Tsubasa World Chronicle Review

Posted on May 16, 2016 by dreager1

Well, The Tsubasa sequel has reached its conclusion. It ended with only 19 chapters so it was quite short, but since this was monthly, it actually lasted around 2 years and a half. Now that’s scary considering how little it accomplished. Unfortunately, I can’t say that it was a good series. It started with some minor promise, but ended up being quite boring, uneventful, and just plain bad. It really could have been decent, but I feel like Clamp never knew what they wanted to do with the series. It virtually didn’t even have a plot as Syaoran and friends were just fed tale after tale after tale. The series just ends and you’re left wondering what was accomplished here. Now, it’s not completely necessary that something is accomplished. Sometimes a sequel can just be for fun to see the characters again and watch their adventures. Just look at Dragon Ball Super or Boruto. That being said, both of those didn’t end in 19 chapters (I doubt they will anyway) and will probably get an actual serious plot at some point. That never happened in Tsubasa nor will it happen since World Chronicle is already over.

Syaoran and friends were enjoying their eternal banishment due to the events of the original Tsubasa series when they are approached by a mysterious lady who tells Syaoran that he is her world’s last hope. The world of the dead and the world of the living are both joined to an extent. The only hope for the dead is for Syaoran to go and revive them, but should he really bring these people back. Is it even possible and what does it mean for the world of the living? He’ll also have to destroy a friend to bring back the others which is…dicey to say the least.

There are a lot of problems with the series. One of the main ones is the fact that the team dynamic isn’t very good. Honestly, I feel like the team really needs Sakura back or a new member at this point. None of the main characters are particularly interesting since they are all watered down versions of themselves. Fai’s only role in the series is to constantly tease Kurogane, which gets old incredibly quick since it is the same old tired joke chapter after chapter. Not to mention that Fai isn’t really a fighter anymore. To think that he used to get a lot of hype and had a good amount of magical talent. He could be a decent character at times, but take that away and you have a very boring supporting role.

Meanwhile, Kurogane is supposed to be the tough guy of the group, but he simply can’t keep up with the new fighters. He talks a good game, but rarely fights anymore. He reminds me of Zoro, but a far weaker and less imposing version of the character. Yes, he’s basically New World Zoro. He’s not a bad character like Fai though, but he simply doesn’t add much to the series and definitely adds nothing to the banter. As for Syaoran, he’s your average heroic lead I suppose. He’s always thinking and tries to do the right thing. He’s a good kid, but also comes across as rather soulless. Not heartless, but he doesn’t have a great deal of personality. He just goes through the motions of being heroic, but that’s about it. Fighting his shadow self was also a little dicey, but he held back enough and stopped fighting so I’d say that he did a good job there.

There are many examples of good shows that didn’t have a good rapport among the characters. Naruto is a great series, but the characters definitely could not hold a slice of life series. Likewise with Bleach. Meanwhile, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter, and DBZ could effortlessly lead a slice of life series where nothing happens for 50+ episodes. It just comes down to whether or not the characters are charismatic. I’m not saying that Naruto characters are bad, but they need fights. Tsubasa is like that. The main characters really look terrible because there is no action. If there was more of an actual plot, then I’m sure that the main cast would have been more likable like in the original series.

The art is fairly clear, but it can also get chaotic whenever any action is occurring. That’s really a Clamp tradition at this point though so it’s to be expected. The important thing is that it usually looks clear so I’ll give them a pass there. It could still use a decent upgrade though and hopefully they’ll be ready for the upcoming Cardcaptor Sakura sequel. If handled right, that one should be able to surpass this title with ease.

After all, this series spent a few chapters just fighting evil animals (Bad move Clamp!) and trying to survive amidst an evil forest. That’s not very exciting material. At least Clamp didn’t contradict their no cop-outs strategy from the other titles. The concept of the dead being able to come back to life would have definitely gone against the whole Clamp universe. xxxHolic’s a key example of how a whole series/plot is about one character’s death and how she can never return no matter how many fancy spells are used. In the Clamp universe, once a character is dead, they’re staying that way. Sure, the spirit can talk with wise words of advice, but coming back to the real world in a corporal body is out of the question. Syaoran realized that by the end so at least he didn’t begin to jeopardize the real world as well. Chase after too many things and you’ll wind up losing them all. Although in World Chronicle’s case, it didn’t chase after enough things.

The ending does state that the story will continue back in xxxholic Rei so hopefully that title can use its momentum to push things forward. It had been fairly interesting. Part of what helps it is that the cast is better and while it is also pretty aimless it is better suited for it. Rei is all about mysteries and spirits causing mischief after all and the locale is better. If any Clamp title can grab Tsubasa’s plot and improve on it, then xxxholic’s the way to go.

Overall, World Chronicle was definitely a let down. It was consistently fighting for last place every month for the last 3 years. There were no chapters that were particularly exciting and even Syaoran’s rematch against Dark Syaoran came out of nowhere and wasn’t that enjoyable. It was a decent fight, but there was no reason for it and the battle was basically filler so it was hard to care about what was happening on screen. That’s the problem with deciding that plot is expendable and then still trying to have a serious fantasy adventure. Remember Dimension W folks? Not from my blog as I haven’t reviewed it yet, but that’s probably the token example of why you should focus on your plot before attempting to go placed. World Chronicle is still a class act for the most part as it steers away from things like super violence or fanservice, but there isn’t much going for it either. The biggest crime that it commits is being very boring, but that’s a serious offense for any manga. If you want to read a calming title about a few people aimlessly wandering around then you may enjoy this title. If not, then you may not want to spoil your Tsubasa memories and you should just go re read the original series instead. You’ll certainly get a lot more out of it.

Overall 4/10

Batman The Jiro Kumata Batmanga Review

Posted on April 29, 2016 by dreager1

It’s hard to believe that I started this manga way back in January 2015. It’s been a long run, but now I have finally finished the series. It does a good job of following the Adam West esque format and most of these stories feel like they could have been from the comics. The volumes make for a fun read even if they never do anything to take the series to the next level. It’s a good story, but don’t look for anything beyond that.

There isn’t really an ongoing plot for the series as you may expect. Each story is roughly 3-5 parts though so the cases get a lot of screen time for the necessary plot. As such, there is never much of a need for an ongoing plot because weekly (If the series was in that format) it would have sort of had a plot. Of course, an ongoing plot could have certainly helped to have upped the stakes by the end of the series.

Batman is portrayed pretty accurately. Once in a while he’ll seem a little hurried or our of character with the occasional “Shut Up” comebacks to the villains though. It’s hard to picture Batman saying that. On the other hand, they do a good job of trying to make Batman extremely heroic to the point where he sometimes misses the obvious because of this. A good example occurs in the final volume. A mysterious shape shifter had already gotten the better of Batman and Robin twice. The next morning it is reported in the Newspaper that a new art piece has been added to the masters collection from a rather rich collector. She only allows world famous art to go in this collection typically so it this is odd right? Robin quickly points out that the timing of this is suspect, but Batman disagrees.

He says that anyone has the potential to be a masterpiece so this mysterious fellow must have just made a great piece. It couldn’t have anything to do with the shape shifter and there’s no way that this collector is being forced into letting the piece in. After all, Batman wants to prove that dedication can always win in the end. Robin urges Batman to check anyway though so they go and lo and behold, the art piece was actually the shape shifting villain. Batman’s always looking for a good moral to the point where it nearly cost the heroes dearly.

Batman also murders a guy by throwing a really heavy object at his head. It’s never really brought up and smoothed over rather quickly with Batman’s justification that he had to do this to save Robin. It was a tense situation and Robin was about to die so you have to decide whether this was the right move or not. Personally, I think there were a lot of other ways Batman could have stopped the villain so the scene was a little dicey. As for Robin, he’s in character the whole time. He’s always getting defeated in a fight and tends to be a liability. That being said, as in the example above, he does pick up on things quicker than Batman at times. If there is a moral to cloud Batman’s judgment, you can count on Robin to get the right answer first.

The series is 3 big volumes long so maybe that’d be closer to 5-6 if they were normal sized. Most of the villains are made up for the series so it’s hard to remember a lot of their names. Lord Death Man is certainly the fan favorite and he even made it into the Batman Brave and the Bold TV show. He is really good at escaping death even if he may have ultimately gone down one too many times by the end. There was a guy who believed that his cape made him invincible. By the end of his arc the twist was that it was all phony, but this explanation is a little dicey at best. Before that, we saw him survive some sure death scenarios. The characters say that he was lucky by the end, but that’s hard to buy. He fell a great distance into the rocks that led to the ocean. He could not have dodged from his angle so the cape had to have some super properties to it right? If it was total luck, then I think the writers probably did not think it through.

Another story arc parodied how dark the Batman comics have gotten in later years. At the time, it was probably more of a hypothetical though. In a TV show, Batman and Robin used intense methods to subdue the villains and the bad guys in the real world began to fear the Dynamic Duo. Batman wants to win his battles with one liners and friendship so he went to the station to shut down this program, but ended up getting kidnapped instead by the end. Still, the moral was that even villains always have a chance so scaring them right from the start is just not the right move this time.

We also had a nice robot arc which showed how important Batman and Robin are to the community. These robots can break and can’t think on their feet the way that the Dynamic Duo can. In the end, the police get rid of the robots because they’d rather have Batman save the day. The thing is, Batman and Robin can’t protect everyone forever and Batman acknowledges this, but says that it’s a problem for another day…maybe he’s right.

Another one was inspired by Star Trek or vice versa. Some super intelligent aliens decided to kidnap Batman and Robin so they could fight in space against a few other species. It was a 4 group free for all with Batman and Robin getting completely wrecked in each fight until they finally got the other aliens to team up with them and defeat the host. It goes to show that sometimes special powers can really come in handy.

There are a lot of other comic arcs to be found in the series, but those were just some examples. As the volumes are quite large, there’s enough time to get in quite a few adventures. I have only covered a fraction of the stories that are in the collection so if you want to see more of them, buy the volumes!

The art for the series is solid. All of the characters look fairly accurate to their traditional selves and we do get some fun fight scenes. The manga is very old which you can certainly tell as you read through the series, but it’s not dated in a bad way. It looks sharp and ultimately that’s really what matters in the end. Clear and sharp makes for a good combo when it comes to manga.

Overall, The Batman manga is a fun experience. It’s like reading through the lost season of the Adam West adventures. He fights against a large variety of villains and Bruce Wayne also gets to appear quite a bit so it’s not as if he’s Batman 24/7. Of course, this Bruce Wayne is typically pretty noble and similar to Batman, which makes for an interesting dynamic. I sort of wish Bruce was always like that in the current comics and movies as well. No reason why they can’t both be super heroic right?

Overall 7/10

07 Ghost Review

Posted on February 17, 2016 by dreager1

Most manga and anime titles may start out a little nonsensical, but then everything clears up once the battles start. Every plot can be followed as long as you have flashy fights, but once in a while you end up meeting an exception. That would be 07 Ghost, a series that never bothered to clear itself up and instead it ends up just as convoluted as it originally started. I don’t mind complexity, but most of 07 Ghost was simply padding and distracted you from the plot and the art did not help with this either. A lot of the characters looked similar by the end and there were also many time jumps between the past and the present to keep you guessing. The only other series as confusing as this one would be Pandora Hearts and even that one started to make some sense towards the end once the climax of the series happened. 07 Ghost can’t really say the same nor was the character cast quite as good.

Well, there was once a slave who was forced to serve in gladiatorial fights, but he finally escaped one day. He was placed under the protection of a few shinigami who work under divine powers. They are very powerful and intend to protect him. To provide some more context thanks to Wikipedia, Teito had escaped along with his friend (Who died shortly afterwards) and then took sanctuary inside of the Church where the bishops protected him. In case you have not suspected yet, the bishops are the shinigamis and even the villains do not dare to attack the Church…yet. Teito is the chosen one and he has “The Eye” which means that there is another person living inside of him who aims to protect Teito at all costs. In order to fulfill this objective, he is given great levels of power. The enemy country wants this power so they can blow people up. The villains are already on the brink of taking over the world so obtaining the eye would mean Game Over for all.

The series could have been a lot better, but again, the plot makes no real sense at times. It’s like the author is just trying to stay afloat in the popularity rankings and adds as many interesting plot ideas as possible, but with no way to sew them all together. With series like Naruto and Bleach, the plot is so simple that you can read it while half asleep. With Ghost, you’ll want to re read and re read, but there is rarely time for that sort of thing. Instead, you just roll with whatever’s happening and just hope for the best. Perhaps you can still enjoy the fights if nothing else.

Also, being convoluted is not necessarily the same as being intricate. Death Note, Hunter X Hunter, One Piece, and Liar Game are intricate. Those series have been well thought out in advance and are able to add in dozens of characters or lines of logic without leaving the reader behind. It’s easy to see where the series are headed at all points. In particular, Liar Game was always able to think of incredibly complex games where many different plans would be implemented only to have someone else counter it. It was like a real life version of Chess although I’ll discuss it more in an upcoming review. In 07 Ghost, it’s more like the author had a vague idea of what he wanted to do and then filled the story with so many pointless details that you ended up losing perspective of the actual plot.

As already mentioned, the art is pretty iffy during the battles. Whenever an action scene occurs, you’ll have to strain yourself to keep up with what’s happening. It doesn’t help that the “magic” in this series is all water color based so everything’s dripping across the pages. It’s hard to even tell what kind of spell is being used as a result and it’s probably the worst depiction of magic that I’ve seen in quite a bit. Many of the characters look very similar so good luck keeping up with the names by the end of the series.

However, the art can be downright great when it comes to scenes without any movement. I actually had a decently tough time choosing the images for this review since there are so many good ones. The author knows how to draw a visual that you’ll find exciting to look at. It helps that the true Shinigami forms that most of the characters have can be quite good and a lot of the weapons are shadow based so those are epic as well.

Perhaps that’s the most frustrating thing about the series and why I cut it so much slack on the premise of possibly enjoying it more a second time around. If you can get through all of the fluff and the unnecessary side adventures and plots, you’ve got a real good story here. Seeing the death gods choose who goes where and Teito trying to escape from his past are two plots that can certainly work well. The main villain was pretty intense and there were many parts that showed some promise throughout the series. Give the title better artwork, erase a few characters and this could have easily been a great title. Of course, you could fill a book series with the amount of what ifs that you encounter in life.

Teito’s a decent main character, but he doesn’t have a lot going for him that other heroes don’t already possess. He’s a decently nice guy who wants to move past his shady past of being an assassin. Throughout the series he tries to find out more about those days and his plot is similar to Cammy’s from Street Fighter. When the third eye is activated, another being from inside of him takes control and he’s easily one of the best characters in the series. Probably second to Ayanami. He can fight and “Shadow Teito” never backs down from a fight. It’s a shame that he’s not immune to telepathy though as that trick seems to always work against him. There’s another angel being inside another kid who ends up fighting Teito at one point, but it’s a plot that never really went anywhere or it simply wasn’t as developed as it could have been.

Frau’s the main character of the bishops and is arguably the strongest one. He wants to help Teito on his quest and is typically proficient at just about any activity. He’d be a great character if not for the completely unnecessary trait of him being an immoral guy…even though he’s a Bishop. That doesn’t even get brought up all that often so there was really no point to including the trait. Still, it’s there and Frau quickly died as far as the character roster went. The other Bishops are around and they get to fight once and a while, but none of them ever got a big role. Still, there was a big twist involving the true mastermind behind the whole series that was fairly neat.

Ayanami is the main villain of the series and he’s easily the most interesting character. At times you do wonder why he’s doing what he’s doing, but then again, does a villain even need a reason sometimes? He has some faithful followers and it’s hinted that he wasn’t always such a bad guy. He has a lot of abilities and he’s one of the only characters who can hold his own against a Bishop without actually being one of them. He’s also fairly cunning and was able to trap Teito in a realistic dream which completely simulated the real world except for the fact that Teito was on the villain side this time.

The thing is, Ayanami’s a villain, but most of his underlings don’t even know it since they operate from a government base as well as the school next door. In fact, Teito becomes friends with quite a few of the characters there during that time until he realizes what has happened. Ayanami’s abilities are difficult to explain as you would expect from this series, but at the very least they all look pretty cool so that’s got to count for something right?

Most of the other characters are around, but they don’t have a lot of presence. Teito has a best friend, but he dies almost immediately in volume 1 and for the rest of the series we just have an animal who was named after him. It’s hinted several times that he could be the reincarnated form of the friend, but it could also just be Teito being desperate for a friend and just hoping that this is the case. That is also hinted at several points in the series. Other characters can be a little annoying like a little orphan that Teito took care of for a while. He certainly didn’t add anything to the series, which you could say about a lot of the characters.

The series was long, but you couldn’t really get invested into what was happening due to the lackluster characters and the artwork. Technically, a lot of the plot revolves around the fact that two countries were at war way back in the day and after one of them lost, the government took control and Ayanami is one of the corrupt heads who leads them. There’s no political intrigue to really speak of and that’s a shame since I always love to see politics in these kinds of things.

Not that most people really care about the power levels, but I wouldn’t say that the characters are all that strong in this series. Some of them have a decent amount of magical power at their disposal, but I wasn’t overly impressed with any of the speed feats that were shown. These guys may be around Kenshin level and slightly higher, but considering that they’re death gods, you’d expect them to be a little more impressive. One of the bishop’s had string abilities which were impressive. If only he was physically able to keep up with his opponents, he would be a very strong fighter. At the very least, the Bishops have a decent amount of immortality, but it’s not quite legitimate compared to most immortals.

It’s also worth noting that this series did a really good job of avoiding the fanservice trap. I can’t think of any scene that featured any. Granted, it’s been quite a while since I read the series (This review’s been on the backlog for a while) but if there was any, it was very slight. That’s another positive for the series and it’d be good if more titles could follow this one’s example.

Overall, I can’t say that I enjoyed 07 Ghost all that much. None of the characters were very inspiring and the whole series was very confusing. That being said, I’ll give it some props for still being fairly interesting and I do think that it would be considerably more entertaining with a re-read, but you would need to have all of the volumes in front of you so that you can marathon it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s really the only way to get the maximum amount of enjoyment from this. The only series that’s more confusing than this one is Pandora Hearts and I personally think that 07 Ghost is better, but it’ll be interesting to see if any other titles can surpass those 2 someday. If you want a very convoluted story, this one’s up your ally. Otherwise, I’d recommend going for an action that’s not as all over the place like Heroman!

Overall 6/10

Baby & Me Review

Posted on January 31, 2016 by dreager1

Now this is a series that I started a long time ago, way back in 2011. It’s been almost 6 years, but I finally got around to finishing the series. Needless to say, I’m afraid that it is on Vampire Knight’s level. The negatives are completely different and there are no fight scenes here. You may like the series more if you like babies a lot and find their actions adorable, but for someone who’s not particularly fond of them and prefers a nice action scene…it could be a looooong ride!

Takuya’s mom passed away a long time ago so he now takes care of his little brother Minoru. Their Dad’s also around to help of course, but he’s typically at work, which is why it ends up being Takuya’s responsibility. Takuya constantly gets upset at Minoru and they fight all the time, but in the end he learns that their bond is strong and shall never fade despite their mishaps. In theory, it’s a very touching experience. In theory anyway….. A plot never really develops since it stays as a slice of life for its duration so prepare for all of the characters to get into various situations, but none of them ultimately have the depth and charisma that you would see from the characters in Sword Art Online Lost Song.

The cast of characters is actually really small considering that there are 18 volumes. There are maybe 10 big characters or even less, although there are naturally more minor supporting characters as well. It’s a slice of life series so the whole thing resides on the fact that you need to like the characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for any of them, which does hurt the experience.

First up is Takuya. He’s supposed to be the nice guy as mentioned by quite a few characters, but you never see that. He essentially spends the whole series being upset at Minoru and this is what ultimately ends up causing the car crash scenario. Takuya is not a character to look up too nor is he someone that you will end up admiring. In the end, the pressures of raising a kid are far too intense for him, but rather than admit it, Takuya tries to power on and this is not a winning strategy. It would like be watching a Scooby Doo episode where Shaggy and Scooby never get along.

Minoru isn’t any better though and he’s a pretty terrible character. This is where the series really dies. You’re supposed to find Minoru humorous or entertaining, but instead he’s a very grating character. He can’t actually talk yet so you just have to watch him waddle around everywhere and that wasn’t fun the first time he appeared. I haven’t met a good baby character (Who wasn’t actually an adult in disguise) that I’ve actually liked in any form of media and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. Minoru just holds the series down and since he’s one of the main characters, that’s a pretty big anchor to weigh the series down.

Takuya’s dad is all right, but like Takuya he is always getting upset at every little thing. He gets a flashback of how he met Takuya’s mother, which was all right I suppose, but it didn’t make his character any better and he could have done a better job of making sure that Minoru had a baby sitter to help Takuya out. Gon is one of Takuya’s friends and I wouldn’t consider him a good character either. At this point, maybe I shouldn’t even bother saying if the character is good or not since you know my answer. The only credit I’ll give Gon is the fact that he doesn’t betray Takuya at the end and realizes that the newcomer is trying to drive them apart. Besides that, Gon doesn’t add anything to the series.

Akihiro and his family are main supporting characters in the series. There are 3-5 kids in the household of varying ages so they like to run around and cause a lot of tough situations. Even a birthday party gets dicey since the parents have to work and everyone forgets about it. They’re not bad though and I feel like this household would have made for a far more interesting series than what we got. Akihiro is probably the best character in Baby & Me by far. He see through all of the fake romance plots and just tells it like it is.

The final main supporting characters are another household which has a baby. I don’t remember the names of the two living there, I think one of them may have been Seiji. It’s not of any real importance in the long run though. One of them loves games and gambles a lot. He’s also a very laid back guy so he doesn’t mind just walking into the main character’s house whenever he feels like it. The lady is also pretty carefree and leaves her kid with the main characters to go watch a movie with “Seiji” once in a while.

As mentioned earlier, the main reason why this series tanked is due to the overall plot. With a plot so bad, it’s hard for anything to save it and the rest of the series didn’t try all that hard to correct this. One thing about Baby & Me is that it’s not actually a super happy/light series. It tries to be rather deep as you can tell with the final volume where Minoru is hit by a car. Can you think of any series where a toddler is gravely injured like that? It’s surprisingly not as kiddish as you would expect and that also comes back to bite it. The series bites off more than it can chew and I’d rather not even have the car crash scenario at the end since it’s a bit much. I’ve always considered little kids and senior citizens to basically be off limits as far as dangerous accidents are concerned.

There is also one annoying character who is always inappropriately grabbing Takuya as part of a running gag, which is anything but funny. It’s these kinds of things that hold the series back and guarantee it a place at the bottom of the totem pole. We didn’t get any fun plots that would have been a blast like team sport competitions, big races, or some kind of tournament. Now that would have definitely been exciting. There was a brief moment of danger with some gangsters and gambling though so that was neat.

I don’t really have much of a problem with the art. It’s not all that good, but it’s not very bad either. I suppose that I would call it somewhat standard or maybe a little sub-standard. It’s fairly clear, but when you don’t have a lot of action scenes to draw or anything of that sort, then it likely makes the job a little easier. It’s why just about any anime looks great when the characters are just standing around (Unless the character designs are faulty) but fight scenes can really vary in quality. Likewise with making something smaller scale like a sprite fight or a quick fan animation. You can take a while and make a really great still, but once you’re moving the characters around, it can get pretty intense! Of course, that’s what also makes the video since the fight scene is what everyone’s (Meaning me and all those who love fight scenes)

In the end, the series was just never all that fun. I can actually say that I’ve enjoyed Ouran Host Club and Vampire Knight more than I enjoyed Baby & Me. At least Ouran has some charasmatic characters which have started to save the series from the terrible pre arc and Vampire Knight had some good action scenes and (somehow) a better cast than Baby & Me. Baby & Me just never had that edge which could have made it a better series. I can’t say that there was ever a moment where the manga showed signs of getting better, but again, it’s hard to get better when your two main characters are not likable in the slightest. I took a lot of shots at Yuki and Zero in my Vampire Knight review, but they were still far more compelling than Takuya and Minoru.

Overall, Baby & Me was just a series that wasn’t for me. It was never a very interesting series and was rather dull like Go Go Monster. The characters were not interesting and the series took itself very seriously, which didn’t pan out. If you’re going to try to be a very serious series, then you need to either have a great plot like Dengeki Daisy or a lot of action like Kenshin. (Which still knew how to balance itself) The great plot is the most important part because I’ve read many serious series, which pulled it off. Baby & Me is about a kid who’s raising a baby…why is this a serious series? The plot alone should cause you some pause when you think about the concept. At least it did ensure that we weren’t blasted with crude humor all of the time. There may have been animal violence like the last pic hints, but I forgot, either way it may have just been one hit so it wasn’t terrible, but still terribly unnecessary and there could have been other moments that I forgot. If you want to read a good series about a kid who is actually trained by the baby, check out Hitman Reborn! Now that is a 9 star series, which shall certainly not disappoint you!

Overall 1/10

Vampire Knight Review

Posted on January 31, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to take a look at a series that doesn’t sound all that promising from the title. Yes, I had a sneaking suspicion that Vampire Knight wouldn’t be all that good as it’s a vampire story. That’s reason enough for me to fear it. Moreover, it sounded like Rosario Vampire, but minus the action and fanservice. So, that’s a bad thing and a good thing, but it means that the series has absolutely nothing going for it except the blood sucking gimmick. (No worries, there is a little action at the very end of the series!) I was able to complete this series in a little under a year which is cool since I started it last January and I ended a few months ago. I forgot when exactly I completed it, but no matter, let’s jump into the review! No worries, this one doesn’t get a 0 so readers can rest easy that the manga managed to do something right!

Yuki Cross lives at a school where humans attend by day and vampires by night. Both sides are separated for their own safety and she’s one of the enforcers who makes sure that the two groups play by the rules. Her partner in all of this is Zero. With the two of them as the ultimate tag team, nothing’s ever gone wrong at the academy. What helps this situation run so smoothly is that the head of the school vampires is Kaname, a guy who believes in peace and justice. It all goes well for a while, but then things happen!

That’s more vague than usual! Well, it’s hard to say exactly when things went wrong since a lot happened in these 19 volumes. There are many different vampire factions who were vying for power. Towards the end, Kaname realizes that he must destroy all vampire nobles including himself so that only the weak ones will be left and then they can’t bully the humans so easily. Zero is corrupted and turned into a vampire himself so even though he is a vampire hunter, he will be confronted with many tough choices. Yuki also starts to get her memories back and realizes that she is a vampire noble as well, but this comes along with some spiffy new powers so it’s not totally a bad thing.

So, should I start out with the negatives, positives, or the technical aspects like the art? I decided which option to go with by heading to Smashfaqs and based it on the top 5 topics. They were surprisingly positive ones so let’s roll with that. A positive for the manga is the fact that it actually has fight scenes once in a while. Zero and Kaname get into a scuffle at one point and even Yuki gets in on the action thanks to her powerful scythe. Zero gets control over plants and Kaname has super strength, mental abilities, speed, magic, and a lot of other things to keep the other two in check. The fights are cool even if there aren’t a whole lot of them.

The art counts as a technical aspect as well as a positive one for the most part. The art can get cluttered during the action scenes at times. Especially when the plants are around, but it can also be quite clear during other moments and I’d say that the artist does a fairly good job. I’d say that the art looks a lot better than the average Shojo series. It’s clear, intense, and you won’t mix up any of the main characters. Supporting characters are a different story since you can only see so many random guys running around before starting to mix them up a bit. Kaoru and Hikaru are still confusing in Ouran, but at least one of them switched his hair color after a while.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that there are any real characters since they all get tainted at one point or another. If we’re counting super mild characters, then I didn’t mind Zero’s hunter boss. He was fairly reasonable the whole time and you could tell that he was experienced the whole time. He hyped himself up a little too much at times though and he’s only my favorite character by default, I’m certainly not a big fan of his.

A positive for the series is naturally the fact that there’s basically no fanservice to be found. That’s always appreciated even if it is the norm for Shojo, you still don’t want to neglect to give it some props for this. Unfortunately, this is somewhat negated by the blood sucking scenes and such, but that’s a different negative. So, here essentially ends the positives section, but I’ll try to think of some more while writing the review.

Let’s start off with the blood sucking. See, the problem with vampires is that they’re going to drink blood. Inevitably, one of them ends up contaminating a main character. (In this case, everyone was contaminated except for one of Yuki’s close friends who never evolved from being a bit player in the whole thing) After that, the main character will offer his or her friend to drink some blood so that the character won’t have to hurt someone else. That happens here of course, several times and shows that the characters have no will power. Especially the fact that they always go overboard. Another cliche is that Yuki for example may say to only take a little bit since taking too much blood can be quite dangerous. Zero agrees, but then he can’t stop himself once he actually starts and it’s always a very wince worthy moment since he is supposed to be her friend. It’s hard to buy the fact that he simply can’t control himself and this has even started to finally happen in Seraph of The End, which is regrettable. Why do the heroes ultimately lose control so easily!?

That’s a rather big negative and ignoring the whole blood angle, there is naturally a ton of romance here as well. Luckily, there was a twist towards the very end that Kaname wasn’t actually Yuki’s brother, but was an ancestor. This naturally helped since we don’t want the manga to have gone down that route, but romance is romance and it was poorly executed from start to finish here. Both Kaname and Zero use Yuki when circumstances arise and both of them never actually trust her enough to let Yuki know the full scope of what’s happening. Why should she bother to stay with them? Yuki never quite broke off things with either party and the romance just dragged on and on like a bad soap opera. There was even another character who tried not to get involved with such things, but he was forced to become a blood sucker, which essentially made him a prisoner and he could not help out the heroes anymore. There was nothing positive to say about the romance.

Now, it’s time to go more in depth about the characters. Yuki started out as your average main character. She was fairly lively and always saw the bright side of the situation. Romance plots aside, she wasn’t a bad character. Unfortunately, then she turned into a vampire and decided to cross more gray lines and act a little more like a vampire. One scene in particular that was bad was when she decided to erase Zero’s memories. Think of the situation in Justice League when Batman’s mind was wiped or Captain America from the New Avengers comics. Yuki may have wanted to do it for Zero’s own good, but she ended up crossing a line that should not have been crossed. Becoming a vampire also made her lose her happy personality as she became a little too wise and took on a more somber role. She decently handled that role, but definitely fell rather rapidly as a character.

There was definitely no way that I was going to like Kaname. He always acted rather polite and such at the beginning of the series, but it was always an act. He could never make up his mind and wanted to be with Yuki someday and preferred solitude at other times. He decided to destroy all of the Nobles randomly and while it may not have totally been a bad decision, it’s not like all of the nobles were evil or sought to destroy people. Luckily, a plot twist showed that Kaname did spare one of them so I’ll give him credit for that. Portraying himself as the villain was definitely an intriguing move and one that I still don’t see a whole lot of benefit from. In the end, vampires and humans will never be able to perfectly get along because both sides have so many bad apples inside of them. It’s just how the world works and there will always be another new villain to seize the throne. Kaname’s also the one who turned Yuki into a vampire, which doesn’t earn him any brownie points as a character.

Zero’s the other main hero and he’s pretty terrible. I liked him a lot more than Kaname for a while, but then he lost control and succumbed to the blood sucking temptations. That destroyed him as a character. Shojo series like to typically have two main guys, the nice one and the mean one. Zero served as the mean one and a fairly extreme version of the character type at times. He would even point his gun at Yuki once she became a vampire. I don’t see that turning into a healthy romance in the long term so it’s another plot that I couldn’t get behind and I found it hard to sympathize with Zero throughout the series. At least he has a gun/vine powers so he’s a decent fighter, but his fighting abilities can’t save his personality.

As you can see, I wasn’t a big fan of any of the main characters. With a series this long, there are naturally a lot of other characters, but most of them actually aren’t that important to the plot compared with these. We do have other villains, supporting characters, and other heroes, but they are all just around to add more detail to the world. In the end, it really just comes down to the three main characters and the choices that they make since they will drastically affect the characters around them. From the supporting characters, I suppose that I didn’t mind the headmaster or Yuki’s friend all that much. Yuki’s friend was always nice to Yuki and offered words of advice, but she never did all that much aside from that. The headmaster always knows more than he lets on, but he prefers to let the heroes fend for themselves.

Kaname had a posse around him at all times, but by and large you won’t remember them after a while. You have the girl member who also likes Kaname and naturally resents Yuki. That’s her whole character arc for the most part. There are a few guys there who have ties to other families and talk a good game, but they don’t do all that much of consequence. One of them is brainwashed and the others try to help Kaname even after he has earned a negative reputation, but that’s about it for them. One of the main villains was a noble vampiress who went around brainwashing as many of the human students as possible with her blood. Kaname eventually stopped her, but she definitely got a lot of casualties in the meantime. Shizuka was her name and her death is rather intense.

The manga was never quite as happy as the average Shojo series and was always serious business so it was not all that surprising that there could be some violent moments. It’s nothing toooo bad of course, just a heart stab here and there (Vampires are quite durable) and it works as Kaname hype. It doesn’t even feel all that out of place and I wouldn’t say that it goes too far. You’ll know the scenes when they happen. The other big villain is Rido. He’s so powerful that he thinks Kaname won’t make a move against him. Kaname quickly destroys him (Not a total destruction since the bond of master and student wouldn’t let him, but the guy was reduced to ash so it’s more or less the same thing) and that’s the end of that. I can’t say that either villain was all that interesting in the end.

This definitely isn’t your average Shojo series, but it ends up losing to those. This further cements the notion for me that it is almost impossible to do a good vampire story. They end up just not being all that good. Records of a Fallen Vampire is probably still the only good vampire story and it was impressive. Maybe someday a series can follow that example, but I suspect that many other series will try and fail to do so first. Such is simply how these things end up going down.

Overall, Vampire Knight is not for the faint of heart or for those looking for a good story. If you’re a huge vampire buff then this is probably up your ally. As it stands, the characters simply aren’t likable and all of the romance plots fall back. The series takes itself a little too seriously with all of the tearful origin stories lying about. I did enjoy the occasional action scene, but those are few and far between. Based on the pictures I used, the series certainly looks more exciting than I’m giving it credit for, but keep in mind that they’re images that are meant to be misleading. I wouldn’t use the boring pictures now would I? It’s certainly no Black Bird and at least earns 1 star, but you’re better off reading Records of a Fallen Vampire instead of this title.

Overall 1/10

Big Hero 6 Review

Posted on January 26, 2016 by dreager1

It’s been a while since I saw the film so it’s near to quickly relive the adventures over in manga format. The series was only 2 volumes so it makes for a quick read. It’s a fairly straight adaption of the film so it’s a good way of rewatching the film if you want to accomplish the task in about 30-40 minutes instead of the film’s run-time. Alternately, you could also do it for the action scenes since they’re a little better in the manga.

Hiro was having a good ole time showing off his science skills at a new school while his brother showed him around. He didn’t have many friends, but that never bothered Hiro. Unfortunately, everything changed when his brother was murdered and his invention was stolen by a mysterious villain. Hiro realized that the only thing he could do now was use his brother’s invention to beat the new villain black and blue. The problem is that the invention is a Marshmallow looking robot that has no real combat experience. Time to see if his big brain is just for show or not!

So, it’s partially a revenge story, but along the way Hiro realizes that he has to beat the villain by the book. His brother’s friends decide to help Hiro out and in exchange they receive power suits, which simulate powers. The friends can definitely hold Hiro back at times, but it’s always useful to have some backup for the big battles. One of the kids can roller skate, another one has a monster suit, etc. Some abilities are more useful than others of course, but Hiro can’t make everything appear to be super brilliant.

Fred’s the one with the monster suit and he’s always joking around. Turns out that the guy is rich, which is certainly useful and he’s the comedy of the series. None of his jokes are remotely funny, but he’s a good character and you need someone to mess with the team dynamic at times. GoGo is the roller skates girl and probably the only member who’s always ready for a fight. She does a good job of fighting back against the mysterious villain, but there’s only so much you can do with hockey pucks and roller skates.

Honey Lemon’s the most bland character of the bunch and as a result, she doesn’t really get any powers. She had something to do with bubbles or lights I believe, but her ability was not impressive. Wasabi easily had the best powers even if he didn’t use them to their fullest extent. He had Ice blades, which could really deal some massive damage if they could ever hit. Don’t underestimate good tech, but the problem is that the villain had the best tech.

The villain went by the name of Yokai although I never remember anyone actually calling him that. Using the nanobots at his disposal, he can essentially do just about anything. They can lift, move things, transport him around at high speeds, etc. He essentially had the upper hand against the heroes a lot of the time and whenever the heroes would come close to defeating him, they’d stop Hiro and remind him that they’re supposed to be heroes and must play by the books. Yokai gets a sob story as you might have expected. It’s a touching story I suppose, but it doesn’t really excuse the fact that he went about obtaining his goal in a very iffy way. Let’s face it, Hiro and Tadashi (Hiro’s brother) would have been glad to have helped him.

Sadly, the after credits scene of the film isn’t in the manga version, but that’s okay. It’s harder to do a twist ending in a manga although it would certainly have been awesome if it was included. The ending is rather complete and the mission of saving Tadashi can be considered as enough of a cliff hanger. I think another 2-4 volumes would have helped the series pacing wise though. It would have given the team more time to train, fight other villains to gain experience, and then they could have tackled the final boss. As it stands, the manga moves at a very high speed and that’s a good thing, but it also means that the adventure is over that much sooner. There’s not a whole lot of time to get to know the characters.

For example, Hiro’s a main character, but there’s not a lot of time to get to know him. He comes across as a little generic, which could have been eliminated had the series been longer. Still, he’s a good hero and someone that you can root for. I’m not a fan of Baymax though. I don’t find him charismatic or likable and I was just never able to get into the character. I would have preferred the comic design or a more aggressive personality. His A.I. is just a little too limited and the personality doesn’t match the character design. He can fight a little, but typically only as a last resort and by then the odds are stacked against him. He puts the heroes in a tough spot a few times.

The art’s a little cluttered during the fight scenes, but pretty good otherwise. In a sense, it has that “adaption” feel to it so you can tell that it’s not an original story. Most manga series have that effect like Kingdom Hearts or the Pokemon movie adventures. It’s probably intentional or perhaps the artists are trying really hard to emulate the movie’s style, which is how that happens. Either way, the art is fairly good and I was glad that the manga tried to stretch out the fights as much as possible. More action is always a good way to pad the volumes.

Overall, Big Hero 6 is a fun manga. It’s not very deep so don’t expect much more from it than a quick action adventure, but that’s all it needs. You know what you’re getting into from the get go and there’s not a whole lot that you can do in 2 short volumes. There are no really bad characters and no really big negatives. It’s a lack of positives versus having negatives that limits it from a higher score, but a solid seven is the end goal that should always be desired as a minimum. Getting lower than a 7 is what’s a cause for worry. This score is certainly a lot higher than my next few manga reviews so…prepare yourself!

Overall 7/10

Super Mario Sunshine 4-Koma Manga Kingdom Review

Posted on January 23, 2016 by dreager1

So, apparently Nintendo has a Manga Kingdom lineup (Or had) where various Nintendo games would get some little 4 koma anthologies. It’s a neat concept. I don’t care for 4-Koma all that much and it’s basically the equivalent of stop motion for TV shows, but it can be entertaining if handled right. Considering that the whole “series” for Mario Sunshine is only about 20 comics long (20 pages) it goes by quickly and I didn’t grow tired of the jokes. Mario could be a little out of character at times, but that’s simply how things are supposed to work here.

Mario actually talks in one or two of the comics, which is intriguing. It turns out that Mario isn’t actually very smart as seen in many of the comics. He takes everything literally and gets himself into a whole lot of trouble this way. You will also feel bad for Fludd since Mario really puts the squeeze on the poor guy. Fludd wasn’t ready for this and now he won’t get to really enjoy his vacation time. It was probably the most emotional part of the series.

Back to serious matters for a second, this manga still illustrates the problem with 4 koma. As mentioned earlier, this is about as short a 4 Koma “series” as you can expect to find. And yet…..they already reuse some jokes. Mario spraying people who don’t want to be sprayed because he misinterpreted what they said happens a few times and likewise with the Fludd squeezing jokes. I mean..if you’re already reusing jokes during a 2 chapter title, just imagine what would happen if this was a whole volume long like Shugo Chara Chan. You can end up reusing the same joke dozens of times over and over again. You don’t want that and you know what…the fans don’t want it!

Luckily the jokes were good though. This wasn’t another Rock Lee or the disgraceful Sasuke series. Another factor to consider is that Mario Sunshine is still one of the greatest Mario games of all time. It’s very nostalgic to see all of the old elements and I’m definitely ready for the rumored Sunshine 2. If it ended up coming out the same day as Galaxy 3, I’m not sure which one I’d pick up. It would be a very tough choice, but Sunshine 2 would have to win out on principle.

The art is nice and clear. It’s not world shattering of course, but I like the art and it holds up well. Mario is typically drawn accurately unless the gag is for him to look tall. The artist got to draw a lot of various Mario elements and while they were not all that detailed at times, clarity of art is always important and definitely what I am looking for in a title like this one.

Overall, Good Job Nintendo. I’m satisfied with this 4 Koma Adventure and would definitely recommend it. After all, you can read the whole thing in about 8 minutes so if you can’t spare that much time for a Mario manga, you need to reevaluate your lunch break. Hopefully we’ll get some more Mario 4 Koma adventures since I believe most of the other games got some. Who knows, they may already be online somewhere. It’ll be tough to beat Mario Sunshine though since that game had it made. Too bad Bowser didn’t appear in any of the comics, but maybe next time!

Overall 6/10

xxxHolic Review

Posted on September 5, 2015 by dreager1

xxxHolic is now over and it only took me a little over 2 months to get through the series. That’s pretty impressive if you ask me and it was certainly one of my quicker speed reads. This series was fun and to an extent, it’s a peaceful, episodic series similar to Yotsubato or Natsume. The main difference is that it’s more interesting and the characters are better. If you were expecting action then you will be disappointed, but if you come in expecting the right vibe, then you will be pleasantly surprised at how it’s handled.

Watanuki is your average kid who goes to school and tries to be a nice guy. He doesn’t really get along with his classmate, Domeki, but they still end up hanging out a lot thanks to interventions by Watanuki’s employer, Yuko. Yuko is a space/time witch who owns a shop which can grant wishes for people. Her abilities seem to only be limited by her imagination and most of the cases that she deals with are fairly meta. Watanuki is typically stuck with the manual labor when there is something to do. Things tend to freak him out but he adjusts as the series goes on.

xxxHolic was definitely a slice of life at first, but then it slowly started to take on a more somber note as Yuko hinted that things would have to end. The status quo can never remain for long as change is inevitable, but Watanuki didn’t want to have to past ways so soon. Yuko continues to lose power as the series goes on until she finally starts to fade and disappear, which leaves Watanuki with a new mission to uphold the shop until she returns. This is essentially the last part of the series. You can split xxxHolic into two chapters, the Yuko adventures where she messed with Watanuki a lot and then the second half is all about Watanuki being the owner and losing all of his personality.

Before I go into that, it should be noted that this series is in the same continuity as just about every other Clamp series. That’s nothing new, but it is heavily intertwined with the Tsubasa series to an extent that you would typically not expect. If you haven’t read the Tsubasa series, it won’t really affect your experience here, but if you have read it, then the interactions between the series is always interesting.

As expected, the art is fairly clear and easy to read. The Clamp series have varying levels of quality for me and I think they’re at their best in these slice of life series as the clear art works well for creating the characters. It doesn’t work quite as well for fights although Clamp gave it their all. I’d definitely give the art a thumbs up here.

All right, let’s talk about Watanuki. He’s the main character of the title and a decently likable character for the most part. He really overreacts whenever Domeki is on screen, which can get a little repetitive, but sometimes he’s right. Typically he’s not, but it’s good to see him take the win sometimes. Watanuki still means well for the most part and he’s a nice guy. My problem is his new personality in the second part of the series. Once Yuko is gone, Watanuki decides to run the shop, but he also decides to become Yuko to an extent. Now, he only wears the clothes that she would use to run the shop, smokes the same cigar that she had, and even goes as far as to copy her poses and dialogue within the chapters.

It’s simply overdone and I believe that this does have a term in real life as a person can try to essentially become a person that they were close to who ended up passing away. It wasn’t good character development for Watanuki though and I ended up not really liking the character by the end. I definitely miss the original.

Domeki is the main supporting character and he’s always around. He really likes to drink and he’s a fairly loyal friend who came to Watanuki’s aid several times during the series. Unlike the main hero, Domeki can actually fight and he gets all of the action scenes in the series. He’s definitely a nice guy and while he is rude to Watanuki on purpose, it seems to all be a game for him. With everyone else he tends to be slightly more polite or at least more aware of the situation.

Yuko naturally has a very large role in the series. As Watanuki is always very serious, Yuko loves to tease him the entire series by making absurd demands or putting him in dicey positions. (Inviting everyone over for a sleepover) Watanuki always has a huge reaction which certainly encourages her. She’s a lot of fun and one of the reasons why the series is so enjoyable. Yuko always knows how to have a good time and she hides a lot of the tougher truths from Watanuki, like the fact that she is in a fairly tough fight at the moment.

Throughout the series, she gives a lot of wise advice to Watanuki. Yuko believes that nothing is by chance and everything that is to be was meant to be. She mentions this quite often, but also tells Watanuki about how strong desires can eventually just turn into darkness. For example, there was a lady who wanted to be with someone so badly that she turned into an evil spirit. Yuko will grant any wish for a price so it is a stretch to think of her as a hero. She tends to help the heroes and has a soft spot for them, but she is also content to just let a person fade away so that she could let Watanuki witness the irony of that person’s demise.

While Yuko’s the most enjoyable character in the series, Mokona is also a very good one. He loves to drink as well and messes with Watanuki when he has the chance. Mokona’s role is very small next to the other characters, but he makes his presence felt. Himawari is the main heroine of the series and she is mainly just around to act oblivious. It turns out that she has a rather dark secret which explains a whole lot, but I still can’t say that she was a very good character. She’s a nice character so I won’t say that she’s a downright bad one, but she just lacked character development and never became all that memorable.

Kohane is a fairly important character as she gets a whole arc to herself. She can see spirits like Watanuki so she is quickly thrust into the world of television. The heroes help her to repair the rift between her and her mother although it takes time and a few years since after the time skip, things aren’t quite perfect yet. She was a nice pal for Watanuki, but once her powers started to wane, so did her role in the series.

While I did mention that the series can be a little somber at some points as Watanuki wonders if he’ll ever see Yuko again, for the most part I’d say that it’s fairly light hearted. It’s a calming experience as you read through the volumes and that’s part of why it’s so enjoyable to read. The character interactions are handled well and even if some of the characters can act a little repetitively, it reinforces the whole slice of life angle.

If I had any complaints with the series, it would be that I didn’t like 2 of the cases. One involved a spirit who used to be human and there was hintings of domestic violence there. It’s never explicitly stated, but it’s fairly obvious and Watanuki wasn’t really able to help the spirit very much. It was a very somber story and there are a few that don’t get to have happy endings, but for the most part it’s either an ironic fate or one that is sad for the individual, but not in a really dark way.

The other arc that I wasn’t crazy about was Kohane’s as the media and the other stars decided to throw water on her and basically act rude because they were jealous of her abilities. The arc dragged a little and was mostly filler so I was essentially just waiting for it to be all over. The stand alone stories were typically the best one like the mysterious sounds so Yuko gave someone a bell case. There were a lot of other ones and they were typically all good. Even Kohane’s had a lot of good parts like the learning how to cook section. I always love cooking parts, which is why it’s too bad that we don’t have more good food titles. Toriko counts, but only to a very slight extent.

As for the interesting ending to xxxHolic, it’s definitely pretty unique. Let’s just say that there’s a pretty big time skip and while it’s customary to end a series with one, you typically don’t see one that’s quite so large. It just goes to show that the heroes will have to do a lot of waiting and it’s easy to imagine that Watanuki would be bored at this point. With technology, it’s safe to say that I’d never be bored even if I had 100 years, but Watanuki is a bit old fashioned in that sense so he should really give it a shot. I imagine that meeting descendants every once in a while is always interesting.

It’ll definitely be interesting to see how a sequel series handles this. To an extent, if it’s more of a nostalgia based sequel like Tsubasa, the series doesn’t have to introduce a whole lot of plot as the stand alone adventures can just continue. This series had a very small cast as you can tell from the review and I don’t expect the sequel to add many others. I also don’t see Yuko returning in the sequel either, but I could definitely see her being able to talk with Watanuki for brief periods of time. Spoilers time, although I essentially hinted at it already. Bringing her back just seems like it would defy a lot of what the first series talked about as death is one of the few things that is irreversible. Yes, Yuko’s disappearance cannot be called a normal death, but it’s essentially what it all boiled down too. She just slowed it down for a while.

Of course, that’s why a sequel series likely wouldn’t be as good as the original. Without Yuko’s interesting views on everything, the series may not be quite as deep as the first one. Watanuki intentionally copies her personality, but it’s not the same as hearing it all from the original. Also, I still don’t like Watanuki’s new personality and the timeskip likely will not have done him any favors either. Maybe he’ll slowly regain his old personality, but the odds of that are slim.

Finally, I may as well talk about the power levels for a second. Everything is pureposefully vague, but Watanuki and Yuko state that their abilities are greatest while in dreams. In the real world, they do seem to have some slight magical abilities as Watanuki can levitate and both of them seem to have telekenesis and general magic. They wouldn’t do too well against other magicians like Dr. Strange or Fai for me, but in universe, Yuko is much stronger than Fai as she contends with foes like Clow Reed. I would have liked to have seen some more action to see their true abilities. Domeki has his spirit arrows which can deal a good amount of damage, but his human state remain so it’s similar to the Sailor Scouts. He has good offensive powers, but he’s still a total glass cannon.

Overall, xxxHolic was a pretty fun title. It’s certainly the kind of series that you could easily read again as a calming experience. I wasn’t a huge fan of the final saga in the series though and Watanuki still feels fake there, but it is what it is. At 19 volumes, the series is decently long so there’s time for quite a lot of adventures. With so much meta content, a lot of things are vague, but in a good way and Yuko’s wise words are always interesting to listen too. As already said, the series is just a lot of fun and I’m sure that you will enjoy it. Don’t go into it expecting a thriller, but remember that it is a slice of life with some fun supernatural elements. Then you’ll be fine!

Overall 8/10

Rurouni Kenshin Review

Posted on August 18, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to review a manga title that I consider to easily be one of the best titles of all time. This was a series that I started all the way back in 2011 and finally finished a few months ago. It essentially has everything that I could want in an action title along with an excellent main character. The Kenshin manga was on the road to success from the start and never looked back.

The series is about a wandering swordsman known as Kenshin. He used to fight in the wars, but has now decided to retire to a quiet life after traumatic events, which are eventually told to you during a mini flashback arc. He believes that peace will always be better than violence, but knows that it is not really possible to have one without the other. He wanders across a dojo where he meets up with Kaoru. After he helps her take out a random thug, he decides to stay there a while.

Essentially, the first part of the manga deals with a lot of one shot adventures. Kenshin meets up with several of his soon to be rivals like Sanosuke, Saito, and Aoshi. He takes down several villainous groups and helps people out as often as possible. Kenshin solidifies his standings as a peaceful warrior who only fights for justice and his friends in the current days. That being said, his opponents could not accept this.

A villain by the name of Shishio has gathered a group of the most dangerous villains on the planet to aid him. He wants to purge Kyoto into madness and he gets ready to basically kick off some new wars and battles with the destruction that he is causing. Kenshin is asked to help out and he reluctantly goes, but Aoshi will stand in his way and Shishio ends up proving to be one of the strongest enemies that Kenshin has ever faced. Can Kenshin defeat him or have his skills simply been lost with how long he’s been inactive?

The final arc deals with an enemy from the past. He blames Kenshin for the death of his sister and wants him to know what it’s like to despair. Kenshin warns his allies that this man is dangerous and that things may get personal. There are a lot of fights and even some casualties as the arc goes on and Kenshin loses his will to fight. Can he regain it in time or are the heroes doomed?

Naturally, a whole lot happens during the span of the series as it is 28-29 volumes. While there are only 2 big arcs and a lot of mini ones, one could make the case that some of the mini arcs were basically real ones. It has been years since I read some of the original adventures although I did re read the first several volumes a while back. This is a series that has a very large amount of replay value.

Let’s get the technical aspects out of the way first. The art is spectacular and it is why the fights really end up popping out at you. The fight scenes can hold their own against any other manga title and they are long enough where you can really enjoy them and get a feel for how each character fights. Having good art is almost half the battle for a good manga series.

Naturally, writing is the next half and Kenshin certainly excels there as well. The characters are all pretty mature in how they handle things and most of them are very likable. Another good sign of this is how the series virtually has no fanservice. That was certainly impressive considering how long the series went on and it’s always good to see a series that doesn’t need to rely on such cheap tricks.

There are many cool/hardcore moments scattered throughout the series. I always get hyped when a scene like that is handled well, which is why I like Bleach so much and enjoy Kirito a lot in Sword Art Online. That high level of confidence and great moments before fighting an opponent can make a big difference between a good character and a great one. Whenever Kenshin, Aoshi, or Saito gets serious, you know that something cool is about to happen. Those characters don’t mess around and you’ll always be treated to a great action scene.

My favorite part of the whole series was probably the final gauntlet against Shishio. First, Saito attacked him and was crushed, then Aoshi took his turn and was also defeated before Kenshin jumped in. Sanosuke also took his chance there. I always like group scenes where a bunch of heroes run at one villain only to all be thrown back by his overwhelming power levels. This was similar to the big Aizen battle from Bleach, but to a slightly smaller extent as Shishio took out 3-4 fighters instead of the 10+ that Aizen defeated. Still ultra impressive though and a truly great scene.

Time to look at some of the characters as the cast is one of the reasons why the series excelled. Kenshin is essentially a perfect main character. He started out as a samurai who destroyed many people during the war. It was war so he just went along with it, but after it all, he decided to never slay another person again. Circumstances made this tough as many criminals continue to get in his way in the modern day, but he does his best so spare them and only destroy when necessary. He doesn’t even fight unless pushed into that situation. At one point, the weight of his past crimes start to drag him down and he enters a hopeless state, but he is eventually shown that he can move past that.

Kenshin’s story is one of redemption and I’m glad that it has a happy ending. He went through a lot, but he ultimately accepts what he’s done and that he can still make sure that he lives a good future. He’s certainly a main character that you can look up too and he stands up there with Goku and the others as a very noble hero. He’s also very skilled and while he is a human, there are very few mortals who can swing a blade quite as efficiently. With a sword in his hand, Kenshin can be a threat to anyone.

Kaoru is the main heroine. While she gets a decently large role, she isn’t quite as integral to the plot as some of the other characters. By and large, she’s a good character even if she doesn’t have as much personality as other heroines. She can fight to an extent and she is always there to reassure Kenshin and give him some confidence. Kaoru’s certainly a decent character and beats Yahiko. I can’t say that I ever became a fan of the kid. He looks up to Kenshin and wants to be a hero like him someday, but he will just need to get a little older first. He gets his big moments as he fights serious opponents more than once, but it’s typically just cheesy in the end.

Sanosuke is the friendly rival of the series. Kenshin has several in this series, but Sanosuke’s the closest to a friend. I would say that they are friends and rivals. Unlike the other characters, Sanosuke doesn’t use a sword and just fights with his fists. He’s not quite as strong as any of the heavyweights in the series, but he’s much better than most of the average fighters so he’s essentially in the middle. I like Sanosuke and he always fights with honor. In another series, he could have been the best character, but he got trapped in this manga so he has to settle for 4th place. That’s just how good the cast is and Sanosuke could easily hold his own series.

Saito is another one of the rivals for Kenshin and he’s easily the most antagonistic of the bunch. He works with the cops and respects Kenshin as a fighter although he believes that the hero’s senses have dulled. Saito fights for the side of justice even if his methods make you wonder a little. He may be a little over the top at times, but he’s certainly a very likable character. Easily one of the best in the series and I’d put him as number 3 for me. In case you were wondering, I’d say that Kenshin is number 1.

As for my second favorite character in the series, that would certainly be Aoshi. He was my favorite rival of the group. While he started out as a bit of a villain, he quickly turned into the rival who fights on the side of justice. He unfortunately did not get a huge role in the series and would be gone for large amounts of time, but when he did show up things would typically get very epic! His fighting style was a lot of fun to see.

Misao is a kunoichi who works with Aoshi at times. Like Yahiko, she wants to be a pretty good fighter. She’s decent at the moment, but far too young to go up against any of the big bads. She’s more charismatic than Yahiko, but still not quite on the level of the other characters who I just mentioned. Megumi is a supporting character as well, but she really doesn’t do anything in the series. She heals their injuries when necessary, but for the most part her path just doesn’t cross with the others.

Jin-E was the first real villain of the series and I actually liked him. As a villain he’s certainly imposing. He’s not incredibly powerful or anything as he’s taken down in an instant, but the design was neat and we needed a villain to go down quickly to show off how powerful Kenshin was. To that extent, I’d say that it worked out quite well.

Shishio was one of the true threats in the series and his fighting abilities were second to none. You could even make the case that he is stronger than Kenshin since Kenshin has grown a little weaker over the years. While his goals would have likely been impossible since the army would have eventually blown him away, he did do a good job of forcing Kenshin to make a move. He was certainly an imposing figure and if not for the fire illness that plagued him, he certainly could have won. I can see why this guy was a fan favorite.

Yumi is always at Shishio’s side. I can’t say that she was very good or had a whole lot of character here, but most of her character development was in the spinoff/prequel that came out a while back. At least she is loyal and Shishio knows that she would never betray him…unlike some of the other members. Seta is very ambitious and is actually a lot tougher than you would have guessed upon seeing him for the first time. While he is one of Shishio’s generals, he’s at Shishio’s level when it comes to a fight. He actually had the upper hand against Kenshin for a while due to his insane speed. While not as cool as Shishio, I can definitely respect this guy as a villain. He’s always very smug though so you couldn’t wait to see Kenshin take him down.

Usui was a pretty decent villain. I liked his gimmick since he was a defensive fighter in a series where everyone relied on offense. Naturally, he didn’t last too long against Saito, but I still liked the change of pace there and I remembered him, which is always a good sign. Anji was the power hitter of the group who used hand to hand combat in his fights so you can imagine who he fought. Anji was an impressive villain and he put up quite the fight. He had some honor, which is always good and made for another solid member of Shishio’s team.

Cho was another member who was interesting. He certainly wasn’t much of a threat next to the other members, but he had fun with his fights and was still talented. Fuji also deserves a mention as his size was quite impressive, but he had the unfortunate luck of fighting Kenshin’s master. Kenshin’s teacher was actually really cool and it’s a shame that he did not get to appear any more. Finally, a sensei who was actually serious, cool, and could fight. It’s a true shame that his screen time was so severely limited.

Enishi was the big boss of the final arc. He was certainly a great fighter and he gave Kenshin a run for his money, but I think it’s safe to say that he was not quite as good as Shishio. If Kenshin had been at the top of his game, he probably would have won with less difficulty. Enishi’s on a mission of revenge, but he does like to ignore several facts to make Kenshin out to be the bad guy. While you can sort of understand what he’s saying, he’s not a very sympathetic villain in the end even if it’s possible that he won’t go all the way through with his demands at times. Still, he made for a decent final boss.

Gein was a puppet master who had a pretty big role in the Shishio arc when you think about it as his puppet did a lot of damage. His true form is pretty anticlimactic and won’t be gaining him any fans, but his puppets were certainly lethal. If only his puppet had been real, that may have helped him. Hyogo was a pretty neat fighter as he actually gave Kenshin a decent fight, which was unexpected. His attacks are a lot quicker than you would expect based on his large size and I actually liked him as a villain to an extent. Not the greatest villain out there, but more enjoyable than I would have thought.

Banjin is a skilled hand to hand fighter so he was Sanosuke’s final big opponent. I can’t say that he had a whole lot of character other than being a bit of a hot head, but that was good enough for me as he meant business and gave Saonosuke a decently good fight. He was a little generic, but served his purpose. Yatsume was interesting because his appearance was definitely based off of Venom’s. That was amusing and it’s the main reason why I remember him. Otherwise, he’s not the most impressive fighter, although his long limbs can certainly come in handy when in a sword fight. The heroes have a hard time getting him to stick to one place.

There are naturally many more characters to be found in the manga. I’ve also read another one of this author’s series named Busou Renkin. I thoroughly enjoyed that one and would give it a solid 8/10, but this was definitely the definitive series by the author. Everything that Busou Renkin did, Kenshin basically improved on, although I think it came out first anyway, but I may be mistaken on that.

Aside from all of the non stop action, Kenshin was just a very deep manga series that dealt with serious topics while keeping that fun Shonen feel. Even the throwaway fights tended to be fairly interesting since the art would ensure that the fights would still be a lot of fun. I’m sure that the TV show adaption would also be a lot of fun, but the fights would likely not be quite as good since it’s tough to match up to the art style here.

It’s tough to say whether Kenshin even had any slow moments or parts of the series where it grew boring for a while. Naturally, I did marathon through some sections, but it was always interesting. I know that the series got a remake/AU thing called Restoration, which should be interesting to check out. There’s almost literally no way that it can beat the original, but just putting up a good fight would be most impressive. Kenshin shows that even if a Shonen Jump manga stays down to earth with low power levels during a 20+ volume run, it can still be an elite fighting manga!

Kenshin was one of the final “Big” manga series that I had not read. Now that it is gone, the only one that I can think of is Saint Seiya. I don’t believe that there are any of the super legendary, hype manga left, which is neat. I’m essentially at the end of an era and we’ll see if the modern titles are able to reach these levels of epicness. Toriko and Bleach are doing a good job of helping the modern era while One Piece is pretty solid, but we need more! What I’m waiting for is a new ongoing DBZ title or a full fledged Kenshin title to help the ranks. That would be awesome!

Overall, Kenshin is easily one of the best manga titles out there. I haven’t really made a top 10 for that yet, which I should probably get around too. I’ve basically got most of my top 10 for anime, but aside from knowing that Megaman NT Warrior is my favorite manga, the rest of them are all just shuffled in there somewhere. Nevertheless, Kenshin basically has all of my pros while avoiding the typical negatives. While I’m sure that there are some to be found in the series if you look hard enough (Like some origin stories being a little iffy or possible animal violence although I can’t recall any) they end up getting lost in the flood of positives.

Overall 9/10

Dengeki Daisy Review

Posted on August 15, 2015 by dreager1

Dengeki Daisy is a series that I started a full year and a half ago. It’s definitely been a while and I was wondering if the series would be able to finish as strongly as it started. It was a gamble because for a Shojo, typically the longer that you go, the more chances there are for things to go downhill. This is probably the most interesting Shojo title that I’ve read in a long time and it was a lot of fun, but one of the villains does manage to bring it down.

A long time ago, there was a virus created by a man named Daisy, which crippled systems around the world and was massively overpowered. Around the same time that the incident ended, Teru’s brother died. Years later, Teru is attending a school and basically having a happy life when she ends up working for a janitor after breaking school property. It turns out that the guy is a nice person despite acting like a delinquent. He can be gruff, but Teru is always chipper since she has texts with a guy named Daisy who sends her inspirational texts every day. Naturally, the Janiter is Daisy, but she doesn’t know that for a while.

At first, Daisy mostly just helps her behind the scenes by defeating bullies and keeping her out of trouble. After all, his mission in life is to keep her safe since he made a promise to Teru’s brother. That’s when a villain organization decides to strike. They want Daisy to use the virus or maybe they’ll open it up themselves. Unfortunately, this means that Teru is in constant danger. Daisy has to use all of the contacts that he has accumulated over the years if he really wants to keep her safe.

The plot probably sounds more than a little convoluted, but that’s because I covered the slice of life part of the series along with some of the plot. The series is 16 volumes so a lot of events happen as the series goes on. The best part was probably the first half as the slice of life time was cool, but I did like the action that was brought to the forefront in the second half. The only thing that dragged it down was one of the big villains.

His name was Akira. He has the ability to understand and memorize insanely large amounts of code. He can accomplish the same task as a super computer with ease so no math problem is too difficult for him. He can’t fight all that well, but he does battle Teru once or twice. While he could have been a neat rival to Daisy, he ended up being a bad character as his wanting to compete with Daisy angle was played up too much. He ends up attacking and taunting Teru when they first met up and it was one of the low points of the series as it was just a terrible scene and the generic stealing a kiss moment has never worked out well for any series. The fact that it’s played so seriously is also pretty bad as it wrecked any chance he had of being decent.

The other two big villains are certainly better. Chiharu is essentially in charge of Akira. While she acts like she cares about him at some points, the mission comes first for her and sometimes she does seem to just lose patience with him. It’s sad for Akira since nobody wants to help him for the majority of the series so he basically has no friends. She certainly can’t be counted as one although at least she has some honor as she helps the heroes out at one point since she owed them a debt. She can actually fight as well as she took out Matsuda in a fight. Granted, it was a shot from the back.

Antler is the main villain of the series though. Throughout the series, there were a lot of petty crooks and one shot villains who would always end up turning good, but Antler was the mastermind behind just about all of the main characters’ troubles. He was a fairly epic villain, but unfortunately, the series seemed to basically be cancelled before he could do anything. The ending was fairly rushed as the arc ended decently well, but plotlines were still around. Antler basically just threw the heroes a bone at the end and watched them sail away as he presumably blew up. This just made you wonder what the point of it all was. What was Antler’s end game? It seems like he was just testing the heroes, but that’s such an anticlimactic way to die. Just watching the heroes get away like that.

Similarly, one character died, which was too bad. Souichirou was dead before the series began, but he was actually the best character in the series. We mostly only see him through flashbacks and a bonus chapter at the end of the final volume. He was a really hardcore character and had no problem talking back to the villains. They didn’t dare mess with him and I still like to think that he could have survived somehow. The problem was that I figured he would end up being Antler, but they met in a flashback so it’s no longer possible unless he took up the mantle and I like to think that this didn’t happen. Either way, that’s probably for the best as Souichirou turning evil would have been bad for his character development. It’s a shame that he missed the series, but that didn’t stop him from easily becoming my favorite character in the series. He’s extremely brilliant and was still way above the other characters in terms of intelligence by the end of the series.

Matsuda is the boss of the group and he has a lot of government connections at his disposal. He’s very tough and helps to give the heroes that war experience that they needed. He’s a fun character. Matsuda doesn’t get a huge role, but he helps the heroes get a lead whenever the vilains are nearby and you can completely trust him through and through. I was surprised when he lost the final big fight after all of the hype, but I suppose that made the scene all the more surprising.

Another one of the supporting characters who helped Daisy and Teru through the whole adventure was Riko. Riko has been around with the team since they first created the group and she was very helpful during the arcs. She gave Teru a place to stay and also helped to get everyone’s heads back in the game after Antler hurt their feelings. She is certainly determined to see the mission through to the end and made for another great supporting character. For the most part, the series was good with that, but we had less luck when it came to the school friends.

Kiyoshi was a really terrible character and I never liked him from the start. He started out as a villain, but after the heroes crushed him, he decided to go to the other side. While he acts sincere about it, he was definitely willing to do anything as a villain and it’s hard to overlook it so easily. I’m glad that he decided to turn into a good guy and that’s great for his character, but I never became a fan of his. I could have done without him being in the series to be honest. More screen time for the epic dog instead would have been great. One of the villains who turned good had a dog and that was certainly epic. If the dog had appeared more to show everyone who’s boss, that would have been neat.

Rena is one of Teru’s other friends and Teru helps her realize what it means to have real friends and not to waste your life on frivolous pursuits. Teru also helps to save Rena from the villains at another point. Rena started off as a fairly shallow character who made a lot of mistakes, but by the end she was certainly a solid character and easily Teru’s most likable friend. She’s not as cool as Daisy’s friends, but a good character all the same.

Time to actually talk about the main characters! Teru is the lead and she’s a good heroine. Teru actually gets a few fight scenes, which was certainly unexpected and certainly helped me gain respect for her as a character. It’s too bad that she couldn’t have defeated Akira right away when they first met though. Teru doesn’t always win, but at least she always puts up a good fight. By the end of the series, her bond with Daisy is quite strong and they are able to rely on each other no matter how bad the situation looks. Teru always gives her friends good advice and tries her best to stay strong so that her allies won’t get sad. She’s definitely far better than the average lead.

As for Daisy, he’s also a pretty great lead. His origin story helped to give him a lot of development. He made a mistake, which haunted him for years and years, but he is finally able to get past that and worry about the present. He’s a character who managed to stay upright throughout the tough situations and you’ll be rooting for him by the end. He’s not afraid to throw a punch if the villains start to throw around insults and he has the strength to win just about any fair fight. As a great hacker, Daisy is also exceptionally smart. The series definitely had a strong pair of leads.

So, does that mean that I actually approve of the romance? Spoiler alert, I could have done without it, but that may not be a surprise to you. Still, luckily there isn’t a whole lot to worry about here. There is constant romance of course, but the shaprones are always watching Daisy and Teru so no funny business can happen and the relationship is typically given a lot of time to develop. The second half of the series starts to actually have the two accept their status of boy friend and girl friend more, but then the series gets ready to end. The romance is handled much better than a lot of the other plots that you will see nowadays. It’s not perfect and it could still be better, but it’s not enough to actually cripple the score.

Dengeki Daisy was also surprisingly epic for a Shojo. #ShotsFired. There are actually quite a few scenes with real danger and epic cliff hangers like when Daisy prepares to fight the big boss or when Teru attacks Akira. Some of the cliff hangers felt like something that you would expect to see in Shonen Jump! The plot involving the cyber virus was also very interesting as well since it was a battle of wits between the heroes and villains. Both sides would try to manipulate the other one into making a move so neither side could be confident that they were doing the right thing. The constant deceptions and manipulations definitely made this a real page turner.

In fact, I’d say that it was easily one of the most interesting and enjoyable manga titles that I’ve read in a while. It was just as much a page turner as Bakuman, Fairy Tail, Gamaran…okay, maybe not Gamaran level, but you get the picture. That being said, like Ant Man it did have some issues that stopped me from giving it a great score. The Akira scene is really what hurt it and of course, the romance also helps to put a bit of a stop in the way of a series. So while it could have easily gotten a solid 8/10, I lowered the score. That being said, it’s still positive and I still recommend it. While you’re reading the series, you just won’t want to put it down! It’s the difference between a good read and a great one.

The art for the series was quite good and definitely above average for Shojo. For any manga title, the art would certainly be able to hold its own and I’m glad that it was so good since it helped to make the action scenes more epic. This series did have quite a few moments that would leave you eagerly anticipating what would happen next and I like to think that the art always plays a decent role in something like that.

Overall, Dengeki Daisy was a very interesting manga and certainly more of a suspenseful thriller than any title that I’ve read in a while. As far as Shojo titles go, this may be the most epic one unless I’m missing something as there are likely quite a few others out there. This is also easily one of the best romance series that I’ve read. That’s good since I can use this as a counter if anyone says that I don’t like any romance titles! Of course, the score could have been higher without it, but I don’t have to necessarily mention that right off the bat! The writing was very well done and the characters were all developed quite nicely. It’s one of the few series where the flashbacks were about as good as the story in the present time. Even the filler adventures like infiltrating a lost tomb that Souichiro built turned out to be quite enjoyable. If you’re looking for a Shojo thriller, this is definitely a title that you will want to check out!

Overall 6/10

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