Naruto Review

Posted on August 21, 2015 by dreager1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 9/10

Fire Emblem Ankokuryuu To Hikari No Ken Review

Posted on May 30, 2015 by dreager1

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been reading this for around 5 years. I started in early June during 2011 according to my original blog post and the series just finished the other day. Of course, the series had already been over for years, it just hadn’t been scanned yet. Well, I appreciate the work that the scanlator did and the series was a good read. It had enough things to hold it back from being great, but it’s a good series and I got to see Marth take a leading role.

So, Marth’s kingdom was basically taken over and his family line is at an end. Marth is the only one standing and his “army” is really just a small batch of soldiers. Still, he is Prince Marth and he cannot let evil infect the planet. Slowly but surely, Marth gathers allies to help in the upcoming battles. Once the army is large enough, he will take back his kingdom and finally restore the land to peace and prosperity. The problem is that Marth is a bit of a pacifist and he doesn’t like to fight, but the only way to take down the villains will be to go to war with them. Will Marth have what it takes to defeat them all?

Now, as I mentioned earlier, it’s been around 5 years since I started the title so that’s why the basic plot may sound a little fuzzy. It’s been a long road and sometimes the manga would go on break for months or even nearly a year. While I still remember it as a fun title, I can safely say that you will be able to enjoy it much more than I did as reading it from start to finish without such long breaks is a lot more enjoyable. This way you won’t forget any plot points or begin to forget the characters. You’re always able to launch yourself right back into plot despite any breaks since the situations are typically simple, but nothing beats the average fast blast through the title.

The artwork for the series is solid and the fight scenes end up looking powerful. At times, Marth looks very similar to one of the heroines, but I suppose that their character models are similar as they even have the same style of hair. The artist probably could have still made them a little more differentiated by giving Marth a cool cloak. At times, he has his signature cape, but it’s more of a generic desert one than the one that you will remember from Super Smash Bros. Seeing as how Marth is just starting here, I suppose that he hasn’t matured to that level just yet. It would have been awesome to have seen him with that look though.

Marth gets a lot of development throughout the series as he shows everyone what a capable leader he is. At first, he had a lot of trouble with villains who were of only moderate skill, but by the end he is able to take on just about anyone. In terms of pure swordplay, he’s still not among the best yet, but he has the legendary sword Falchion. He uses that one in Super Smash Bros as well and it is a very powerful sword. It can block any energy/fire attack and no villain can stand up to its limitless power. The blade serves Marth quite well.

One part of the manga’s plot that is a bit much though is how outnumbered and outgunned Marth’s army is. At one point, they face off against an army who has a mage with them and there’s no way that the heroes should have won. The Mage could blow up cities with a single blast and Marth should have been unable to stop him. The only reason why the heroes are still able to do well is because the mage lowers his guard and lets the heroes get close to him. That guy was easily the strongest character in the entire series and he wasn’t the final boss so it was expected, but still no easier to believe. It’s why you should always be careful to keep the villains in realistic reach of the hero’s power. Slightly stronger perhaps, but not by a great deal. Seeing as how Marth is still human and he didn’t have the legendary sword yet…it shouldn’t have even been a fight.

While the title is still set in the fantasy land of Fire Emblem, it’s mostly realistic. If not for the occasional dragon or magician, you could have thought that this was based on a real world. Dramatized of course, but it is very down to Earth. That means that we don’t get a whole lot of feats, but the sword fights can be fun. My only problem with them is that the battles tend to be very short. At its core, the series was still a tactical one so we typically see the heroes making plans and discussing how to attack the enemies. It’s smartly written.

That being said, the series could also get a little slow at times. Once again, I do think that this wouldn’t be very noticeable if not for the breaks, but sometimes you can go quite a while without any real action. While Marth can be a skilled fighter, he’s not exactly a thrilling main character so that doesn’t help. Marth’s heroic, but he lives in a land where wars are always being waged and does destroy his opponents, although he tries to spare as many as possible. He couldn’t keep his hands clean all of the time and that’s actually a part of his character arc. It would have been nice to have seen him arrest everyone, but it’s always tough in a war. At least, now peace can reign…or not.

The series ends with Marth stating that more battles will be fought and that it will be quite some time until peace is kept within the lands. So, he heads off to win these battles with his friends and the series just comes to a close. It’s a decent ending as there are certainly many Fire Emblem games and there’s not much of an alternative on what kind of ending could have shown up. It seems like you need to play the game to get the full story, although you may have expected that.

This series is based off of one of the video games and the author has fun throwing in guest stars and cameos from some of the fan favorite individuals in the game who weren’t totally relevant to the plot. It appears like the red haired swordsman, one of the best characters in the series, is one of those guest stars. He never really contributes to the series except to beat up some henchmen and get a lot of hype. Still, I liked him from the start and I believe that I had him fight on the blog a while back. He was certainly a skilled warrior.

Oguma was the main “rival” character. I used the quotation marks because he acts like a cool Shonen rival, but technically, it’s hard to call him that since Marth is not competitive at all. Oguma was really needed as he is the army’s best fighter and without him, Marth would have surely lost the war. Oguma thought up many of the plans that were used in the battles and his overwhelming power in combat was a great asset to the team. He was certainly likable. Sheeda was the main heroine and she is good with dragons. I believe that she also knew some healing magic. Sheeda was a nice supporting character and helped out throughout the series. There’s not a whole lot to say about her, but she helped to remind Marth that while the war is going on, not everything is bleak. She has a happier ending than most of the other characters. Kain is the main comic relief of the series and he’s all right I suppose. I just didn’t really care for the guy and his magic abilities never got to be that impressive. He’s around, but he rarely helps out and is typically getting into danger all of the time.

There are certainly many more characters that pop up throughout the series. There were about 12 volumes, which were made up of 59 chapters so a lot of things got to happen. There was a more experienced mage who loved to tease Kain about the fact that she was infinitely stronger than him. There were also some fun fights with other black dragons and the main villain made his plans. More of the characters would leave a lasting impression on me with a re read and I may go through the series again someday, but I feel like I still remember enough of it that a re read isn’t quite necessary. While I don’t know most of the names, the characters are what really counts.

Another reason why the series was so good is that it was a class act from start to finish. The series avoids the fanservice trap and none of the characters are terrible. There were probably some unlikable villains and heroes around, but I can’t think of any that made it to Roshi or Oolong levels. The writing was good and didn’t need to rely on any cheap tricks to get through the story.

Overall, I definitely recommend checking out this title. Now that it’s finally finished, you can blast through it and witness the legendary war that Marth fought through. It’s no wonder why his kingdom looks like its in ruins in Super Smash Bros Brawl. I do think that Meta Knight wouldn’t have stood a chance against such a seasoned veteran there! Marth’s a solid lead and he’s surrounded by a good supporting cast. There is a lot of action in the series even though there are large periods of peace between the fights. The art is solid and the writing is consistently good. I’d probably add another star to this title with a re read as it would address my pacing problems a little, but either way it’s a complete title to check out. I’ve now finished two of the Fire Emblem titles and I highly recommend checking out the one with Al and Roy if you haven’t yet. The franchise has numerous manga titles so hopefully I will be checking out another one of them someday. If this manga doesn’t give you some incentive to play as Marth, I don’t know what will.

Overall 7/10

Sword Art Online Progressive

Posted on May 23, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to head back to Aincrad with this series. Seeing as how Arc 1 is easily the best part of the SAO franchise, it’s good to see it again. Unfortunately, the series is already heading into the fanservice trap, which is regrettable. If the series can stay away from that it should be okay, but if not, it’s game over! I’ll have a review for this once the manga finishes. Overall 5/10

Sword Art Online Fairy Dance Review

Posted on May 23, 2015 by dreager1

The infamous arc has returned as I can now see how it is handled in manga format. That being said, there’s really not much you can do when this is still based off of the same arc that was in the anime. The Asuna subplot still destroys the manga, but either way it was not a solid title. Kirito is still hardcore and one of the more intense protagonists out there, but he can’t hold a whole series.

This arc takes place after Sword Art Online and Asuna never actually made it to the real world. Kirito finds out that her mind has been trapped in another game and he sets off to save her. He has to hurry because it will be too late once the main villain goes through with the wedding. With no time to spare, Kirito must make it to the World Tree and complete this game as soon as possible. To do this, he’ll need the help of his sister, Suguha. Suguha is masquerading as a being named Leafa in the new game and neither one knows the other’s true identity. Drama and tension fill the air as they embark upon the new quest.

Well, this arc basically destroyed the Sword Art Online franchise once it was written into novel format and then adapted into the TV show. Seriously, the author just forgot that the series could have been good and naturally it spilled over into the manga world. The franchise should have ended with the actual Sword Art Online arc, but alas…it didn’t happen. Let’s launch into the various negatives here as it’s a sad read from start to finish.

For starters, the manga thought that it was a good idea to add more emphasis to the fanservice factor in this title. Not a good start. Just about every scene with Suguha has some fanservice in store and naturally the Asuna subplot contains this as well. This guarantees that you will be wincing throughout your reading and we’re just getting started. This is already the sign of a bottom tier title eh? The anime version actually didn’t have too much fanservice for this arc, a few scenes, but not as bad as the manga. I guess we just went from bad to worse.

Another bad subplot is the fact that Kirito’s cousin becomes infatuated with him. The fact that they’re only cousins is supposed to be reassuring, but it’s not as the subplot is still terrible and completely unnecessary. At least Kirito basically just denied Suguha and went to Asuna in the anime, but here he tries to be more open ended about the whole thing. He doesn’t return the feelings at all as Asuna is the only person for him, but he still didn’t just tell Suguha to move on as he should. Either way, it’s just another part of the train wreck.

The biggest problem with the arc though still lies in the Asuna subplot. The villains just go way overboard and it’s too extreme. Asuna is held against her will for quite a while and the main villain is sadistically in love with her money. In the real world, she can’t move so there’s nothing that she can do to stop the arranged marriage and the villain abuses his power in the virtual world. Kirito basically has to watch as the villain messes around with Asuna and that’s when I knew that it was game over for the title. That kind of plot will always be a big no no in any title and the fact that it happened in Sword Art Online is just terrible. It’s the main reason why the franchise is essentially dead to me. I’ll always like the first arc, but you simply can’t wash away a stain like this from the title. Whenever I think of Sword Art Online, I’ll always remember this arc. The main villain isn’t the only one who messes with Asuna as he also has two lackeys who are just as demented.

It’s too bad really since the manga had some promise otherwise. Kirito’s still a hardcore main character and we do get some nice action scenes. Kirito goes up against legions of humanoids in the final battle and he also has a nice fight against the big fire general. He does a lot to save Asuna so he certainly puts in the effort. If we took out the fanservice, the Asuna subplot, and the Suguha subplot, this could have been a really fun series. That being said, you can’t just take those things away as they do comprise a rather large part of the arc and it’s why I have to give this title a fail/10 in the end. It simply couldn’t manage to actually be a good story.

The art is better than the first series for what it’s worth. It’s just not worth all that much since the series was doomed from the start. It’s three volumes long and the final volume is pretty thick so it’s closer to 5-6 volumes in length. The arc doesn’t need to be rushed as a result although a rushed pacing would likely have helped the series in this case as it could have dwelt on the negative things a little less.

There are more characters of course, but not many more and there’s not much to say about them at this point. Suguha is essentially impossible to like and the same goes for the main villain. Asuna doesn’t really get a role at all aside from being a damsel in distress, which is sad. So…yeah, this review’s definitely a short one as are most of my 0 star films. One day, they’ll make a Superman comic/movie/something that will be terrible and thenI may have a long negative review at the ready…or it could still be a short one if it’s just that sad I suppose. Either way, the important thing for these titles is to at least cover the negatives and since the mild positives were evidently not enough, they’re barely worth mentioning.

Overall, if you ever wanted to know how a manga with good fight scenes, good art, and a good main character can end up being terrible, this is the manga to check out. However, I highly advise against checking this manga out. You should avoid it like a Mouse evading a Lion. The positives that the manga has are simply overshadowed and this will certainly go down as one of the worst manga titles out there. At least, from the ones that I’ve read. This rivals Black Bird as they’re both really down there, although this is likely a tad better than Black Bird…maybe. It’s like comparing a double cheeseburger to a Mc double at Mc Donalds. They’re more or less the same thing, just packaged differently. Looks like .Hack will be the big virtual reality series once again. Take a big glass of water and then watch Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time. It’s the best thing to do after reading this manga.

Overall 0/10

Rurouni Kenshin Secret Chapter To Rule Flame Review

Posted on April 11, 2015 by dreager1

All right, it is time to check out the prequel manga that came out for Kenshin a while back thanks to Mangastream’s hard work as they even translated the cover! This volume is about Shishio, the fan favorite villain who did end up being one of the better Kenshin antagonists. It’s a fairly good volume. We don’t get to see the heroes almost at all, which is a little unfortunate, but it’s good to have the universe back. I’m still not done with the original series myself, but I’m in the final volumes. Keep in mind that this review will have spoilers for the volume since it’s so short and hard to avoid such things.

Well, it’s an origin story so Shishio is naturally one of the main characters. He heads into a town with his right hand man and he awaits the rest of his 10 swords. It is almost time to make his big move so now he simply needs to bide his time. He stays at an inn where the hostess is legendarily tough to buy. Either way, Shishio doesn’t care for such things, but then the lady decides to buy his strength to save her friends. Shishio will need some kind of payment for this and the lady will have to think of something.

Well, the story definitely deals with some things that you don’t see all that often (For good reason) in a manga. The main heroine is actually a prostitute although she has essentially decided to stop in that practice as she allows no one to buy her anymore. Alas, in this time, women had fewer rights so a rich person decides to buy her anyway. The lady resigns herself to this fate, but her friends mistakenly find out about the rich guy’s evil plans so he decides to destroy them all. That is why the heroine has to ask Shishio for help. Shishio is reluctant, but she helps him realize that dying alone is not a happy fate so he accepts her help on the condition that her life is now his. When Shishio is about to die, he will destroy her as well. These are satisfactory conditions for the heroine and that’s essentially the origin of Shishio.

Luckily, the manga doesn’t put too much emphasis on the prostitution part. You know that it’s happening in the city, but we never see anything even close to that, which is certainly a smart move on the manga’s part. The ending is also a lot happier than I had figured although I suppose that it is in a morbid sort of way. Shishio acknowledges that he is ultimately going to hell, but he simply isn’t fighting it. He almost doesn’t care as he still wants to be evil and he will just bring as many people as he can with him. That certainly solidifies Shishio as a villain.

At least he is a cool villain though. He’s not one of those guys who will just make you wince and groan as you read the chapter. If this had been about a lesser villain or an insane one, then it would likely not have been nearly as good. As it stands, Shishio does ultimately help against the villains so that will make the story a lot more bearable. After all, if you’re teaming up with a villain who’s as skilled as Shishio, you should have nothing to worry about.

The villain for this story gets a lot of hype at first, but then it all fades away. I think the author just forgot about it or something because the actual battle is very anticlimactic. It’s essentially over in a slash, which is sad. Based off of the imagination battle that they had earlier, I would have expected a very good fight. The Kenshin series had plenty of excellent fights so another one would have been a lot of fun. I suppose that fighting was not the main draw for this spinoff, but it still would have been a lot of fun.

The artwork is solid as can be expected. The original series had some of the best art in Jump and evidently, that has not changed in the years that have went by. It’s easy to see what’s going on and the characters all look good. The brief action scenes that we do get are very impressive and make you miss the lack of action even more. Alas, you can’t have it all right?

The volume also does a good job of getting you interested in watching the main series again. It’s an interesting story from start to finish and we even have a big group moment where all of the villains get to use their big attacks. They certainly were an impressive group and it’s good that Kenshin had so many skilled allies or this would have been a very difficult fight to win. In the final page, we get to quickly see a little of Kenshin’s fight against Shishio, but that’s more of a homage than anything else.

The villain from the final arc of the Kenshin series also gets a cameo. He tries to talk tough, but we all know that he would be crushed if he ever tried to fight Shishio. Shishio is simply too powerful for him and the other villain only lasted so long because of trickery and his many minions. Shishio doesn’t need any tricks to fight well.

So, the story is a little dark, but it’s handled well. The only negative could actually be the prostitution part of the plot as it is a little much when you actually think about it. The main characters were nearly sold away after all, but at least most of them get a happy ending or a sudden sad one so things went well. The villains were also permanently stopped so that wins the manga back its points. I’d prefer that these things really aren’t even included as there’s not much of a reason to tackle these issues in an origin story, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.

Overall, This Secret Chapter was fun. It’s certainly great to be back in the Kenshin world and I wouldn’t mind more spinoffs in the future. A sequel series would also be a lot of fun with some new villains and more power ups to help the heroes rise up the tier list. If you read the main Kenshin series, then this is a must read. If you just want to read a one shot with a villain who helps out when it furthers his interests, it’ll also work out for you. The one shot is serious and deals with serious themes, but the ending is satisfying and the art is quite good. There’s a good reason why Kenshin is known as one of the elite manga titles and this one shot lives up to that reputation. I guess we’ll see if anymore one shots come out in the future.

Overall 7/10

One Piece Party

Posted on April 8, 2015 by dreager1

After the sadness that was Rock Lee, we have to hope that this spinoff is much better. It’s off to a better start, but the crude humor bit still holds it back. I shall have a review for the series once I finish it, but until then….I can’t recommend it just yet!

Overall 5/10

Beelzebub Bangai Hen Review

Posted on March 26, 2015 by dreager1

Well…we got our spinoff/sequel to Beelzebub folks! I finished the series in a little over 3 months and it is safe to say that it was not quite as good as the original series. It was only 6 chapters so that was to be expected, but the author really went off the deep end here. Not only is there no real substance, but he falls into the fanservice trap, which is something that I would have preferred to avoid. Also, the author wrecked one of my favorite characters…noooo.

All right, the world is at peace now and Oga lives happily ever after. There may not be any real villains anymore, but Oga’s life it still busy as Beel keeps on getting into trouble. Oga must help his Dad alter the past and he even gets to pay a trip to the demon world filled with several flashbacks. Can Oga really solve all of the problems that are around him without messing up his hairstyle? It’s going to take a lot of skills and a lot of power!

First of all, I have to say that the series was essentially doomed from the very first page. Yep, you heard me. The very first page already had a fanservice scene and it was a pretty sad one at that. From then on, I knew that the series was going to sink very quickly. The first chapter is about making friends and we learn about bullies. Yeah..they could do better. Then we got the generic beach chapter, which went as you would expect. Furuichi got a chapter, the heroes got stranded on a beach in one chapter, demon world visit, time travel, etc.

The fanservice is naturally my biggest complaint with the series. It’s completely unnecessary and it certainly doesn’t make any of the characters more likable. The main heroine only gets a real role in one chapter and naturally it’s a romance one where no development can be had instead of a good adventure. The author just seems to be fishing for votes in the polls so that the series could continue, but this evidently backfired.

Another problem with the series is what he did during the demon world visit arc. Athrun was a cool being of the demon world who vanished in the original series. We got a glimpse of his immense power and then he was completely written out. He appears here, but we get a huge twist that makes him look terrible. Let’s just say that he went from serious business to being a comic relief character. That’s not a twist that I had wanted and I doubt that many people were happy about this either. There’s also a doctor who was pretty serious in the original series, but now he’s just a pervert. Seriously, the author just jumped the shark for this series.

The art is one of the only positives for this series. The author hasn’t lost his touch and it looks just like the original series. Good art can carry a series a long way, but it still can’t save something that is failing in all other areas. It is simply not possible, but at least we got some kind of consolation prize here. There is no real action to be found here, which is rather regrettable since that’s one of the main reasons why Beelzebub had been so good. It had action scenes that would make Bleach and DBZ proud!

As far as anthologies go, most series have been able to do it better than Beelzebub. The best chapter here was probably the final one as it was decent, but the rest of them simply weren’t good. On the bright side, the time travel at the end actually felt a little important since it permanently changed one of the characters for the better. I guess the author felt like it wouldn’t matter anyway since the franchise is all but over so the change ended up sticking. It’s a good thing for the character since the guy had been fairly weak before this.

The characters are all in character aside from Athrun and the doctor so that’s a good thing. It’s not a good thing for characters like Furuichi, but at least Oga still cleans shop when he’s around. Now that he’s incredibly powerful, he tends to defeat his opponents with a single punch. We can say goodbye to our fight scenes, but at the same time, I am glad that he hasn’t become weaker for the sake of some new villains. He should be able to mow down all villains who stand in his way at this point considering just how good he is. He’s saved the world and now he gets to just relax.

Overall, Beelzebub devolved into a fanservice series with this title and the 6 chapters couldn’t fly by fast enough! It’s too bad that the franchise had to end on this low note since the original series was so good. Hopefully Beelzebub can get a real sequel series someday that keeps the original series’ comedy atmosphere while still having serious fights. Of course, the important thing is simply to eradicate the fanservice. If the series can do that, then we shall have a winner once more. At least the art stayed consistently good and Oga is still a really good main character. I highly recommend staying far away from this spinoff and let’s hope that Naruto can do a better job. Rock Lee epicly failed, but I have much higher hopes for the upcoming spinoff.

Overall 2/10

The Law of Ueki Plus Review

Posted on March 11, 2015 by dreager1

The Law of Ueki was one of my favorite manga titles back when I had been reading it. The ending had not been totally satisfying, but it definitely had a good run. I was certainly thrilled to hear that it got a proper sequel. Not one of those spinoffs where you wonder what happened like with Beelzebub, but a sequel that would take itself seriously and contain a lot of action. It is certainly not as good as the original series, but it is still a good title and it’s nice to see Ueki back again. This sequel was as good as I had hoped it would be.

Ueki’s life has returned to normal after the events of the last film. He is back to being an ordinary human, but that doesn’t stop him from helping people out like the good ole days. When his best friend is attacked by a mysterious foe, Ueki launches into battle. It is a valiant effort, but the die had been cast. All of the inhabitants of Earth minus Ueki have lost their memories. Ueki must now venture into a new world to win a big tournament and get everyone’s memories back!

It is a race against time and I have always liked the tournament angle so it was a good move for the series. Law of Ueki Plus is 5 volumes long and the tournament takes up most of the series. It is paced pretty well although the ending is certainly rushed. The tournament also didn’t get a proper conclusion, which was a little sad. It is not entirely unexpected since that actually does happen a lot, but it is always sad to see.

Ueki is still a very likable main character. He is very trusting and always ready to lend a helping hand. He can easily be considered one of the most heroic leads in manga. That being said, it can be tough to see him talk so big when he is typically outmatched in this series. He has the ability to stretch his mop. It is a really terrible ability and it makes the plot hax s little more evident than usual. How can Ueki hope to match opponents who have super strength and speed at their disposal? Ueki is back to being a normal guy besides the mop right so how is he actually enduring these hits? It definitely stretches your imagination quite a bit.

To the manga’s credit, they do give Ueki a subplot where he wants to get stronger so that he can back up his words and protect his friends. It is a noble effort to be sure, but it is still pretty dicey at first. Ueki actually mentions that power doesn’t really matter at one point. He changes his mind after being defeated in battle, but based on the events from the first series, he should definitely remember why being strong is important. So, he is very heroic, but he simply can’t back up his promises for a good chunk of the series, which is sad. Nonetheless, it’s hard for this guy not to instantly become one of your favorite main characters when he utters so many hardcore lines. “I’ll definitely find a way!”m

Nagara is one of the supporting characters in the series although he is not much of a fighter….or is he? Nagara is mainly just used for hype and he never actually helps since he wants Ueki and the other friends to level up on their own. Nagara has a healing ability at his disposal, which is pretty neat. That being said, he is lucky that he is physically super human as well or he could have gotten speedblitzed. He is decent I suppose, but not very interesting. I certainly could have done without him. If Nagara had gotten his own fight, that would have really helped his chances.

Haiji is one of Ueki’s teammates for the tournament. He has a dishwasher that he can throw at people and he is also able to shoot blasts at water by the end. The ability isn’t great, but it is a start. Again, he is fairly generic and not in a good way. Haiji doesn’t like to act as nice as he is to preserve his tough rep and he is always squabbling with another one of the members. His sob story is also a bit much considering how heroic he wanted to be. He is a loyal ally, but not one that you will end up being a big fan of.

Sora is the final member of the crew and he really likes eating. When he eats a burger, he is able to “double.” This means that he can split in two or double his speed. Those are just a few examples of what he can do. Naturally, this is easily the best ability from the whole group. It is an ability that you can actually take seriously! Personality wise, Sora isn’t likable either. Seeing a pattern? Aside from Ueji, who is an established character anyway, none of the characters are that good. I think that it is a sign of the author running out of ideas. Sora likes to pretend that he doesn’t know what is going on sometimes and he spends a lot of time just trolling everyone. He finally gets serious near the end and then we figure out that he isn’t even used to fighting. He does get some good fights of course, but I would have preferred another personality for his character.

Byaku is one of the antagonists, but he really just has a hard time sharing his feelings. There is a big plot twist in why he wants to win the tournament and let’s just say that it probably won’t help you become a fan. He was actually my favorite villain in the series even if it’s by default to an extent. His ability to manipulate his hair was certainly formidable and it was one of the best powers in the series.

Minus is the final boss of the series and he makes for a climactic finish. His design is mostly good although I could have done without the lipstick. As far as his personality goes, that’s another story altogether. His reasoning for wanting all of the memories to go away isn’t great and bringing along one of Ueki’s friends was pretty pointless. Villains do love their mindgames at times, but I need a better reason than that. He has a really cool energy blade that is not only practical for battles, but a must have if you are to stay relevant. One of his first decisions is to take out Ueki’s arms and it’s a solid battle strategy. His speed is also pretty unreal as he took out two of the heroes before they even knew that he had moved. He’s pretty high tier and it’s hard to see how Ueki was able to give him a fight at all. That being said, this is Law of Ueki Plus. The series where Ueki went from being a normal human to a guy with LS reactions after being asleep for a while. The power levels are certainly ditched from time to time, but it does make for some great scenes. Minus may not have been an interesting villain and his comic relief moment at the beginning was a little off putting, but he tries to be cool.

The villain who really stole the show was Spark. Now that was a great villain! I’d also go as far as to say that he is the strongest one in the series. He essentially took out the whole cast of the series without breaking a sweat. It was just his bad luck that he had to go up against an enraged Ueki. Spark has super speed at his disposal as long as he blows into his whistle. It may seem like an odd gimmick, but it certainly works. Without plot hax, there’s really not a single character in this series who can hope to defeat this guy. I’ve already mentioned that the series does have a lot of power level inconsistencies, but this fight definitely took the cake. There’s no way that Ueki should have been able to have outsped him so much here. It was an incredible scene since we hadn’t gotten to see Ueki this hardcore since the original series, but the author should have just gone all the way and given him a true power up. There was a power up in this scene, but it should have had no effect on his speed. That being said, this fight is the highlight of the series and you won’t want to miss it. It may be the longest one as well!

All right, the characters section was certainly pretty negative for the most part, but the main character was still good and we had a great villain, which helps a lot. You may have thought that the manga was not very good based on that, but I can assure you that it is still a fun series. For starters, the action scenes are a lot of fun. We get a lot of them as the series goes on and I am always a fan of a good action scene. I do wish that the heroes had better abilities though since the villains really should win if we disregard plot hax. I feel like the series really held itself back by weakening the heroes so much. Give Ueki his old powers back and the heroes will be in a great position. This hurt the potential of the series for Earth shattering fights, but as I mentioned earlier, we still got quite a few fun ones over the course of this adventure and I was satisfied.

Considering that this is a sequel, fans may also be saddened by the fact that the old cast doesn’t get to appear aside from some brief cameos. They may have lost their memories, but it would have been great to have seen them try to help out at the very least. This is barely a negative though and simply another path that the series could have taken. It would have been well worth the author’s time to have done this as it would have been great seeing the old cast come in to help out. They weren’t very tough either to be honest, but it would still have been fun.

It was a quick journey, but it really hit all the right notes. There was no fanservice to be found here and the series never got excessive in any aspect. The villains mean business and they deliver some big hits to the heroes, but it never goes too far. You have to give a lot of credit to the artist here. The series isn’t always very consistent, but some scenes look downright amazing. When Ueki returned to the battlefield, it’s hard not to cheer with such a great splash page. The fights look good and the writing is also very good. This is a series that is easy to pick up and read all the way through without a break. What keeps it from an 8 are really the character issues from earlier and how short it is. With some more intense battles and an extra volume or two, I’m confident that this would get an 8. So, don’t let the 7 stars fool you, this is still an excellent title to check out.

Overall, Law of Ueki Plus is a pretty fun sequel. It is easily one of the best manga sequels that I have read. It loses to DBZ, Duelist, and Gigamix, but it probably beats almost everything else. The cast was pretty unimpressive and the heroes were given pretty bad powers for the most part, but we had very good artwork and action scenes to counteract that. This series ended really quickly so it probably would have been able to address most of my critiques with more time, but this was just how the ball bounced. Law of Ueki still ended the franchise on a high note and I definitely recommend this to fans of the original and to anyone who wants a good action title to check out. Also, if you’re looking for a main character to root for, Ueki is your man! Who else uses a mop to tie up someone who can run faster than a Bullet Train?

Overall 7/10

Deltora Quest Review

Posted on March 4, 2015 by dreager1

Deltota Quest is a book series that became a bigger franchise than anyone could have imagined. It got two sequel series, a manga, and a TV show. That is pretty impressive. I read the books and watched the show so now I finally got to check out the manga. It is pretty good, but could it match up to the anime? Let’s take a look at this adaption.

The plot follows a kid by the name of Lief. He lives in the Kingdom of Deltora, unaware that the rest of the planet has been taken over by the Shadow Lord. The only way to stop him is to travel the world and find the missing gems of Deltora. Once united on the belt, they can be used to vanquish the evil being. Lief is joined in his quest by a bodyguard in the form of Barda and a girl in the forest who goes by the name of Jasmine. Let the adventure begin!

The series is 10 volumes long, which is pretty good for the average manga series. It is still a little rushed by the end though, which shows just how much content needed to be covered. There were quite a few gems so the adventures were numerous. Unfortunately, this meant that some of the battles had to be trimmed. Particularly, the final big boss (minus the Shadow Lord) was reduced to a single hit KO. Most of the exposition was kept in and some battles were extended, so it wasn’t all rushed. The series probably would have had a more even pacing if it had been boosted to 12 volumes.

The artwork for the series is pretty intense and the artist must have loved old classics like Yu Yu Hakusho and Kenshiro. You really feel the punches and this is probably Barda’s best portrayal. His fight with Doom is extended and the tournament’s final rounds are turned into a free for all, which allows for more action. The gritty/shonen art works for the fight scenes and while it may be a little generic during the regular scenes, it works well enough. It is a little more violent as a result of this, but certainly nothing compared to the average SJ title. Just watch out for the rats scene as it can be pretty sad.

One thing that you will notice immediately is a large amount of plot hax. The critical mistake that many fantasy series make is to have the lead characters be humans without any special abilities. So, how can these guys take on all powerful beings of darkness or a witch who is protected by a barrier? Bring in the plot hax crew. The witch scene wasn’t that bad as it is the monsters who usually take the fall. They are simply stabbed or are too slow to escape the heroes. The main characters decide to play dead at one point, but things almost don’t work out very well for them as the villains prepare to critically stab them anyway. A sound makes them forget what they were doing, but it is an example of a scene where the heroes were only saved by luck.

Lief is the main lead and he is pretty heroic. He is definitely not the strongest character around, but he knows self defense, which is always a useful skill to have. He has most of the qualities that you would expect to see in a hero and Lief never backs down from a fight. I definitely don’t have a problem with him being the main character, but he could certainly have been a little more interesting. His plans are also some of the worst ones a lead has ever come up with and luck is the only reason why he survives for so long.

Barda is the muscle of the group and he is a talented fighter. Lief never manages to surpass him in the art of fighting, but Barda does have more experience on his side. He gets quite a few fights during the course of the series and Barda definitely ends up being a good character. He is certainly more interesting than Lief, but it is hard to say who is more likable.

Jasmine is the team’s link to nature and she is the quickest fighter of the group. Her big weakness resides in her lack of physical strength. She typically manages to get past this though and her animal friends provide her with some backup. Her initial distrust and aggression regarding the mysterious figure named Doom is a little much as it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there is a reason for it. I am just not sure if I buy the fact that the plot twist would have caused this.

Beyond those 3 heroes, there isn’t much of a supporting cast. They do gain more allies along the way, but their appearances are sporadic at best. They befriend a boy who has lost the ability to speak. The kid helps them out more than once and the heroes would have been doomed otherwise. The heroes are also helped by a flying creature who fights off a powerful beast. Naturally, Doom also lends a helping hand when the stakes get high and he proves to be a formidable ally. His strength may even be a match for Barda’s.

The villains have less character to speak of since most of them are giant monsters. Aside from the Vraal, I don’t even remember their names. Some monsters were unlikable like the giant Toad, while others were pretty cool like the Vraal. It is definitely a case by case basis and I just wish that the heroes could have gotten some power ups so that the fights would not feel all of the plot hax. There is a traitor and a villain related to Lief’s past, but they were both thrown back into the manga at the last second so it lacks the emotional punch that it could have had. Fans of the Shadow Lord or at least the concept of the big bad may be disappointed by the fact that his screen time is extremely limited. He comes into the picture at the very end of the series and he it outmatched very quickly. The author should probably have given him a fight scene a little sooner so that he could at least get one win before it was all over. The Shadow Lord has a cool design, hopefully that will satisfy you….

I already discussed the artwork, but the fight scenes deserve a paragraph of its own. The artist is pretty good at hand to hand fights as well as sword clashes. This is due to the gritty, detailed style that is used here. It may be counter productive at times for the non action scenes, but the fights make it worth the trade off. Deltora Quest sometimes ends up looking like a classic SJ title when Lief really gets into the heat of battle. The monsters certainly look intimidating and I have always liked the design of the Ols. The fights just feel out of place because they are so serious in what is otherwise a fairly laid back series. I’m certainly all for it!

This is a journey series so you could argue that while the plot is important, you’re really supposed to look at the visuals and that’s how you will find the series to be a lot of fun. Lief helps people from various lands and it really pays off by the end. Some of the quests may seem like filler, but Lief typically gets a gem out of the ordeal so that certainly helps his quest. It’s like LOTR, but in manga form so it is infinitely better.

Overall, Deltora Quest is a good manga. At 10 volumes, it is almost the perfect definition of what a good manga is. We have enjoyable fights, decently interesting characters, no fanservice, (Which is pretty incredible) and some solid artwork to back it all up. It’s a complete package. There are really no big negatives to speak of. It was a little rushed and the rat violence was sad, but that’s about it. The series managed to stay afloat on its positives. This title won’t be making your top 10 or anything like that, but it’ll be a fun read and you can compare it to the books or the anime. There’s just something satisfying about checking something out in all 3 formats. Maybe the manga will get a sequel series to cover the book’s sequel, but the chances are slim. Still, we can hope!

Overall 6/10

Barrage Review

Posted on January 27, 2015 by dreager1

Now it’s time to look at one of the shortest series yet. This one only made it to two volumes before it was abruptly ended with loose ends all around. In a way, it does end before the story can even get started so depending on how you view things…you could say that it didn’t have many loose ends. It definitely depends on the cup “half full” or “half empty” thing though. It’s decently fun and it showed promise, but I don’t see this series making a comeback.

The world (That is essentially Earth) used to be peaceful until many alien races decided that they would have fun conquering it. The humans fought valiently for their land, but defeating one alien species would be tough, let alone a few dozen of them. Now, we only control a very small kingdom and aliens have taken over the rest of the land. A young boy named Astro is trying to make ends meet since he has to take care of a lot of orphans. He is let go from his job and doesn’t know how he will be able to provide for them when the prince appears and decides that Astro will serve in his place. The prince is conveniently destroyed and Astro looks just like him so the main character goes along with this. He now has the strongest weapon in the universe and he will need to quickly get used to it as he starts to liberate the planet. Can he really defeat all of the aliens?

The plot is pretty good and it had the potential to be a long running series like Naruto or a relatively short one like Dragon Drive. There are many aliens to face and I’m sure that we would have gotten more supporting characters as the series went on. As it stood, we had 3 main ones by the end. There weren’t a lot of big villains, but I’m sure that would change since we had only just begun to take back the planet.

As a main character, Astro isn’t bad. He’s not great though as he is quick to cry and his comic relief tendencies can go a bit far at times. That being said, he is obsessed with keeping his family safe and that’s a pretty good thing to be obsessed with. He strongly believes in the concept of a family and will do whatever he can to keep them safe no matter what. His strong ideals are what lead him to unlocking the powers of the Orgue. The Orgue only works when the user recognizes someone as an enemy so there’s no chance of friendly fire. This can also be dicey when Astro doesn’t realize that someone is an enemy, but he’s typically a good judge of character. His character design seems to be a mix of Simon from Gurren Lagann and Rin from Blue Exorcist.

Astro is not a great fighter on his own, but his determination and ethics help him bring out his very best. He learns quickly and he is skilled in using the Orgue. That turns him from a sub par fighter into a great one. The Orgue can destroy any alien in a single blow and its abilities may be limitless. It starts out as a spear and turns into more of a Monado (Xenoblade) by the end. It’s definitely a handy weapon and one that can be very versatile in combat. It’s safe to say that there are few opponents who can stand up to Astro by the end and the hero just needs to work on his speed. Once he gets a little faster, he’ll be virtually unstoppable.

Astro typically travels with Tiamut as per the King’s orders. Tiamut has a pretty good reputation and he can take dozens of aliens out in a single motion. He may seem to be human, but the series hints multiple times that there is more to this character than meets the eye. Whether he is human or not, Tiamut is definitely loyal to the crown. He’s a capable fighter and he teaches Astro how to be a good fighter during their journeys. He’s pretty likable and he would be very likable if not for one quirk that can be quite annoying. He’s extremely shy around ladies and he can’t even look at them. Luckily, he’s so skilled that he can beat many opponents with his eyes closed, but it’s a running gag that I would definitely take out. It’s unneeded and a little generic as far as jokes go. It doesn’t help his character and this means that he wouldn’t be of much use against a female opponent. His shooting sword is a pretty cool weapon since he can use it as a gun or as a normal sword. It’s not as good as the Orgue of course, but it’s useful.

Tico is sort of the main heroine. It’s hard to say for sure since we don’t know whether she would have been travelling with the heroes or not, but I’d say that it’s very likely considering that she came to the palace with them. She wants to avenge her family so she definitely has a vendetta against the aliens. She’s pretty outmatched right now since she’s just a girl with many guns, but I’m sure that this would change eventually. Even if she never gained super powers, I’m sure that she would have gotten some kind of super weapon to tip the scales. It’s just the sort of thing that you would expect at some point. She’s a pretty good character and I’m glad that she’s always eager to fight. She could have ended up being one of the better Shonen Jump heroines.

Black ends up being the big villain of the series. As you probably guessed, he used to be one of Astro’s friends and he started out as a really nice guy. Black doesn’t like when people make crooked decisions and he punishes them accordingly. The problem is that his definition of “crooked” is very dicey so he basically wants to eradicate all life on the planet. Astro slaps him silly for a while and he sees the error of his ways. He would presumably be a hero in the upcoming volumes as he gives Astro advice from his prison. Black is meant to be a very emotional villain, but you really can’t buy that since he only gets to appear for a couple of chapters. The change from hero to villain to hero is too abrupt. Black seems like a cool character, but I’ll say that he’s underdeveloped and fairly uninspired at the moment.

The art is pretty decent although it’s a little rough around the edges. I think drawing the eyes seems to be a little tough for the author, but it may be because most authors don’t bother with too many things in it. Here, the main character has a star in his eyes at almost all times and the extra details may be what makes the eyes seem a little off. The art still does work for the fight scenes and that’s definitely the important thing in a battle manga.

The main story luckily avoids the whole fanservice angle. Based off of close scenes and unfortunate bonus stories/cast interviews, the short run of the series may have saved it here. It seems like this could have been an issue if Barrage had become a long running series so this is probably the silver lining in the series getting canned. There has to always be a silver lining somewhere right?

The series ends with the heroes basically stopping one band of villains and still having to liberate the other 90% or more of the planet. I’m sure that they would have met many tough opponents and the heroes would need more power ups. After all, it was already discovered that the “Dark Power” may be a match for the Orgue. The dark power can be used to amplify an alien’s offense and defense as well as create constructs to aid them in battle. It may be a little generic, but I’ll overlook that since it’s always a cool concept. The dark power gives the aliens a great edge over most of the fighters since they become almost indestructible. It’s too bad that we couldn’t see more of this.

There is one plot twist that is extremely convenient and throwing it in the series just makes things a little too good to be true. You know how Astro is not the prince since he is just taking his place? Well, let’s just say that he looks identical to the prince for a reason! I definitely could have done without the twist since I thought that the development was pretty crucial to the series. Having the old prince randomly sniped added to the drama as well since I didn’t see it coming. (Although it makes perfect sense in hindsight since the prince can’t blackmail Astro later on)

It’s hard to say how powerful Astro is in comparison to most of the other SJ protagonists, but it’s safe to say that he’d be pretty low tier. His weapon is amazing, but he’s physically only slightly above meta human. His speed seems to be decent, but he was thoroughly speed blitzed by one of the aliens. Astro’s durability also seems to be fairly normal so one good hit would probably take him out. The strongest villain in the series is probably the alien who could hop a lot since he had very good speed feats as well as some of the dark power. Black is theoretically stronger than the alien since he was the leader, but his speed is pretty sad and the constructs are too slow to really help him here.

Barrage is pretty easy to get into, which helps the beginning. The intro had potential to be boring since it’s just Astro living in the slums and trying to earn some money. Luckily, the plot moves quickly and seeing Astro trick everyone is pretty intense for him. His first action scene was fun and the series as a whole is pretty entertaining. The chipper tone helps to add some hope for the characters amidst what is technically a sad series since humanity is essentially toast. It does remind me of Blue Exorcist in this regard as well or you can compare it to Buso Renkin. The volumes go by very quickly and it does have a lot of replay value. I could see myself reading this again someday, but pretty far in the future considering all of the other titles that are around.

Overall, Barrage is a pretty fun series. It’s really over when you’re just beginning though and I’m sure that the author had many ideas for its future. It’s always sad when a series is cancelled, but this just means that another series gets to bloom in its place. Hopefully, whatever replaced this series was a good title. It would be fun to see a movie for this manga since it’s short enough and maybe it’ll make a comeback someday. I really don’t see it, but it’s always possible. If you want to see a story about humanity fighting back against alien oppression with a good ole Shonen lead, this is the story for you. It has action and drama. The series never takes a break and you can really see the potential here. Just remember that it is only 2 volumes.

Overall 7/10

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