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

Naruto Review

Posted on August 21, 2015 by dreager1

Naruto is one of the first manga titles that I ever read. Not quite the first as I started Dragon Drive, Legendz, Zodiac PI, and others first, but this was still an early read for me. The anime is really what got me into the manga and the movies is what helped get me into the show early on. I actually didn’t read most of part 1 Naruto until way after the first two-three arcs of the Shippuden arc. When I went back to the early days of the manga, it took a while to get used to the art. I certainly remember Naruto fondly and it was definitely an excellent series with a lot of memories attached to it.

Naruto takes place in a world where technology isn’t really present and ninjas still reign. The Village Hidden in the Leaves is Naruto’s home, but the villagers do not trust him because hidden within Naruto is a beast that murdered the Hokage (The leader of the village) and wrecked the whole place a long time ago. Naruto fights to win everyone’s trust and he ultimately wants to become Hokage! It will be a long journey, but Naruto never gives up. It’s simply not his way.

This series was around 70 volumes long, which is fairly huge. As you can expect, this review will be very long as well. I will essentially go through the series arc by arc and talk about the characters as they appear. In a sense, it will be a look back through the years for Naruto. If it proves to be too long to read, feel free to jump to the last paragraph as I wrap everything up.

The first arc of the series had Naruto and friends try to protect a bridge builder from assassins who were sent to end the guy. This was the first big mission for Naruto’s team so it was an intense way to kick things off. Zabuza was the big villain for this adventure and he certainly became popular with the fans. Zabuza was a cold hearted killer when the arc started, but he slowly began to see the error of his ways once Haku was lethally injured. His story was certainly emotional and I did like him by the end. I am still pretty unsure about him keeping up with Kakashi though. It was early on in the series so Kakashi had not yet earned his elite titles, but I would expect a Sharingan user to be much more skilled than this. Zabuza may have only been around for a little while, but he left a strong impression with the fans. Like Zabuza, Haku was an intense adversary. Haku is a good example of what could happen to any character who is raised by a villain. He respects Zabuza and does whatever his mentor wants because of their strong bond. If Haku had been raised by heroes, he would have undoubtedly thrived in such a situation. Haku was certainly ahead of his time as his abilities were also very impressive when he showed up. His skills were second to none.

This is a good time to mention Iruka since he never got much of a role past this part of the series. He was Naruto’s original mentor and much more timid than the ones who followed him. I can’t say that I’m a fan of the guy and his decision to try and stop Naruto in the final arc wasn’t a great one. Konohamaru and his cronies were also around, but there’s not much to say about them except that they were not good characters by any means.

Next up was the classic Chunin Exams. Certainly one of the best Naruto arcs and the hype was very real. An onslaught of new characters were introduced and most of them would be main supporting characters from here on out. Naruto and his pals were deemed worthy of entering this grand tournament and if they won, they could move up from the Genin ranks into Chunin level. The heroes were certainly not going to miss this opportunity! There were 3 main stages to the exams: The Written Exam, The Forest of Death, and The Fighting part. The arc didn’t really get to end because the invasion immediately followed it, but that saga was still a lot of fun.

Most of the characters who were introduced would end up becoming very important for the rest of the series. Kiba was one of the new characters and he was a hot headed genin like Naruto. He would later decide that he even wanted to become Hokage. From all of the Genin, Kiba would likely be in the middle of the pack. His only big role in the series was when he had his big fight with Sakon. After that, he became a permanent member of the supporting cast. He’s not a bad character by any means, but he never really made a name for himself and comes across as petty or too overconfident for his own good.

Shino was one of Kiba’s partners and he was always my least favorite of the new heroes. His insect gimmick gets old immediately and he never really had a big moment in the series. A lot of the characters were really only developed through the anime and that includes Shino. That being said, I just didn’t like his personality anyway. He essentially considers his insects to be expendable. Hinata was the third member of that group and she would actually grow to get a decent sized role in the series. She’s certainly more important than Kiba or Shino, but at the same time, her character is mostly developed through the anime and the sequel movie. Her fight against Neji was certainly very good and she stood up to Pain in one of the latter arcs, which showed off her bravery. I would consider her to be significantly more powerful than Shino and Kiba, but still not strong enough to handle most of the big villains. She’s a decently good character, although admittedly she was a little too timid and shy for me to like her all that much.

For the next group we’ll start off with Rock Lee. He certainly gets a big role in the series, particularly the first part. He is a ninja who cannot use Ninjutsu so he relies on hand to hand combat. It serves him well and he ends up being much faster and stronger than the other Genin at first. Somehow, we’re led to believe that Neji could still beat him in a fight, but I wonder about this. Without his weights and if he needed to use a gate or two, Rock Lee easily looked like the most impressive fighter in the Chunin Exams. I feel like he basically should have won the fight if he had fought anyone other than Gaara. I was fine with how he lost to Gaara as Gaara’s sand abilities were a perfect match for Rock Lee’s talents. Rock Lee’s infatuation with Sakura can be a little annoying at times, but aside from that he is a great character. He never gives up and his dedication certainly paid off.

Neji is another member of the group and between the two of them (Rock Lee, Neji) you can see why their group is known as the strongest. Neji doesn’t have Rock Lee’s speed or power, but his martial art skills are at a very high level and he has an absolute defense where he can generate a chakra bubble that protects him from attacks on all sides. (Almost all sides, there is a slight hole in the barrier, but it is hard to target) His attacks injure you on the inside so if he lands a blow or two, it becomes infinitely harder to defeat him since you will be unable to use chakra. He’s certainly another likable character and easily one of the best Genin members.

Finally, we have Tenten. Unfortunately for her fans, her role is much smaller than that of her teammates. She never really gets a big fight in the whole series as her match against Temari is off screen in the manga. She never really got to contribute to the story, which is unfortunate. I probably still like her more than Hinata and possibly Sakura, although the latter may win as she had more time to shine.

Next up is the weakest team when it comes to attack power as each of the members has his/her own gimmick. Ino is essentially Sakura’s rival and was on her level before part II. After that, she essentially stopped leveling up. I can’t say that she was a good character in the manga as she was essentially filler. Choji was the muscle of the group, but the fun part is that physically, I’d take Sakura, Naruto, or Rock Lee over him. Choji’s also very slow so he can’t hold his own against most of the real fighters. He had a big fight against Jirobo and he helped out when the going got tough, but I never became a fan of his either.

Luckily, Shikamaru is on the team so he saves it from not having any likable characters. He is the brains of the group and his Shadow Possession jutsu is his trademark attack, which can take control of an enemy’s body. The problem is that this won’t work on any really strong opponents and Shikamaru can’t really fight if an opponent is fast or strong. He goes far and gets a much bigger role than most of the other Genin fighters so there is plenty of time to grow to like the character. He may not be very powerful, but he’s likable and the heroes would be in a jam without him.

Now, let’s go on to one of the enemy teams. Kankuro was a puppet style user who worked for the Sand Village. While his hand to hand skills are certainly lacking (As even Shino seemed to have the edge in that form of combat) he is a threat from long range. His puppets are able to poison you and it can be fatal. I never really cared for Kankuro. He’s the gruff villain who eventually starts to act like a nice guy, but his banter was always more impressive than his fighting. Temari was an improvement over Kankuro and she actually got to fight against foes like Sasuke. Her competitive personality is certainly more enjoyable than Kankuro’s. She’s also a long range user who uses wind to fight. Her fight against Tayuya and Shikamaru are likely her big moments in the series. Temari was always more reasonable than Kankuro and while she definitely did start out antagonistic, she wasn’t as downright evil as Kankuro so it was more believable when she turned good.

Finally, we have the main fighter of the group, Gaara! Gaara would go on to become one of The most important fighters in the whole series as he even became the Kazekage. He can manipulate sand to protect him or to go on the offensive. It makes him a very tough fighter to deal with and Gaara doesn’t even need to move unless he feels like it since the sand is almost impossible to get through. He started out as one of the big villains in the series, but Naruto showed him that it was still possible to have friends and to get people to stop treating him like a monster. In the series, Gaara rarely started fights, but assassins were always trying to kill him so he would simply return the favor.

He had a very troubled origin and it was a tough road trying to get people to trust and befriend him again, but Gaara pulled it off. He went from being someone who was feared to being someone who was loved and it was a great character arc. Unfortunately, I do feel like he got a little too emotional at times once he turned good, but it was much more pronounced in the anime and not quite as bad in the manga. He’s still acknowledged as one of the tougher fighters and while he is no longer my favorite character in the series, he still ranks fairly high in the rankings.

After the Chunin Exams were interrupted, the stop Gaara arc showed up as Naruto was tasked with his first S (Maybe A) rank mission. His team set off to stop Gaara, but with Sasuke’s curse mark getting out of control, it would prove to be a very difficult challenge. Orochimaru, a mysterious ninja who defected from the Leaf long ago, also showed up to assassinate the Hokage and throw the Hidden Leaf Village into a frenzy. That certainly shook things up quite a lot! It was a short arc and you could almost just call it part of the Chunin Exams. I greatly enjoyed this arc although the final fight wasn’t nearly as good as the end arc fight in the first two story arcs. The Chunin Exams blew both the Zabuza and the Invasion Arcs out of the water.

Kabuto was around during this period and while he pretended to be just another Genin, it was obvious that he was certainly more than that. He traded blows with foes like Kakashi and we found out that he worked for Orochimaru. I actually liked him because his hand to hand skills were good and he felt like a good rival for Naruto. Little did I know that he would go on to become on of the biggest villains in the series! He actually became one of the masterminds for the final arc. Unfortunately, he became less of a hand to hand fighter for a while and I didn’t like his new design. He fixed that in time for his final fight though and it was definitely an impressive way to go out. He got a chance to look over his life and see what went wrong which was nice.

The Naruto series likes to try and redeem all of the characters. Some naturally stay as enemies, but most of them accept that what they were doing was wrong in the end. While it can be a little cheesy for some and just not make sense for others, it’s always good to see a villain turn over a new leaf and join the side of the heroes. The character should still pay for his/her crimes, but at least now the character can work to make the world a better place. Naruto typically helps to do achieve this personally in most of the villains.

Next up is Orochimaru, who would also become a major player in the series. You could say that he was one of the hype characters of the series and always knew something that the heroes didn’t. He just seemed to be in control for just about the whole series and even once he was gone he still had the answers. I can’t say that I ever liked the character though and my problem with his fight scenes was that they typically didn’t have a lot of hand to hand in them. I also didn’t find his actual power level to be very impressive either even though he did get a lot of hype whenever he fought and managed to take down some fairly tough opponents. He was definitely a major player here though so you can certainly expect to see a lot of him.

The Third Hokage didn’t get to appear for all that much and I don’t mind since I found him to be a bit of a bland character. He was around to uphold the piece and you could certainly not deny that he tried his best to stop the villains, but he was just so old and didn’t feel strong enough to be given the title of Hokage. If he could have fought more or had some cooler moments, then that could have certainly helped his case.

With the invasion over, Itachi and Kisame showed up and we found out about the existence of the Akatsuki. They won’t be back for a while, but it was still a very interesting plot point and both characters were certainly dead. This led into the next arc as Sasuke and Kakashi were severely injured so Naruto decided to travel with the legendary Jiraiya to find a lady named Tsunade who could heal them and also become the next Hokage. That being said, Orochimaru was also looking for her so it would be a race against time!

This arc was not quite as interesting as the others and I would say that it may have been the worst. It did have some good moments of course like the Naruto vs Kabuto fight and Tsunade’s strength made for some great feats. I loved the whole Itachi and Kisame part as well although I probably wouldn’t count it as actually being part of the arc since it felt more like the breather between arcs. Now, let’s talk about some of the new characters.

Itachi was definitely a very cool character and he was supremely impressive right from the start. He took out Sasuke and Kakashi without any effort and you could tell that he would end up being a big threat. That being said, it was hard to expect him to be quite as impressive as he turned out to be. Even by the end of the series, he could outclass just about any fighter and his Sharingan prowess cannot really be matched. He was a lot of fun and the series gave him a lot of development. Like Orochimaru, I’d call him a hype character.

Later on, the series tried to give a lot of reasons to explain why him murdering the Uchiha Clan was necessary and how he wasn’t actually a bad guy. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the author originally intended for this to happen so a lot of it still doesn’t actually make any sense. For one thing, everyone in the Uchiha Clan was murdered including kids and innocent civilians. No matter how Itachi tries to justify that like saying that they were plotting a rebellion, it simply couldn’t be true of everyone. So, no matter how sympathetic the series tries to portray Itachi, he’s still a mass murderer in the end who’s no hero. At least he did help the heroes at multiple points though.

Kisame was a big player as well, but not quite as important as Itachi. He was a sword user and ended up being a rival for Might Guy. He used raw power a lot more than a technical fighter like Itachi and this ended up working out quite well for him. He was certainly not as likable and his origin story didn’t really do anything for me, but he made for a good opponent. While he wasn’t the best Akatsuki member, he was closer to the top than the bottom and appearing so early definitely allowed the hype to build up for his next fight.

Jiraiya was a terrible addition to the team and he certainly didn’t earn the manga any points. While his abilities were fairly advanced, he was the stereotypical master who was irresponsible and only cared about girls in his old age. It’s always sad to see and there was nothing he could do to make himself appear likable after that. Luckily, Tsunade was far superior to him and made for a good character. She would also get quite a big role as the series went on since she was the Hokage for a good portion of time and helped in the final battles against Madara. Her healing abilities make for a great combo with her high attack power since she can afford to take larger risks compared to most fighters.

Tsunade had an assistant by the name of Shizune who helped out a little. I can’t say that she ever really did anything though so it’s hard to have much of an opinion on her. She keeps Tsunade in line, which is good I suppose. The Nine Tailed Fox didn’t get a whole lot of development by this point, but I may as well quickly talk about him. He started out as a monster who seemed to just want to make Naruto’s life as difficult as possible. As the two survived battle after battle, he eventually became a nicer guy and started to learn the values of teamwork. By the end of the series, he became a good character. He’s much cooler than all of the other Tailed Beasts as I didn’t really like any of the other ones. The 8 Tails was all right I suppose and he was certainly far more reasonable than the others, but at the same time, he just wasn’t that cool. The Nine Tailed Fox always had that cool factor about him and he can fight quite well without a host.

Next up was the big arc to end the first part of Naruto. Sasuke decided to leave the Leaf Village in order to get stronger. Orochimaru promised him great power if he followed so Sasuke obliged him. His comrades naturally couldn’t accept this and the move could have also placed the village in danger so Tsunade sent out a team comprised of Shikamaru, Choji, Naruto, Kiba, and Neji to go after him along with some well placed back up. The heroes would have to get past the Sound 4, The Hidden Boss, and Sasuke himself to get through, but they weren’t about to go down without a fight!

To this day, this was probably the best arc in the series. That being said, the anime is mainly why I was such a huge fan of this arc as it was handled perfectly. The final arc is so long that it technically has a whole lot more action and hype moments than this one so I will still have to think about whether this arc deserves to be the best in the manga or not. It’s a tough call and it is over a lot quicker there. The final arc also has more moments where it drags or cuts away to other fights though, but that’s not as much of a problem when in volume format. For now, I guess I’ll say that the final arc was still the best, but this would be an easy second. There were a lot of characters introduced in this arc to let’s get to them!

From the Sound 4, let’s start off with Sakon/Ukon. They share one body and are always eager for a fight. Their Curse Mark form easily has the best design from the team and I also consider them to be deadlier than the other 3. They are certainly as evil as you get and have no problem dragging out a fight. Jirobo was not quite as cool and he got to fight Choji. His whole character is that he’s big and strong so he doesn’t have to use any real strategies. He did manage to trap all of the heroes at one point, which was impressive though, but I like to think that most of the Genin could have taken him down had he been matched with anyone other than Choji.

Tayuya was a technical fighter so she was a perfect match for Shikamaru. I wouldn’t say that she was likable either so she falls into the same rank as Jirobo. She talked tough of course, but there were so many ways to possibly win. Throwing her kunai would have been effective instead of walking over to Shikamaru and getting within range. Her flute techniques are good, but I always feel that fighters like her are doomed since they can’t handle close range pressure. Kidomaru is another long range specialist, but I feel like he’s the bigger threat thanks to his incredible accuracy. If he had been fighting in a different environment then he probably wouldn’t have lasted too long against Neji, but the fight was certainly intense. As you can tell, Sakon was my favorite member of the 4. Kidomaru wasn’t bad though, but he didn’t get a whole lot of character. He was fairly intelligent, which helped to distinguish him from the rest I suppose.

Then, Kimimaro showed up and he was much cooler than the first 4. This guy essentially lived to serve Orochimaru as he thought of the guy as his master. Kimimaro was already dying when he first showed up, but that didn’t stop him from taking on the heroes and nearly coming out on top. He faced off against Naruto, Rock Lee, and Gaara in back to back matches. That’s certainly impressive and another second or two and he would have been able to claim victory. He certainly never gave up and he was easily one of the most impressive villains in the series when you think about each intro. Berserk Naruto has never been so easily defeated and I can’t think of another fight which made him look so helpless.

Time to wrap up some other characters from Part I that I have not mentioned yet. We have Asuna, who was one of the Senseis for the Genin. He was a decent fighter, but didn’t get a whole lot of development. He’s smart and his chakra weapon is unique. Kurenai used illusions to fight. It was just her bad luck that her only fight in the series was against Itachi, someone who can see through any illusion.

There was also Might Guy, whose abilities wouldn’t even be fully shown until the final volumes of the series. He is essentially an adult version of Rock Lee so his raw power and speed are really impressive. He’s a fun character and feels like a Goku or Superman type of fighter since he doesn’t use ninjutsu either. He came to Kakashi’s rescue several times in the series and he never went down without a fight. Even by the end of the series, you could say that he’s probably in the top 10 power wise.

We can’t forget about Kakashi either. He would prove to be a major player throughout the series and many of his plots ended up affecting the whole series like his origin. He was always a good sensei for Naruto and his friends. He even managed to keep up with his training as he could finally use the Sharingan for very long periods of time in Part II and played a critical role in the climax, which was a good endurance feat. Kakashi was certainly a great character and one of the better Naruto leads. He may not have been the strongest character by the end of the series, but he could hold his own.

Sakura was a part of Team 7 and she underwent one of the most dramatic changes between Part I and Part II of the series. In the original story arcs, she couldn’t really fight, which was unfortunate for her fans since it meant that she would rarely get involved in the action scenes. Luckily, she trained under Tsunade for a few years and came back with incredible strength. She could now fight alongside Naruto and Sasuke as she even took down a member of the Akatsuki. It was certainly one of her best moments in the series. Her only real drawback was typically that she was too interested in Sasuke even when he decided to go to the dark side and essentially betray everyone. I think it was just a bit much and lying to Naruto during the snow adventure was also pretty iffy. Overall, I’d say that she was a good heroine and got quite a lot of development. She may have had her flaws, but Sakura was certainly a good character.

Time to talk about the part I versions of Naruto and Sasuke! Sasuke was the cool rival of the series who constantly one upped Naruto and wasn’t afraid to bring this up. He was one of the strongest Genin and his abilities continues to grow at a rapid rate. Unfortunately, this was not enough for him as he felt that he was not growing fast enough and decided that the powers of darkness held greater rewards. He left the village, which began his decent into the shadows. Still, he was easily my favorite character in the series. Despite his aloof and sometimes rude demeanor, he and Naruto definitely had a strong bond and their banter was always a lot of fun. While Naruto would just wander into traps, Sasuke was very smart and always one step ahead of the group. He made the series a whole lot more fun.

Naruto started out as your average Shonen lead. He can be loud and is always talking about something or other. Luckily, this comes along with the classic trait of fearlessness, which is why Naruto was a good character. He doesn’t hesitate when it comes to entering a battle and he always believes that villains can be given a second chance. He was a lot more reckless compared to his Part II counterpart and that was a good thing. When Naruto entered his Berserk Mode, there wasn’t really anyone who could stop him. His rampage was essentially a force of nature and could not be stopped. His dream about being Hokage was a good one and it made it easy to see him develop over the years as he learned what it truly meant to be worthy of the title.

That’s essentially the end of Part I, which was 27 volumes. Time to get into Part II, which took up a large chunk of the series and ended things with a bang. While Part I was fairly down to Earth and lower in scale than the average SJ series (Although about on par with One Piece at the time) Part II upped the stakes and introduced some planetary level threats! Part I will always be classic, but Part II had more action and I have to say that I preferred it. It’s a different story in the anime version, but that’s for another time.

To break up the format a little, let’s quickly talk about the artwork. Naruto’s art started out a little rough for part I and I’d say that it started to get better as Part II started. That may sound like a long time for rough art, but it still looked good. It just wasn’t as polished as the anime and Part II essentially corrected that. You could barely tell that it was the same manga at times, which is always a great sign as it means that the artist is continuing to improve. By the end, Naruto was certainly one of the best looking manga titles out there!

All right, time to start Part II! The first arc saw Naruto return the village after being away for almost 3 years, but he didn’t have a whole lot of time to relax as news came that Gaara, the Kazekage, had been kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Along with Sakura and Kakashi, Naruto’s team headed out to stop the attackers, but would they make it in time? The Akatsuki had finally made their move and Naruto would have a tough time stopping them so Might Guy’s team was also dispatched just in case.

This arc was decently fun. Seeing Itachi and Kisame again was certainly interesting and since the Akatsuki had finally begun to make their move, it felt like the plot was finally starting. Everyone was eager to see where the plot would take us and we also got a glimpse of the other Akatsuki members although it would be almost impossible to identify them at the time.

Deidara, another Akatsuki member made his debut in this round and he would go on to get a rather large fanbase. He was obsessed with art and believed that explosions were the pinnacle of it as they appeared for an instant and then left. His forte is long range combat and he gave Gaara a fairly good fight using his techniques. I’d say that his powers are actually a bad match-up against the sand user, but he could give most of the other opponents a run for their money. He’s a decent Akatsuki member and a likable member.

His partner was Sasori, a puppet master who made Kankuro look like a rookie. He wasn’t quite as likable at all, but I was glad that his true form was more impressive than his Chimera body. It helped him out a little as he was finally able to fight in close quarters combat without relying on his long range puppets. He can control 100 of them at a time, which instantly made him the best puppet master on the block and his fight against Sakura was quite good. With his poisonous attacks, he is a threat to any fighter as one hit is all that he needs.

The next arc had Naruto decide to finally bring back Sasuke once more. An old informant of Sasori had turned up information so the team figured that they would impersonate him and find out as much as they could. Kakashi got injured on the last mission so two new recruits would be coming along to help Naruto and Sakura. One of them was an Anbu Black Op known as Yamato and another was from the Root faction led by Danzo known as Sai. It would be hard to trust either of them, but that didn’t matter to Naruto as long as he got to save Sasuke!

This was certainly one of the shorter arcs, but it was important since we finally got to see the new and supposedly improved Sasuke. His abilities had definitely jumped a lot as he currently outclassed Naruto at the point. More signs to pointing that his choice was the right one if power was all that he desired. Aside from Sasuke appearing, it was a relatively mild arc and certainly not one of my favorites. More action and less Sai/Yamato would have been good.

As you can expect, I didn’t like either character. Sai came way too late and the whole
“being devoid of emotion” gimmick was already taken by Sasuke. Sai doesn’t even have a lot of power to back it up as his skill is in drawing things that come to life. A useful ability if handled right I suppose, but I found him to be far weaker than just about any member of the original Genins. While he got character development as the series went on and learned how to use his emotions, I never liked the guy. He simply wasn’t my kind of character. Likewise, Yamato didn’t work for me either. He liked to use fear to control Naruto and his wood style can be useful for trapping him, but Yamato is far too by the books at times. He may have been an Anbu member once, but he’s a shinobi now so he’s got to keep the act up a little better. He rarely contributes at all as well and I just missed Kakashi whenever Yamato was on screen.

After this arc was one that had a lot more action and was simply more fun. Two new Akatsuki members who went by the names of Hidan and Kakuzu murdered the sensei of Shikamaru and his team. To avenge him they headed out for a rematch, but Kakashi caught them and decided to tag along. Meanwhile, Naruto was still training to achieve a whole new level of power. The question was…would he be able to make it in time to save his comrades from the Akatsuki? As these are Akatsuki members, you can typically expect that Naruto will be needed in the fight.

Hidan was fairly neat. I don’t care for his ritual gimmick, but the banter between him and Kakuzu was always good. I actually ended up liking him more than the partner. Hidan’s immortality was a useful ability even if it had a lot of limitations. Immortality is typically paired up with regeneration because it is essentially useless otherwise as you can hack off a limb and then just tie the opponent down. The heroes realized this at the very end and then utilized this effectively. Still, it was great to see a pure short range fighter who gave us a nice action scene with Kakashi.

Kakuzu was certainly more of a long range fighter although he was also quite adept at hand to hand combat. He was the calm and collected member of the group and it’s tough to destroy him because he has 5 hearts so you have to beat him 5 times. He was certainly giving the heroes a lot of trouble, but he didn’t count on the super powerful main character showing up! This pair beat the Sasori and Deidara combo, but weren’t as cool as the classic Itachi and Kisame.

The next arc focused on Sasuke for a change as he decided to locate Itachi and finish things once and for all. To do that, he would need to build a team so that they could distract Kisame. He found old experiments and comrades of Orochimaru to join his Team Hebi. Then, they finally arrived and had their climactic showdown with Itachi. Naruto would have tried tagging along, but his team was held up by the mysterious masked man who claimed to be the legendary Madara Uchiha. He must have gotten quite the haircut…

I never liked any of Sasuke’s new teammates so I can’t really say that I was thrilled to see them appear. Jugo is pretty similar to Choji, but he can get out of control at times. He’s tough, but a nice guy deep down who is always ready to help his friends. He has super strength and a slight amount of speed as well. He’s not much of a threat to most fighters, but he’s not weak either. Karin is the healer of the group who has an obsession with Sasuke. The Uchiha typically just ignores her, but the plot wasn’t very great and she never transitioned into being a good character. She was really just around to allow Sasuke to fight multiple battles with a plot reason that allowed him to keep on fighting well past his limits. Finally, we had Suigetsu. He was a decent fighter with a sword and easily the best member of the group, but I wouldn’t say that I was a huge fan of his either. He was just a bit generic and we already had a nice amount of hot head fighters who could put up a decent fight. In many ways, Suigetsu was similar to Kiba.

In essence, Sasuke’s team was basically just necessary filler to allow him to fight Itachi one on one. The thing is, Itachi would have permitted the battle even without the other fighters so I don’t think that it would have been a problem. Naturally, it was just awesome to see Sasuke get such a big role so the arc was still quite good and the big battle with Itachi was also very epic. This was the confrontation that we had waited years for and it finally got to occur!

Killer Bee also made his debut here as he fought Sasuke. He was a surprisingly difficult opponent to defeat and his bond with the Tailed Beast put him in a different league of power than when compared to Naruto. Unfortunately, I didn’t like his whole rapping gimmick. That was definitely not cool and his character certainly didn’t do wonders for me. He would have some cool moments once in a while, but mostly he was a miss for me. Either way, his role was decently large, but he mostly disappeared for the final fights.

Next up was the Pain arc, which grew to be quite popular. After Jiraiya was murdered by Pain, Naruto left to train some more so that he could defeat the leader of the Akatsuki. While he was gone, Pain used the opportunity to strike at the Hidden Leaf Village along with his assistant, Konan. Pain was 6 bodies to use in the invasion and the Leaf Village was essentially crushed. They put up a rather embarrassing effort against the villain, mainly due to the fact that Rock Lee, Neji, and Might Guy were away from the village. Rock Lee could have likely been strong enough to take down 1-2 bodies and along with Might Guy, they could have certainly defeated Pain. Alas, that would have been too easy right? When Naruto stepped in, it was certainly an epic moment!

This was certainly one of the best arcs in the series and there were quite a few casualties and fatalities. If not for the final part of the arc that essentially reset everything, I think more fans would look at it as the definitive Naruto arc. Either way, it was very good and you were on the edge of your seat in each chapter to see who would be able to live through this and who would fall before Pain!

Pain definitely got a lot of hype leading up to the arc. After all, he was the leader of the Akatsuki! He certainly met on the hype as he easily started to demolish all of his opponents. His main body was naturally my favorite as he had a cool personality and went up against Naruto in a fair 1 on 1 fight. His other bodies were also fairly neat. He had a plot twist as we learned more about his real body and his origin. It wasn’t bad and he was certainly a decently likable character. It was a tough road to be sure and Naruto showed him that there is still a chance for peace…at least for a little while before new fights inevitably continue to appear. From all of the Akatsuki members, Pain is certainly in the top three and few villains can match him in personality or power.

Konan was a loyal friend who stood by Pain’s side through thick and thin. Her paper abilities are quite good and while her physical abilities aren’t quite as impressive as many of the other fighters by this point, her long range paper abilities ensure that her opponents have to keep their distance. She was a nice character and while her role wasn’t too large by the end, she had some key moments.

After that, the 5 Kages decided to have a meeting and Sasuke realized that this was his chance to finally destroy Danzo, the new Hokage, and avenge Itachi. He quickly headed for the meeting and Naruto also began to head there to try and stop the leaders from officially deciding to destroy Sasuke. This was essentially a very short arc, but a lot happened here. We finally got to meet the 5 Kage and Naruto had his epic rematch with Sasuke. It was short as this was mostly to set up the true rematches that would be held soon. Sasuke vs the Raikage was also one of my favorite battles in the series so this arc definitely had a lot of good memories.

The Raikage was great and he was instantly one of my favorite characters in the series. He didn’t wait for things to play out, but launched himself into the action whenever it became necessary. His fight against Sasuke was great as I mentioned earlier and his lightning abilities were very impressive. Having such a good mix of speed and power is very rare to see and mixed in with his determined personality, he was certainly my kind of character!

I couldn’t really say the same about the Tsuchikage. His back pain joke started to get old after the first few times he used it and he was far too old to really be much of a threat at this point. He was still a decent character in the end as he made the right calls and trusted in Gaara’s ability to lead though. I also liked his particle techniques as they looked really cool and reminded me of Kekkaishi.

Danzo was the only Kage who was openly evil so he was certainly a big contrast from the others. He’s definitely pretty unlikable and the reason why the Uchiha Clan was ultimately destroyed. His fight against Sasuke was certainly neat, but as a character he was definitely not likable. He was a very old guy who could fight with his eye jutsu, but didn’t have a whole lot going for him when it came to close quarters combat. Definitely the opposite of what I look for in my kind of character.

As for the Mizukage, I can’t say that I was really a fan of hers eithr. Her gimmick of not hearing what the other person if saying can certainly get old fast. Why to the Kage need gimmicks? The Raikage didn’t need one and he turned out to be the very best! Her poison abilities are decently good, but she’s probably the weakest of the Kage and a good speed blitz would take her out of the runnings right away.

Next up was…The War! This would be the big arc that would last for the rest of the series. Trust me, it went on for quite some time and I believe that it was nearly 20 volumes in the manga. We got plot twist after plot twist and there was certainly a lot of action. Kabuto and the Masked Man’s alliance finally came into being as they revived an army of essentially every villain who ever died to fight the 5 Villages who had united with the Samurai. This was an excuse to basically bring every past villain back to fight the heroes at their current levels of power. That was fun as I’ve always thought that the final arc should have a plot similar to this. Naturally, this also means that a lot of the fights are off screen or extremely rushed, but it’s still nice to have the battles to think about.

Slowly, most of the weaker villains were dispatched so only the final ones remained like Kabuto, Masked Man, and Madara. Naruto and Sasuke really had to power up to their limits to defeat these foes and a secret boss also showed up at the last second to challenge them. It’s incredible that the characters could fight for so long as their Chakra Reserves were almost limitless by this point. Finally, we had reached the end of the Naruto series. There was a quick epilogue at the end, which will launch Part III, the Boruto saga. Hopefully it can last for quite a while, although I don’t totally care for how everyone looks like their past selves, but as kids again. It’s a little intriguing, but this problem doesn’t really plague the three main characters so that’s cool.

When Madara was finally summoned, everyone was thrilled. We had waited for this character for over a decade and he did not disappoint! He ended up being the best villain of the show and his large array of jutsu were really cool to look at. This was a guy who certainly lived up to the large amount of hype that had surrounded him and his “eager to fight” personality was a pleasant surprise! I was thrilled when he started getting power up after power up and it’s safe to say that Naruto and Sasuke didn’t have a chance against him one on one. In fact, I’d say that he’s probably the best character in the series. It’s no wonder why he made the cut for the recent Jump game for PS3/PS4.

Kaguya was the secret boss who showed up at the end of the series and she was pretty cool. Her dimensional warping ability was definitely something to be feared. It would have been neat if she could have had more lines, but ah well, at least she put up a good fight. It was good to end the series on a cosmic level like that so you could really see how far the series has come!

The Masked Man played a huge role in the Naruto series and fans had fun trying to guess who he was. There were some iffy moments and possible plot holes after it was revealed who he as, but nevertheless, it was as almost every fan predicted. The hair was always the big clue that he couldn’t be who he said he was and I was also hoping that he wasn’t since Madara Uchiha has always been serious and wouldn’t put up such a facade. The true identity of the Masked Man was a bit of a let down though because his character arc really took a shot there.

I liked him a lot as the goofy Tobi and I also enjoyed him as the really serious “Madara” but in his true form he just wasn’t as cool anymore. He did get some really cool fight scenes though and I liked him during the fights, but his sob story and conversation with Naruto did not do him any wonders. In a sense, he became a completely different character during that moment and one who wasn’t bad, but one who wasn’t very likable either. Madara ended up being the true villain of the final arc!

Minato was definitely a cool father for Naruto and he had a really cool fight against the Masked Man. That was one of the few flashback arcs that actually ended up being pretty cool and I definitely gained a lot of respect for him there. The Leaf Village looked really bad as expected, but that’s all right. They’re essentially bullies who need to be led by likable characters like Minato. Kushina was also neat and helped Naruto inheiret a lot of his likable qualities like being so determined. It’s too bad that we couldn’t see her fight more, but her role shall still be remembered.

The 1st Hokage also got a lot of development in the Madara part of the arc since they used to hang out as kids. Eventually, they were forced to fight and the 1st claimed victory. Honestly, I feel like the 1st Hokage was a little full of himself the whole time and despite the hype, I think I would probably say that Minato was the better fighter. The 1st’s statue technique was cool though and his battle against Madara was fun to watch although not as impressive as Madara’s fight against Might Guy.

Part II Sasuke was certainly very different from part I. He completely went over to the Dark Side to stop Itachi, but then found that nothing could satisfy him. He kept making new goals over and over as he learned the hard way that the dark side will never be able to leave you truly content. He definitely had one of the ultimate character arcs of redemption and getting a second chance. While it was a little on the cheesy side how he switched over in the end, it was definitely a good thing. It helped Sasuke to end out as a good character and to realize that no matter how his past was, he always has a chance to change his future. He’s still one of the strongest fighters of all time and I loved his tag team match with Naruto. Next time he fights, we can look forward to him being a hero who will protect the Leaf! That’s the Sasuke that I remember. He was cool as a hero and cool as a villain, but Sasuke is certainly at his best when he stays on the hero side.

Naruto in Part II is less reckless than he was in Part I and doesn’t charge into battle quite as often. Nevertheless, Naruto’s still a very good character who gets the job done. Aside from one or two little events, he never uses the sexy jutsu anymore and has become a figure that the rest of the heroes can respect. He went from being a kid that nobody could take seriously to finally becoming Hokage. Seeing him finally achieve his dream was great and it ended a legendary character arc. Unlike some of the other goals which may never happen (Ash Ketchum becoming a Pokemon Master or Luffy becoming the Pirate King) Naruto actually went ahead and completed his personal challenge. Things can only look up for Naruto now and him being Hokage gives the Leaf Village a pinnacle of hope and a figure to aspire too.

Naturally, there are dozens and dozens of other characters who could be mentioned as the series is chock full of them, but I essentially named all of the really important ones. There are numerous villains invented for the final arc and a lot of supporting characters like people at the various villages and their subordinates who I skipped as well. There are dozens of things that you could really write about for days and days, but for a series as long as this one, it’s probably time to read it yourself. Also, this review is now over 9000 words and while 10000 would be pretty epic, I’d say that it’s about time to wrap things up.

Naruto definitely deserves to be known as one of the greatest manga titles of all time. Megaman NT Warrior is my current favorite, but where does Naruto rank? It’s tough to say as other, shorter titles like DBZ, Kenshin, Yugioh Duelist, and others give it a really good fight. I’m tempted to say that along with the powerful nostalgia value behind it, I may put Naruto in 5th place for now behind Yugioh, Bleach, and DBZ. It’s tough to say for sure though as the series are so long that it’s really tough to think straight. I already reviewed the sequel series, Naruto Gaiden, so we’ll have to wait and see what the author has up his sleeve next. I’m hoping that he’ll personally write a new installment although another author doing it is fine I suppose.

Overall, Naruto will certainly be a title that I’ll always refer people too when asked. It certainly has a lot of nostalgic value for me and I’ll always remember my younger days as it was one of the first manga titles that I read. It was also fun because the anime got me into the manga so I basically continued from there, which meant that I started out with volume 28 and after being nearly caught up, I went back and fast blasted through Part I. That’s probably why this is one of the few cases where the anime completely holds more weight for me with character development and everything. It’s a similar case with Sailor Moon. If you somehow have not started this series yet, then I definitely recommend it! It is full of action, character development, interesting stories, solid writing, and essentially has every good feature that you could ask of a series! You won’t regret starting it and you’re sure to be in for quite a ride! One thing about starting late like this is that you won’t have to wait between volumes. You can just blast through the whole series at top speed! One day, I’ll likely re read the whole thing as almost all of the volumes are already at home in the manga collection excluding roughly 20-25 volumes. That’ll be a fun re read! I don’t see another review ever being quite as long as this one, but One Piece shall certainly have a huge one as well once it finishes so that could potentially pass this. That being said, we’re quite a whiles away from that happening!

Overall 9/10

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

Phantom Thief Jeanne Review

Posted on August 15, 2015 by dreager1

Phantom Thief Jeanne was a fairly intriguing manga title. The plot is nothing spectacular on the surface as it’s fairly generic and there isn’t anything really notable about the manga aside from the final arc. I can’t say that it has aged well and Sailor Moon does defeat it, but it’s always fun to compare a new magical girl series to established ones like Madoka Magica and Sailor Moon. It’s a fairly short series so it had to cut to the chase right away!

Maron was an ordinary girl until she was given a task by God. She was to hunt down the various demons that had taken control of paintings around the world and sometimes they would possess humans as well. In order to accomplish this task, Maron was given the ability to transform into a reincarnated Jeanne D’Arc. With her newfound magical powers and an angel to help guide the way, Maron was now ready for anything. Still, can she balance this duty along with keeping up with her social life? After all, there is a lot of romance in this series and she has to stay prepared!

As you may expect, the romance is one of the things that really hurts this series. I can’t even begin to describe just how poorly it is handled the whole time. For starters, the main guy is completely unlikable and one of those mean characters who you can’t sympathize with at all. His name is Chiaki and he is (seemingly) an agent of the Devil. He is here to stop Maron from accomplishing her task at any cost. That being said, he wants to have it both ways. Chiaki isn’t willing to turn good, but he also doesn’t want to stop liking Maron, which makes for a romance plot that just doesn’t work. Maron should just defeat him since he’s in her way. Although, her powers aren’t quite That impressive.

As Jeanne, Maron seems to gain some slight super strength. She has her magical chess pieces that she can throw to help vanquish the evil spirits and a lot of other magical abilities that wouldn’t really help much against an opponent, but still look neat at the very least. Luckily, most of the enemies aren’t that physical so these abilities will work out just fine. As a character, Maron is all right, but I just couldn’t find her to be that likable. Mainly due to the drama with Chiaki, but even beyond that, there’s just not much to her character. She’s a nice person as she’s the protagonist, but she never really developed her personality and she could lose sight of the mission from time to time.

Naturally, she’s an improvement over Chiaki, but there’s not much more to say about the guy that hasn’t been said already. He’s never willing to make the tough calls so I definitely wasn’t going to find him very likable! Maron’s friend, Miyako is all right. Her gimmick is that she really wants to capture Jeanne as she doesn’t know that Jeanne’s true identity is that of Maron. She’s essentially used for comic relief here although she has a half serious romance subplot with someone else, she basically denies it for the whole series, which is certainly good.

As for the Angels, Finn is Maron’s ally. For a while, she was a very good character, but then she decided to make a big move, which involves thinking about which side she wants to really be on and that really hurt her character. She had her reasons and there were a lot of twists, but it doesn’t change the fact that she nearly destroyed Maron and did make things very hard for the heroes. I like to think that she is now a true hero who will stand by the others, but it’s always hard to forget such treachery and it really did make her go from being a likable one to just dropping out of the ranks.

Her opposite was Access. He’s the dark angel who helps Chiaki and he wasn’t likable at all either. Like his master, he spends a lot of the time just flirting and he doesn’t take things very seriously. Perhaps it is because the series takes itself a little too seriously at times, but he really doesn’t help its case. That basically wraps it up for the main characters of the series as the main cast was actually quite small.

The main aspect of the manga that actually warrants some discussion is the end of it as the author decides to make a pretty bold move. A lot of manga titles like to have their all powerful beings who are gods that mess with the humans, but this was different. See, in a plot twist, we find out that Jeanne is actually a reincarnated Eve and the God is actually the real deal. He is God, not just a fake god who was made up for the series. Naturally, that’s a pretty tricky thing to include in the series. It’s great that a series is actually acknowledging the Bible and God, but then the portrayal must be on point and that didn’t happen.

There is a big twist about the Devil. He’s not a fallen angel, but he actually is God. See, God became lonely so he basically split into two entities and that’s how the Devil was created. Riiiiiight…….that was a pretty unnecessary twist. The series tries to make the Devil very sympathetic by the end as he just wanted a friend, but cmon…that’s just too much. God is also portrayed to basically be powerless in this series as Maron is the only person keeping him from being annihilated by the Devil. Why is Evil always so much stronger than Good in these things? So, the ending was certainly very bold, but it just didn’t work out. It’s very surreal to see God portrayed as a character in a manga series so that definitely earned the series a lot of originality points, but that’s about all I can say for it. It would have been easy to fix this. Simply not have God be on the verge of death and forget about the Devil plot twist. That would have quickly changed matters in an instant.

Ah well, at least that gave me something to think about as I was reading the series. Beyond that, it is just very generic and unfortunately it is not that good. I can deal with the characters being a little bland, but the romance plots were handled rather terribly and the action scenes were basically nonexistent. The series was only 7 volumes, but it did manage to contain a lot of events thanks to how big they were so I guess I can give it props for that. It’s still monster of the week for most of the series though. The actual plot didn’t help matters much either though.

The art is decent, but I’d say slightly below average. It’s one of those Shojo styles where it can be very hard to follow what is actually happening because of how chaotic the pages can become. It’s a decent artistic effect if you’re into that sort of thing, but I actually prefer the ultra simple art styles like Bleach or Hunter X Hunter. Those really let you follow the action with ease which is why you can sometimes read a Bleach chapter in about 2-5 minutes.

Overall, Phantom Thief Jeanne is certainly one of the weaker Shojo series that I’ve read. It’s leagues above titles like Vampire Knight and Black Bird, but at the same time, I feel like this one should have been much better. In many ways, it is very similar to Zodiac P.I., but that one was simply better in every area. It was shorter, but had better characters and certainly had higher quality artwork. If you’re looking for a good magical girl title, then you should probably go with the classic Sailor Moon. If you want a fun Shojo title to read, then Zodiac P.I. is the way to go. Either way, Phantom Thief Jeanne just isn’t good enough to recommend. Of course, taking out the romance plot or simply improving it could have really helped, but alas, it was not to be.

Overall 3/10

Pokemon Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction Review

Posted on August 14, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to check out the manga adaption of one of the latest movies! This movie had a pretty anticlimactic end fight, but still managed to be a fun experience. I’ve read a lot of the manga adaptions in the past and they are usually about as good as the movie, but not quite on par since it has to rush through the events more. That’s especially clear in this volume.

Ash was enjoying a day as usual by fighting other trainers when a mysterious gem Pokemon appears. She is being targeted by professional thieves so Ash helps her out. Her name is Diancie and unless she can get her gem abilities to work, her people will all die! To gain access to her powers, she must find Xerneas. Being the nice guy that he is, Ash agrees to help her out, but will he be able to stop the legions of villains who are on Diancie’s trail?

As explained earlier, the volume really cruises through the film since it’s so short. The battle between Ash and the Trainer is basically off screen because there was simply no time. It makes for rapid pacing, but sometimes it’s a little too rapid as I did want to see the fun fight scene. Ah well, they kept in the climax at least for the suspense factor. The final battle still ends on a sour note as the fight never actually happened since Yveltal decides to just fly away.

The writer did make it a little more clear that Xerneas was basically toast after saving Pikachu though. He seemed to have transferred his life energy to Pikachu before turning into a tree. It’s not a permanent condition, but it does seem like Xerneas will stay like that for a very long while. That’s definitely not a lot of fun for his many fans.

Finally, my other slight complaint for the volume is that the art wasn’t so good. It’s probably the worst Pokemon movie art that I’ve seen. Something was just off about it. It simply wasn’t as clear as you would expect and the characters constantly felt off model or they would have odd expressions on their faces. Luckily, this doesn’t really affect the action scenes although there really aren’t any. We get a few laser blasts during the scuffles I suppose. The cool part is that Pikachu actually holds his own against Yveltal here!

As with the movie, the volume gets a little emotional towards the end as Pikachu is turned to stone and the viewers are reminded of his mortality. Ash was around with his magic tears, but it was still a very dicey moment for the whole cast. Ash is a solid lead as always and the other characters aren’t bad either. Ash’s friends did seem to be rather helpless without him though as Ash had to save the day once again. I’m waiting for one of his friends to decide to be a serious fighter. Until that point comes, everyone will just have to follow Pikachu and just hope for the best.

I do find it funny how the fast pacing does wreck a lot of the tension from the movie though. For example, one of the villains pretends to be an ally by helping Diancie out when she’s in a pinch. Only about 4 pages later, the villain shows up in the base talking tough and making threats. The reader isn’t given any time to even think that she might be a real hero before things going south. Of course, it was rather obvious, but the volume should have kept up the pretense a little while longer.

Tam Rocket is around, but their role is also very small as they are just around to get blasted off again. They’re still better than the two thieves though. I couldn’t take those guys seriously at all and their personalities are simply unlikable. They really added nothing to the film and really embody the term “Filler character.”

As this volume is so tiny, there’s really not a whole lot more to say about it. Especially considering that I already reviewed the actual film. This was not one of the stronger movies as the lack of action scenes are very noticeable. Genesect, now that was a really epic Pokemon movie filled with epic action scenes and even a parody of the Man of Steel climax, but with how the fight should have ended. Diancie can’t hope to compete with that.

As for Diancie herself, she’s not bad, but not one of the more likable legendaries either. I’d take Celebi over her since Celebi just seemed to have a more enjoyable personality. Yveltal gets the job done and I definitely like him. That’s one villain you don’t want to mess with and Yveltal actually destroyed a lot of the heroes. That takes a lot of skill for sure! Xerneas….well, he seems pretty cool, but I really don’t care for the tree part. Even the hype for Xerneas didn’t really win me over since he didn’t do anything with it. He’s a good Pokemon and certainly an intimidating one, but less words of wisdom and more action scenes would have been good for him.

Overall, if you liked the movie, then you’ll definitely like the manga adaption. It’s essentially the movie on hyper speed so you’ll be done with it very quickly. It makes for an enjoyable read and there are no real negatives aside from the fact that there isn’t a whole lot of action to be found here. I’m looking forward to the next Pokemon movie being more impressive and as a result, the next manga would also be more explosive. Still, this is your big chance to check the volume out and see how it compares to Pokemon Adventures since you don’t get to see Ash in manga format very often. Also, the best part of this volume is the fact that it proves how strong Pikachu is. He stops hits from Yveltal!! That’s pure hype!

Overall 7/10

Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring Review

Posted on July 2, 2015 by dreager1

After Naruto ended, it’s safe to say that the fans were not pleased. We had been reading the series for years and finding a replacement would be difficult. Luckily, the author did a sequel series that ran for an extra 10 chapters which bought the world some time. It was a fun title and while it was incredibly short, it was still long enough to give us some hype and introduce new characters. Nothing can ever top the classic Naruto series in this franchise, but Naruto Gaiden is a sequel that is worthy of the Naruto name.

It’s been years since the final battle and you should be aware of Naruto’s current role, but I won’t spoil it in case you do not know. Sasuke was roaming the outside world when he was attacked by a kid who possessed the Sharingan. He quickly calls in Naruto to deal with this threat as he hints that a new villain who may be even stronger than the final boss of the Naruto manga could be around. Meanwhile, Sarada realizes that she doesn’t know much about her parents and decides to follow Naruto for some answers. Her friend decides to tag along and now we have the main cast for the series!

The art is quite good and it feels just like the main series. That’s a good thing as it gives the title a sense of continuity and this could easily have just been an epilogue volume to the main title. The action scenes are a lot of fun and the character designs…are not quite as good. They aren’t bad from an art stand point, but I still just don’t care for the new looks of Naruto and Sasuke. Most of the characters just look too old at this point. It’s just an age issue though and not every character was meant to become an adult.

It’s a little infamous that the villains in Naruto typically turn out to be heroes deep down. This title takes that even farther as Kabuto’s essentially seen the light and he’s allowed to be the teacher of a school. Orochimaru’s even gone past his evil days although it’s heavily implied that he’s still conducting illegal experiments. I don’t understand why Naruto and the others haven’t taken him down yet. Surely it wouldn’t be too much of an issue for the heroes right? Maybe he has diplomatic immunity or something like that. Even the ending continues this tradition. Now, it’s cool to see that the villains are able to turn over a new leaf and that they’re not totally evil, but such a thing needs development. The series didn’t have a whole lot of time to use on that, but it certainly would have been worth it if you ask me.

Naturally, Naruto and Sasuke are ultimately powerful at this point. So, how are any of the villains actually a threat? Well…they aren’t. The series tries to give the villains some hype and they do manage to look decently good against the two heroes at one point, but it’s only because they had plot hax and surprise on their side. In a fair fight, they wouldn’t last an instant here. Sarada is basically able to take these guys on with minimal effort so I wouldn’t put them on Akatsuki level, much less Uchiha tier.

Still, I did enjoy the fight scenes here. The artist is certainly experienced with them by this point and you’ll see a lot of epic speed effects during the fights. Everything has a good amount of detail and the intensity of the fights is the main reason as to why I enjoyed the series a lot. The actual plot about finding out who Sarada’s parents were wasn’t quite as interesting since I’m sure that we suspected who they were from the start. Especially once the series was confirmed to only be 10 chapters as it had to wrap up quickly.

Perhaps, a little too quickly. The ending is very rushed and the main villain goes down in a single hit. I would have liked a bigger fight, but it’s implied that the true villain is still out there. Sasuke had been mentioning that this could all just be part of a bigger scheme. The Boruto movie is apparently an epilogue to this series in a way and the trailer did look fairly awesome so it’s safe to say that the true fights are just beginning. Naruto and Sasuke may have finally met their match this time!

Naruto was a good main character here. He was sympathetic to the villains without actually letting them get by him. Naruto shows why he is still one of the strongest characters in the series even if he has apparently stopped training and grown weaker like Gohan from DBZ. While Sarada is the main character of the series, Naruto gets a good role and he looks good aside from one loss. Likewise, Sasuke manages to be a decent character, but I don’t like his generic design. One of the plots also just doesn’t work since he’s a loner and I can’t really see that changing anytime soon despite what the manga would have you believe. He’s the Shonen Rival and that’s how he should stay. For the most part, he does a good job of handling that reputation and his Sharingan powers are impressive as always. He doesn’t get to fight as much as Naruto, but Sasuke still gets his props.

Sakura doesn’t fight as often as the other two members anymore, but we see that she still has a decent amount of power at her disposal. Would she have defeated the villains without Naruto and Sasuke? I don’t think so, but she was badly outnumbered so we can let it slide. Sarada’s partner was one of the weak links of the series. Her gimmicks just aren’t funny and she’s constantly hoping that someone else is her father. The ending helps to wrap this up so that plot is over, but her attempts at humor didn’t really do the series any justice. Luckily, her role is rather small so it doesn’t really affect the series in a negative way. It’s a very minor con.

Boruto’s role is incredibly small, but he’s getting his own movie so he didn’t need to appear here right? He seems decent in this title except for the fact that he doesn’t run away from the village to help everyone. That’s what a real hero would do. Sarada can be rather unreasonable and dramatic at times, but she’s a good character for the most part. She’s certainly adept at fighting and Sarada appears to be turning into a hot blooded rival type of character. That would work out quite well and I’m hoping that’s how her character develops. She may still overreact at times, but it’s manageable and she’s still better than Boruto and her friend for now. While she probably can’t hold her own series as much as Naruto, she won’t need too since Naruto and friends will still be around.

Meanwhile, Shin is basically the main villain along with a lot of clone versions of him. (He’s already a clone though) I like the design, but he’s not very interesting. His goals are generic and he basically just wants to destroy everyone. His goals and motivations barely make any sense and when you have to beg the enemy for help…you know that you’re in a tough spot. With his Sharingan abilities, you’d think that he would be an impressive fighter, but the way that he goes out is rather anticlimactic. He’s not really meant to be likable, interesting, or cool since this is such a short series, but I still feel like he could have been better. Ah well, at least he wasn’t a downright bad villain.

Overall, Naruto Gaiden was a fun little sequel to Naruto. As it was only 10 chapters, the pacing was nice and quick. We got to see the old characters once again and had a chance to see the aftermath of what happened during the main series. It was a lot of fun and there really wasn’t anything wrong with the series. The ending was a little rushed and the villain wasn’t too cool, but the series couldn’t be perfect. Given the length constraints, I thought that Naruto Gaiden was a blast. If you enjoyed Naruto, then you should definitely like this one. If you’re entering this series fresh to the Naruto franchise, then you’ll still have a blast with all of the suspense and intrigue throughout. Now, I’m ready for the Boruto film!

Overall 8/10

Rock Lee Springtime of Youth Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

Well, I started this series way back in 2011 and yet…it has less than 40 chapters. This is why I’ve never cared for the monthly format as it takes forever for a series to get going. Maybe it was for the best though as the Rock Lee series was truly terrible and couldn’t get a single thing right. I have to say that almost every single chapter was a struggle to get through. It gets a lot of praise online though so I clearly don’t see the appeal of it. I guess this is the kind of comedy that the world wants from Naruto…I’ll stick with the main series and its jokes instead. I am glad that the series managed to finish and I hope that the Sasuke one turns out to be better.

There’s not much of a plot for this one as it’s just about Rock Lee having adventures. It’s a complete comedy so you wouldn’t expect much of a plot here would you? No worries, that just means that I can make this review a little shorter and there isn’t a whole lot to talk about anyway as the manga has no real positives. All of the characters are terrible and the situations that they find themselves in are pretty terrible as well.

The new Pac Man TV show infamously has a ton of crude humor and it never seems to stop. Well, Rock Lee takes that crude humor and multiplies it by 100 as it occurs on just about every page and it’s far worse than Pac Man’s. Most of it is just plain distasteful and Rock Lee/Neji are naturally super perverted to show that they are simply bad characters. None of the heroes or villains get to keep their dignity by the time that this is all over. Most of the chapters are simply about the heroes embarrassing themselves or their friends and rarely does the series take itself seriously.

The final chapter is the big fight with Gaara and it’s another example of how bad the seies can be. All of the flashbacks are taken seriously since they are ripped directly from the main series so the rest of the chapter compensates by having thousand years of death techniques all over the place and more crude humor. The series just doesn’t take a break and you will find a scene of cross dressing or crude humor in every chapter likely without exception although I can’t verify that since I don’t plan on going through all of the chapters a second time to look for those things.

At least the art is decent, but I wouldn’t call it very good since it is much easier to draw a manga chibi style so it’s hard to tell just how good the artist is. There are fewer details to worry about and most of the screens are very clear. I could see just about any professional artist pulling this off without a hitch. The fight scenes have the potential to be decent, but they are always interrupted so it doesn’t really matter.

Somehow, the series got its own video game as well as a TV show. I just don’t see how this part of the Naruto franchise grew so large so quickly. Perhaps the show would be better, but I can’t say that I’m very interested in checking that out at the moment. Also, Rock Lee isn’t bad just because it is a spinoff to the main series. Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and Reborn! also got spinoffs in the same magazine and they were all actually good. Reborn was the most fun while DBZ had the best fights and One Piece took itself seriously. Fairy Tail and Beelzebub had non chibi spinoffs as well. Why was Naruto the one that got stuck with such a bad series? It simply isn’t right!

The concept behind Rock Lee getting his own series is pretty good, but the writers clearly were not ready for such a large task. Rock Lee should have been a great main character, but instead he ended up becoming a very unlikable one. The series may have only been 39 chapters, but they took 5 years so it felt like I was reading this series forever. With it gone, the title of worst current manga will have to go somewhere else and I’m not sure which one I’d choose at the moment. It would probably be Skip Beat, but at least that series is still light years ahead of Rock Lee.

Overall, I highly recommend avoiding this Rock Lee spinoff. Unless you want to see all of the characters degrading themselves and pulling off the exact same jokes chapter after chapter, this simply isn’t the series for you. Keep in mind, the series does have a rather large number of fans so there is still a chance that you will like it, but I just can’t recommend it. The series didn’t have any positives throughout its entire run and every chapter would remind me of just how bad it was. While it is not the worst manga of all time, it is easily one of the worst titles and can hold its own in that regard to any of the other manga series. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next work that this author does since I’ll probably want to stay far away from it. Hopefully the Sasuke spinoff has a different group of writers behind it.

Overall 0/10

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Vampire Knight Review

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Rurouni Kenshin Review

Dengeki Daisy Review

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Pokemon Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction Review

Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring Review

Rock Lee Springtime of Youth Review

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