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Oct 22, 2024
I guess I caught up to another ongoing manga, and I guess I should say where the manga is right now. Likely this will be my only take on the manga unless it completely goes off the rails
Simply put Chainsaw Man is both extreme and unique. Chainsaw Man takes place in a universe where devils are real and exist. Our main character gains the ability to turn into the Chainsaw Devil.
The idea that the main character can change into a devil with a chainsaw for a face and hands as he wants to fight devils is certainly not one
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I expected. Obviously the chainsaws mean there's going to be a lot of blood, and the certainly is, and it's not only the enemies. The combat is violent, and while sometimes it's a little hard to follow, there's a visceral feel to most of it that works.
In addition, the enemies are interesting and unique. Almost every devil is something you haven't seen before, and each is unique which you want to see how they will fight against Chainsaw Man or any of the other devil hunters.
Chainsaw man is unique in another important way. The Main character Denji is ... trash. And that's intentional. This isn't heroic little Goku who can do no wrong. This is a character who has been abused by the world for his whole life. This is a character whose main goal is to "touch a boob", but clearly has no chance of ever doing it. This is a character who is pathetic in oh so many ways...
And that's the point. Later on in the story Denji wants to be heroic... Like almost every Shonen main characters, but he ONLY wants to be heroic so he can have the girls all over him. He is kind of despicable, and oddly enough that's why he's interesting as a character, because this isn't a grand adventure of a noble knight. This is a character who is fighting through actual devils and actually is one as well.
So Chainsaw Man has interesting enemies, decent action (I wouldn't say "great" but good might fight), and a unique main character. But how's the rest of it.
Well here's the thing, I almost want to give this a "Mixed Feelings" because Chainsaw Man frustrates me a lot. This is a VERY fast pace manga, usually to it's own detriment. It often feels like there's missing chapters or characters who align with each other the last time we see them, end up fighting each other the next. Many characters are developed to be killed off and far more are just killed off like they're a set of toys the author lost interest in entirely too fast.
Many character's motivations are a bit cloudy. With out spoilers this is hard to really explain but it feels like often there could be a couple extra pages just to make it clear what the character motivations are. There's points where a character appears to be in alliance with others and then attacks them a little later. This SHOULD be treated as a huge betrayal but the manga just accept it and keeps it going. Some characters get entirely too much motivation, but their whole purpose in the plot story can be a fraction of the backstory.
But perhaps the most frustrating part is a common issue with Shonen manga. There's three simple questions.
* What is your ability?
* What is your limitations?
* What is your power level?
And the fact is Chainsaw man doesn't seem to want to even address that... even when they do. They make a point of saying when a Devil is feared they get more powerful but if people like the devil it weakens it. With Chainsaw Devil being a hero for much of the manga (or doing heroic looking actions). You'd assume this would come into play, but it's never shown, only told to the audience that this is happening. Chainsaw Devil is usually just the Chainsaw Devil.
Other enemies are often shown have some undefined ability and killed with out much more than a few panels of combat, no intro, just death. Even Chainsaw Man/Devil seems to be able to be destroyed, at least taking heavy damage often but it's easily healed up as well.
The fact we don't understand the exact power levels, characters, or limitations we are playing with ultimately makes much of Chainsaw man feel a bit hollow.
Yet, I can't say I am ready to put it down. The combat might not be the most interesting due to the power issues, and the writing can be a little obfuscated at times, but overall... the characters (especially despicable Denji), the story (For what you get) and the concepts at play here will keep me reading a little farther, likely as long as the manga is being produced.
Like I said, this is a little closer to Mixed Reactions than it should be but, I'd recommend people give it a shot. At least see a main character who is INTERESTING rather than just being a stock Main Character that you get from every manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 11, 2024
Overall a fast and interesting "gambling" manga.
I don't really get the hate of Ousama's Game/King's Game, or I do but we'll talk about that at the end. (Btw, I'll refer to it as Ousama game, but I'll also call the character "King", when I talk about "King" It's the character in the story.)
This is a five book manga, it's not serialized, it's not broken up into chapters, it's just there to read, and in that way Ousama Game is different then most manga out there. The premise is simple, someone sends a message to an entire class demanding one student kiss
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another. From there a new message is sent every day, with a new task for one or two of the students in the class. Eventually a task is not completed and a punishment is handed out... a punishment that ends in a couple character's deaths. Thus is the core of "Ousama's Game".
As mentioned this is a relatively fast read, there's some body horror but the art is a bit weak, so rather than lingering, you'll go through the books relatively fast, however the concept is good and "What will happen next" is always in the back of your mind. Before long the game turns darker than it does and it slowly gets grimmer.
By the end there's a somewhat satisfying ending, though I will say I heavily appreciate that this didn't have a "Friendship beats all" type ending, which is refereshing, for a dark gritty manga, it's good that the manga doesn't cheapen it's story by relying on that overused trope. It's one of my least favorites, and in that Ousama's Game excels in doing something different. It's not perfect, some people might want a whodunnit type approach, but that's not really needed here.
However... I did mention that I understood some of the hate that Ousama's Game gets. I feel like there's three camps.
The first is people who simply don't like the art or manga, and find it cheap, and admittedly it is. This is not a major high class series, it's body horror I could look at even though I hate body horror, most of the characters are a bit generic (we'll dive deeper into that in a moment). However, this is a B-tier effort, it's written almost like a "trashy romance novel". It's popcorn and in that it promises "interesting dares and a fast pace where people will die. The thing is, that's what it delivers, it never said intended to rival the deepest and longest running manga, it's just fun, which is why it's based off a cheap cellphone novel.
The second issue is a lot of people seem to complain about Ousama's Game, but talk about the anime, admitedly from what I hear the anime is particularly terrible, trying to combine two stories into a single season, and knowing that, I doubt it could work. This is a fast paced story, but it's self contained and trying to repeat it or double the situations never would work. This came first, but also this is a standalone medium. This isn't Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, where you're intended to have read the previous books and them changing characters can be a problem to fans, this is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the movie version. You don't need to complain or necessarily compare it to the the book, the anime, the other movie, or anything else. As a standalone property this is fine.
The third and probably the only criticism I can agree with is that. A LOT happens in this story, and the pace of the manga really wants to get to the next major moment as fast as possible. I appreciate this a lot, because brevity is wit. In fact, I heavily agree with that in this case, You don't need 20 pages of whincing to know a character is sad that someone died that he was trying to protect. You know he doesn't like it. The main character is the core of this manga, and a lot of the focus of the story is on him as he deals with the orders King gives, and King's Game.
However (I'm saying that a lot in this review), That's not to say the speed is always good. There's a rather major moment involving something that has to be done but it's devistating. There's a couple other awful, awful things that happen. The problem is, the characters move on too quickly, a little bit of a reflection on this, wouldn't have hurt. It might have made the story go for an extra chapter, but there's moment to really "breath" in this book, the characters have to do awful things, and rather than see them react they almost immediately turn around and are put into another horrible situation.
I am being contradictory, I've praised the speed, but said the book isn't taking any time to reflect on matters, and I think there's a middle ground. This didn't have to be bloated, but certain actions are treated like they can be brushed off, when they shouldn't be. The book's speed is appreciated in most things, but while sleeping on the story here, I do have to admit there's a couple pieces that needed to be fleshed out more, and I'm intentionally trying to avoid talking about it. In fact I moved my score from an 8 to a 7 due to how one relationship is never explored.
Ultimately this becomes a breakneck paced manga, focused on a class of kids put in horrible situations, and done so fast almost none of them develop characters, but I mostly accept that because I enjoyed this as a trashy manga. Not going to say it's the same as any other manga that gets the same score, but I also can say it's more likely I'll re-read this than another 200-300 chapter manga recieveing the same score, and I'm even considering reading others in the series.
Again, that's probably where I might "turn" on the franchise, but this is a single manga, and the first of the entire series, and because of that, I'm probably a lot more lenient.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 8, 2024
"It's alright"
A simple test for me is did I finish a manga, and in Baki's case I definitely did, and enjoyed much of the final arc, which is something I can't say about enough manga. Baki is an enjoyable ride as long as you're will to get on and ignore some rather big issues.
Grappler Baki is a very polished martial arts manga, which combines a variety of different disciplines and creates a tournament... Well it does that eventually.
The thing is, Grappler Baki is all about the fights, and it's a polished gem in that way where it's so focused on
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the fight, that it has removed important other parts of the story. In fact it's removed the story.
What does Baki want? To become strong? Why? To beat his father. How does he do this? Training various forms of fighting. Do we see this training? A single page each, and most of the time not even that.
The first arc in the book just seems to focus on Grappler Baki fighting a lot, and that's really what the rest of the manga is. The reader is just thrown in Baki's life in the ring, and in fact you don't even know why he's fighting for a decent chunk of the book. Then more fights happen. Then there's a flashback and more fights happen.. and then a major fight happens, and then a tournament kicks off... But the thing is none of this is connect. The only truely important fight to Baki is the major fight in the middle, and the final fight, and even then.. the final fight is only important because of an asspull of a reveal, that then takes 7 chapters to set up of completely new information that makes it plausable.
In fact there's a lot of times that the author just pulls out a new technique because he needs the characters to get stronger. Baki doesn't really have a defined fighting style, which is probably intentional so that the author can change what he needs to do on a scene by scene basis. But he just seems to grab random abilities or powers that work. And to be clear, I have mentioned training montages. But often times he's fighting multiple fights between training sessions, and even when he's in a major tournament, the abilities he shows in the final battle aren't even hinted at in the first. He just keeps gaining new abilities.
There's no foreshadowing here, there's no development of the world. There's just epic fights, and while the fight are really good, in fact excellent in the most case, it still feels like there's somethng important missing. Even the ending, feels a touch unsatisfying for a specific reason that would be a spoiler.
Yet this isn't a bad thing necessarily. If you enjoy over powered monsters of men, muscular architecture in each character's body, and so much testotorone this is exactly what you want. Think of a version of Dragonball Z where every character "powers up" at the right moment, only remove the magical elements and focus on just raw martial arts, and Baki is exactly that in a lot of way.
But at the same time, this is JUST a testatorone laden machismo that focuses on the fights more than anything, and actually the biggest issue is when it doesn't. There's a story about a girl who likes Baki... and it really doesn't go anywhere or do anything. There's Baki's father, which is the driving force of Baki's desire but.. he also doesn't really do much half of the times he shows up. He doesn't have a strong purpose in the finale for instance.
So ultiamtely, that's the thing. If you just want extremely well drawn and designed fights with various martial arts, which does sometimes feel like it's just making up new techniques over and over so the battle can go back and forth, Grappler Baki is excellent. If you want a well designed story or world, and a focus on a character who constantly grows more powerful, I would not recomment Grappler Baki to you.
For me.. "It was alright"
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 26, 2024
It's Shokugeki no Souma, but with Sanji from One Piece.
I'd love to know how this came to exist. Shokugeki no Souma's artist and writer, got to use One Piece's Sanji for a series of fun stories.
I enjoyed myself, it's not going to change anyone's life but if you enjoy the main idea of Shokugeki no Souma, I'd give this a read.
PS. It feels like the "foodgasm" in Shokugeki no Souma fits Sanji's mentality so much better.
Also I will admit I'm writing this review a long time after reading it, though gave it the 8/10 right after. So I can't
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go into much more specifics, but what I can say is it's a fun little crossover that I'm glad I checked out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 26, 2024
Truthtfully I'm writing this review about four months after I finished this manga, likely more, so this will be more a short summary.
The first arc of the series does a great job world building a unique and interesting place.
The second arc did excellent in expanding on it and building a large conflict.
The third arc... Overall I feel the ending arc is messy, unnecessarily so. I will praise the series for not using "Friendship saves everyone" trope, but I still feel like it could have been done better.
Honestly I've forgotten a bit about the ending,
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but I recommend this enough just based on the first two arcs, while accepting the third arc is there to give a finished story. I didn't HATE that final arc, but it felt like the author tried to do too much or do it too fast.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 26, 2024
This feels like a series of (interesting) one-shots, with one of them being related to Liar Game.
This isn't a bad manga, but it really isn't what is on the tin. As a concept I enjoyed all three stories, however it feels like the third story goes on just a bit too long, where as people reading this are likely to only be coming to read about A.
It's short, so you won't waste too much time, but personally.. I feel like this is false advertising. Liar Game is great, this is good, I just wish it was more consistent in the offering,
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rather than so many different one shots. It almost feels like a manga magazine...
Then again a Manga magazine solely focused on gambling/gaming manga would be really good.
ARGH.. yeah, that's why it's mixed. It's good, but I wish they used a different name.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Sep 26, 2024
Boku no Hero Academia is a solid manga, with a great protaganist and an interesting story. The main character (Deku) is definitely designed to be a reader insert, he starts with "no special power" (powers being known as "Quirks" in this universe) in a world with tons of super powered character, but idolizes All Might one of the greatest heroes ever.
However he runs into All Might early on learning that his quirk is actually one that can be passed on and Deku takes on his power. We see him grow into using as well as a variety of other interesting characters.
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This becomes a ensemble manga after a while, which is one of the few flaws the series has. With about 20 characters in Deku's class as well as teachers, it often feels like every characters needs some screen time. The series overall feels a touch bloated at times, where there's large events, and the manga shows EVERY battle, EVERY character's struggle, EVERY event.. and if you aren't enamored by a few of them... well you're going to have to sit through it anyways.
That being said, the manga keeps moving, and before long a major enemy appears, who shows up and tries to kill All Might, with out giving too much away, the villains in the book are good, though do feel like they're evil to be evil quite often, they are developed, but most are not really developed in a way that makes you feel like you truly can understand their mentality, or at least explain it away. Instead it just seems like most villains are just "evil" which is a shame because the author does put a lot of effort into the villains (in fact most of them have more backstory than the ensemble) but it struggles to really makes any of them truely understandable outside of one or two.
In general, the pacing in the manga (outside of the problem with ensemble manga) is well done, up until the final arc/battle. This battle takes exceedingly long, even taking a long time to initially start, and about half way through I started wondering if it could be better paced or trimed, many characters are defeated and then rise up again, there's a lot of exposition that I don't feel fully lands, and most battles feel like they suffer from that "Ensemble-itis" Still it is an epic conclusions and rather than end right after the battle, there's a good epilogue that helps finish the series.
Overall I'd recommend reading it, but at the same time, I feel it could have been better. It's a solid series, but it's not a perfect one, yet I've enjoyed the manga, and in a couple years I'll probably re-read it for the joy of it.
Truthfully I'm writing this review a couple months after finish reading it, but like mentioned this was a very solid manga, and one I wouldn't mind revisiting.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 11, 2024
Let's start with the strong/unpopular opinions so people can react how they want to react and not have to spend all that time reading a review.
A. Initial D's Manga is only truly great after the anime.
B. Initial D's Anime looks dated as !@#$, and is not as good as the manga because of that.
C. A number of characters have "DSL" entirely too often (early on). Worse in the anime, but exists in both.
D. The romance sub-ploits SHOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED. They add absolutely nothing to the series and at best could have been limited to one race, but really
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shouldn't exist. And that includes every... single... one...
Honestly, do I have to review the manga? I've said what I really wanted to. Ok I'll do it anyways, or at least explain these points.
First off Initial D is about a Tofu delivery man who gets into the world of "Touge" racing, which is mountain course racing. Now let's get to the biggest, perhaps most important point about this entire series.
Physics don't exist in this world. Period. There's no universe where "drifting" is the fastest way to get down the mountain on every corner. There's no universe where a AE86 would be able to beat most cars it races against here. There's so much plot armor on Takumi Fujikawa that it's more of a question of "how" not "if" he'll win most races.
That being said I guess it's time for the big reveal. I LOVE THIS SERIES, but I do think there's important reasons why I love it.
First, The tv show was amazing when it first came out in the late 90s. It had CG models racing, an amazing Super Eurobeat sound track and just incredibly cool. But it's been over 20 years since then and... to be honest the anime has aged poorly, the cars look flat, the drawings are a bit weak, the animation is cheap by today's standard.
But I talk about the TV show because so much of my enjoyment of this series has revolved around the amazing Super Eurobeat soundtrack, if I wasn't listening to that while reading it, I probably couldn't enjoy it nearly as much. However the art of the cars in the manga is fantastic. The cars are extremely well detailed and while the first section of the books have the best story, the art by the final sections are brilliant.
The characters... I really feel like Ryosuke and Takumi look too similar after a while, a number of characters are forgettable because they have such generic designs and more... but that's not what you come to Initial D for... it's the racing, the cars, the battles, and that... that's where this anime shines.
In fact the only real problem I have with the second half of the books is that some chapters are just 8 pages of racing, and while it's a beautiful 8 pages... it's easy to just rip through these chapters like they're nothing...
There's a lot of story in the manga, and while Takumi's evolution does matter quite a bit, the relationship stuff (as mentioned before) is really the only bad part because there's so little point to it. I know there's a few things that happen related to the relationships, but... the relationships aren't really required to have those events happen.
Overall This is the series that made me fall in love with Racing, Touge, Driving, and Super Eurobeat and ultimately reading the entire series now just reminded me of all those epic amazing feelings. Maybe it's because it reminds me of when I was a kid, and this anime came out, but I don't know. I still think there's a lot of enjoyment to be had reading Initial D.
This series is WHY I turn on Super Eurobeat any time I'm playing a racing game... I know I know. That's the "Anime" But give it a shot when reading the manga too, you should understand.
And sorry, this is probably a rambling set of thoughts, but that's also kind of what I want my reviews to be. Hopefully it'll help you... or maybe it'll only help me finally stop thinking about this series every single day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 13, 2024
I feel like there's three major arcs in Dungeon Meshi, and these will help readers decide if they want to stick with the manga.
The first arc feels almost like it's a Dungeon and Dragon's companion, while it might not be directly based on D&D, it's mostly about a party of adventurers in a dungeon, needing to find food, and thus cooking monsters. If you're already a D&D fan, you might enjoy this section the most, but I feel like it's the roughest part of the series.
The biggest issue is that while the main story line is introduced in the first chapter, it's
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almost immediately dropped and so much of the story is "What are we eating today". Monster appears, quick fight (though chapters are of a decent length so there's a bit of action) and then the party sit down while the cook makes something and displays it.
While I really loved Shokugeki no Soma where everything was something that was over engineered, but potentially realistic, Dungeon Meshi clearly lives in the fantasy world, but still has minor pieces about interesting techniques. You won't learn how to cook here, but it's not intending you to and that's kind of the problem with this Arc. It seems more intended to delight Tabletop RPG players, or people so immersed in fantasy that they might discuss how a Basilisk and Cockatrice differ, or how to properly cut up one.
For me this was by far the weakest part of the manga, but also the one truest to the name of the manga.
About a third of the way through the manga, the real story finally hits it's stride, and it comes suddenly. The main thread of the manga is picked up but food still is very critical to the party. The story is well done the writing is excellent, and there's still a strong food theme. This is definitely the part of the manga that I would easily recommend, and if the manga started here, I probably could have even given it a 8 or maybe 9.
The thing is, when Dungeon Meshi wants to tell a larger story they can, and even while it becomes over convoluted, there's enough interesting stories that every chapters is engaging.
But with three arcs, there's always going to be a third one, and here... It's a mix. Ultimately the final third of the book loses a lot of what made me love this manga. It's pass the point of no return, readers need to finish the story, and unlike Shokugeki no Soma (which falls off hard), this arc is still well written, and engaging, but oddly enough I feel like the cooking and food becomes forgotten, or just thrown in enough to satisfy fans.
Again the writing isn't terrible, and there's a lot of interesting action and occurrence, but there's a little more plot convivence, and a lot of characters seem to be persuaded by words just because they have to do something that they might not normally do.
The thing is, I don't hate this section of the manga, but it's really obvious that the writer was wrapping up the manga, and it just took a very long time to do so.
I Believe each of these main arcs are about 30 chapters long, and I feel the weakest arc is the first arc, but I also think the change doesn't exactly benefit the manga, as it would have been lovely to have a strong story the entire manga, rather than a "McGuffin" that the party is chasing for that opening part. In addition while I see the meaning, if the manga really is about food, meals, or consumption of foodstuff, that could have been handled better in the final arc. I do see where that's attempted, but I also think there could have been a stronger connection to the story, rather than it being shoehorned in to check a box.
Overall it's a good, not great manga, I'd recommend it, but I would caution readers that they should have some love of RPGs/D&D/fantasy monster based media before jumping into this. Still I enjoyed it, I easily finished and since it's under 100 chapters, I might even read it a second time as the characters are interesting and well done.
Note: Giving this a mixed feelings ONLY because of the heavy focus on "Fantasy Dungeon monsters" early on. I feel like if I wasn't already interested in D&D I probably would have given this a pass.
Second Note: This only has 97 chapters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 7, 2024
After the first Kaiji manga I had some issues, mostly the number of extreme closeups on Kaiji's face to almost pass time in a manga.
The sequel, Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji, is slightly better, however if you look closely you can see the same character, layouts and panels used multiple times in a chapter, even on opposite pages.
However similarly the best thing in the original, the fact it was based on three games that went on for entirely too long but felt compelling the entire time is pushed to the limit in Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji. There's really two games in the entire
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manga, and some plot development, and while the plot development really helps, the games just don't have the same draw. Where the original manga has a number of clever tricks that kept the reader engaged with the manga, it felts like the first game was a bit too obvious of a game, and the final game had a few too many asspulls just to drive up the tension.
And that's not a miscount, there's really two games at the core of Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji over the same number of chapters as the original game, not even evolved games, but just "two challenges". Many of the chapters go too quickly and have almost no real movement in the story. Kaiji might do something over and over for a full chapter, and then his opponent will do something, and so on.
But in reality where the first manga felt like the pacing really developed the challenge or the time being taken, Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji feels like it is entirely too slow. You can read the manga faster, and ultimately that's what I did, but if I was paying for the manga instead of reading it from a library, I'd be more upset that this manga probably could have been half the length or less with a lot of the filler removed.
Ultimately Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji isn't as good as the first Kaiji manga, it doesn't mean I'm done with the series, but ultimately, I struggle to really recommend this manga because of the very low signal to noise ratio. There's one compelling game, that lingers far longer than it should have and while Kaiji is an interesting character, even he feels like he's lacking a lot of development here for most of the manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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