The following will be a review of Bloody Monday and its 2 sequels, I'll try my best not to include any spoilers.

For awhile now I've been slowly drifting away from anime/manga as a hobby, but I was bored one day and remembered that I still have a huge list of manga I was interested in reading at one point so I randomly picked Bloody Monday and gave it a go.

I ended up speeding through the entire 3 "seasons" of this series in about a week, which is pretty fast for me considering how many chapters there were.

The basic premise of Bloody Monday is that this high school kid named Fujimaru who seems like your average dumb perverted teen boy is actually a genius hacker, Falcon. He and his friends and family get involved in a bunch of terrorist plots, and as the series goes on the scale gets larger and more grandiose, to the point of being ridiculous at times. It's safe to say that if you're looking for a carefully crafted, well-written story line with reason and logic then Bloody Monday will probably disappoint you. I'll admit I was only looking for a fun, action-packed manga that was easy to get immersed in, and I pretty much got what I wanted. But Bloody Monday is filled with over the top contrivances and plot holes, so if that bothers you then I'd stay away from this. Overall I felt like the first season had better writing, the second season had the worst, and the last season managed to salvage what was left of the plot and tied it all into a heartwarming, albeit rushed, ending.

Personally I have hard time judging art because I'm not much of an artist myself, and I often get too immersed into the story to really pay attention to artistic details. Bloody Monday's artwork was pretty typical of shounen mangas, the action scenes were well done and the characters were all distinct. In a manga like this where deception and stealth are central to the story line, the characters' facial expressions all have to be drawn very exactly and I think the artist did a good job with that. The artist also did a good job of casting slight doubt on certain characters without making it too obvious.

Speaking of the characters, I think that's where Bloody Monday shined, with a few exceptions. Although the story was truly ridiculous at times, it was the fact that I had grown to care about the characters that made me want to read all the way to the end of the last season to find out if they all get a happy ending. The lead hero Fujimaru has a lot of typical shounen protagonist traits like a strong sense of justice, compassion for those he cares about, and determination to protect the people around him. In the beginning chapters of the first series I actually found him annoying with how trusting and naive he was, but thankfully he learns from his mistakes and you do get to see how he matures throughout the 3 seasons due to everything he experiences. His friend Otoya would probably be most people's favorite character in the series, and he was mine as well, although the enigmatic J does come close later on. As a whole, the characters were likable and easy to get attached to, although in some cases you just can't get too attached.

Unfortunately, beginning in the second season there arises a very strange, rushed, and random romance aspect that quickly becomes over the top for the nature of this series. Maybe I was reading the manga too quickly or something, but I felt like the romance really just came out of nowhere and became too deep, too fast. And I realize that the purpose of this was to give the main character an even greater motive to reach his goals and make the conclusion more satisfying, but it still felt really out of place at the end. Surely there could've been a better executed way of giving him the same amount of motivation.

Despite some problems with the story and character dynamics though, I still have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed this series, in the sense that I was really sucked into the story and couldn't stop reading. I've missed getting really caught up in a story like this, and I liked that Bloody Monday brought back that feeling.

Overall, I don't think Bloody Monday is a must-read but if you're just looking for something fun and suspenseful with lots of twists and turns to pass the time then you might enjoy this. If you're looking for something more refined and cleverly written then you will likely be disappointed with this series.