Tag Archives: Manga

Fairy Tail Ice Trail Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another Fairy Tail spinoff! The main character just so happens to be my favorite character in the franchise so I was certainly expecting it to be a cut above the rest. It’s a fun little mini series. It’s less interesting than Fairy Tail Zero, but there is certainly more action and Gray is as cool as always. I want to say that Ice Trail is actually the best Fairy Tail manga although it is certainly close. If anything, I just wish the series could have gone on for another chapter or two so I could see Gray take Natsu down in a fight. That would be the best way to end it all.

So, this takes place a little after Ur sacrificed herself to stop an ice demon. Gray has now decided to wander the globe in search of strong fighters. This will be difficult though as many people need his help along the way. Both volumes essentially have their own self contained plot. The first one sees Gildarts enter the fray to help out against a few powerful mages. Gray would have liked to have won on his own, but having a powerful ally isn’t too bad. It’s just a shame that Gildarts isn’t likable in the slightest. He’s easily the worst character in this series and does his best to bring the title down. Luckily, he is written out after the first volume.

It was a fun start. There were a few action scenes here and there. Gray got the hype that he deserves and mops up the pre arc villains pretty easily. Volume 2 sees the inclusion of Pause (I could have sworn that this was not his name in the English translation, but I may as well go with the wiki) and Doronbo. The three of them quickly form a team as Gray tries to find the elusive Fairy Tail guild. The main problem here is the fact that another guild has arrived to destroy the group. Can Gray hold them off until the main members show up?

I can’t say that I liked either Pause or Doronbo. Doronbo starts off as your average crook who also happens to have a pill that essentially freezes time for 30 seconds. At the very least, you move so fast that this is basically the effect. Which, I have to say is a poorly conceived idea since it is way too powerful. Both times it is used in the manga, the culprit should have been successful, but plot hax intervened. Gray simply forgot about the 30 seconds rule when he saw someone he recognized and Doronbo forgot because he was having some ice cream. (Or Cotton Candy) I don’t think that would reasonably happen to anyone after taking such a pill so I think that concept could have been completely removed. Besides that, Doronbo is just annoying. His transition into being a good guy is also extremely sudden and there’s not really any reason for it.

Pause is about as bad as Doronbo just in his own way. His gimmick is that whenever he fights, Pause loses all control. He’ll suddenly make crazy facial expressions and try to wreck everyone until Gray shuts him down. After a plot twist, it also turns out that he is basically just your average villain. He’s not very smart either as he lets the villains mess with him for quite a while before doing anything about it. If not for Gray, he would have been sunk multiple times. The paper power is definitely pretty interesting, but he’ll need more than that to be a good character.

As you can see, Gray basically had to carry the manga on his own. He’s easily the best character here and it’s not even close. Gray saves everyone with his ice powers quite regularly and he’s a great hero. Gray’s as noble as they come and while he may not have been strong enough to take on a bunch of skilled enemies on his own yet, that’ll change. He’s definitely likable as a kid even if he hasn’t reached his prime yet.

As for the villains, they’re basically just dime a dozen in terms of character. They want to beat people up and aren’t afraid to use magic. The villains don’t seem to have thought all of this through very much though since they certainly were never a credible threat to Fairy Tail. Once the leader shows up, it’s basically game over from there. The energy absorption trick that Kafuchi had was fairly neat, but he wasn’t all that impressive aside from that. It was cool to see Gray take out some ice treasure hunters as well.

As mentioned earlier, Gildarts is terrible. Mainly because he’s an extreme flirt who even goes after people that are already taken by another. His overwhelming power is supposed to be an excuse so you can overlook the rest of his character, but that’s just not going to fly. Even in the main series where he has a lot of competition, Gildarts is still near the bottom of the pack.

The art is all right. I wouldn’t call it that good and it can get busy at times, but it’s not bad either. The character design for Gray is decently good and the only character that you could get mixed up once in a while were Doronbo and this one shot Fairy Tail ally who looks just like Gray. Aside from that, everyone else is pretty distinct. The fights are fun as well and Gray punching out a giant energy explosion esque item was pretty hype. He certainly looks impressive considering his age. It just gives me even more fuel when I say that Gray is stronger than Natsu and basically always has been.


Overall, Ice Trails is a solid manga to pick up. You’ll probably forget most of the villains by the end since they scream One Shot with their designs and powers, but that’s okay. The manga helps give you more backstory on Gray and seeing him actually join Fairy Tail is pretty neat. I think it may have been a missed opportunity not to show off some of the other Fairy Tail characters and their first meeting with Gray, but maybe another origin title will deal with that at some point. Gildarts is the only weakness here and that shouldn’t deter you from checking this title out. It’s only two volumes so the series really flows by in no time at all. Hopefully this is the last that we’ll see of Pause and Doronbo. As far as supporting characters go, they were very generic and just not all that likable. Next up on my spinoff list is Fairy Tail Girls. Given the reputation of the franchise…you can probably imagine that this next review won’t be as positive.

Overall 7/10

Yugioh 5Ds Review

Posted on by
6


All right, I have finally finished the Yugioh 5Ds series! To think, I started this title all the way back in 2011. It’s been about 6 years, but it was a fun ride. The Yugioh 5Ds manga may have been a little less ambitious than its anime counterpart, but the same could be said for the rest. 5Ds was a lot of fun and the Yugioh game is simply so great that the manga is still an all-star by the end. I’ll compare it to the other Yugioh manga (plural) a little more in depth later. For now, let’s start with the plot.

Yusei is from Satellite sector so he lived in the slums for a while. It doesn’t get him down though and Yusei still has fun dueling everyone. Things change when a mysterious knight challenges him to a duel with his life as the stakes. Yusei manages to fend him off, but his best friend, Sect is corrupted and turns to the side of evil. Meanwhile, Goodwin (Rich guy who has his own tournament) wants to revive an incredibly powerful dark overlord to do his bidding although his real reason will come later on. Yusei will have to win the tournament and defeat the Shadow Spectres at various sites in order to turn Sect to the side of light once more. There are a lot of other obstacles that he’ll have to overcome, but Yusei is ready to ride to the next level!

The manga invented a concept for the 5Ds series about sense. When you drive fast enough and with a lot of passion, you’ll be able to hit opponents with a blast of sense. So, what is sense exactly? Well, it is basically hitting someone with pure telekinetic force, which is enough to get them off course or even cause serious injury. It makes virtual reality real and allows 5Ds to have Shadow Games to an extent. I actually enjoyed this concept, but I can also see how it might not have worked too well in the anime. If Sense was a real thing, then why would anyone want to actually duel under those circumstances? You would always be putting your life on the line and even if the general public couldn’t access this ability, it would be a little strange. Nothing’s too strange for Yugioh world though and I’m sure that I could have gotten behind it. I’m sure the anime could have made the scenes look really intense.

As you would expect, the art is pretty crisp and clean here. The author does a good job of showing the duels and capturing the intensity of the high stakes rounds. I’d say that the animation probably is a little better than what we have in GX. The monsters all look good and the duels are very easy to follow. Had the series gone on any longer, I’m sure that the art would continue to improve. It is an area that can certainly be counted as a strength for the series.

Yusei is a great character as you will have come to expect from Yugioh. He’s a superb duelist and does whatever it takes to keep his friends safe. I’ve always preferred Jaden and Yami Yugi, but Yusei is certainly leagues above Yugi, Yuma, and Yuuya. His Stardust Dragon is certainly a great ace to have up his sleeve and his synchro summon deck certainly seems well balanced. It’s easy to say that Yusei is the best character here. Sect is Yusei’s best friend and the guy was made up for the manga. He’s not a bad friend I suppose, but he’s just not tough enough for me. I like characters who have a certain flair of confidence of arrogance about them. Otherwise, the character just has to be really good at being a nice guy. I just never found Sect all that enjoyable and even once he got his evil form, it wasn’t all that great. It was an improvement though and at least he finally became one of the big shots. I certainly won’t call him a bad character though and he serves his role fairly well, but I think we could have put Crow in his place and then the manga wouldn’t have needed an original character.

Jack is certainly a major character here as you would expect. He’s as tough as always and I would say that he is the second best character in the manga. He doesn’t really get a chance to become a full fledged hero like he was in the anime, but he serves his purpose as the tough rival who always keeps everyone on their guard. His Red Dragon Archfiend is definitely a really cool ace monster to have at the ready as well. We’ve also got Crow who is more of a friend than a rival. He comes out of the blue a little less than he did in the anime so the character wasn’t as forced. Plus, with most of the characters randomly showing up in the manga at some point or another, he fit in well. Crow’s not a bad character either, but he always felt a little bland when placed next to Yusei and Jack. Not to mention that I don’t think he could hold his own against either of those two. He’s no Joey Wheeler, but Crow’s a good pal to have around. You can never have too many dueling friends.

Akiza is a character who is quite different from her TV show counterpart. For starters, she is actually very popular at school and isn’t a psychic who works for a shady organization. That’s too bad since the plot was definitely a lot of fun in the show, but her new role is handled well. It’s a shame that her appearances were so brief in the manga, but I guess the series couldn’t squeeze everyone in. As it stands, she’s a good character. Leo and Luna have also been altered from the show and the result is a little worse than Akiza. Leo is fairly similar as he panics a lot, but since Luna bosses him around a lot in the manga, it makes things dicey for him. He goes along with her plans since she is the boss, even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with it. Luna is evil for most of the series, I believe that this was in part due to some kind of darkness that had infected her. Either that or it was actually natural and then the duel just showed her the light. The two characters were rather boring and I was ready for Yusei to take them down for the count.

The Skeleton Knight is another new character for the series and he serves as one of the main villains. This guy was definitely really cool and he helped the series start with a bang right from the get go. The stakes were real at soon as he appeared since it meant that the plot was starting early. He doesn’t get to duel a whole lot, but the battles that he does get are satisfying and he lives up to the hype that surrounds him. He may not have a lot of character, but you can’t really go wrong with a solid design and the cool demeanor that he has. Director Goodwin is one of the big villains here as you would expect thanks to the show. He’s a pretty good villain. He certainly won’t be matching some of the iconic foes like Marik, but Goodwin does a good job of ensuring that he is a threat and gives the heroes a really good showdown.

A lot of the other supporting characters from the show appear at some point during the series. Bolt, Officer Trudge, (Ushio), Kalin, and others. Kalin in particular was a really cool character from the show, but he didn’t get quite as much to do in the manga due to the limited amount of duels that could be covered. It was definitely funny to see how many people had a grudge with Jack though. Akiza, Kalin, Yusei, Sect to an extent, etc. Everyone wanted a piece of Jack by the end and at least that goes to show that his reputation really does precede him. Defeating Jack Atlas is always something to brag about since few are able to accomplish this.

So, how does this manga stack up against the other Yugioh titles? Well, Duelist is obviously still the best and I’d put R at second. After that, it starts to get a lot closer between the titles. I’d put Millennium World at third followed by Yugioh GX at fourth. GX is the manga that I haven’t read for the longest time though so it is possible that things will change when I re read it. Who knows, maybe it’ll end up passing Millennium World! Next would be Yugioh Zexal and then Yugioh 5Ds at 6th. Classic Yugioh is easily the worst and hasn’t aged all that well, but how good can a Yugioh series be without a lot of duels anyway? It’ll be cool to see where Arc V ranks on this list once the manga finally comes out.

Overall, Yugioh 5Ds is definitely a lot of fun. I was really hoping that it could get past the 9 volume curse for Yugioh Spinoffs, but no such luck I suppose. It looks like Arc V will have to be the one to do that. The series did a lot in the short length that it had though and each volume is power packed with action and duels. The review is a little short, but keep in mind that I did read this series over the course of 6 years so some of the older events aren’t as fresh as they would have been otherwise. The tournament arc was a lot of fun and there were certainly a good amount of events in the series, but it all continues pretty seamlessly so that’s why you don’t need to spend too much time talking about the plot. In the end, you’re here for the duels an the series definitely delivers on that. In the end, this is just a really enjoyable title and you don’t really have to put too much thought into it. It’s the perfect manga to just pick up and read when you’re in the mood. This is a must read for all Yugioh fans and people who simply like to enjoy a good action story as well. With good art and characters to back it up, the title really has no weaknesses. It is a shame that Leo and Luna fell kind of flat, but I never liked them much to start off with so they have no real effect on the final product. With the final Zexal volume already out, you can expect another Yugioh review soon.

Overall 8/10

Vigilante- My Hero Academia Illegals

Posted on by
Reply

03
I shall have a review for this series when it is finished. It’s off to a decent start and I can easily see this series going on for a long time. It just needs to focus on the action and the concept while not being bogged down by other elements. Hopefully it goes well!

Overall 6/10

Pokemon Hoopa and the Clash of Ages Review

Posted on by
Reply


Considering that the Pokemon anime messed up big time and probably lost a lot of viewers, it is nice to go back to before that time and remember the more innocent days. This film is fairly recent so it isn’t that far back, but it still counts. The movie was fun although I didn’t care for Hoopa’s true form and didn’t like how they overhyped him the whole time. The manga does a great job of fixing that up although it feels super small, even for a one volume one shot. The whole film is being played on fast forward mode and the manga diverges a little bit for fun. It’s a fun little read.

Ash and friends are enjoying some donuts when Ash is thrown into a portal. He meets up with Hoopa and two guardians who have decided that it is time to bring him back to full power. Unfortunately, this causes Hoopa’s true form to go on a rampage as he starts to blow everything up and summons 6 Legendary Pokemon to defend himself. Ash grabs Pikachu and prepares for the fight of his life. He is aided by 3 Legendary Pokemon as well so now he is ready. Can Ash prove that he is the true Pokemon Master and take these clowns down? Time to find out!

One thing that this abridged version makes very clear is that the plot gets a little repetitive. Hoopa’s jar is broken so he turns evil at the very beginning of the volume, but the heroes quickly turn him back to normal. That’s good…but only a few pages later we see Meowth grab the jar and unleash Hoopa once again. In the film, there was a decent amount of fluff so this didn’t happen immediately, but the manga depicts just how quickly these two identical events occurred. It did help us get to the climax very quickly though so that’s always fun.

The original characters from the film were okay, but mostly just generic here. The two protectors remember happier times with Hoopa and one of them gets to help out a little during the climax, but that’s about it. In the end, it really came down to Ash and his friends to save the day as you may have expected. Hoopa wasn’t quite as charismatic as in the film, but he is still a decent Legendary. I still don’t like the Unbound form though. At least he makes for a good villain. I was also glad that the manga fixed some of my issues from the film regarding his power level. He was definitely very overhyped there, but in the manga version we see that Lugia was wrecking him. Had the fight continued on, I’m confident that Lugia would have won here. He had Hoopa on the defensive right from the start.

The 6 vs 3 fight of the Legendaries was also handled a lot better than in the anime. Who hasn’t wanted to see Rayquaza take on heavy weights like Dialga? I do think that the 6 evil Pokemon would have won in the end since the numbers advantage is important and Latias is fairly weak, but it would have been a good fight. Ash was around as well so his Pikachu can really tip the scales. I was satisfied with Ash’s portrayal here. He was eager to help Hoopa out and didn’t back down from a fight. He was even willing to get zapped by Pikachu in order to save the day. His friends felt forced in though and the classic “The future is now!” saying felt a little tacked on as well since it was a really odd way to start the sentence. Ah well, Ash will get new friends soon.

Now, the writing for the manga could be a little odd at times. At one point, Hoopa asked Ash what he would wish for so he could thank Ash. Ash responded with his wish to become a Pokemon Master, but after Hoopa offered to grant this to him, he quickly backpedaled and said that it couldn’t be done. He could have given Hoopa an actual wish or simply declined as he did in the movie. Another moment was when Hoopa told his Unbound version something. I’m going to quote the dialogue word for word so here goes.

Unbound- “You disappear…I am Hoopa. I will be…the one…who remains!” Hoopa- “Ashkan said…he wanted to help you too. I’ll tell you everything about me. So please…..calm down and listen…They’re all waiting for you….You and I should become one again. Hee hee, Surprised? You can have fun with them too!” Then Unbound turns good and the two of them merge. Not only did this conversation use the classic three dots…too often, but it didn’t make much sense. Hoopa said that he would tell Unbound all about himself, but then he didn’t. The conversation didn’t actually go anywhere. Maybe it was a bad translation or something, but the dialogue throughout the manga isn’t great. The other lines aren’t quite that bad at least, but it definitely is something.

The art is very clear at least. It’s not great art or anything as it stays very basic to make it look appealing. It’s good for kids since they can easily understand what is happening and I’ll definitely take this over vague artwork that you see from time to time, but it still didn’t feel really high quality. A good example of a great take on simple art is Bleach. That series got it down to a T.

Overall, This was a bit of a short review, but there isn’t a lot to say about this manga. It did a good job of covering the events from the film, but it probably should have been a little longer as everything was really glossed over. I am glad that the 6 vs 3 fight was extended a little though and it definitely shows that the author had his priorities straight. These one shot adventures are always fun and a great way for Pokemon fans to experience the movies in case they don’t have the opportunity to watch them. It’s a good adventure and while it is not great, you’ll have fun reading it. Even if you’ve never watched Pokemon before, this makes for a good story. After all, you won’t need any previous context to understand what is happening since it is all self contained.

Overall 7/10

My Hero Academia Smash

Posted on by
Reply


This is a little spinoff to the main series. It very lightly retells the story’s events as a 4 koma comedy title. As with most titles of this kind of series, the jokes can get old rather quickly so there isn’t much of a future for it. It’s not all that bad though, but there isn’t much of a reason to read it. I’ll review the series when I finish it.

Overall 4/10

Barakamon

Posted on by
Reply


Barakamon’s off to a decent start. It’s a fairly calm slice of life adventure that will remind you of Yotsuba. I do think that the main cast is already better than Yotsuba which is certainly a good thing. It has the potential to drag on or get repetitive if nothing happens to shake up the daily routine, but I’m assuming that something along those lines will happen at some point. I’ll have a review for this series when it finishes. So long as nothing drastic happens, this series should be pretty safe at its positive score.

Overall 6/10

Puella Magi Oriko Magica Extra Story Review

Posted on by
Reply


After reviewing the Oriko manga earlier, it’s time to look at a one volume AU for it. This volume works as a What If prequel where we follow the two main villains from the last title. While the art has greatly improved, this manga decides to follow Yuma’s plot more, which dooms it in the end. Otherwise, all of the other areas of the core manga have improved so this is a good sign for future Madoka titles. Just keep Yuma’s origin out and we’ll have ourselves a winner!

The manga starts with Kirika having no friends and eventually getting Magical Girl powers. She vents out her frustrations by beating Witches until she finally finds a friend that she used to have. She saved the girl and reminds her to always have hope as she physically defeats the friend’s mental demons and heads back home. It’s a nice little origin story for Kirika and she is already much more likable than how she was in the previous volumes. The fact that her boss, Oriko, is a good guy in this series changes things dramatically since Kirika does whatever the other girl says without question. Of course, a true friend should always be willing to call someone else out so Kirika’s definitely got to work on that.

The real plot starts after this. Oriko happens to run into a little kid named Yuma, who is being hit with child abuse. Unfortunately, Yuma doesn’t want to leave the situation as she believes that being a good kid will take it all away. Oriko isn’t cool enough to break in and actually help Yuma, but at least she does give her some words of advice about the whole thing. That’s good….but helping would have been better. Especially when you consider the fact that she got a vision that Yuma was going to die. I didn’t mention it in this review yet, but Oriko’s magical ability is that she can see into the future. Unfortunately, she can’t control this ability so it happens completely at random.

Oriko doesn’t have a lot of time to rethink her moves either since a magical girl hunter in white has shown up. Her name is Sasa and Oriko is naturally on her hit list along with Kirika. The irony of all this….Oriko will have to fight hard in order to defeat this villain since Sasa has the ability to control other Witches. Still, Kirika and Oriko are fairly powerful so they should be able to handle this challenge with no problems!

So, Oriko’s a decent main character. As I mentioned earlier, she should have helped Yuma out more. Besides that, Oriko doesn’t really do anything wrong. She decides that instead of murdering every other magical girl like in the main manga, she’ll just go and fight the final Witch as best she can. We can assume that she died in this battle since even Homura couldn’t win in the TV show, but who knows…maybe she can pull it off. Either way, it’s much better than just trying to destroy someone. Hopefully the irony of Sasa trying to assasinate her and Kirika really hit home. It’s amazing how different a character can be in a what if though. The single difference of meeting Yuma before making her plan is hinted to have been the deciding point. (At least according to the volume) It’s hard to imagine Oriko’s personality changing so drastically, but it’s definitely a good thing since she was a very unsympathetic villain in the first series who was pretty bad.

Kirika’s also much better. She’ll still follow every order and while she talks about friendship, it comes across as hollow due to this. Naturally, Kirika looks a little weaker now that she’s one of the protagonists, but that’s a classic manga/anime trope so it’s to be expected. When she’s not around Oriko, Kirika is typically a lot more independent and heroic and that’s why she looked so good in her origin story. I don’t think the dynamic of Oriko and Kirika would make for great banter so I’d hope that more characters would be introduced in a long running series. Especially since the manga keeps trying to pair these two up and has a lot of teasing between them. Focusing on the action is much better.

Especially since we can finally see the action scenes this time. The art really has improved and it is leagues ahead of the first two volumes in the Oriko series. Those were almost unreadable at times while this one looks more like your standard action manga. It’s still not incredible, but it certainly rises up to an average level and is clear enough where you can easily get what is happening on every page. I was pleasantly surprised to see this.

As for the main villain, Sasa was okay I suppose. She fits the bill as the villain and her army of witches is also fairly impressive. She’s certainly very greedy since she wants all of the Grief seeds for herself, but this strategy definitely seems risky. Why go out of your way to attack other Magical Girls when there are already so many seeds to grab? Well, I guess she needed some kind of motivation. Her design was a little on the generic side though.

Finally, Yuma’s a good character. It’s too bad that she had such a tragic past though. The topic of child abuse is a little too dark for this title and especially since she actually died in one timeline. It shows that this threat was quite serious and it took Yuma too long to get out of there. It was great to see the grand parents show up and take her away. I would have liked to have seen a prison announcement for good measure as well, but this was a great start.

Overall, While this volume’s art was significantly better than the main series and Oriko/Kirika were greatly improved as characters, it was not able to beat the main title. I really missed having the main characters of the TV show around since they really held up the first manga. The fights were solid and since this was a single volume, the pacing was very quick as well. It’s an easy 7 if not for Yuma. If you don’t mind a dark plot like that, then I believe you’ll be able to enjoy this manga a lot more than the other one. If it is an issue, then I recommend checking out the two volume Oriko series instead. The art may be bad, but at least you’ll get to see Homura, Kyoko, and Mami with solid roles. They look really good and have the best scenes in the series. With this volume now complete as well, I look forward to seeing how the next Madoka manga titles fare. I’m still waiting for a definitive one!

Overall 3/10

Puella Magi Oriko Magica Review

Posted on by
Reply


Well, it’s time to take a look at a short Madoka Magica What If story. Since Homura went back and forth in time to save Madoka so often, it makes sense that sometimes things would turn out very differently. This manga plays out like that as this universe has a new magical girl who can see the future and she decides to do something about it. Unfortunately, while the plot/concept are fairly good, the manga really fumbles the ball with the poor dialogue and really bad art. What should have been a home run knockout instead turns into a manga that just barely breaks even.

The plot involves three new characters who were made up for the series. Yuma is a girl whose parents were destroyed by a witch. Kyoko was able to vanquish it, but not in time to stop Yuma from being an orphan. As a result, Yuma tags along with Kyoko for a while and eventually becomes a magical girl with healing abilities. She makes for a good support fighter to have on the battlefield. Unfortunately, Kyoko then hears that someone is going around destroying magical girls so she sets off to stop this.

Meanwhile, Mami is actually the one who gets in on the action as she does a lot of sleuthing so Oriko deems her as a threat and sends Kirika to dispose of her. This will be a tough fight for Mami, but luckily Homura is also around and Kyoko manages to enter the fray as well. Can the classic Magical Girls defeat this pair of evil fighters or are they doomed in this timeline!?

Everything about this manga is a little off. Let’s go back to the art first since that’s probably the biggest issue here. It’s incredibly hard to see what’s happening during the fights. The art is all over the place and the character proportions don’t have any consistency. The facial expressions are downright crazy like one that I attached to the bottom. Homura’s face just makes no sense considering that she just blocked Kirika and is poised to win the fight. This is an issue that affects all of the characters throughout this two volume series. It’s so chaotic that it’s actually a lot clearer to read the series online since it is just one page at a time on a white canvass so everything is a lot easier to read through. Of course, this should never be necessary for a manga and still doesn’t make the actual quality any better. This is certainly a contender for worst artwork in a manga.

The pacing is also very odd. The first volume focuses almost completely on Kyoko and Yuma as they bond and fight witches together. It’s even mentioned by Kyoko that there are no other magical girls around since they’ve all been destroyed by the Magical Girl hunter. Then we cut away to Madoka’s town where there are Magical Girls everywhere. Mami just shows up out of nowhere and instantly becomes the main character for the second volume. Timeline-wise, this basically gets us to the start of the TV series except that Kyoko and Mami already know each other and Homura is a lot meaner than usual. In this timeline, Homura decided to be Madoka’s friend right from the get go and threatens anyone who even gets near them.

The tragic backstory for Yuma was also pretty unnecessary. She had bad parents which traumatized her as a kid so now she feels like everyone is going to abandon her. Yuma does a good job of coping with her powers and becoming a dependable ally at least. She ends up giving the heroes the pep talk that they needed to continue the fight. That being said, only having healing abilities is definitely a pretty big liability in a fight and I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of her design. Nonetheless, she’s not a bad filler character I suppose.

On the other hand, Kirika is a fairly underwhelming villain who isn’t really likable. She really wants to please Oriko and doesn’t really care to think about anything else. She forgets all other details because they apparently take up too much space in her mind. As a result, she’s the perfect killing machine for Oriko to use. Her abilities aren’t bad as she can slow down an opponent and has a lot of magical knives to use against her opponents. She nearly defeated Mami so that’s definitely a pretty impressive feat. It’s not enough to make her a good character though.

We’ve also got Oriko, who is the main villain here, but she’s no better either. She saw the future and immediately pulled a Bruce Wayne from Batman V Superman, but takes it to the next extreme. “Everyone has to die!!” is basically her view as all magical girls are far too dangerous since they can turn into Witches. I’m assuming that after she destroyed them all, she would end up destroying herself and Kirika as well. She’s very unhinged as the manga shows. Her power is basically precog and she has some exploding energy balls as well. She’s certainly not that great in a fight. I also don’t get why she encouraged Yuma to jump into the fray as that just adds another target for her to destroy, but maybe she just has fun this way.

As for the real characters, Madoka and Sayaka don’t really get to do anything in this version. Neither one of them has powers after all as Homura has gone to great lengths to ensure that they never get them. At least Madoka realizes that Homura isn’t helping the other heroes out and is only protecting Madoka so the heroine calls her out on it. This doesn’t work all that well though and then Madoka just walks into the battlefield to help out. This wasn’t her greatest plan, but she was a solid character as always. It’s certainly in character for her to try and help out.

Kyoko gets a rather large role as you would expect. She looks pretty good. Unfortunately, Kyoko never really gets to test her mettle against the villains, but I’d say that she would have held her own quite well. It’s definitely hinted that Mami and Homura are stronger, but being the third best isn’t all that bad. Getting depressed for a few pages after learning about the Witch revelation felt rather out of character though. It was pretty forced in there. While Kyoko isn’t good at being a nice person, at least she tried with Yuma.

I didn’t care for Mami in the TV show because she cracked under pressure and tried to murder the whole cast, but she did a good job here. As always, she also got depressed towards the end, but at least she was just willing to let her friends die and didn’t actively expedite the process. I know that strength shouldn’t really affect how much you like a character, but it really did help her case a lot when she was able to defeat Kirika. If she had lost that fight, I definitely would have been a little upset. As it stands, she did a good job of using strategy to claim victory and proved to be the second best character in the manga. The franchise really loves to hype her up as one of the strongest fighters, but I’d definitely say that Homura deserves the number 1 spot.

Naturally, Homura was my favorite character in the manga. She got a lot of hype from the villains since she already knows the truth about the Witches and has seen the end of the world multiple times. To Homura, this predicament is nothing new as she’s been through a lot over the years. Homura’s time stop ability is still super useful as well and I dare say that she probably would have been able to beat both villains on her own. I was hoping for more of a direct win without any help, but the end result was fine. This version of Homura definitely doesn’t mess around as she goes for the kill shot the instant that she sees the two villains and even tries to trick them by pretending to negotiate. Homura was really handled well although she was a little too drastic when Mami just tried to talk to her. Seriously, Homura spends about 90% of her time threatening or trying to destroy someone in this manga.

Unfortunately, the ending is quite bad. It’s not horrendous in part due to the fact that Homura is here so the ending has no real stakes. Had the series been longer or Homura was not in the equation, then I think the ending would have hurt the manga more. As it stands, it just doesn’t make much sense and I don’t like how it allowed Oriko to get one last laugh. There’s no way that this plan should have worked to even the slightest degree. Even Kyubei wasn’t too thrilled with how things played out and usually he’s grinning from ear to ear.

On the bright side, since this manga is only two volumes long it has to move at a very rapid pace. Volume 2 in particular feels like an abridged series as all of the characters just quickly meet up and get ready to rumble. It’s a lot better than the first volume if you ask me and if the series had kept going on for a while maybe it could have redeemed itself. Of course, the pacing may have been slower so the whole thing could have backfired instead.


Overall, This manga spinoff wasn’t very good. There have been several titles that have come out for Madoka Magica and this one technically has one of the cooler sounding plots. Hopefully the others are better at the actual execution of it. Some of the other manga out there definitely sound promising and it wouldn’t be hard to top this one. The art is just so bad for this manga and the writing was sub par as well. Throw in the aspects that are Yuma’s random tragic past and the only thing that really keeps this manga together are the characters from the TV show. They’re still a lot of fun to follow and the action scenes were fun/hype even if they were hard to read at times. If you’re a big Madoka fan then I recommend this title since it’s great to see the cast in anything since the show was so short. It makes titles like this a lot easier to swallow since you’ll jump at anything. It’s why I want a big Madoka fighting game to help fill in this void. Ah well, just don’t go in expecting anything too good or you’ll be gravely disappointed. Keep your expectations tempered and you will have some fun with this manga.

Overall 5/10

Pandora Hearts Review

Posted on by
13

PandoraHeartsVol1
It’s time to look at a rather confusing and convoluted manga. This one lasted for a very long time so it got to set up a lot of plots and then end them. As opposed to other series, I didn’t find the ending all that rushed, which was definitely a good thing. At the same time, I can’t say that the series was that good though. While it never turned into a train wreck like Black Butler, it ultimately never got to be all that great either. 07 Ghost was a confusing title, but one that had potential and I think a re-read of it makes the series all the more interesting. With Pandora Hearts, I don’t believe that going through the series again would make it much better because it still has a lot of negatives that can’t really be scrubbed away. If anything, reading it in such a quick batch would likely just make me remember more negatives that I may have forgotten otherwise. As you can tell, this won’t be a very positive review. The series isn’t terrible though so the score won’t be super low, but low enough to keep it under the line.

The series follows Oz, a member of royalty. He was cast into the Abyss, which is the home of demons. They are called Chains in this series though and you can make a contract with them. It comes at a great price if you don’t do this the right way though and as a result, Oz now has a timer on his life. Once it goes down enough, he will die. Using his partnership is naturally now recommended all that much. One day, Oz meets up with his Chain, the B Rabbit. Her human form is that of a little girl who doesn’t know all that much about human customs, but she likes eating and can fight very well. This works for Oz as he finally has another fiend. His butler, Gilbert is the other. The heroes decide to help Alice (B Rabbit’s human name) find her memories, but this will put them in the way of many powerful aristocrats and evil organizations who have their own plans for this unique chain.

That’s the plot from the beginning at least, but it changes rather drastically as the series goes on. If you thought that you’ve read a convoluted manga before, I can assure you that this one is even more so. I pride myself on the fact that I never really get lost in any movie, anime, manga, or other form of media. This one is no exception, but sometimes it will be tough to get what’s happening. My advice is to just take it in stride. Whatever you gleamed from the scene you should simply add to your head canon and continue from there. That’s the way to do it if you ask me.

Now, what holds this series back? Well, there are a few things. For one, this is one of those mangas that can go a little overboard with how violent it is. In particular, this usually applies to the flashbacks, like one which involves Alice and her true origin. The massacre is mentioned and hinted at several times before appearing and it manages to live up to the name. In the present, the violence never gets to be all that bad so it’s really just flashbacks which make things dicey. The past can also be very dark at times, which can also be a bit much.

For example, one character is basically born to die. She must be sacrificed in an old ritual that has survived throughout the many centuries. Even her brother, who is a super honor bound guy that everyone looks up to decides not to try and save her. On the contrary, he is the one to do the deed. To fulfill an experiment, another scientist asks Alice if she wants to have a kid right before she dies and she agrees to it. That was really random and also pretty nonsensical. Alice’s ancestor should never have agreed to such a thing. It definitely cheapens her character. As a result of all this, the real Alice ended up being born in darkness and not having much of a life to start out with until she met Oz. Even from there, the other Alices all try their best to mess things up for Alice before going through quite a few 180s until they decided on a personality.

Unfortunately, the art is also not that good for this title. Quite a few of the characters have identical character designs so they all start to blend together for a while. By the end of the series, I was finally able to distinguish one of the blond villains from the other, but it certainly took a while. The art also can’t keep up with the fight scenes so whenever a battle occurs, you end up missing a lot of it. We get large visuals and double splash pages, but there’s simply too much happening for the page to contain it all and things get rather crazy. The artist could take some tips from how Bleach handles its fights.

I can say that there was some clear improvement from the start of the series to the end though. The artist certainly did his/her best to make the action scenes more legible. We also got many cool closeups and images of the hero with his monster/chain in the background. Two of the images that I used for this review are examples of that. The series had a lot of epic visuals throughout which is why its a shame that the series ultimately wasn’t better than how it turned out. The concept still could have been great and I think that Pandora Hearts could have been a great success if it had played it straight and acted as more of a standard action title with each character being able to summon his/her chain to do battle with. It could have been a tournament series of just an average Shonen battle manga. This didn’t happen, but it would have been neat.

All right, let’s take a look at the characters. Oz is the main lead in this series. He can be a decent main character at times as he tries to be a nice guy who gets the job done and takes out the villains. Unfortunately, he is very similar to Ciel from the Black Butler series in the sense that he also tends to crack a lot and go off the deep end. He goes on a big murder spree a few times through the series. Usually it’s because he’s either being mind controlled or the villains decide to push his buttons, but he does let loose quite a few times. It makes it a little harder to take him seriously later on when he’s giving friendship speeches. His weapon of choice (Large scythe) is pretty cool though and I’m glad that he can fight a little. I wish he were stronger so he could put up more than just a little fight, but it’ll do for now I suppose. What Oz needed to be a better character is a nice injection of confidence and consistency.

Alice was a likable heroine. I think she would have worked a lot better as the main character instead of Oz. She never seemed to fall for the villain mind games that Oz and Gilbert always stepped into. Her only annoying trait was that she always tended to act very uncivilized and would bite Oz as a greeting once or twice since she thought that was normal. It’s not taken to extremes like with other characters though so it was manageable and in the end she is one of the better characters. Having her as the lead over Oz would have been a great idea. Just seeing her deal with the other 3 Alices and convincing them to see things her way is an example of why she’s so good.

We’re going back to inconsistent characters with Gilbert though. He’s someone who I wouldn’t trust too closely. Technically, his goal is to protect Oz and that’s what he does for most of the series, but a spell was placed on him which sort of forces him to betray Oz at one point. Suffice it to say, this did not help his case one bit. I know that mind control’s an iffy thing, but it’s always a little hard to recover from that. Beyond this scene, he wasn’t all that bad. He did a decent job of protecting Oz and he did have a chain so at least he could fight when necessary.

Oscar is Oz’s uncle and the guy was definitely nice. Despite the tragic origin stories that came to light later on, he always had a positive disposition and cheered Oz on whenever possible. Unfortunately, he was also completely powerless and never really had an effect on the story. On the other hand, Zai was a pretty terrible character. He’s Oz’s Dad and basically a villain who hid among the rest of the cast. He barely appears and really only shows up to insult Oz and get the main character into another Shonen depressed state. The guy really didn’t have a purpose here at all.

Vincent is one of the antagonists although he tries to act like a good guy at times too so he’s really all over the place. Needless to say, I definitely didn’t like this character. He made some decent threats at times I suppose, but for the most part he was really just all talk. It doesn’t help that he got a fairly generic design within the realm of this manga. It’s a good design for the average series, but here it just looks similar to everyone else. There’s nothing really likable about him.

Echo’s a fairly decent character. She doesn’t really have any emotions, but gradually starts to get them during the series. Out of nowhere she does obtain a split personality though with a being named Noise. It acts as a puppet controller which can manipulate her actions and tries to sever her bonds. It definitely leads to some dark moments for the character and does wreck everything for her. Echo’s a likable character, but it’s a shame that she was really losing the mental battle against Noise. What happened to the heroes having strong will power? There is a lot of mind control in this series so it doesn’t stop with Echo.

Next up is my favorite character of the series. Elliot felt out of place amidst the others because he had a great moral compass and never wavered in his trust in justice. He constantly called everyone else out on the corruption afoot and he didn’t need any special powers to fight it out with the others. He only used a normal blade to fight for his ideals. I suppose that I can’t say much else due to spoilers and such, but needless to say I wasn’t crazy about how things played out for him. In my eyes it was a mistake on the manga’s part. Granted, it was certainly unexpected so I’ll give some kudos there.

Leo is one of the worst characters in the series and I certainly couldn’t stand him. Originally he started out as a soft spoken guy who always liked to throw insults for no good reason. It was supposed to grow on you, but it just came across as irritating the entire time. In the second half he gets a lot more vocal, but it’s because he’s being partially mind controlled for these sagas. Either way, it didn’t do anything, but make me lose even more respect for the guy. Leo’s powerful, but verrrry annoying and unlikable.

Break isn’t all that much better. He’s the “hype” character of the series who can even fight when he is completely blind. That’s impressive and all I guess, but he’s always very cryptic and it’s hard to find him likable at all. He’s certainly no hero and will do anything if it means that he will be closer to his goal. He’s one of those characters that no side can trust, but he doesn’t pull off this role all that well. Sharon is one of the main heroines, but her role is rather small. She can actually fight to an extent, which is nice, but she didn’t really do anything in the grand scheme of things. Getting into a fight does keep her from being too generic or powerless at least.

Rufus appears as the first big villain in the series aside from the Baskervilles. That’s how he appears at first, but then he starts switching sides like crazy. It doesn’t help that he’s a member of royalty either so nobody dares to mess with him. Even the heroes just allow him to have free reign the whole time. He gets a plot twist near the end, which does nothing to help him. After all of the hype that he got, Rufus didn’t do much with it.

Reim was a fairly good character. He was a loyal sidekick who would take a bullet for his friends. (And he did just that) He never became one of the more important characters, but sometimes the minor ones are the guys who steal the show. We’ve also got Jack, who gets a number of plot twists. They all serve to make him less and less likable until he ends up being one of the meaner/crueler characters in the series. At first it seems like he’s at least being evil in order to save someone, but then it turns into more of a classic revenge story, but on someone who doesn’t seem like she’s earned his wrath. Jack’s plot really makes no sense no matter how much they try to make him sympathetic. His plot is all over the place and he can’t even trust himself. It’s a shame since he started out as one of the more likable characters. When he told Oz the truth about the Rabbit, I did actually enjoy that twist.

As for the Baskervilles, they don’t actually get much character development. One of their members is a little girl who likes to murder people after playing them. On one hand, she acts rather innocent, but then that seems to be a facade on other occasions. By the end, it’s unknown which side was real since the manga plays up both aspects. There’s also an older lady who seems a lot more reasonable and offers to help prevent the end of the world depending on what the higher ups say. There’s a guy who is around to punch things…..that’s basically his role. You’re left to wonder why these villains work for the big boss since they seem rather confused about the whole situation as well. Why do they know some things and how do they ultimately fit in with this mystery? In the end, that is a mystery which engulfs the other mysteries. It may have been mildly explained at some point, but this group never gets a big flashback to flesh them out. Ah well, maybe a bonus chapter or a post series interview dealt with that.

The series takes a lot of cues from Alice in Wonderland so fans of the classic fantasy stories will likely enjoy this series a little more than they would otherwise. It’s definitely a nice tribute to those classics. I mentioned earlier that reading the series from beginning to the end in a quick batch or two probably wouldn’t help the series, but I thought I’d add a disclaimer that it could be the reverse. I really can’t say for sure until I re-read the series and it could be a long time until I do that. Naturally, it’s always a lot more fun to read a series all the way through with no interruptions, but that’s really not possible until a series is over and even then, only if your local library has it all or you already own the series. Plus, the double edged sword is that you will remember everything. The good and the bad will both be a lot more fresh and you simply have to hope that the former wins out. This series made it to 24 volumes and did get a pretty big fan base. There’s a lot of content to be found here so if you enjoy the characters, it makes sense that you would like the series a lot. It really just needs to start on the right foot for you.

I will also give the manga some props for the fact that it really didn’t have any fanservice. Perhaps I am forgetting something, but as far as I can recall, there was none of that to be found here. Considering how long the series lasted, this is actually quite the feat. It’s sad that this is actually a super rare occurrence, but that’s just how it is nowadays. The manga stayed classy throughout and I also can’t recall any animal violence although I say that with far less confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened at some point.

Overall, some may appreciate that the series is so convoluted, but that was not the case with me. As mentioned earlier, the series never got very bad and I certainly wouldn’t compare it to titles like Black Bird, Vampire Knight, or Black Butler, but I also don’t really want to put it in the same conversation as Pokemon Rescue Team or even the Kirby manga. At the very least, you can have some fun reading this manga and it is all very interesting even when it’s not all that clear what is happening. Complexity isn’t always a good thing. Typically it is as juggling several different plots at once can make for a fantastic read in the end, but it has to be juggled well. This series didn’t do that and the art certainly help its chances either. I’d recommend skipping on this title and if you want a good manga with a lot of depth, go read Death Note instead. I can guarantee that you will not be disappointed. (Now that will be a fun retro review at some points.) Still, if you do check this out, be sure to let me know what you think of it in the comments.

Overall 4/10

Twin Star Exorcists

Posted on by
Reply

8145jUPMyeL
Well, I’ve started another new series! This one comes off as a little generic at times, but the action scenes are good and the main character has his moments. I am slightly worried that this series will be one of those titles where the main characters are completely outranked throughout the entire series, but maybe their power ups are close. I’ll have a review for the series when it’s done.

Overall 7/10