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Koro-Sensei Q! Review

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It’s time to look at a parody/comedy spinoff to a main manga that wasn’t even that good to begin with. From the start you can tell that this was going to get a little messy and unfortunately it was as bad as I thought. Mind you, I wouldn’t call the manga terrible or anything like that, but it’s pretty bad. You probably won’t even crack a smile as you read through the gags because the manga goes for the low hanging fruit each time. All of the jokes are painfully predictable and never have any imagination to them. The jokes are also repetitive so you will be seeing the sames ones over and over again as the series tries to get the laughs back.

The basic plot of the series follows that of the main one. The heroes live in a fantasy land that is structured a whole lot like an RPG. One day, the big bad of the game shows up and decides to train the main characters on how to fight. None of them are thrilled about this, but at the same time getting instruction from the strongest monster of all time should be quite valuable right? The heroes decide that they will try to destroy him during the lessons. Each of the heroes has a different glitch which either gives them super powers or just makes life generally awkward. Koro will help them learn how to take advantage of these skills and he’ll have to do so quickly. There are other villains in this world who want to make a move as well as heroes who wish to hunt him. One thing’s for sure, Koro isn’t taking this seriously so neither should we!

That’s the basic premise of the title and the series never really gets much of a plot beyond that. There are various mini arcs and little stories in the middle but they’re all just to further this story goal. We get some basic development for the characters, but it’s all usually wiped away pretty quick. The big developments in the series are the arrival of the elite fighters, Koro’s old protege showing up, and the hero group having a civil war amongst themselves. These plots take a few chapters to resolve. Most of the chapters are just one off fillers that don’t really do much.

So what’s the problem? Well, first off the characters are all pretty terrible. Koro is the instructor but he is the worst possible role model for these kids. He lies a lot, tends to be interested in pretty sketchy material, and never takes things seriously. Half of the problems that the heroes face in this series are all because of him. The guy loves messing with the heroes to the point where it feels like he is actively trying to get in their way. The sad part is that the kids are trying to take him down, they just aren’t powerful enough to do so. There’s not much to talk about with the rest of the characters because they aren’t really characters. They’re like distorted versions of their real selves.

The series also has a fanservice issue which is unfortunate. The least a gag manga like this can do is to avoid a problem like that right? It should be beneath such a series, but this one has it occur quite a bit. A lot of the jokes are about the fanservice as well which doesn’t help matters. This already meant that the series was going to be doomed. As I mentioned earlier, the jokes are also very repetitive. All the jokes about Nagisa are that he looks like a girl but his glitch makes him look like Goku once it is activated. Then you have Karma who has a pot fall on his head every time he starts to brag. Considering that he likes to brag a lot, you see a whole bunch of pots and pans falling on him all the time. It probably happens in just about every chapter. One guy always forgets part of his clothes, etc. Every character is a walking gag and so the joke happens whenever they are present. That’s not how you set up a good comedy plot.

Another problem isn’t just for the series but in general with gag manga. Without a story to get behind or actual characters, there is no reason to get invested into the series. The fact that this is a spinoff is supposed to help since you are already used to the characters from the main series, but it didn’t have the strongest cast of fighters to begin with. As a result this one really didn’t have a whole lot of potential to start with. I’ve yet to meet a total parody gag manga that was very good. You need to have some kind of story like Dragon Ball SD at least. That gives you something to work with. A good gag manga should be like an abridged series. It pokes fun as everyone and everything but still has some kind of a focus of narrative to get behind.

At least the art is fairly good. The characters all look correct from the original series and you can always tell what is happening. You can follow the events easy enough and since the series doesn’t really have a lot of fight scenes it’s not like the series really has to exert itself. In the end, this is at least one positive that I can point to in the series. Even in the image below you can see how the art is actually pretty good. In a different series you would actually expect a pretty hype chapter to follow that. We don’t quite go that far but it’s nice to think about.

It’s also fun to see Goku show up even if it’s only for 2-3 panels at most. The series ends with a bit of a cliffhanger that could be cool for just about any other series so I’ll accept that as well. I think the best positive for the series is that it could have been worse. For as unimpressive as it was in the end, there’s always another level of awful you could get to. This series avoided making any lethal mistakes that would have lost it more points even if it is already a pretty negative score.

Overall, Koro-Sensei Q is not a good manga. The humor is pretty bad and the characters are terrible. I’m still trying to find a good reason why you would even want to read this one and I can’t think of any. If you’re going to get into the franchise then you should read the main series as it is still better than this one. This one brings in all of the worst traits from the original and just magnifies them. The art is good and that’s about all I can say for this series. The best thing to do is to simply avoid it. The title may not be that long but you can still use your new found time to do something else. I actually didn’t realize this got an anime, maybe that version would be a little more enjoyable.

Overall 3/10

Mythical Beast Investigator Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly short manga that I hadn’t heard of before. The Mythical Beast Investigator is a tough role in this series as you have to know a lot about monsters and constantly put yourself in harm’s way. There are some interesting parts of the premise but the series doesn’t last long enough to fully explore them. There is also one story that really ends up bringing the whole adventure down which was unfortunate. You can’t win them all though and at least this is a pretty unique story. It reminds me a bit of Monster Hunter if I had to pick the next closest thing.

The series is 2 volumes long and it’s an anthology. That’s always a risky format of course and I’m afraid that this series was unable to break the curse. Still, there are some solid stories in here. The first one felt like it was the longest story. Ferry ends up wandering to a village that is having a bit of a Wyvern issue. It’s odd because Wyverns do not typically attack humans, but the townspeople are saying that this is the case. Their story doesn’t add up, but Ferry has a job to do regardless. She aims to stop the threat but hopefully without using any violence. She doesn’t have to worry too much about being hurt because she has two bodyguards. First is Trow who’s a little bat thing that can’t really fight. He means well though. The other is the dark king Kushuna who is immensely powerful and basically can’t be stopped. With those two by her side Ferry is pretty fearless which makes sense.

It’s a solid story although some parts of it are pretty dark and don’t make a whole lot of sense. So the dragon always used to hang out with this one girl from the village. One day the village sold her out to another group as they figured maybe the dragon would do something. Unfortunately the dragon was waiting for them to do something so nobody made a move. Now the dragon has decided to murder the villagers to avenge his old friend. It’s great that the dragon is avenging his friend, but he should have helped her from the start. The girl was his friend so he should have made every effort to help her out. That would have made sense to me at least. You can’t just wait for someone else to help out. It’s really not the way that it’s done. The ending is pretty happy though and ends up making this a solid story. It was also the first moment where I realized that Kushuna was the best character.

He is primarily responsible for ensuring that we had a happy ending. He took matters into his own hands. Later on we learn a bit more about his origin story which has some similarities to the dragon’s plight so he was really trying to help. Throughout the series Kushuna is very quick to defend Ferry and threaten all those who would dare to hurt her. He’s vowed to follow her orders and help out whenever possible, but he does say that he can’t obey any order that would put her in danger. As a result whenever she tells him to stand down he won’t if a monster is present. The guy has a lot of style and charisma going for him. Being the strongest monster in the series doesn’t hurt either.

I feel a little bad for Trow because in comparison that guy really doesn’t get to do much. He simply isn’t as interesting as Kushuna and if you cut him out of the story nothing would change. The next story was a lot shorter. The towns folk were worried because one of the eggs that their chicken lay appeared to be a monster egg. It would be one of the most dangerous creatures in existence so Ferry shows up and takes the egg away. The twist is that the egg wasn’t actually dangerous, but fortunately since Ferry took it she was able to ensure that nobody hurt the monster. It was a fun little story.

Next up involved a mermaid who was upset that the men kept leaving. She had a good friendship with one guy in particular and she would always give him lots of gifts. The town would gossip about their friendship a lot though and so the guy came less and the mermaid got bitter. It’s a bit of an odd story and it’s going for more of a romance angle which doesn’t really work all that well. None of the guys would ever be able to stay for good and eventually they would get old while the mermaid is immortal. It’s a bit of an emotional tale, but it wasn’t as engaging as the last few. Next up would be the worst story though so I wouldn’t have minded if the mermaid one had been extended.

Ferry heads to a town where a large water horse had murdered a little girl. The girl’s father has vowed revenge and so he tells Ferry not to interfere since he wants to be the one to end things. Ferry and Kushuna still help out though since the Water Horse is immensely powerful and an old man is just not going to cut it in a fight against such a creature. Unfortunately the man also owned a dog who wanted to avenge the girl as well. It’s a pretty brutal fight and since both creatures are animals it’s not a fun one. In the end the animals both die and you’re left wondering why this story had to be included. You’re happy for the dog that he got to help avenge his owner but it’s a very mean spirited ending where nobody really got to win. In the end everyone lost everything and Ferry really did nothing to help out.

Next up was a quick story about a cat who went to visit an old man. He got startled and injured the cat a bit, but deep down he liked animals so he tried to make things right. Little did he know that the cat sued him so a bunch of them showed up to have a court session. Ferris showed up as well and told the man that he was pronounced innocent. I like to think that she helped plead his case, but it’s hard to tell. She may have just been there to have some laughs. It’s a nice enough story and I’m glad it worked out for the old man since it was an accident and he did his best to make up for it. The cats were right that you should never pick a cat up by its tail though. Same goes for any creature.

After that we got the origin story of Kushuna. It was a little bit on the convoluted side with the time skips and the fact that Ferry looks exactly like his old owner. Why do they have to have the same exact design? I think the manga was going for a reincarnation angle but at least if the clothes were different that would have helped. Essentially she convinces him that sitting alone on a throne all day is pretty boring so they should hang out. He agrees to accompany her and then does the same for the next version of her. It shows why they have such a strong bond since he has her to thank for his freedom from the castle. This was the longest story and goes all the way to the end of the series. It’s a solid way to end off since we had been waiting for his origin since the start. Kushuna’s eloquent way of speaking and protective nature made him a compelling character right away. If only Ferry was as good.

Ferry is more of a blank slate kind of character. She doesn’t have much of a personality and things just don’t seem to interest her all that much. It’s hard to even say how heroic she is. Ferry seems to be a very by the books kind of person who follows the law even if it’s not the right thing to do. I just don’t trust her much and she doesn’t do enough in the series to really change my impression of her. If not for Kushuna constantly stepping in she would have died pretty early on too. Being oblivious may be a charming character trait to some, but it’s not a very practical one when you’re dealing with dangerous monsters.

The artwork is pretty solid though. Even if Ferry looks way too much like her past self, the panels are clear and you can keep up with the action scenes pretty well. You get a nice sense of danger at times. The backgrounds have a good amount of detail and in general are more diverse than you would expect in most titles. A lot of effort was put into this part. While not all of the stories were my favorites, the writing is also good enough. All of the characters sound like they could be real people which is good.


Overall, Mythical Beast Investigator ends as soon as it begins. There really isn’t a lot of time to get enveloped into the world which works as a double edged blade. In general I always prefer for a series to go on as long as possible. Whether it’s good or bad, at least it gives time for some good moments to happen. Just look at Fairy Tail. I may not like the series, but at least it gave us a lot of good action scenes over the years. Maybe this title will continue some day. If you want to see some short stories about monsters then you may like this series. Otherwise I’d recommend reading Dragon Drive instead. It does a whole lot more to fully immerse you in the world of dragons and has a more engaging character cast. A lack of characters does end up hurting this one.

Overall 4/10

Pokemon Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the latest Pokemon movie manga. This one brings back memories as it had the real Ash and not the reboot version we’ve gotten for the last few films. It’s nice to have the veteran that I’m so used to. This isn’t the most exciting story out there, but it’s pretty solid and I dare say that the pacing is better than in the movie. It’s a solid title with some good action scenes and you’ll get to learn more about the new Pokemon.

So the story starts with Ash bumping into a Pokemon named Volcanion. This guy is pretty upset because his pal was kidnapped by a villain and his thugs. They plan to use the metal Pokemon Magearna in their plans. Magearna is a Pokemon that was created by humans much in the same way as Mewtwo and this makes her highly valued among the villains. Volcanion wants to save her, but he spends the majority of the manga getting beaten black and blue by the various Mega Pokemon. Fortunately Ash is here to help. Can Volcanion get over his distrust of humans long enough to join forced with Ash and save the day?

Volcanion can be a bit annoying with how much he doesn’t like humans but I’ll cut him some slack since most humans are pretty dicey. At least Ash is good, but he has no way of knowing that. My real problem is just how weak he is. Ash has to save his bacon many times in this adventure so when the guy still keeps on talking tough it’s impossible to take him seriously. He’s losing to the random villains of the movie and their Pokemon. That’s unacceptable, especially for a Pokemon who is supposed to be super powerful. Volcanion didn’t really leave a good impression on me.

He still looked better than Magearna though. My issue with her is that she has no character. She sort of just stands around as everything happens. I think part of the point is that she doesn’t have full emotions yet or has a hard time expressing them, but I needed her to show a little more agency in the meanwhile. Even just a quick scene where she fights back against the villains when they show up to capture her would have gone a long way. Mewtwo definitely doesn’t let himself get trapped like that.

Meanwhile Ash looked great though. While being stuck to Volcanion is a big inconvenience Ash takes it in stride and gets right into the action. Nobody’s going to stop him from saving the day and Pikachu also gets some good hits on the Mega Pokemon. If not for Volcanion being unable to keep up Ash probably would have taken them all down. This is really Ash at his peak and its one of his best portrayals in a long time. It’s always good to see him getting his props.

Meanwhile the art is pretty solid. At times Ash looks a little out of character and is a bit inconsistent with how he’s drawn, but that’s about it. The most egregious example of this is definitely the back cover of the manga. Where the artist really shines is when the action scenes come in though. The Mega Pokemon all look quite fierce and the attacks are also pretty impressive as well. The scenes are easy to read so they aren’t convoluted but still have a good amount of scale to them. You can tell that the Pokemon here really know how to fight.

I guess there isn’t a whole lot to this title beyond what I’ve said, but that’s part of its charm. It’s not a grand tale or one of the more ambitious Pokemon movies turned into a manga. Effectively it’s just a fun little Pokemon story with Ash showing more Pokemon why hunmans are decently good at times. I doubt we’ll ever see Volcanion or Magearna again, but if we do that would certainly be pretty cool. I also thought the villain was a step up over some of the other villains. Not saying he’s super memorable or anything, but at least he actually had a good army of Pokemon.

Overall, Volcanion and Magearna are probably the weakest points of this manga but as far as legendary Pokemon go I’ve certainly seen worse. Volcanion took a while to come around, but by the end he sees why everyone loves Ash. Ash always manages to get the job done and that’s really the key takeaway here. Pikachu is fun as always the artwork is good so it all flows together pretty well. Whether you’ve seen the movie or not I would recommend checking out the manga. It’s a good way to spend 20 minutes or so and it’s one of the last times you will get to see the main Ash in the manga so it has that going for it as well.

Overall 7/10

Gravity Rush 2: Juuryoku-teki Memai Tsuisoutan Review

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It’s time to look at a really quick manga that adapts part of the Gravity Rush 2 manga. It seems to be about 2 volumes long based on the chapter count. I remember playing Gravity Rush a long time ago so it’s pretty nostalgic to see the characters back in action. Interestingly the series doesn’t cover all of game 2 when I thought it would have. Usually you don’t do that if you’re a one shot or one volume, but 2? I suppose either this series was cancelled or the author just wanted to go in depth on what could be adapted. Either way it’s a fun series although you won’t remember it much after a little while.

Sometime after the events of the first film Kat and Raven get attacked by some monsters. While the monsters don’t prove to be much of a problem they fall into a black hole along with Syd and the three of them get transported to a new world. Kat loses her gravity abilities and Raven goes missing. Kat must now find her friends and prove that her powers aren’t imaginary. In the meanwhile she will have to get along with the civilians of this world and the harsh working conditions that they all have to endure. It certainly won’t be easy but it’s something that she is ready and willing to do. Meanwhile we have some mysterious new villains on the rise who are aiming to sabotage Kat and possibly take over the world.

We don’t really learn what the villains’ plans are in this series. They don’t get time to have any concrete goals and just show up for a quick fight or two. I like their designs though as the main ones seem to be robotic in nature. It’s also good to have some actual enemies for Kat and Raven to fight beyond the little monsters that they always beat up anyway. I’m guessing most of the confrontations with them are probably in the second half of the game which is why we didn’t see them. The bulk of the villain group don’t even appear until the final chapter which is only around 10 pages or so. The cliffhanger ending does help build up a lot of hype for the sequel game though. You really think about checking it out someday.

When Raven shows up again in the series she quickly goes back to being the best character. She’s a fun rival to have around and is the Shadow to Kat’s Sonic. Her abilities may not seem to be quite on par with Kat’s but she does her best against the opponents. We get one nice team up fight with the duo. Admittedly they are fighting a robot who can barely fight back, but I’ll take that over nothing. At least it’s still an action scene to have some fun with. Kat is also a pretty solid character. She’s always optimistic and does her best to help out the town. Once she got her powers back I would have liked to see her stand up to the miners a little more. Surprisingly she doesn’t really do much to resist the villains and just uses her powers to mine more efficiently. I get the feeling that by the end of the game she probably does more about it because it would just strike me as a little odd that she is just going to wait around and watch the whole time.

Meanwhile Syd is a little annoying here. He acts really shady during the game but I don’t think he’s evil. He seems to have some kind of plan that he doesn’t want to share just yet and ends up being more of an obstacle than a help. In general I’ve never been the biggest Syd fan but at least in the first game he would actively help out. Perhaps he would end up doing more as the series progressed though. I suppose there is no rule that you have to help out right away.

The artwork is pretty enjoyable. It can get a little chaotic at times with a lot of things happening all at once, but the calmer pages allow the artist to show off a bit more. Kat and Raven’s designs are very intricate so I imagine that they aren’t the easiest to draw. When you take all of that into account then the series really did an admirable job here. The writing is good as well. The series ends up being pretty vague and distant, but that’s probably hard to avoid given that it is adapting part of a story. You aren’t really given time to care about any of the characters Kat meets in town so the title is at its best when we are getting fight scenes. I do think the writing being better could have let it take off anyway, but as it stands this is still a pretty enjoyable experience.

Overall, Gravity Rush 2 seems like it would be a good game and the manga works as a good intro for if you end up playing the game. I suppose you don’t really need it if you are going to play the game right away though because then you would just be doing some of the same events twice in a row which may get old. I’d like to have an ongoing Gravity Rush manga since that would really allow us to explore the universe more. There’s only so much you can do in a mini series like this one. Nothing really gets accomplished so you have to enjoy the ride. I don’t believe this would have a lot of replay value as a result. There’s nothing negative about the series so it keeps a solid score at the ready, but it’s unlikely you would ever need to read this with how many others there are to check out.

Spider-Man: Fake Red

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This Spider-Man series is off to a solid start. The general premise of Spider-Man vanishing and someone having to take over for him is pretty interesting. I look forward to seeing where it goes and hopefully the series lasts for a long while. I’ll have a review up for it when the series finishes.

Overall 7/10

Death Note One Shot Review

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It’s been quite a long time since the original Death Note came out. Who’d have thought that it would ever end up getting a one shot sequel like this right? Light was one of the most ambitious main characters of all time and definitely a pretty awesome one. His descent from being a guy with good ambitions and ideals to a total mass murderer by the end was interesting. He was the kind of villain who had a fairly reasonable goal which made him fun to watch. Ultimately he could not win though. Can Minoru have better luck?

The one shot takes place many years after Light used the Death Note but was stopped by L. The Death Note is thought of as more of a hoax than anything nowadays. Ryuk has grown bored since without a human to play with he has no source of apples. He decides to bring the Death Note back into the real world and meets up with a man named Minoru. Minoru agrees to accept the Death Note, but he really doesn’t want to murder anyone. Instead he decides that he’ll sell the book and get rich that way. The book will go for an astronomically high amount of money so of course you can’t just tell it down the block. How can Minoru sell the book without being tracked by the cops or L? That’s the main plot of the story and the problem that he has to try and work around which makes for a pretty interesting adventure.

Right away one thing I liked about this series is the modern setting. A lot of good stories from back in the day would be fun to have re-done in the modern times because of how tech changes the equation. Minoru even mentions how most of Light’s plans wouldn’t work nowadays because of the increase in technology although he also concedes that Light would have simply come up with a different plan. It’s cool to get this epilogue to the original series as well. I certainly miss the original L as Near isn’t nearly as solid but it’s still nostalgic to see him. Near fans might not be happy at the fact that he is getting completely dominated for the entire chapter. There is never a page where he has the upper hand on Minoru and I will admit that I was a bit surprised at this. I expected him to do way better.

As for Minoru, I definitely liked him as a lead. He did a good job of not letting the power corrupt him. In the end his decision to part ways with the Death Note may not have been completely selfless, but he did a good job of spreading the wealth and ultimately allowing almost everyone to win. His ending really isn’t fair in a sense since he planned things out perfectly. There was absolutely no way for him to avoid the fate that he ended up receiving so I really can’t take anything away from him there. His bond with Ryuk may not have been as strong as Light’s due to the fact that Minoru seemed to think of him purely as a business partner, but I think they would have gotten along much better had they gotten to team up for longer.

Ryuk is fun as expected and we even get to see another Shinigami here which was nice. Death Note isn’t the kind of series where we are likely going to see all of the Shinigami since that would be for more of an action title, but the more we see the better. We also got to see other countries weigh in like the USA which was cool. The President also handled the situation pretty well here which involves a high stakes bluff. Sometimes all you can do is play the bluff and hope that it ends up working out.

The artwork is top tier as per usual. There is a lot of detail on every page and in general you can see the amount of effort that went into the story. The plot is well thought out and it could have been a good ongoing series if the author had wanted to do that. Hopefully this story is included as a bonus story in a manga he writes or something because it’d be sad if most people never end up hearing about this. It’s probably too short for an OVA, but maybe they could add some extra details. The Death Note franchise should continue in some capacity, there is still so much that they can do with the premise.

Overall, The story is only one chapter so there’s only so much that can be said about it. Still, I had no issues with the story at all. The characters were good and it had a nice blend of easter eggs and new plot developments to keep things interesting. The way that Minoru handled the sale was quite clever and while reading the story the first time you will wonder how he will be able to pull this off. I think the main morale here is not to be greedy. If you try to get too much at once then you will ultimately end up failing but if you settle for a bit then things will work out. Ironically the ending destroys that moral to an extent, but everyone else gets to have a good time so there’s that.

Overall 8/10

The Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts

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Definitely a unique premise for this one. It’s sort of like Beauty and the Beast to an extent. I’m going to need to see this manga go further to see if it really has potential. I’ll have a review for the series up once I finish it.

Overall 5/10

Fairy Tail: City Hero Review

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It’s time to take a look at a Fairy Tail parody that ended recently. Fairy Tail has always been a very tragic franchise because it has some of the best artwork and fights of all time but is heavily held back by the large amounts of fanservice contained in each volume. Would a light hearted parody have the same mistakes? Unfortunately yes. It never gets quite as serious or excessive as in the main series, but there is still enough here to keep this from being the quality series it could have been.

The general premise of the series is “What if Fairy Tail was a police squad instead of a guild?” That’s what the series runs with. Natsu and friends keep the peace in the land and do their best to stop any villains that get the idea of taking over the world. It’s not an easy job but someone’s got to do it. Keep in mind that this is still a parody though so it’s not taken seriously in the slightest. A bunch of villains and side characters from the original series show up and we get homages to other titles, but it’s all in good fun.

The chapters are all pretty episodic with every 2-3 being about a different case. Occasionally you get the hintings of a grander story with Zeref making a move, but that’s fairly rare. The stories certainly do vary in quality with some being very good and others being sub par at best. I’ll take a look at some of the stories although naturally we won’t dive into every one as that would be quite a lot. Before doing that though lets look at some of the technical aspects of the manga.

The artwork is top tier as you’d expect. The character designs are on point and when we do get a fight scene it looks incredibly impressive. You can tell that the artist isn’t phoning this in. There’s a lot of effort here and it’s appreciated since art does play a big role in how good a manga is. It isn’t the critical factor, but every bit helps. The writing is okay, some of the jokes land and others do not. On the whole the tone of the manga is quite good so I’d give that credit over to the writing department. This is a series that is fun to read and you can almost overlook the fanservice as a result. Almost is the key word here.

As always fanservice is the big problem in the series. While it is played for laughs it happens often enough where you are still forced to take note. Characters are teased by others or they get put in dicey situations due to the circumstances of the case. Sometimes the heroes are even used as bait which is always a dicey tactic. It’s never taken too extremely, but merely being present is an issue in itself. The series is pretty consistent with fanservice being in just about every single chapter in the first part and then it surprisingly gets better about that near the middle. Too little too late though so I’m afraid that I have to dock points for this.

All right, lets look at some stories. Ironically enough we’ll start with the final one which was one of the better ones. Basically Zeref is launching his big attack on the Fairy Tail guild, but is this really what’s happening? Some dancing and partying goes on so the heroes think that perhaps they were wrong to doubt Zeref. We get a quick fight with him and Natsu which was certainly cool. The manga has brief flashes where it pretends to be serious and these moments actually do work quite well. The series even ends with the slight cliffhanger where it seems like Zeref still has his real plan at the ready. In this universe I believe Fairy Tail will likely lose.

One story that was good was the parody of Phantom Thief Kaidou. Part of why it is so solid is because it’s a multi chapter story so there’s time for the plot to get going and there was surprisingly no fanservice here. Essentially a mysterious thief is going around stealing artifacts so Fairy Tail is called in to help. Erza in particular has an interest in this thief because he looks a whole lot like her bartender friend. The series makes it pretty obvious from the get go that it’s the same guy, but Erza can be a bit oblivious at times so the plot still works. It was a pretty fun story.

One of the weaker stories is about Lucy and Wendy infiltrating a school to find out what shady business is going on. They’re actually magical girls who defeat their enemies with songs which is likely another reference in itself. What holds this back is that the villain’s pretty iffy and the principal is terrible. The characters are a little too extreme here and the comedy doesn’t hold up. I don’t believe Lucy and Wendy can hold their own story nearly as well as when Natsu and the gang are around.

A good set of stories was Laxus meeting a princess who was undercover. It’s a classic story where he helps her look around the town and she gets to have a day as a normal person away from her royal duties. It’s a pretty wholesome story and the plot usually works pretty well. Laxus getting knocked out by some random muggers was a bit forced for the drama, but fortunately he did manage to get up after that. The story stayed classy and even had a pretty nice ending. It’s easily one of the stronger stories in the set.

There was a one shot story where Rogue and Sting got to appear and they certainly looked really good. They were fun rivals in the main series so it was nice to see them appear a bit here. It’s not very long of course since you can only do so much in a single chapter, but it was a good story all the same. Sometimes you don’t need multiple chapters to really get a fun bit across. Especially in a comedy/parody title like this. You’ve got other one shots with fun plots like the murder mystery of who destroyed Cana, but naturally that one couldn’t help itself and included some fanservice so it’s not quite as solid.

Another good one shot was with Acnologia showing up in the real world and wanting to see if anyone could keep up with him. This leads to him sharing a bowl of ramen with Natsu which was pretty cool. Natsu really shows him up and even has a great closing line about how he doesn’t want to be king before leaving which causes Acnologia to disappear. I suppose that just wasn’t what he was hoping to hear, but at least he got to pass away in peace.

As you can see the series is very entertaining. These could have easily just been side stories included in the main Fairy Tail series, but I’m glad it got its own series. I’ve always believed that it’s good to have as many spinoffs as possible. I don’t think it waters down the series, but if anything enhances it. Give everyone a spinoff, it gives the characters extra development if you ask me and I can’t turn that down. In this series we get to see how the characters would act in a police setting. If anything it’s a good excuse to see all of your favorite characters just hanging out and having fun in a non lethal environment.


Overall, Fairy Tail: City Hero is definitely a unique title. I appreciate the fact that Fairy Tail has expanded into such a wide franchise over the years. It’s really done its best to compete with the other mainstream titles like DBZ, Naruto, and One Piece. I don’t believe it’ll ever quite eclipse any of those titles, but at least it’s still going thanks to the sequel series and may end up running for as long as those 3. If you’re going to read a Fairy Tail series then it’s better to read this one over the main title. That being said I’d recommend reading Ice Trails instead. It’s a spinoff about the best character, Gray, and it just works really well. It’s a story that you just don’t want to miss out on.

Overall 4/10

Fruits Basket: Another Review

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It’s time to look at a recent Fruits Basket spin-off that ended without  a whole lot fanfare. I dare say that a lot of fans of the main series wouldn’t have really heard about this unless they’re were looking for it. It was all very low key which matches the tone of the series as it is a very down to Earth slice of life story. There aren’t any big plots here or a large cast of characters to deal with. It’s a nice enough title but one where not much really seems to happen.

The series follows a girl named Sawa who has a pretty tough home situation. Her mother is always sabotaging her relationships with friends and uses a lot of passive aggressive behavior to keep Sawa from going outside or doing much of anything outside of school. Saw a now believes that she is a bother to everyone. Right now she feels completely trapped but that all begins to change when she bumps into two of the most popular kids in school. They help get her out of trouble and even get her to join the student council. Sawa finally has some friends and activities to do outside of the house for the first time. Can she manage to keep these new friends or will the Mom defeat them as she did all the others?

This is one of those sequels that really has nothing to do with the original title. Outside of the fact that it’s in the same universe and you get a cameo here and there, there is nothing really connecting the two. This could easily have just been a one shot if the author had wished it to be. These kinds of sequels are interesting in the sense that I have mixed feelings on them. On one hand, I like the boldness of not relying on the old characters. Particularly in a slice of life series like this it makes sense to expand the universe with more characters to add some more depth to the place. I also like when it’s a standalone sequel because then I can compare it to the original. Look at Yugioh, that’s the mindset behind that franchise. At the same time, as fun as those sequels are I’ll always still vote for a sequel with a lot of the old characters as the most fun way to do it.

Sawa is definitely not as tough a main character as Tohru which is surprising to say the least since the old heroine wasn’t exactly known for her toughness. Sawa spends most of the series getting pushed around and constantly apologizing. A good portion of this is due to how she was raised. Sawa believes that she is always bringing bad luck to people and that she gets in everyone’s way. Since this is what she has always believed it is difficult to get her out of this mind set. Still, her new friends have made it their mission to do so. By the end of the series Sawa has definitely improved to an extent although she is not quite there yet.

I don’t believe the series was cancelled although the ending makes you feel like it was. The title only has 3 volumes and it just suddenly ends. Most if not all of the plotlines were still going and Sawa’s character arc hadn’t even ended yet. It’s definitely a pretty bold ending but one that you can appreciate. I suppose the author was trying to go for a more realistic angle than the usual everyone turning good at the end kind of thing. By the end Sawa’s Mom still seems like she will be an antagonist and that’s just how things will be for a while.

The best character in the series is definitely Sora. She’s one of the more outgoing members of the Sohma family and is quick to get Sawa’s spirits back up. Sora is very charismatic and can always turn a situation around. She doesn’t see to have any fears or be reluctant to meet new people unlike most of her colleagues. Whenever Sawa was down she always knew that Sora could be counted on and that’s always important. On the other end of the spectrum you’ve got Riku who isn’t particularly great at dealing with people. He can give good advice at times, but it’s rather blunt and so you can only make use of the knowledge if you have a strong character. Otherwise you just wouldn’t have the nerve to pull his plans off. I wasn’t a big fan of his. He’s pretty similar to one of the original Sohma members from the first series and I wasn’t a big fan of that guy either.

Shiki gets a pretty big role in the series. He is the new head of the Sohmas after all or at least in the process of fully going into the role. He’s younger than most of the other members and is fairly emotionless most of the time. He seems like a reasonable kid who does his best to fit in. Unfortunately Shiki does get roped into a romance plot with Sawa towards the end though. I think the series could have gone pretty well without such a pairing. The romance comes in rather late and as the series is only 3 volumes there is absolutely nowhere for this plot to go. Keeping them as friends would have still made for a good dynamic with Sawa still worrying that she caused him too much grief and Shiki trying to get her to realize that he’s over it. He’s definitely not the kind of character who would hold what Sawa’s mother did against her. They are different people after all.

Time to take a look at Mutsuki. He’s one of the main guys in the series and gets a rather large role. He surprisingly has more similarities with Kyo than Yuki at times. While he has Yuki’s positive reputation and is a genius he tends to play the villain like Kyo to get Sawa to realize things. Mutsuki is always one step ahead of the other characters with only Hajime being able to realize his end games half the time. Mutsuki is a solid character. There isn’t a whole lot to him despite the guy always appearing throughout the series, but there isn’t really anything bad about him either. The guy does a good job in his position at school and always tries to seer everyone the right way. Hajime is a little more oblivious as he tends to just lie down in random places which causes people to step on him. He doesn’t really take things like that too personally though and just likes to live freely. He watches out for Mutsuki making sure that the other guy doesn’t take too many things on. For the most part he is fine being a spectator though and just watches over everyone.

We’ve got a pretty solid cast here. The series is more of a slice of life than anything else so there aren’t a bunch of villains or anything like that. The only antagonist here would be the Mom. I do think her confrontations with Sawa can be a bit odd at times though. Half of the time she’s being so passive aggressive that it’s almost hard to read the actual threats. Sawa also never even tries to talk back or explain the situation from her point of view. We can infer that she used to try and since it never worked she gave up but I feel like Sawa needed to be more active. All of their confrontations boil down to her Mom saying a bunch of stuff which Sawa just accepts and then she leaves. It’s never an actual conversation. Sawa also gets surprised when she sees the Mom going through her stuff at one point, but I feel like that’s something she would have already known was going on. She didn’t know the truth about her old friends though so she may have just been a bit oblivious on these things.

The only ones who could really stand up to the Mom were the Sohmas. We find out that she sued them at one point, but they didn’t fold which is good. Having the Sohma family lose to her would have been a pretty odd decision since the whole point of the family is that they’re all rich and don’t bend over so easily. They’ve got a ton of influence even if they no longer have evil members at the ready.

Overall, Fruits Basket Another is a pretty reasonable sequel to the original series. I didn’t like the original when I first read it, but that was a long time ago so I need to give it a second look someday. I did enjoy the recent anime adaption of it after all. Another definitely isn’t as high stakes as the first series and has to condense everything into 3 volumes, but the writing is pretty solid. Aside from the Sawa vs Mom scenes which still didn’t feel real to me and the rushed romance I had no real qualms with the title. The school was a lot more realistic than some with no crazy bullies around every corner. The Sohma family looked pretty solid and it’s just nice to see the franchise back even if the old characters didn’t really show up this time. If you want to read a fun slice of life story about a girl escaping her toxic home and finally making friends then this is the one for you. It’s a pretty upbeat story.

Overall 6/10