Kirby’s manga has finally begun to get translated. It’s off to a fun start and the jokes are going over a lot better than the equivalents from the Mario series. The art is also solid so this could be a fun series. I’ll review it when I’ve finished the series.
Overall 6/10
Deathmote and DBZ are titles that come to mind when asked about which manga to recommend to people. If they are looking for something deep and thought provoking then they end up going for Death Note. It is very accessible to all readers, but the manga that we are looking at today is just as accessible and I dare say that it may even be more thorough and complicated than the former. Liar Game goes all out with complex rules and several things going on at once much like Hunter X Hunter. The ending may be a bit sudden, but it was a fairly clever way to wrap up and will go down as one of the more satisfying titles. I would definitely be open to a sequel.
This adventure starts off with an unassuming Japanese citizen (Nao) who receives a black letter inviting her to the Liar Game contest. In the first round she is to be paired against her teacher. Each player starts out with one million dollars and the objective is to steal as much as possible before the round ends. Whoever has the most in the end will win. The main character doesn’t want to play this game though and she is also super gullible. Luckily, she enlists the help of a criminal genius (Akiyama) who single handily took down a large company. He agrees to help her put, but the rounds continue to get more and more difficult. Not to mention that Akiyama isn’t the only genius around. For the most part, quitting is not an option although the whole thing seems pretty illegal so I’m a little skeptical. The Liar Game officials told Nao that the cops wouldn’t help, but they can’t be trusted. Regardless, Nao ultimately declines all offers to leave anyway since she wants to save everyone.
While good Seinen titles are a little harder to find than Shonen ones, they can certainly pay off in big ways. For example, this title has no fanservice in it and very little animal violence. These two qualities can help quite a bit especially when coupled with the fact that the story is so good and well written. There are really no negatives to be found here. The threat of what may happen to the participants who lose is rather dark, but luckily it never happens and that part would also be quite the stretch as you would assume that the cops would prevent this. (Gotta factor in the plot twist as well)
While it gets very low screen time, the animal violence is definitely regrettable. It really wasn’t needed and Mice always getting the short end of a stick certainly got old a long time ago. It is hard to find the villain likable at all after pulling a stunt like this. I suppose that the art isn’t very good. Akiyama always looks dead tired and Nao tends to always have her eyes extremely wide open. These traits can be a little humorous at times and the art is never hard to read, but it could still be a lot better. This isn’t exactly Bleach level art but I wouldn’t call it much of a negative either. At the very least, it’s not hard to read. The series does have some pretty fun splash pages and exaggerated heads for when the characters are panicking as well.
What really separates Liar Game from other thrillers is how detailed and thorough all of the rounds are. There are a lot of rules and each of them build off of each other. There is always a way to win the game though so you just have to really apply yourself and think it through. Liar Game also has fun giving you incorrect solutions via the side characters which sound really good until Akiyama crushes it. Even Akiyama will occasionally get tricked as every good plan can also have a counter and he isn’t the only genius around. The plans which are not full proof can still work so long as you don’t happen to be surrounded by geniuses. A game as simple as musical chairs can quickly become very strategic as the characters analyze every aspect of it.
As with Hunter x Hunter, the characters do seem to overthink things to an extent though. After a while, you are over thinking the opponent to the point where you are just assuming that they are following your train of thought. Several of Akiyama’s plans revolve around concepts of human nature, but those don’t always hold true. His plans could have been foiled at times if more headstrong characters had shown up although most of those were weeded out early on.
As you may have surmised by now, Akiyama makes for a very good main character. Surprisingly we never get a long flashback to take a look at why he destroyed a large company. The company was corrupt, but a few lines on the subject is all that you will ever get here. That works for me to be honest since flashbacks can be annoying to read through at times. It’s good in the long run for universe building, but it can hurt the flow of a manga. Flashbacks and origin stories should be put in the back of a manga volume as opposed to being seen as normal chapters that interrupt the story. Granted, this flashback probably would have been a lot of fun since the writing has been on point for the rest of the adventure. It was not needed to cement Akiyama as a great lead though. He has no gimmicks or negative traits. He simply hatches a plan to defeat the puzzle and moves on. He has a subtle character arc as Akiyama initially makes all of his moves based on logic and calculations, but eventually starts to put a little stock into emotions. Playing on someone’s emotions is a strategy, but I don’t mean it in that way. It’s more that Nao gets him to believe in people a little more when he didn’t think much of them at first. Akiyama is very serious for 99% of the series so it is very rare to see him having any fun, but he doesn’t mind gloating a little as he explains how he won. He is pretty much a perfect main character.
On the other hand, Nao can be very annoying at times. It is great that she chooses to believe in people, but the sad truth is that a lot of people cant be trusted. Seeing her tell a bunch of strangers Akiyama’s plan was quite sad. Luckily, Akiyama is great at adapting on the fly and eventually he probably even considered the chance that she could make a mistake into his ideas. Nao is also one of the only characters I can think of at the moment to be betrayed by the same character on multiple occasions. Her naivety at the beginning is very extreme to be sure. Her character arc is about how she learns to be a little smarter and more cunning. She finally lays some traps down. She doesn’t like to use underhanded tactics and prefers not to lie, but she stops being manipulated by the rest of the cast, which was a huge improvement. I definitely think that she was a little too extreme in the beginning, but Nao does stand for all the right things. She wants to help everyone rather than just winning and escaping this tournament. Nao is definitely a nice person and now she has learned that this does not have to be synonymous with being a pushover. Nao from the end of the series is a really good character so in the end I’d say that she is likable. She is nowhere near Akiyama, but few are.
I’d also like to take a moment to give the series some major kudos for not squeezing in a romance here. Akiyama and Nao were partners from the beginning of the series to the end. They had a good dynamic and helped each other out when one of them ran into a hole. A lesser series would have immediately decided to run with this and make them lovers, but Liar Game had more restraint than that. The two are close friends, but nothing more.
Harimoto is one of the two big villains in the series. I would definitely put him under Akiyama and Yokoya when it comes to raw intelligence, but he certainly is skilled. There is a big plot twist about him towards the very end which nullifies this to an extent. It was surprising and I wouldn’t say that it was necessary, but it did make another character become more compelling. Harimoto is old so he is lucky that most of the games are not physical. One of his followers gets a large role as Nao tries to convince her to leave Harimoto. That was a subplot that I would definitely take out. It dragged on quite a bit and the follower never became a likable character.
Yokoya is the main villain and he is certainly very smart. I’d say that Akiyama is smarter as he has to win with more limitations. Yokoya is rich and he is willing to use his fellow contestants. That automatically gives him a leg up on Akiyama so when he loses, it is that much more impressive for the hero. While Yokoya makes for a very imposing villain, I wouldn’t call him a likable one. As mentioned earlier, he does go for animal violence a few times which doomed him from the start. I also didn’t really buy his final moments as it felt out of character. I suppose that he had to choose his words carefully at that moment though. He needed to save some face and this may have been the best way to do it.
Fukunaga is one of the first villains who ultimately ends up helping the heroes. He is a fan favorite judging from the comments. He is decently a smart character, but can never seem to back up his tough talk. He is constantly conceding defeat before the round is actually over and serves as the voice of doom. He resorts to being physical a lot more than the other main characters and also messes with the villains through mind games. I can’t really say that Fukunaga is my kind of character, but he’s an interesting one. At the very least, he does help Nao quite a lot during her more gullible days. There are several other supporting characters in the series, but most of them aren’t all that important aside from their roles within the game.
As there were quite a few games in the series, I thought that I should go in depth with at least one of them. There were a lot of solid ones like the Musical Chairs and the 4 Way Tower Fight, but those are actually some of the weaker ones when placed next to the other rounds. One of the best games was definitely the “Airport Showdown” level! It’s a classic game of bluffing. There are two teams, one is security and the other acts as the smugglers. Each team switches roles after each turn and the game typically has a lot of turns so there is room for the mental battles. You can choose to smuggle a maximum of 100 million or nothing. The inspector must guess how much money is in the suitcase without opening it. If there is less money than what he/she guessed, then it is all captured. If there is more money than the guess, the security team must let it through. Also, if security guesses an amount and there is no money being smuggled, then they have to reimburse the smuggler. Naturally, these rules encourage you to simply not smuggle anything so there is no chance that you will take a penalty, but it will be difficult to win that way if the other team has the same idea. This is the game where Yokoya first showed up as well.
Another wrinkle to this is the fact that there is one more way to move money around. You can take it out of your safe and hide is behind or to the side of it. That way, the money isn’t counted in your collection and you can use some more mind games on the opponent. You also have to take great care not to let the other team snag your credit card through shenanigans or the game could be lost. There are probably another 5-10 rules that I haven’t listed here so it all gets pretty overwhelming. Not to mention that you can never trust anyone in this series as they all look out for themselves first and foremost. Betrayals are one of the few constants that you can count on in this title. Most of the games are so long that they stretch out over the course of multiple days. You can imagine how taxing that can be as you have to stay alert for many hours in a row. Luckily, violence is forbidden so you don’t have to worry about being attacked while you’re asleep or anything like that. Only intelligence and wit can be used as weapons in this tournament.
There is a big twist at the end of the series, which leads into the cliff hanger that will never be resolved. It definitely comes out of nowhere and you’ll look at all the rounds in a different light. Was it a good twist? Welllllllll, I would say yes just because it creates a cool cliffhanger. The sequel series would have definitely been hype had they gone along with it. It may be a little hard to buy the fact that the author had this planned out from the get go, but nothing in the series that I can recall discredits the twist so it is plausible. I do love the fact that the twist really does ensure that calling the cops would have helped. I won’t let you readers forget this fact. Logically though, the twist is a bit of a mess as I don’t see how it would not have leaked by then. The twist wasn’t really needed and the series could have had a more exciting climax without it. The cliffhanger could have still been squeezed in.
Overall, Liar Game is definitely an all star title. The great mind games and extremely complex matches that the characters play make for an incredibly engaging read. I don’t expect that I will ever read such a complex story again. It’s the kind of title that I would have liked to have seen reach 50 or more volumes, but I realize that thinking up that many games would be difficult. Not to mention that the reasons for having more and more people show up to the rounds would probably get contrived after a while. If you have not checked this title out yet, then I would certainly recommend doing so. One thing’s for sure, you will never look at musical chairs the same way as you once did!
Overall 9/10
I thought that the original Vampire Knight was rather terrible, but this sequel is off to a better start so far. Of course, there is only so much you can wreck in one chapter so we’ll see if it is able to keep it up or if the flaws of the original will eventually materialize and limit the sequel as well. Only time will tell. I’ll have a review for this series when it is finished!
Overall 5/10
The sequel’s off to a good start. Granted, it’s only the first chapter, but already it is much more interesting than the Tsubasa sequel and the art is a big improvement. I wasn’t a big fan of the original Cardcaptor Sakura so this could end up being the sequel that elevates the franchise if it plays its card right. I’ll have a review for the series when it finishes.
Overall 6/10
This series had some mild promise, but quickly jumped the shark with excessive darkness and unlikable characters. I don’t see this series saving itself anytime soon. I will have a review for it when the series ends.
Overall 1/10
Well, it seems like this series ended a while ago with 8 chapters before the it kept going on as a Sonic and the Black Knight series. Unfortunately, only the first two chapters have been translated thus far. Someone else has uploaded the full raws so hopefully someday they will be translated. If they are, I’ll end up reviewing it. As it stands, it’s a decent comedy adventure. It’s not 4 Koma which is an instant positive and the art got good starting with the second chapter.
Overall 6/10
Well, The Tsubasa sequel has reached its conclusion. It ended with only 19 chapters so it was quite short, but since this was monthly, it actually lasted around 2 years and a half. Now that’s scary considering how little it accomplished. Unfortunately, I can’t say that it was a good series. It started with some minor promise, but ended up being quite boring, uneventful, and just plain bad. It really could have been decent, but I feel like Clamp never knew what they wanted to do with the series. It virtually didn’t even have a plot as Syaoran and friends were just fed tale after tale after tale. The series just ends and you’re left wondering what was accomplished here. Now, it’s not completely necessary that something is accomplished. Sometimes a sequel can just be for fun to see the characters again and watch their adventures. Just look at Dragon Ball Super or Boruto. That being said, both of those didn’t end in 19 chapters (I doubt they will anyway) and will probably get an actual serious plot at some point. That never happened in Tsubasa nor will it happen since World Chronicle is already over.
Syaoran and friends were enjoying their eternal banishment due to the events of the original Tsubasa series when they are approached by a mysterious lady who tells Syaoran that he is her world’s last hope. The world of the dead and the world of the living are both joined to an extent. The only hope for the dead is for Syaoran to go and revive them, but should he really bring these people back. Is it even possible and what does it mean for the world of the living? He’ll also have to destroy a friend to bring back the others which is…dicey to say the least.
There are a lot of problems with the series. One of the main ones is the fact that the team dynamic isn’t very good. Honestly, I feel like the team really needs Sakura back or a new member at this point. None of the main characters are particularly interesting since they are all watered down versions of themselves. Fai’s only role in the series is to constantly tease Kurogane, which gets old incredibly quick since it is the same old tired joke chapter after chapter. Not to mention that Fai isn’t really a fighter anymore. To think that he used to get a lot of hype and had a good amount of magical talent. He could be a decent character at times, but take that away and you have a very boring supporting role.
Meanwhile, Kurogane is supposed to be the tough guy of the group, but he simply can’t keep up with the new fighters. He talks a good game, but rarely fights anymore. He reminds me of Zoro, but a far weaker and less imposing version of the character. Yes, he’s basically New World Zoro. He’s not a bad character like Fai though, but he simply doesn’t add much to the series and definitely adds nothing to the banter. As for Syaoran, he’s your average heroic lead I suppose. He’s always thinking and tries to do the right thing. He’s a good kid, but also comes across as rather soulless. Not heartless, but he doesn’t have a great deal of personality. He just goes through the motions of being heroic, but that’s about it. Fighting his shadow self was also a little dicey, but he held back enough and stopped fighting so I’d say that he did a good job there.
There are many examples of good shows that didn’t have a good rapport among the characters. Naruto is a great series, but the characters definitely could not hold a slice of life series. Likewise with Bleach. Meanwhile, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter X Hunter, and DBZ could effortlessly lead a slice of life series where nothing happens for 50+ episodes. It just comes down to whether or not the characters are charismatic. I’m not saying that Naruto characters are bad, but they need fights. Tsubasa is like that. The main characters really look terrible because there is no action. If there was more of an actual plot, then I’m sure that the main cast would have been more likable like in the original series.
The art is fairly clear, but it can also get chaotic whenever any action is occurring. That’s really a Clamp tradition at this point though so it’s to be expected. The important thing is that it usually looks clear so I’ll give them a pass there. It could still use a decent upgrade though and hopefully they’ll be ready for the upcoming Cardcaptor Sakura sequel. If handled right, that one should be able to surpass this title with ease.
After all, this series spent a few chapters just fighting evil animals (Bad move Clamp!) and trying to survive amidst an evil forest. That’s not very exciting material. At least Clamp didn’t contradict their no cop-outs strategy from the other titles. The concept of the dead being able to come back to life would have definitely gone against the whole Clamp universe. xxxHolic’s a key example of how a whole series/plot is about one character’s death and how she can never return no matter how many fancy spells are used. In the Clamp universe, once a character is dead, they’re staying that way. Sure, the spirit can talk with wise words of advice, but coming back to the real world in a corporal body is out of the question. Syaoran realized that by the end so at least he didn’t begin to jeopardize the real world as well. Chase after too many things and you’ll wind up losing them all. Although in World Chronicle’s case, it didn’t chase after enough things.
The ending does state that the story will continue back in xxxholic Rei so hopefully that title can use its momentum to push things forward. It had been fairly interesting. Part of what helps it is that the cast is better and while it is also pretty aimless it is better suited for it. Rei is all about mysteries and spirits causing mischief after all and the locale is better. If any Clamp title can grab Tsubasa’s plot and improve on it, then xxxholic’s the way to go.
Overall, World Chronicle was definitely a let down. It was consistently fighting for last place every month for the last 3 years. There were no chapters that were particularly exciting and even Syaoran’s rematch against Dark Syaoran came out of nowhere and wasn’t that enjoyable. It was a decent fight, but there was no reason for it and the battle was basically filler so it was hard to care about what was happening on screen. That’s the problem with deciding that plot is expendable and then still trying to have a serious fantasy adventure. Remember Dimension W folks? Not from my blog as I haven’t reviewed it yet, but that’s probably the token example of why you should focus on your plot before attempting to go placed. World Chronicle is still a class act for the most part as it steers away from things like super violence or fanservice, but there isn’t much going for it either. The biggest crime that it commits is being very boring, but that’s a serious offense for any manga. If you want to read a calming title about a few people aimlessly wandering around then you may enjoy this title. If not, then you may not want to spoil your Tsubasa memories and you should just go re read the original series instead. You’ll certainly get a lot more out of it.
Overall 4/10
All right, I’ve finally started the super popular One Punch Man series. It’s definitely a lot better than the other insta hits like Sword Art Online and Attack on Titan. This series shows a lot of promise and could go down as one of the better titles if it can keep up the momentum. I’ll have a review for the series when it finishes.
Overall 7/10
Boruto is the sequel to the Naruto series so it will have a lot of pressure. It’s going to be very hard to live up to one of the most successful series of all time, but hopefully it can manage to be great. The series is off to a decent start. The art may need a bit of work and the upcoming plot seems to read like a generic fanfic, but as long as we get some good battle scenes then it should be fine. I doubt this will be ending for quite a few years, but when it does I’ll be sure to have a review up for it.
Overall 7/10
It’s hard to believe that I started this manga way back in January 2015. It’s been a long run, but now I have finally finished the series. It does a good job of following the Adam West esque format and most of these stories feel like they could have been from the comics. The volumes make for a fun read even if they never do anything to take the series to the next level. It’s a good story, but don’t look for anything beyond that.
There isn’t really an ongoing plot for the series as you may expect. Each story is roughly 3-5 parts though so the cases get a lot of screen time for the necessary plot. As such, there is never much of a need for an ongoing plot because weekly (If the series was in that format) it would have sort of had a plot. Of course, an ongoing plot could have certainly helped to have upped the stakes by the end of the series.
Batman is portrayed pretty accurately. Once in a while he’ll seem a little hurried or our of character with the occasional “Shut Up” comebacks to the villains though. It’s hard to picture Batman saying that. On the other hand, they do a good job of trying to make Batman extremely heroic to the point where he sometimes misses the obvious because of this. A good example occurs in the final volume. A mysterious shape shifter had already gotten the better of Batman and Robin twice. The next morning it is reported in the Newspaper that a new art piece has been added to the masters collection from a rather rich collector. She only allows world famous art to go in this collection typically so it this is odd right? Robin quickly points out that the timing of this is suspect, but Batman disagrees.
He says that anyone has the potential to be a masterpiece so this mysterious fellow must have just made a great piece. It couldn’t have anything to do with the shape shifter and there’s no way that this collector is being forced into letting the piece in. After all, Batman wants to prove that dedication can always win in the end. Robin urges Batman to check anyway though so they go and lo and behold, the art piece was actually the shape shifting villain. Batman’s always looking for a good moral to the point where it nearly cost the heroes dearly.
Batman also murders a guy by throwing a really heavy object at his head. It’s never really brought up and smoothed over rather quickly with Batman’s justification that he had to do this to save Robin. It was a tense situation and Robin was about to die so you have to decide whether this was the right move or not. Personally, I think there were a lot of other ways Batman could have stopped the villain so the scene was a little dicey. As for Robin, he’s in character the whole time. He’s always getting defeated in a fight and tends to be a liability. That being said, as in the example above, he does pick up on things quicker than Batman at times. If there is a moral to cloud Batman’s judgment, you can count on Robin to get the right answer first.
The series is 3 big volumes long so maybe that’d be closer to 5-6 if they were normal sized. Most of the villains are made up for the series so it’s hard to remember a lot of their names. Lord Death Man is certainly the fan favorite and he even made it into the Batman Brave and the Bold TV show. He is really good at escaping death even if he may have ultimately gone down one too many times by the end. There was a guy who believed that his cape made him invincible. By the end of his arc the twist was that it was all phony, but this explanation is a little dicey at best. Before that, we saw him survive some sure death scenarios. The characters say that he was lucky by the end, but that’s hard to buy. He fell a great distance into the rocks that led to the ocean. He could not have dodged from his angle so the cape had to have some super properties to it right? If it was total luck, then I think the writers probably did not think it through.
Another story arc parodied how dark the Batman comics have gotten in later years. At the time, it was probably more of a hypothetical though. In a TV show, Batman and Robin used intense methods to subdue the villains and the bad guys in the real world began to fear the Dynamic Duo. Batman wants to win his battles with one liners and friendship so he went to the station to shut down this program, but ended up getting kidnapped instead by the end. Still, the moral was that even villains always have a chance so scaring them right from the start is just not the right move this time.
We also had a nice robot arc which showed how important Batman and Robin are to the community. These robots can break and can’t think on their feet the way that the Dynamic Duo can. In the end, the police get rid of the robots because they’d rather have Batman save the day. The thing is, Batman and Robin can’t protect everyone forever and Batman acknowledges this, but says that it’s a problem for another day…maybe he’s right.
Another one was inspired by Star Trek or vice versa. Some super intelligent aliens decided to kidnap Batman and Robin so they could fight in space against a few other species. It was a 4 group free for all with Batman and Robin getting completely wrecked in each fight until they finally got the other aliens to team up with them and defeat the host. It goes to show that sometimes special powers can really come in handy.
There are a lot of other comic arcs to be found in the series, but those were just some examples. As the volumes are quite large, there’s enough time to get in quite a few adventures. I have only covered a fraction of the stories that are in the collection so if you want to see more of them, buy the volumes!
The art for the series is solid. All of the characters look fairly accurate to their traditional selves and we do get some fun fight scenes. The manga is very old which you can certainly tell as you read through the series, but it’s not dated in a bad way. It looks sharp and ultimately that’s really what matters in the end. Clear and sharp makes for a good combo when it comes to manga.
Overall, The Batman manga is a fun experience. It’s like reading through the lost season of the Adam West adventures. He fights against a large variety of villains and Bruce Wayne also gets to appear quite a bit so it’s not as if he’s Batman 24/7. Of course, this Bruce Wayne is typically pretty noble and similar to Batman, which makes for an interesting dynamic. I sort of wish Bruce was always like that in the current comics and movies as well. No reason why they can’t both be super heroic right?
Overall 7/10
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