Category Archives: Manga Reviews

Haridama Magic Cram School Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a magic manga that sure ended fast. Oneshots are always interesting to read through and then see afterwards if it could have worked as a long ongoing. In this title’s case, it might have been for the best that it ended. It does seem like there is more they could have done but the premise/battle system itself seems like it really limits the series. It’s an interesting angle to choose but at the same time you would have to either throw out a lot of the concepts early on or find a convenient way around them.

The series introduces us to a world of magic where people train in the ways of sorcery. The main character is named Kokuyo and unfortunately he is unable to use magic easily. He has to have a stone with him at all times to use even the most basic of spells. As a result he tends to act out a lot and doesn’t take things seriously. He’s starting off with a disadvantage so why even bother getting past it right? Well another student named Harika isn’t a complete quitter and so she has actually developed some pretty good skills herself. She is ready for the big exam coming up and now Kokuyo has to try hard because he doesn’t want to lose to her. Will he be able to clear this exam or is it all over?

So lets talk about this power system real quick. Everyone has Yin and Yang energy. Aside from the main two, most people can use these energies but only one at a time. So you want to team up with others or just be ready for very long fights. You can use a stone to help you but that seems to be something for the commoners. Kokuyo has a sword which is cool and I think more people should use one since it can actually injure the monsters. Well, by the end of the series it seems like the main two might actually be prodigies who can use both types of energy when they are together. I assume this would be happening a lot going forward. So what are my problems with this?

The whole Yin vs Yang energy is something that has been done better in many other settings. The fact that you have to keep alternating looks super annoying. My main evidence is how even the teachers were taking some time to beat a basic monster. It feels like the power ceiling would be quite low in this series. Kokuyo and Harika may be able to break through that but then you will have everyone wondering why people in universe aren’t more familiar with sharing energy. Why are these two so special?

With a long enough series you can go into that or have people admit they were holding back. Either way that’s just something that is a lot cleaner to fix on the front-end than doing so retroactively. I am judging a whole lot from one volume so I acknowledge that it is possible the author could have won me over with some more time. That just wasn’t the case as this is a one shot so you don’t always get the second chance like that.

As for the characters, the cast was fairly small for now. You have the teacher Sekiei who is always panicking and making a big deal out of everything. He’s okay but not a very interesting kind of character. You know he can fight but that’s about it and I have doubts on just how well he can battle. I wasn’t buying his hype. We have Nekome who is a fairly good student that doesn’t like Kokuyo at all. It doesn’t help that he likes Harika and has to really do a lot to get her attention at all.

It’s a weak romance at best though. If Nekome really liked Harika, you’d think he would be a lot nicer than he is. He’s still big on making fun of Kokuyo for needing the orb when the same is true for her so naturally that gets him into some real trouble there. I was glad to have a rival character of sorts though, that always does a lot to make things interesting and pick up the pacing. Now the battles are automatically more personal by a fairly high degree.

I ended up liking Harika quite a bit more than Kokuyo. Like I mentioned earlier, she didn’t use her circumstances as an excuse. Instead she jumped right into the action and that’s absolutely what you want to see from a character. She just kept on training and fighting to the point where she cold hold her own and pull off any of the normal foes. It’ll probably still take a whole ton of effort to ever be one of the strongest but at least she has not given up on that ambition.

So while I may not be thrilled at some of the rules of the verse, the series was off to a good start here. You had action, a reasonably solid main duo once the main guy starts to shape up and of course you can do a lot with magic. Just keep on throwing in more monsters and you could last for a whole while on that. No ready to jump straight into the big action arc too soon after all, have some good training arcs to build things up and the school setting can be really fun. Just look at Black Clover or Wistoria. There is always an audience for this if it’s executed well.

Meanwhile the art is good. I won’t say that it’s great yet but it is easy to follow along and the character designs are good. The fights we get are fun as well so I definitely don’t have any problems on that front. At least I know if it were to transition into a complete action title played 100% seriously, the art would be ready for it.

Overall, Haridama is a manga that has a very simple/traditional plot and just covers it up with some unique layers. If this became an ongoing I would completely ditch the yin and yang stuff though. You could still have the main two need stones to use magic but in this case it would be more classic. Without the stone they can’t use any magic which is why everyone makes fun of them. Just like that, you’ve got yourself a pretty reasonable series. As a proof of concept, it was fun to check this out and I would recommend reading through it. Again, part of the fun is sort of analyzing why a series didn’t hit big or if it made sense to be a oneshot. In this case it did make sense being a oneshot as it did have some threads to iron out.

Overall 6/10

Cardfight!! Vanguard Will+Dress D2 Review

Posted on by
Reply


This manga is definitely a pretty interesting one. On one hand, it’s over extremely fast. There are only 12 chapters in the series and the whole thing is a quick tournament. So it has nonstop fights which is always fun for me but one thing that takes away from it a bit is that you already know who is going to win. I suppose if you got to read it instantly then maybe you could have gone in blind but the first episode of the season taking place after this one already revealed who would win. So that takes a little of the pop out of guessing who would win the match. Still, there are no real negatives to be had with the story. It’s a fun little title that lets you take a peak at how the characters have improved their deck.

The A.I. that nearly took over the world has decided that it needs to see a little more about how everyone duels. What is behind the magic of Cardfight Vanguard? Well the only way to really find that out is to bring the top 16 players over. Unfortunately there are a few big shots who don’t get to enter the tournament but we do have a lot of fun fighters here like Tohya. The winner will prove themselves to be the next true Cardfight champion. Without further adieu, let the games begin!

Each fight is generally around 1 chapter which makes sense since there are 16 people fighting it out here. Some of the minor fights do have to get skipped or abridged though. I was pulling for Tohya the whole time to be honest and you almost have to assume that he wasn’t giving this tournament his 100%. If he was then he should have done way better. This time there are no true stakes after all and I believe that’s what got to him. He’s the kind of character who performs best under duress and without it he gets to be too calm.

The series randomly introduces a new kid to the tournament roster. So far he has yet to appear in the anime so I’m not sure if it was just to give the manga some kind of exclusive or maybe he will return later on. He was nice enough and seemed like a good duelist but at the same time you’re never really thinking that he stands a chance here. I did like the banter he had with another player back in the shop during the final chapter. I think you could make a fine spinoff series about those two just having fun and dueling everybody.

Raika has a big focus here since he i one of the favorites to win the tournament. It’s nice to see him doing well and still getting really into the duels. He is not my favorite rival among the Cardfight cast, far from it! However, his deck is pretty fun. He goes for a very offensive style so he’s always on the attack which is naturally fun to watch. Certainly far more so than a defensive style although that’s where the duelist’s personality shines through. The right duelist can make any deck fun.

Also, fans of the card game will probably appreciate how in depth the games go. The manga is able to extend some of the fights beyond what the anime typically shows. So you get to really see the fight from start to finish with all of the cards that were used and their effects. You could probably try and pull off each combo yourself eventually. Provided that you own the cards of course.

The art is also pretty good. The characters are all on model and it is an easy title to read. You can really blast through the chapters without any real issues and follow the action at all times. It’s not extremely detailed but works for the approach that they are going for here. The writing is also pretty good. The author could maybe have infused the characters with a bit more personality as they aren’t as strong as in the tv show but of course we are working with a very limited amount of screentime here.

We definitely should have had some more cameos at least though. Showing a bunch of the characters who couldn’t enter the tournament would have been quite a grand idea if you ask me. There’s a lot you could do with that, even throwing in some foreshadowing or sequel bait. For better or worse, this is completely a self contained story that isn’t trying to be anything more ambitious than that. While it might not have a ton of impact right now, I think if they had released this a few years from now instead, it would have been super nostalgic to see all of the classic Will+ Dress characters again. Calling them nostalgic feels pretty weird right now though since I still think of them as being rather recent.

There isn’t much more to discuss for the title because of how direct it is though. You either really enjoy all of the classic duels and seeing the characters hang out or you don’t. This could have probably been stretched another volume or so and we could have really gotten to have the full versions of every duel in the tournament. That’s pretty much unheard of so it would have also put this manga on the map. Either way I look forward to seeing what manga they come up next. A crossover at some point would be awesome between classic, G, and the Dress series.

Overall, This was a pretty good mini series. Not every card title has to include end of the world stakes after all. I would have liked something to spruce the tournament up a little bit more though like some more banter and setup before the matches though. I think part of why this title feels extra low key is because everybody is super polite and professional. You don’t have any delinquents or people who are really trying to make a splash and change things up. Everyone treats this as if it’s their full time job and it is for some players but usually the series does a good job of still keeping all of the personalities really colorful. I would challenge a future series to spend more time making the characters interesting next time. Still, I would recommend checking this out whenever you have the time.

Overall 7/10

Shiver Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a horror anthology in manga format! Now that’s definitely a twist if I’ve ever seen one. I will say that the series definitely does have that spooky vibe the whole time. The stories each do a good job of exploring different fears and really being on the unnerving side. It’s a very disturbing collection and not one I would really recommend to the average manga enjoyer. It can definitely be a little too violent and disturbing but it is probably the most unsettling title you’ll ever read.

The first story is a fairly low key one. So this one guy has a record and his friend always come by to listen to it. She wants to borrow it just for a while but he refuses. He’s just super into the record and doesn’t want anyone to have it. So she promptly steals the record and accidently murders him for it. From there, everyone else wants to hear the record as well and so she continues to be chased. There’s just something about the record that makes you want to hear it. The record was apparently recorded by a famous singer after the singer had already been dead and this seems to have the power to force other corpses to keep on singing as well. There is no escape.

Definitely a spooky story right out of the gate and also why you probably shouldn’t steal stuff. People can go absolutely nuts about their possessions even in the real world. Not something you should die for of course, that’s just where the real horror comes in. I would say this one is scary more for the fact that everyone is hunting you than the actual record though. The record itself is ominous but it seems like you’ll be okay if you let it go. The shop owner lived all these years after all. You just can’t afford to hang onto that thing.

After that we have a story with holes. I remember hearing about this phobia back when I was looking into making homemade cheese chips since quite a number of recipes had a warning about this. I guess holes can be unnerving and I won’t say it’s easy to look at. I don’t think I have the phobia per say but I was making sure not to stare at the characters too hard to find out. Basically this one guy has a next door neighbor who is filled with holes. She seems friendly one moment and then scary the next. He mainly avoids her but this holes disease appears to be contagious and there is a mysterious gardener around. Lets just say this one is even harder to avoid because it’s all happening right next door to the main character. The odds of getting out alive are super slim.

It doesn’t help that his friend is way too greedy and trying to find things out. This just puts them in more and more danger. Half the time in any event it pays to mind your business. If someone is in trouble then of course you gotta help but otherwise it’s not good to be nosy just to be nosy. Particularly with an illness that you don’t really know anything about. I guess he had reason to think something nefarious might be going on but definitely didn’t pick the best routes to uncovering the truth.

Then we have one of the more straight up violent stories. One guy is weirded out when he opens a fashion magazine and there is a really ugly girl inside. Why would she be a model? She looks like an absolutely insane horror jump scare type of monster. His friends who are filming for a movie think it would be brilliant to hire her though. So they pick her up and drive everyone to the forest for the shoot. They can all see that she is no conventionally attractive but don’t seem to be taking it quite as serious as the lead. Maybe they can’t really see her complete fangs and the fact that she’s almost 10 feet?

One thing you will continue to notice as you read through the stories is that the characters rarely act rational. They are all super strange and weird which is part of the horror. So for the main character it makes him/her have some doubts. Maybe the scary stuff is just in the mind? In this story that definitely plays with his head enough to the point where he actually still goes to the forest with the others. Then when the monster starts to actively eat people, it takes too long for him to even try and make a move. Ultimately things do not go well and the story is definitely one of the scariest ones because once they are in the forest you know there is no way out.

After that is definitely the most interesting story and the one they ought to make a movie on. It starts off with a girl hanging herself and then another guy follows suit. The weird thing is after they do this, their large heads appear in the sky like balloons. These balloons begin to spread and soon even people who are alive have their own giant balloons in the sky. These balloons are actively hunting down humans and taking their heads off. If you murder a balloon, you end up destroying the person whose face it was representing. You see the issue already right? You can’t actually destroy these things without ending the human race.

So as the weeks go by, more and more people are defeated. There is no way to go outside to get any food and it’s also just a depressing silence once you are the last ones around. As always some characters look pretty weird with how they just run off to get bumped off but I guess you could say the pressure finally got to them. The main character actually lasts quite a long time but at the end of the day it’s pretty much inevitable that everyone would fall. In a way you could also call this an alien invasion kind of plot. There is just so much more potential here to make it a really long story too.

Next up is a story about marionettes. The main character grew up in a family that relied on these puppet shows for money and stability. Ultimately this went on to an unhealthy degree and the father died after a while and the two songs went their separate ways. One day the main character’s brother returns but he’s a bit off. He has decided to no longer move on his own and instead he has servants who move his limbs for him. How? Through puppet strings. He is married with a kid and that had to be an interesting process. The main character thinks this is all super strange but unfortunately his little sister is super into this and ends up joining the group. You can imagine that this is not good for your bones when you aren’t moving them for so long and sure enough, that is the case but there is also a supernatural presence at work.

This was a pretty good story and definitely another strange one. My only problem and it’s a big problem is that I didn’t like what happened to the main character’s friend. In a lot of these stories it is all about karma and such but she really did nothing wrong. I don’t see why she had to have such a violent end. It felt completely unwarranted to me and just too radical. Ended things on a bit of a sour note there.

Then we have a story about a painter. He’s the best at what he does but one day a lady shows up and explains that she is the most beautiful in the world. So he decides to paint her and thinks he did a good job but she laughs and runs off. The problem is that her beauty is other worldly and now he can’t live normally. He is obsessed with her and runs around trying to find her. Thing is, everyone who draws or paints her ends up dying and he is no exception. He will be the one to finish her off first though.

This is one of the weakest stories. Not much of a hook or climax here and the characters just seemed a little too crazy unprompted. I guess I don’t really see what was so scary about this one except the general horror of meeting a girl who is so beautiful that she takes over your mind. It just felt more on the mean spirited side and desperately needed some kind of a twist about the girl being a demon or something. That could have helped big time.

Then we have a story that is definitely really scary. This one guy has a condition where he is experiencing “Long Dreams”. The dreams get longer and longer every time he goes to sleep. The first time he was asleep, he lived out several weeks, then this turns into years, and eventually he is sleeping for decades. He can’t keep track of what is going on in the real world and the doctor isn’t making much ground. Will he ever end up being okay?

This story is scary for the guy dreaming to be sure. After all if you are stuck in a nightmare then you’re really sunk. What if you die in the dream as well? There are a whole lot of possibilities and none that are particularly good. There is also no way out since you will eventually fall asleep no matter how much you try to resist it. There is just no going against your physical limitations there. I’d also say it’s something you can picture to an extent. Less dramatized of course but a scary situation all around.

Then we have a story about the ancestors curse and it’s the worst one. So this one girl got amnesia somehow so she doesn’t remember her fiancé or anybody. He tries to jog her memory but nothing works so they figure they will take things slow. He takes her over to his place and the whole time she is wondering what could have been so scary that she got amnesia. Well, it’s because his father’s head is connected to a bunch of other heads that go on for generations with no real end. His son will be taking over the family business and needs a descendent right away.

It’s definitely scary although I don’t see how you would get amnesia from that, much less getting it twice. The story itself was quite forced and it definitely has the meanest ending of the lot. Not really something that you want to see here. You were hoping the collection would end with a bang but the strongest stories had already passed by this point. The next one isn’t all that much better either.

The final main story is about a family with an oil addiction. They just can’t help it, they’re always drinking oil and so their bodies are starting to mutate. The main character refuses to do this but her family isn’t giving her much choice and gives her oil while she’s sleeping. She should run away immediately but sticks around too long and the cycle keeps continuing. This story is definitely going for the gross factor as everyone is slimy and the whole town is basically being hit by this. There is no escape to be had by that point.

It’s just such a weird story. I wouldn’t call it scary either to be honest unless you tend to think that gross things are scary. Either way this would definitely be more of a mis for me. There is a super short bonus comic at the end about a girl getting ripped apart but that story was also in bad taste and could definitely be skipped. I’m telling you, the final stories were not trying all that hard!

The art isn’t bad, it’s got a very simple look to it without too many details but it works well for the horror vibes that they are going for. The characters definitely look very memorable the whole time. So I wouldn’t change anything about that. The writing is solid and I would just say the author can sometimes go a little too far with the stories. Tone them down somewhat and there would be a lot of potential here. The ideas themselves are definitely very unique after all.

Overall, Shiver is a pretty scary anthology. I would say it nails the horror genre in ways that would be very difficult for any other title to match. It does feel rather unsettling the whole time. That said, it can just be a little too violent and some areas are much too mean spirited. Horror titles in general have a lot that they have to try and avoid after all. There are many ways in which they can fumble and ultimately I would say this title should be counted among them. If you are going to read it, definitely read at night for maximum impact.

Overall 3/10

Dragon Ball Super Divers Review

Posted on by
Reply


I’m going to miss Dragon Ball Heroes but it’s time to look at the next generation of Dragon Ball content! Divers is definitely starting off on a classic note with the first arc of DBZ. It’s a fun read but I am hoping for something a little more intense in the arcade game’s story once it really gets going. I may just be hoping for a bit too much right out of the gate but I can really feel the potential here!

The story starts with the Z fighters faced off against Nappa and Vegeta along with their Saibamen. There is a new addition to the team though, a kid who looks like a Saiyan. For some reason he is commanding the heroes and tells them who to send into battle. Unfortunately he follows the same order as in the actual manga so Yamcha and Chiaotzu get destroyed once again. Goku and the kid team up to beat Vegeta and then we get the big reveal that this was all a super realistic VR game. The kid is proud of himself and gets ready to keep on playing. So it may be going the other Heroes route with the events initially being a game within a game but eventually the stakes got high anyway. So I could see this happening here as well.

I suppose my one issue here is how the changes didn’t really seem to matter. Why have the kid go inside the game and make his moves when he’s just going to preserve the status quo? It made no sense not to warn Yamcha about the explosion ahead of time and for some reason the kid looks super shocked. There are two possible explanations here and they both make him look really bad. The first is that he forgot what happened because he is a super casual DBZ fan and hasn’t read the books in a while. That one would just be pretty terrible since that’s such an iconic moment. The other explanation is that he wanted to keep the story as close to the original version as possible, in which case I would say that’s just a boring way to go about it. The point of VR adventures like this is that you can actively change things and create a better tomorrow. So why wouldn’t you just do that?

The fun appeal of what if storylines to me are that they can really go all out. There is so much you can do when you are outside the confines of the main story and it feels to me like this arcade game is playing it too safe for now. I’m hoping they change that sooner than later because reliving the old arcs sounds fun enough but this is their chance to really have the new character make a difference. Also there is only so much time in just a single chapter so that’s another valid reason for making this one a bit more small scale. I can accept that as the reasoning if that’s what it was.

The artist did a really good job of emulating the classic Dragon Ball Z look. The character models are on point and the action scenes really flow naturally. I definitely didn’t have any real complaints on that. A clean artstyle like this one definitely goes a really long way because not only is it pleasant to read but it actively enhances the story as well. The writing was good too and of course the whole arcade game backdrop has potential. We just gotta see where it goes from here.

It’ll take a while to really surpass Dragon Ball Heroes in terms of how much of a spectacle that was by the end but so long as this one is very good then we’ll be satisfied. It’s also nice for fans of the original characters like Yamcha to see their guys get in on the fighting even if it’s super brief and ultimately doomed for defeat like in the original. You just can’t escape your destiny here!

Overall, Dragon Ball Super Divers was a pretty good oneshot. It really goes by very quickly so there’s not a whole lot to talk about here. It does its job of being a preview for the upcoming game though which is the important part. The art is on point and the action scenes are good. For all of my complaints on the lack of ambition, it is a fundamentally sound story. There is a good amount of action here and it’s always fun to see Goku and friends getting some fights. Hopefully at some point they come up with an ongoing manga for this one because you can never have too much Dragon Ball content. In the meantime this is a story you should check out.

Overall 7/10

Super Dragon Ball Heroes: Meteor Mission! Review

Posted on by
Reply


Saddle up boys because it’s time to take a look at the final Super Dragon Ball Heroes title that ran with the show. I’ll definitely miss this part of the series because it was so much fun. It’s a pretty quick adventure with 12 chapters at the ready but it was a really fun way to wrap things up. We pretty much got to see all of the Heroes characters as they teamed up against a common enemy. The legendary Ozotto, destroyer of all creation. If the heroes can’t defeat him then it’ll be all over.

The manga starts off on an ominous note as everyone is gone. Goku and friends split up to look, only to find out that Ozotto has been absorbing them all. Slowly but surely he has begun to absorb everybody and won’t stop until all universes are dealt with. Even Goku and Vegeta are no match for him. They will have to work with the time patrol to end this threat but even then victory is not assured. One thing’s for sure, if they lose this round and there will be nobody else to save them. Can one single villain really challenge all of the strongest fighters like this though?

First up, how is Ozotto as the main villain? Well, he’s a tad on the generic side but I still liked him well enough. I think it’s all the trash talk. Yeah he may be a little cheesy but he still has all the good dialogue about how he’s going to destroy everyone and all of that. He gloats a whole lot and acts really smug a lot. I’m a sucker for that kind of villain. So he’s not going anywhere near my top villains of all time for DBZ but at the same time he works well as the final boss. The fact that he can absorb fighters and then transform into them also gives an excuse for a lot of classic battles to have once again. The manga gets to do a whole lot more with this premise than the anime could after all.

His power level is also rather crazy. The guy can spam almost infinite clones that have powers comparable to their real forms and as soon as they lose he just summons another one. He pretty much can’t be stopped until the heroes sabotage him from the inside and start pulling people out. Otherwise this guy was just not going to go down so you could really say that he is one of the most dangerous fighters to be up against. Even someone as powerful as Mystic Gohan is absolute fodder next to this guy. That may sound a bit harsh but that’s just how it goes. He looks pretty bad in this one.

As always the manga gets props for extending a lot of the fights and subplots here. It was nice seeing things that were only hinted at in the anime and characters like Hearts get a considerable increase in screen time. It also makes sense why the villains would oppose Ozotto because if he wins then there won’t be anything to rule. He will simply continue to absorb everything until it is all gone. At that point, there is really no merit in teaming up with him right?

Ozotto doesn’t strike me as a team player either way though. Now as far as the story goes, there isn’t much more to this than the objective of beating Ozotto. So if you are looking for a really deep plot then I suppose you may end up being a little disappointed. I would question your decision to be going into a Heroes manga expecting that though. The whole point of Dragon Ball Heroes is to place familiar characters into fresh matchups and show you a lot of super forms that are rather out there. This is stuff you would never see in the main series and that’s where the fun comes from.

So you’re here for the nonstop action scenes and the manga definitely delivers on that. Vegeta gets a really big selfless moment where he makes a sacrifice to save everyone. GT Goku shows his maturity as he distracts Ozotto and doesn’t just lose himself in the fight. Super Goku uses a brand new attack based on the movies, etc. Every characters get their big tribute moment and it’s just really awesome. We also see their tenacity as this arc takes place right after the last one so a lot of characters are still super weakened as well. Remember, heroes never get a day off.

Meanwhile the art is also still really good. The characters are all on model and the fights really hold up. The pacing allows for some longer fights as well which is always good. Of course the catch is that the series becomes even faster to read through as a result since it’s so clear. That’s less of a catch and more of a bonus though. It just speaks to the really high quality of the series. This really could be a mainline title if they ever wanted to do that. Just from the art at least you would never know the difference.

I do hope that some of these characters like Hearts do return at some point though. There is just a lot you can do with these characters and to have them closed off for all time because Heroes has ended would be super disappointing. You have to bring these guys back and it’s why I hope the next Arcade game is still ambitious so it can bring these guys in at some point. Hey, a guy can hope right?


Overall, Meteor Mission is definitely a great title. It’s a really epic story and a fitting end to the series. You don’t need a substantial amount of plot when the main premise is this good after all. Also, who else could the final fight contain but a team up of SSJ4 and Ultra Instinct Gokus? Definitely fun stuff all around and everyone gets a little something to do here. Even if you’ve never checked out the Heroes part of the franchise before, you should check this one out. It works pretty well as a follow up to DB Super if you squint and it can tide you over until the series comes back someday.

Overall 8/10

Mega Man: Resurrection Blues Review

Posted on by
Reply


Eh I probably could have translated Blues into Proto Man at the end but I figured I’d just keep it as is this time. It’s pretty nice to be reading a classic Mega Man story with a fully original story. It’s pretty rare since most of the manga adaptions are based on the games. It makes things a little less predictable and I’d say the manga really makes the most of it as we get a lot of battles and a ton of different bots to appear. That’s definitely a good way to handle it and while the series goes by in the blink of an eye, you will be having a good time throughout.

The volume starts with some machines going haywire again. Initially this seems like the same old situation except Wily runs in confirming that it’s not him this time. Sure, he’s lied about this kind of thing before but this time he is completely serious. Mega Man is a little skeptical but even Dr. Light is supporting Wily so the hero gives in. The government decides to give Wily their full support in stopping this robotic menace so the evil genius creates the Wily Corps. These guys will be protecting the world from the evil robots and before long Wily has bases all across the country. The only one who is not in favor of this is Proto Man and he warns Mega Man that this is all a trap. Who should Mega Man believe, Proto Man or Wily?

Now obviously Mega Man should be turning on Wily by this point. One of the blue bomber’s fatal flaws is that he’s just too nice sometimes. He should absolutely be yelling and causing a scene instead. Of course there is a reason why Light is siding with the guy and lets say it involves even more trickery. Mega Man really needs to start coming around to the idea that Wily is just not going to turn good. He’s not some lost soul who is about to have a change of heart any minute now. At this point he is just determined to keep on getting in the way and making trouble.

The fact that he has any trouble accepting that is pretty crazy. I still like Mega Man of course but he does come across as super naive here the whole time. It’s not his best look by a longshot. At least power-wise he looks really good. For the most part he crushes the competition with just a few exceptions. Punk and Enker really give him tough fights. Enker in particular was pretty fun to see. His ability to absorb moves was really handy and it took a lot of strategy to beat him. I always like when Mega Man has to put on the thinking cap on in addition to his usual buster. It helps to really cement how much of a threat the villain is.

While this is Proto Man’s big chance to appear a lot, I would actually say he doesn’t look great. He definitely looks really smart since the guy doesn’t believe Wily at all. However, in the actual fight he is soundly defeated by the Wily copy of himself. It’s particularly embarrassing since he told Mega Man that he would prove he was the real deal by winning. So that was really unfortunate. Also, how can Wily just make a fake that’s even better when Wily and Light teamed up to make the original Proto Man? I know tech continues to evolve but that just felt disappointing. Fortunately Mega Man tapped into his potential and secured the victory there.

Another element I enjoyed from the title was all of the homages to the previous games. You had Cossack and his own robot masters show up to help save the day. This meant we had 3 different factions running around and causing chaos. Naturally the battles are mainly off screen but it was still cool to see so many robots on screen. Also, while the side battles were off screen, the big fights were extended and on screen. Again, the Punk and Enker battles were really intense. Likewise the fake Proto Man battle was also fairly long.

Whenever a series isn’t afraid to have a long fight that is a big green flag in my book. It’s not something that you see every day and it’s real impressive. The art is also really good and definitely does justice to the fights. It’s clear and really tells you the whole story. You’re never lost and the big panels also means that it is very easy to read. It’s one of the better art exhibitions I’ve seen for the manga.

There’s really nothing to dislike here except for the fact that the series is so short. With 5 chapters, the whole thing ends fast no matter what you do. So it’s a great one shot but it could have been even better as a full blown series. someone needs to start a full ongoing already. I’d read a Mega Man title for however many years it can last. The possibilities are really endless here. Naturally I would hope Mega Man won’t be so easily fooled next time. Poor Roll and Beet had to pay the price here. It was pretty eerie seeing them be completely dismantled. I know they’re robots so it’s not like they felt anything but it’s still something I wasn’t fully expecting.

Overall, Mega Man: Resurrection Blues is pretty fun. Again, I really liked the idea of having a unique story here. There’s a whole lot you can do with the franchise after all. Now granted, this one was only 5 chapters so the adventure really ends rather quickly but ultimately it was a fun read. Proto Man got to get some action and we had all kinds of robots going at it. I would definitely recommend this to any Mega Man fan. You don’t want to miss out on this, especially since the franchise doesn’t generally get a whole lot of content nowadays.

Overall 7/10

Batman: Death Mask Review

Posted on by
Reply


Batman is one of those generational heroes who has been beating up on the villains for decades. He’s been in every kind of story there is so it’s fun to see him in manga format. Death Mask throws in a fun plot and it’s all self contained within these 4 issues. No hopping between different titles, looking for tie-ins and all that. You just read it cover to cover and you’re all set. That’s what you like to see here, Batman is really at the top of his game at all times.

The story starts with Batman having another nightmare about how his Bruce Wayne mode is actually a mask. It’s all pretty disturbing but he has places to be. He heads to a big exhibition by a Japanese company that is trying to get big in Gotham and there he meets a nice young lady. Bruce has to keep up the facade of being a lady’s man, but then someone puts on a mask and goes crazy. We also find out there is a mass murderer who is slicing apart people’s faces. This is all rather off and reminds Batman of his childhood where he trained in Japan to become the world’s greatest fighter. At one point he nearly gave into the darkness there. It looks like someone else failed where Batman succeeded.

Such a thing is not uncommon, Batman is on a tier beyond mere mortals. Still, he has to protect Gotham at all costs and gets to work on stopping this guy. It’s a fairly quick one shot volume so we get to the bottom of things right away. It makes for a good fight to see Batman duking it out against this mysterious villain. Since this villain has supernatural abilities, he is a tough match. Batman can take anyone down in hand to hand combat but does that apply to specters? Since a lot of the volume is about dealing with corruption and power, the spirit is in the same kind of theme. You can’t really beat it physically, you have to try and get the host to see the light and stop being so easily manipulated.

It’s all in the midst of a pretty dark conspiracy so things definitely aren’t easy but that’s part of what makes all of this a pretty compelling story all the way. I do have some doubts about Batman even being close to being tainted by the darkness initially though. It just doesn’t feel like him but I’ll grant the manga the fact that it is most believable in his younger days when he was still getting over the death of his parents. So that was a smart writing choice.

Batman nearly getting knocked out by some thugs in a dark alley is a bit more inexcusable though. Fortunately one of the heroines was there to save him but even though the thugs were amped up and it was a surprise attack, I’m just super skeptical. It’s the only real loss Batman has in the volume though.

The main heroine is pretty good. I do tend to mix her up with the girl from the flashback a bit but in this was that was actually intentional. So I’ll give the artist a pass here because one of my mild taboos is when a character looks too close to another one. As an artist you should be able to make everyone look reasonably different even when you have a big cast.

The art is pretty solid here. I think the only character that looks rather awkward at times is Batman himself. The proportions aren’t always perfect but this could just be that I’m too used to him in comic format. Beyond that the fight scenes are all on point and it does nail the atmosphere really well. Dark things are happening with people’s faces being cut off after all. I give the manga credit for not going the ultra dark/violent route on this since you easily could have made this extremely grimacing.

It’s still a violent title but I would say it doesn’t go over the line here. Really my only main complaint is this story should have been longer. I dare say it should have been 3 volumes at least. The first would introduce us to Batman and the mass killings along with introducing the heroine. Then you’d have the second volume be the main flashback with Batman remembering the demon from the old days. Finally the third volume would wrap things up with the big fight.

The series being relegated to just one volume means things have to move extremely fast. I would say the story still holds itself over pretty well but it definitely could have gone into even more detail. They should adapt this into a movie at some point. I’d say it’s very new audience friendly and the whole topic about Bruce Wayne being a mask is something that is talked about often in the real world anyway. Different authors have always had different opinions on this. To me I’ve always been of the opinion that Bruce Wayne and his personality is a complete mask and there is only Batman but the continuities where they’re both him work well too. There are a lot of ways to tell a Batman story after all and Death Mask can be counted among them as another solid one.

Overall, Batman: Death Mask is a pretty good title. We get some solid fights and background for Batman himself. The series tells a good story in both the past and the present. I probably didn’t care about the characters themselves as much as the series was hoping but either way it’s not like that was a huge story emphasis anyway. So in the end it all works out pretty well. I would recommend this to any fan of The Batman.

Overall 7/10

Mega Man (1992) Review

Posted on by
Reply


There isn’t really a subtitle here but I figure it’d be almost impossible to search for the title otherwise. The year seems like a good way to do things. Mega Man has had tons of different manga titles over the years and it’s always good to discover more. This one goes by very quickly with just a few chapters but you can still feel the vision. I’ve yet to see a Mega Man title that was just downright bad after all. Chan may come the closest as a goofy gag title but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve finished it. Maybe it picked up later on.

The plot basically follows the first game. A bunch of robots have gone rogue across the city and it turns out that the nefarious Dr. Wily is the cause of this. He has caused them to all go rogue in his mad quest for power. Mega Man is quickly transformed from a nice house bot into a combat machine in order to stop them. Dr. Light did his best to make Mega Man as powerful as possible but does he really have what it takes to defeat these guys? It is always fun seeing early Mega Man though before the personality was completely cemented. For example he’s not your average peace goer here, this Mega Man is absolutely ready to crush his opponents.

He does offer them a chance to surrender of course but after that he immediately jumps into how he’s going to destroy them. It’s definitely quite brutal but hey they’re robots so they can always be rebuilt. That’s the general idea at least. It is nice to see Mega Man taking time to strategize and consider what to do next though. Ordinarily the fights aren’t long enough for this but with 4 chapters, we get a really long fight against Guts Man and a few of the other robot masters also get extended battles. Mega Man has to find the weakness each time and make use of it.

One detail this manga also adds that a lot of others forget is the energy meter. In this manga, it’s a real thing so the more he uses his special weapons, the less energy he has. At one point he runs out of the ice weapon when against fire man so he has to improvise with his mega buster which was pretty fun. That’s definitely happened to me in the past while playing the game because sometimes you just need them for those pesky minions. Sometimes the minions are harder to get around than the bosses to be honest.

The art is also really solid throughout. It’s definitely one of the better looking Mega Man titles that I’ve read. I’m not putting it at the level of Gigamix or anything like that but it is really easy to read and is pleasant on the eyes. The fight scenes work really well and you can always follow the action. It definitely helps that the fight scenes were extended so the artist could really show off here. It would have been a success either way but really getting to show off the art during the action scenes made this a real win.

There isn’t a lot to discuss in the manga though in part because of how it’s a straight adaption to something that didn’t have much of a story regardless. It’s Mega Man tearing his way trough all of the robot masters after all and that’s about it. It’s still a really fun read though, you just don’t have to go into too many details here beyond the extra attention to the gameplay as I mentioned before. I suppose another thing you could mention towards that is it’s nice to see how they even factored in how the copy Mega Man will always be slightly slower since he has to wait an instant to copy the original’s movement. So Mega Man used that against him and took the guy down for the count.

Another addition to the realism here is in how Mega Man had to take a while to figure out what Yellow Devil was weak against. I mean to a video game vet like me you always go for the eye but otherwise I can see how you would just keep trying different moves until something worked. That’s something that happens to me with regular robot masters since a lot of them aren’t really obvious on what they would be weak against. What would you use against someone like Drill Man right? It’s a really tough thing to think about and often times you’ll lose by the time you figure it out so then you better hope you had more lives at the ready. (Yes, they even factored that into the manga. The 1 Up seems to work as some kind of senzu bean so that was pretty fun)


Overall, This is a pretty fun title. It’s over very quickly with just 4 chapters but at the same time that’s still longer than some of the Mega Man oneshots I’ve read. The story itself may be one that you’re super familiar with by this point but it was a good bit of fun either way. The art was sound and the writing was good. You can’t really ask for much more than that in the end. I’d definitely recommend it to all Mega Man fans and hopefully we get some more Mega Man titles coming soon. You can never have too many of those.

Overall 7/10

Blue Giant Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a story about Jazz. It’s not a music genre that I’m super familiar with to be honest. I’ve certainly heard my share of Jazz music over the years and I know the general style of it but I couldn’t break it down into any of the sub genres. Forget telling you if someone is in tune or not. So with this series would I really be able to pull that in? Eh, not really musical stuff isn’t really my cup of tea. I love listening to music but analyzing it is a bit out of my wheelhouse. That said, it’s real good stuff all the way. This isn’t a series you follow for the explosive moments or anything like that but it’s a very chill series all around.

The manga starts off by introducing us to a guy named Dai. He’s initially just your average kid trying to find his place in the world. And one day he finds it, the guy loves Jazz. He decides to be the greatest Jazz musician in the world. This is a fairly lofty goal as Jazz isn’t huge in Japan and everyone tells him its a shrinking industry. It’s also not something that you can get good at in a day. It takes years of skilled precision and timing to get good but Dai is willing to risk it all. He will pour his whole life into this, no matter how much money and time he has to sacrifice. Can Dai pull this off?

Blue Giant makes no illusions about the amount of sacrifice you have to be willing to put in to really gain ground like this. It’s almost painful seeing what Dai and his teammate Sawabe had to do for this. Sawabe basically gave up all of his growing years of hanging out with people and going to clubs to work on his piano playing for his whole life. Dai basically sacrificed his relationships and his chance to hang out with his family for this. They’ve made their decisions and stick to it no matter what. Is it worth it? Well, it all depends on how they feel because it’s not so much about the achievements here as it is that they lived their lives free of all barriers.

The series puts a lot of emphasis on how Jazz is very free music. When you do a solo, it is unscripted. You just play from the heart and play whatever you want with all your strength. Now, don’t take that too literally as it still has to sound good of course but generally speaking it’s not like they’re reading off a sheet of music. You have the main song and then the solos. Dai has a lot of raw talent as he’s great at shooting off his piece but initially he’s not so great at the sheet music so he has to put in the work.

Blue Giant is one of those series that I would say is aiming for hyper realism. Generally speaking I wouldn’t say any of the characters are super likable but none of them are bad guys. Like you wouldn’t see them in competition with any average Shonen lead who tends to be larger than life with a personality to boot. These are people you might run into down the street. You might get along and you might not. They have a lot of flaws, can be combative, and are hard to work with. At the end of the day though, you know they are serious about playing Jazz. So if you watch them on the stage you should have a good time.

Like I said before, Dai sacrifices a lot for this dream of his. I do feel like he made mistakes in how all or nothing he was about it though. Dai fully explains his rationale so it’s not like it’s a mystery or anything. Whether you agree with it or not, at least he is up front about it. Specifically I think he should have gone back home at least a little bit though or talked to the girl that he liked rather than ghosting her for ages. Although in this business, it seems like having a girlfriend probably wouldn’t have worked either way since he wants to spend all of his time practicing and studying. It’s basically an obsession for him. He lives only to play and live Jazz.

Meanwhile Sawabe is very similar but I do think he has the work life balance down a bit better. The guy plays with several bands and has grade A talent all the way. It has unfortunately caused him to be extremely arrogant the whole time though. He doesn’t have the best personality like when he was rude to some girls for no reason or denying someone an autograph. Sawabe does start to get better towards the end though. He is a fun jerk to have on the team though, he absolutely elevates the series with his rivalry with Dai. Sawabe is the only one who can really push Dai to this extent. Perhaps at home, Dai’s teacher Yui could but he can’t do anything during the show. Sawabe was the guy for this and I can’t say I liked how his character arc ended at all. That was definitely not satisfying at all.

Then we have Tamada who joins up with the crew late. He is several leagues below the main two characters since he has only been practicing for months while they’ve been doing this for years. The drum may seem simple at first glance compared to the other instruments but it does take an incredible amount of technical skill and ability. It’s not something you can learn super fast either. The series does make sure to mention that he is several tiers below even to the end but his skills do increase real fast so that he can play with the others. I give the guy props for really going after this even if by the end we do see real clearly that he doesn’t have quite the same drive as the other characters. He was nice enough to let Dai crash with him for a while.

There are also several supporting characters around although they all tend to cycle out after a bit since Dai is always on the move. We have Dai’s older brother who is a great guy. No matter how tough things were, he made sure to look after his little bro. Buying Dai a top of the line saxophone even though it meant going into debt for years was really cool. He doesn’t appear very often for sure but the actions speak very loud. Dai knows that he can always count on him no matter what which is awesome.

Then you have the teacher Yui who is a harsh critic but definitely thinks that Dai has potential. He really helps Dai a whole lot in getting started and rolling the ball over. Without him there then Dai definitely would have taken a lot longer at best or completely fizzled out at worst. You have the bar owner who let Dai and friends practice at her place which was super helpful. There is the girl that Dai liked quite a bit although he definitely messed that one up by choosing Jazz over her. Ultimately you can’t have everything.

Between volumes we get flash forwards where the characters talk about Dai and how they enjoyed meeting him. Usually I wouldn’t appreciate these fast forwards because they’re like spoilers to what is going to happen but since this is a non action series I can let it slide. It’s not as crazy as if this was Naruto or something like that. It’s also sometimes the author’s way of letting us know that a character will not be coming back. Whenever they say something like “I never saw Dai again but I can’t forget the first time I met him” then it’s curtains. A lot of these characters won’t be back and it’s interesting to keep track of that. I bet someone out there probably has a list showing which characters are confirmed to be gone or something like that.

Blue Giant is a very somber series at its core though which is fitting for Jazz. Jazz is a very somber kind of music after all that should move you and some types can even bring you to tears. Throughout the series bad things tend to happen to the characters. It’s not always dramatic things but they do add up. You have the dramatic type moments like a physical injury, the emotional ones like finding out the girl you like has moved on, and then mild ones like flunking an exam or having your instrument break. There are always setbacks and Dai has to get through them.

You are left feeling like this risky lifestyle will come back to bite him though. He can barely make enough money to survive and there is no retirement plan. Can he continue to play music when he’s in his 70s? How will he afford rent? You’re thinking about all this stuff when he’s playing and I would say that’s probably the saddest part of this series in a lot of ways. It feels like a lifestyle that’s unattainable and perhaps that’s why the fast forwards are necessary. We at least know that he won’t be poor with the money he’s making but there’s still the twinge of sadness in that we don’t actually see him in the present. How is he really doing? We just don’t know. Then the manga hits him when he’s down at random points like when someone stole his wallet with his entire life’s savings. That was a heavy blow.

The art is good overall. At times it can be a bit hard to make out and some characters look really similar but it does nail the grit of the songs fairly well. You can feel the effort they are plugging into every play. There are a lot of close ups too. I remember for the accident the scene was surprisingly violent as well to really hit you in the feels. Expect a lot of crying as well with Dai forcing himself through things. We even do get a pretty good fight where Dai knocks someone out so that was cool. I’d imagine he is in really good shape from all the running he does to practice for Jazz.

Of course there are sequel series to this one so it’ll be interesting to see how that continues. There are a lot of ways you can go with this of course but in terms of pacing I wonder how long they want to go before he is considered a true pro. Even by the end of this series, everyone calls him a prodigy with a lot of potential but nobody would call him a pro yet. And that’s considering that he is really playing his heart out right now. How much farther does he have to go in order to cross that precipice? There are only so many ways the artist can draw the intense music after all so I’ll be curious to see how they depict this. Maybe his solos will go on for even longer periods of time with his increased lung capacity or something like that.

Overall, Blue Giant is a pretty good series. I had a fun time with it despite how somber it can be. A lot of the pages don’t even really have much text on them as you’re meant to enjoy the music so they make for quick reads. I imagine that the anime version would be a little more immersive since you would actually get to hear the music. You can try and imagine it of course but again since I’m not the biggest Jazz expert that is a bit difficult. Everyone’s always talking about how loud Dai’s Jazz is and I’m definitely not used to that. Either way, whether you enjoy Jazz or not you should be able to have a good time here. Jazz may be the medium for the story but the themes about trying your best at a near impossible task are fairly universal.

Overall 7/10

Pulseman Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for the world to once again remember the world of Pulseman. This game was pretty fun when I got to play it through the Nintendo Switch Online but I didn’t realize that it got a manga adaption. So that was definitely pretty cool. The concept is really unique and this could have been a proper ongoing but the one shot does its job of getting you interested into the franchise.

The story starts off boldly as a guy falls in love with his computer program. He turns himself into data and they get together and have Pulseman as a kid. In a way he is the link between humanity and the digital world which is a lot of pressure. He is determined to do a good job in this role but then an evil scientist shows up who wants to cause a bunch of trouble. Why is thus doctor evil? Well as he says himself, he just likes being a bad person and as far as villain motivations go, I would say that works well enough. An evil version of Pulseman who takes everything literally will be the hero’s toughest adversary to overcome but defeating him will still still be a walk in the park.

For a oneshot story, there are definitely a whole lot of storylines going on. You’ve got the whole villainess turning good plot, the rivalry with the evil version, betrayals, etc. I’m impressed with how much the story was able to cover in a single chapter like this. It focuses on the critical elements and so it is able to adapt a ton of things without any fluff. It would make you eager to go and play the video game although of course there isn’t a ton of special effects or cutscenes going for the original game. So if you’re playing it for the story then that’s probably not the best idea you could have.

I’s why they should make a remake of Pulseman or make the manga into an ongoing someday. There is just so much potential here. The action scenes were definitely good and the artwork was on point. Each of the character designs were solid and it was easy to tell what was happening. Some of the pages could be a little dense with how much text was on screen the whole time but even with that you would never get lost or anything. The fights do have to go by a bit quickly due to the page count so if we got more chapters then this issue was fixed. The manga smartly decided to just focus on one boss battle here instead of a bunch. Otherwise it wouldn’t have had much time for anything.

I’ve read quite a few Mega Man titles where they try to cram all of the fights into one chapter and ultimately that just means each fight will get maybe one panel with a big splash page. Instead, having one fight that can get more pages is definitely ideal. Either way the story works well with or without context of the game so it’s an easy one to recommend. There’s really no downside to reading a oneshot because of how fast it is. If you don’t like it, then you only used up like 5 minutes tops anyway.

Overall, Pulseman was a good story. I had fun with it and the concept of the character is pretty cool. Some elements I would need to be explained further to really get like exactly what allows a character to materialize in the human world. We got some emotional stuff later on with one girl no longer being able to appear in the human world but she is otherwise uninjured and doesn’t seem to be in danger so just how bad is it? Since Puleman can freely go between both worlds, either way he should be able to visit her, at least that’s how I interpreted that. Perhaps there is more of a downside that I am not considering though. So yeah, definitely check this story out and see what you think. It had even more potential than Mighty No 9 I dare say. I know that’s a bold take though….

Overall 6/10