how peculiarly pathetic these sins actually are. But the series remains a fleshed-out story until the end, with no character or event reduced to simply playing out one “message” or another. Fullmetal Alchemist is really entertainment at its finest, though the subtle blade of the truth nevertheless cuts right through the barrier between fantasy and reality.

The series begins with a few somewhat episodic adventures of brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, two alchemists in search of the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, which is said to amplify the user’s transmutation. (Alchemy itself, a “science” of deconstructing matter and reconstructing it into something else, is a really imaginative and unusual type of “magic,” and there are several different styles in which it is used.) Edward and Alphonse have committed the ultimate taboo in trying to resurrect the dead using alchemy. This mistake literally cost Edward an arm and a leg, and it cost Alphonse his entire body. Edward's lost limbs have been replaced with “automail,” and Alphonse is now a soul bonded to a suit of armor. The two are on a journey to find a way to recover what they lost.

The story unfolds at a relaxed but gripping pace. After a couple of volumes, the series leaves behind its episodic feel and begins to accelerate into one grand story in which everything, including the early episodic sequences, begins to tie together. All of the characters are thoroughly developed and explored over a long period of time. At first glance, Edward seems a smart-aleck who loses his cool easily (especially when remarks are made about his height), and Alphonse seems to be the dull, plodding sidekick who must hold back the hero from getting into a fight with everyone they meet. This first impression of the latter is partly due to the inability to see Alphonse’s facial expression, and over time, as the two brothers are forced to act independently, we begin to see the quieter and more cool-headed Alphonse’s individuality. Edward, too, though somewhat hotheaded, is revealed to be more complex than he seems and undergoes subtle but well-done development throughout the series. One of the most defining moments for the two brothers is at the end of the second chapter, in which a young woman loses everything she clung to for so long. As she collapses, weeping, and demands to know what she should do, they both walk calmly by her with the admonition to get up and move forward. Edward and Alphonse, despite what it might seem at first, do not go around taking it upon themselves to solve everyone else’s problems.

The secondary characters are also slowly and completely developed, showing up and disappearing at natural times, enhancing the story without serving as mere devices to move it forward.

Wound throughout the story is an inexhaustible sense of incredibly wacky humor. Just when things could become melodramatic, the characters morph into chibi characters and jarringly draw the reader’s attention to the humor in the event at hand. These moments rudely break the spell of the story and bring you crashing back down to earth. This element is partly what makes this series so real. You aren’t allowed to morbidly dwell on the seriousness of the events; instead, you are prompted to laugh at yourself. As some might contend that the world isn’t all sunshine, Fullmetal Alchemist will remind you that the world isn’t all shadows, either.

The world in which the story takes place is fascinating but not one you would necessarily want to visit. There are layers of culture and history that include wars and racial discrimination. However, it does not possess the unnatural hellishness that colors dystopian-style fantasy. Fullmetal Alchemist explores numerous interesting and thought-provoking ideas that all escalate into one final confrontation with the truth that can resonate with us more deeply than all the calculated tearjerkers in the world.

The panels flow as naturally as the story, and the artwork itself, especially in the facial expressions, is great, but not pretentious. It is complex when it needs to be, but hardly noticeable the rest of the time, which is an accomplishment in itself. The character designs are diverse and unique.

In short, Fullmetal Alchemist is both honest and optimistic, entertaining and thought provoking. I highly recommend it to anyone.

This is not a good manga. Most reviews here and elsewhere would have you believe that this is the best series since humanity invented sliced bread but I would beg to differ.

The manga starts with an exciting premise. Our 12 year protagonist lives in a town that surrounds an unexplored hole called the Abyss. No one knows how deep it is or its origins or the dangers that lurk in it. She discovers a mysterious robot on the edge of Abyss that has lost its memories. We also learn that our protagonist has a mother who is the most famous explorer of the Abyss but has not been seen for the past 10 years. Our protagonist wants to meet her mom and therein lies the plot. Simple enough. We have three mysteries, all of them tied to the mysterious Abyss.

While it starts simply enough as an adventure, the author brings in mystery, horror and thriller elements to keep the reader engaged. And the manga is brimming with creative art which clearly demonstrates the talent and imagination of the author. Sadly, those are the only positive things that I can say about the manga.

My biggest criticism is that this manga’s narration proceeds like a rudderless ship stranded in the middle of a stormy ocean. It zigs one way and the zags another with no sense of purpose or direction. For instance, in one of the most infamous chapters one of our main characters is subject to physical torture. I’ll spare you the gory details but body mutilation is involved. And yet in the very next chapter, this character fights the villains and almost wins! Hmm. So, was the point of that torture-porn simply to make readers squirm? Here’s another – in this same arc the main side character starts out as the villain’s accomplice, switches sides, then switches side again, is killed, then revived and finally ends up becoming friends with our main characters. Wow. In the currently ongoing arc, a character who was thought to have been dead suddenly reappears, ends up putting one of our protagonists out of action, only for them to leave and our protagonist is now back just in time to help out our two other protagonists. And in the middle of all this, the author shoehorns a 200 page flashback so that he can somehow make the plot cohere.

Al this is clear evidence of bad writing. It indicates that the author has no overarching plot and just makes stuff up. He gets an idea, runs with it, only to find himself stuck and then retcons the earlier events when he feels like it. As of chapter 56, all the original three mysteries that were posed at the start of the series have been conveniently forgotten. Our protagonists are in someone else’s adventure acting like pawns in a game of chess that they should not be a part of. Now while adventure is exciting and drawn beautifully, l as the reader have to sit back and ask – what is even the reason for this adventure to exist? How does this fit in with the original three mysteries? It doesn’t. And for me, it doesn’t look like it will either.

I’m dropping this train-wreck. I’ve better stuff to read/watch.

Uwakoi is a messed up manga. If you are planning to read this manga you have to be ready for some shitty characters. The main character is a bigger man whore than Makoto Itou.

It falls into the yandere/yangire category even though the yandere part shows up rarely until the later chapters but that is my view on it.

Summary/analysis
(This manga could be a waste of time for you so I will TLDR it(leaving out the specifics for you to read. don’t read this if don’t wanna get spoiled for the manga or whatever...)

It follows Yukiteru who is living with his childhood friend, Yuno (yeah I get it, Mirai Nikki and all that). They go to school together and Yukiteru and Yuno are recognised a couple. Yukiteru says that he loves Yuno a lot but he really means that because he is scared of her. Yuno has a “scary” side. Yukiteru ends up fucking Yuno’s “friend”, Saotome Rena. I put “friend” in quotes because Yuno doesn’t really like Rena because of her cynical/edgy attitude. Yukiteru has a thing for Rena so he convinced Yuno to friend her. Rena says that Yukiteru should handle the whole situation with Yuno (or more well....implies it).

They end up having sex a lot of times without Yuno knowing. Later on Yukiteru gets blackmailed by a girl named Kaori. She has the pics of Yukiteru having sex with Rena and in the end Yukiteru is blackmailed into having sex with Kaori. Kaori invites Yuki Rena and yuno to a trip where yuki and Rena get caught by yuno. Later on Yukiteru meets Asagiri Alice...a rich girl who is older than Yukiteru. She makes Yukiteru think she’s a nerdy science fic girl that has her own club called the SF research. But SF really just stands for sex friend. Yukiteru says no. He says yes after that. They get into a threesome while skipping class with another girl. After that Yukiteru gets blackmailed AGAIN by Alice. Who says she knows Yukiteru’s situation between Yuno and Rena. So RIP. Later on Yukiteru meets all the members of the SF club including the male members, Aruse and Shion....WHO WEIRDLY ENOUGH, IS 14. Everyone in the club are members who are in a relationship and they get into an orgy. Also there is a club policy, those who aren’t participating in the activities have to record the things happenings.

Yeah...

Ok so later on New Years, Alice commits suicide (mainly because she hates everyone due to an event that happened to her during her...early teens? which led her to forming the SF club. She claims she likes the sound of “breaking” ) and reveals/leaks all photos and videos of the activities online in dozens of Internet forums and the school online board before jumping off her balcony. Before this happens however, another incident occurs. On Christmas Eve, Rena invites Yukiteru to come and stay together for the rest of New Years. By this time Yuno has been proven to be unstable and goes berzerk around Yukiteru. However before yukiteru reaches rena’s house his head gets smashed by Yuno who was holding a bat. Yuno rapes Yukiteru, now being pregnant after this event. Rena sympathises with Yukiteru and he learns to be faithful to Rena at last.

However this doesn’t last that long. Well now that the tapes of the SF club are out Yukiteru and the other members get expelled. Yukiteru lives with Rena and starts to try getting her pregnant. However shortly after Yukiteru meets a childhood friend named Etou who he later has sex with and then regrets it due to the fact that now he has matured he understands that there can be consequences for the stuff he did/or he is doing so he ends the relationship. Later when the characters are in their adulthood/late teens 18-19 in which the events originally took place 16-17, a few killings take place that link to the SF club. All the victims are males who took part in the SF club including, the now 16 year old Shion, and the 20 year old Aruse. However Yukiteru is unaware of this. One day he decides to go out for a walk to rethink his life as he was doing a lot of that after he got expelled. Once Rena finds out about the killings from a friend/acquaintance, she panicks. Yukiteru gets killed infront of rena’s eyes. The killer was a female member of the club’s ex boyfriend. The girl’s name was Miyuki Seles, a girl who had sex with Yukiteru and the rest of the club many times but with Yukiteru the most as in the end it reveals that she had Yuki’s baby and due to a miscarriage and a beating from her ex...she and her baby died.

Artwork

10/10 can’t get any better than that

Characters

5/10
Shitty

Overall

6/10

I know this is a premature review but I figured since no one else bothered yet, I would give a rundown of why I dropped it.

Basically the author rushes everything. I feel like I am covering 10 chapters of material in a single chapter.

That story just isn't built up properly. The author drops bombshells in chapter 1.5 that shouldn't be dropped until he's had at least 10 chapters of build up. Buildup is important and this author rushes to the big reveals a chapter in.

The characters also try too hard. They're the typical cliche character archetypes. Those can be enjoyable, but I didn't feel like they were done that well here. The author is dropping 5 of them in a single chapter and I haven't warmed up to the protagonist yet, forget all these side characters.

Review to current chapter 15.5.

With a great intro that pretty much tell the overall story, it lures you in. But then you tilt your head to the side and make a big sigh of disappointment.
With a MC that you just want to punch in the face and tell him to grow some balls, it will test your patience. And the other characters just feels so stupidly unique, no flexible feeling at all just a bunch of tight ruled down puppets.
And to be fair the overall story progress good with very few loopholes and the art is fitting the theme very well.

But then towards the latest chapters the mc got a feeling that he changed a bit, only to realise that he got so stupidly focused by a goal that he can risk everything. *Somewhat of a spoiler from chapter 15* MC could just go out or bought a new one instead of risking himself, so stupid.

So for me it's a decent read but to be honest wouldn't recommend it in it's current state and if you do not like dense mc's and stale puppet characters then find something else.
And to people that doesn't bother that much about it then sure go ahead. Oh warning it's kinda gore'y and got nudity soo ¯_( ツ )_/¯

Aki Sora is a fantastic read. What can I say about this delightful, delectable, downright dangerous tale? This might sound sort of odd, but Aki Sora is a lot like Death Note, except imagine Light having a older sister instead of a death note, and that the whole plot revolved around him fucking her and a bunch of other people. The premise is that Sora has feelings for his sister Aki and vice versa , one thing leads to another and there ya go. There are a lot of twists, nothing to write home about (mainly because you shouldn't tell your family you read this) but it's cool that the series has them and keeps the plot pretty exciting. Characters are a little bit more complex than they appear and while it won't blow you away it is still pretty fun to read. The art is good and you probably haven't seen anything like it. Aki Sora, the Arnold Palmer of incest manga, give it a try.

Memesis is an action and comedy manga that most of the time focuses mainly on comedy. It's worth a read and its a pretty interesting and nice story.

Story-7
The story is pretty normal, I would say its good and that if your reading for a great amazing intriguing story that's the best of the year it's not your best choice, this is a comedy manga so its more laughs but the story does clearly show how the characters advanced and grew due to their past 'TRAUMA'

Art-9
The art is really beautiful and nice, and no I'm not talking about the ''PLOT'', its way better than most manga and every chapter theirs some really cool and awesome looking pages.

Character-8
The two main characters are really funny, with some side characters being amazingly funny and very few just being okay. The story repeatedly shows how our two main heroes improved compared to their past selves, it's pretty nice but also funny when you consider the reason for the cause of their growth.

Enjoyment-9
The mangas actually pretty great. It's really good for a laugh and has some great action scenes I haven't noticed a single chapter I didn't find entertaining.

Overall=9
The manga has amazing art, interesting characters, a lot of great laughs, a good story so I feel it would be a 9 overall. I think this manga only has such a bad rating because of its unsuspected comedy at the first chapter which I feel is kind of unfair for it to get a bad rating for such a reason, it's not a tragic cliche, it's a fun action adventure.

Are you bored? Want to relax? Want to add stuff to your list? If it's one of those 3 then look no further because this is your perfect manga.

I decided to read this after looking at the cover picture in a manga app. It pretty much is what I expected it to be. Girl loves some dude but acts cold towards him in the outside. The next day she becomes invisible and realizes she can now drool over her crush. But the thing is her crush can see her. What a fail. And it appears that he isn't going to tell her about that anytime soon.

So to speak, I enjoyed this to my hearts content. The art was not that great, the characters offered no sense of originality, and the story wasn't unique at all but I don't think a masterpiece was what the author of this manga was aiming for. He/she just wanted to make a manga that entertains us with simple comedy. I for one think he/she did a good job at that. And that's what counts.

Reading through mathematic books can be a tedious task for most people, though some enjoy it; for the people who don't, there is the manga Suugaku Girl, or Mathematics Girl, which treats with different mathematical subjects with a romantic story to maintain the narrative interesting.

The story is quite simple: a boy meets a girl, Milka, who is gifted and very immersed in mathematics. The boy itself is learned in mathematics, being able to teach Tetra, who has problems with mathematics. Milka often seeks and meets the boy giving him mathematical problems to solve.

From here on different mathematical subjects are treated, such as the Fibonacci numbers, Moivre theorem, factorization, you name it. The first few chapters are dedicated to introduce simple problems, but as the story progresses, more difficult problems are introduced, while at the same more theory is shown and explained. The strong point of Suugaku girl is that most of the mathematical problems are explained well and detailed, while sometimes a bit more explanation would be appreciated for the younger readers or those that have little understanding of mathematics.

To keep the story interesting while introducing the reader to different mathematical problems and theorems can be very difficult; to adress this problem, romance is introduced. Though it was a good idea, it didn't fully fulfill the purpose. The romantic course of the story was very predictable, making it more like an interference with the story rather than helping it.

The characters of Suugaku Girl are shallow and simple, being Milka the most interesting one with her mathematical complex. Nevertheless it was interesting to see how mathematics affected the relationships between the three protagonists.

The art style is the biggest drawback of the manga. The characters are drawn exactly the same way, being the only change the hairstyle and clothes. Expressions and movements don't seem to be correctly drawn either. There is a lack of backgrounds, and it is only drawn when absolutely necessary.

Suugaku Girl was overall enjoyable, with an interesting theme that certainly came as a surprise. The art hindered the story too much, making it feel like it was just a book. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in mathematics, otherwise I certainly can't recommend it as it can get tedious and boring. The main focus lies on mathematics, so reading this manga slowly would be advisable.

Thank you for reading.

[Semi Spoilers but only disclosing what happens in the first chapter so you better be not surprised]
=TL;DR WILL BE AT THE BOTTOM=
You follow the main character Machiya Tomohiro, a cameraman working for the Film Research Club. The only thing he ever wants in life to to record and film. One day he bumps into a girl named Mashiro Mai, who asks him to record her daily life. Being the edgy man that Machiya is, he accepts and continues to film her for the next few days. One thing leads to another and suddenly Machiya finds that Mashiro is a crazy murdering bitch.

Now, as someone who really enjoys reading graphic manga, Dead Tube really shines upon itself on it's artwork, thanks to Kitakawa Touta, but my main concern is how hard it tries to be to, "become the most edgiest manga" in the story line. I won't be spoiling anything that happens after chapter one but I will hint out that everything past chapter one is a disappointment. The format of the story is just fantastic, showing how crazy humans can be just for fame and fortune, and will do anything for it, but it will bring you down that it just kind repeats itself for the next several chapters. All they want and do is sex and murder, giving you a vibe that it just repeats itself consistently. After chapter 15, it just becomes ridiculous and uninteresting, trying to keep itself up with being edgy. In my opinion, you don't connect with the story and just basically stay for the artwork provided. One thing that really grinds my gears is the characters.

The characters are cliche, plain and uninteresting to see. You get your MC, boring, has no meaning in life and just stays there for plot convenience, then you have SC, who is a crazy yandere bitch that will do anything for money and fame (or just outright crazy). Any other character introduced will just make you annoyed to the point you're asking yourself 'when will they die?' and if that thought ever arose from my mind, I would drop the series completely. You don't really feel for the characters but rather to just pitch a tent or unleash the water gates.

The setting of the story is pretty common too. You have the highschool, the MC house, sometimes the SC house and it just really doesn't bring much to the table. Though after the 12 or so chapters, the setting changes completely which is good in a way but it doesn't change the fact that the story itself is kind of bland.

Bad notes aside, I've been mentioning this a lot in the review but the artwork is just tremendous. The way the facial expressions are, the movements and the gore really gives you a great feeling about the story. It may look normal and typical the first few frames but focus a lot on the characters faces and it's somewhat realistic.

This has been my first review so I apologize if everything is all over the place or there is grammar mistakes but I thank you for reading and taking your time this far! I will give my overall verdict.

As seen above my review, I am giving this a 6/10 Benedict Cumberbatch's. The reason why it isn't any lower is because of the artwork alone. The story is unique in a way but it doesn't try hard enough to make it seem unique and special in its' own way and continues to try so hard to be edgy that it's a complete square. The characters are boring and uninteresting and it just doesn't make me want to keep reading. If you're here for the titties then enjoy them while it lasts because it will get boring real quickly.

=TL;DR=
Story is special but doesn't highlight on it, the art is amazing, with having amazing facial expressions, characters are boring as shit, you're most likely going to read it for the titties.
Thanks for reading! (　＾∇＾)