Tag Archives: Terrible Manga

Rock Lee Springtime of Youth Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 0/10

Black Bird

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Volume 10 Cover
It’s almost been a year since I started this series and I can safely say that it never got better. I’m surprised that it actually lasted to 18 volumes and wasn’t cancelled sooner. This is easily the worst manga series of all time and it would be very hard to actually lose to this one. At least, as far as manga series that I read go. It basically falls into all of the holes and there are no positives to be found. That’s right…there’s really not a single good thing to say about this series, which is why it’s just so awful. I can safely say right from the start, I do not recommend checking out this manga.

Misao is the main character and she lives next door to a powerful demon. He is the tengu and his name is Kyou. Demons are uncannily similar to vampires in this series and they are just as awful. Misao quickly falls for him and then the series is about them getting closer as they destroy the other demons that lurk about. A prophecy says that Misao may die, but that won’t stop our cringe worthy heroes. Let’s see if Misao can survive in an area that is filled with demons.

Man, this series was terrible. Misao is one of those super unrealistic characters as bad event after event happens to her and she decides that it’s still in her best interests to hang out with Kyou. Misao gets threatened, loses her memories, is attacked, almost dies numerous times, but none of that deters her. The fact that Kyou has to hypnotize her parents sometimes so that they don’t find out about the demons doesn’t bother her either. Misao is in this for love and that’s all that she cares about. The main villain kidnaps her more than once and she still believes that he’s a good guy deep down since he’s a demon who is related to Kyou. Really, there is no hope for Misao and I definitely didn’t like her.

Kyou is no better as he suffers from many mood swings. He’ll be nice to Misao one moment and trying to force her to use a spell to knock herself out of time the next. It was for her own good and all that, but Kyou was really doing it for his own goals. Kyou is strong sometimes, but he still gets beaten up by the villains during other moments. One of the volumes that I rented from the library had been read by someone who also didn’t like him as his face was messed with in every panel. It’s just impossible to like this guy.

Black Bird is one of those series that is so awful that it isn’t even a lot of fun to write about how awful is. That’s why this review really won’t be that long. I could go on and on about the negatives, but they’re all just huge errors that were irreversible right from the start. One of the huge parts that made this an instant loss for me is that it’s a total romance. I’m talking Twilight levels here and at the very least, it did help me breeze through the volumes. I was able to finish one of them in about 10 minutes because of how many scenes I would skip.

Unfortunately, the series plays out a lot like Twilight. There is nothing explicit, (No nudity, etc) but those kinds of scenes are definitely not something that I want to see in a manga series and I just skip them all. Hence, why reading each volume proved to be a very short experience. It’s a negative that you can’t really get past and the series was doomed to get a 0 right from one of the first volumes. Maybe even the very first one. It is simply terrible.

There isn’t much fanservice since this is a Shojo series unless you count those scenes in and of themselves. In that case, this one definitely has some of that in it. It’s just adding more fuel to the flame at this point and the series couldn’t get much worse. The main villain is pretty terrible and I never liked any of the characters. They’re all unlikable and do whatever they want when they feel like it. You definitely can’t trust any of the characters here and Misao should have gotten away from the Tengu when she had the chance.

The art isn’t bad, but I can’t really say much for it. The characters don’t all look the same like some other series, but most of the fight scenes are quickly skipped over due to the nature of the series. The art would probably still be the highlight for the series, but that isn’t really saying much considering how bad the rest of it was.

One thing that is also pretty bad is that the series uses the classic blood subplot. Misao’s blood can naturally make the villains stronger so everyone is after her. The blood shenanigans is why I don’t like anything related to vampires so that certainly wasn’t going to make me like any of the characters here. The Tengu all lack will power most of the time and it’s something that they need to work on. They won’t of course, since they’re busy betraying the team and making partnerships with the enemies, but they should move on.

I could talk about each of the characters, but they’re all pretty unlikable so there wouldn’t be much of a purpose now would there? Power level wise, the series is pretty low tier. One character does get a laser blast though and some basic super speed, which helps his case a little. As expected, he is quickly destroyed without really being able to put up a fight. He turned his back and Kyou figured that this would be the quickest way to win. Honor has no place here.

Black Bird forgets the most important part of being a manga and that’s that it is supposed to be entertaining. We never get any resemblance to a good series here and it’s really a dreary story. There is always something to darken the mood and it’s never fun. You could really just call it a tragedy story that most of the characters are not even aware of. The covers were probably a good tip off of this though as they are all pretty bad. This is a series that I will definitely put out of my memory as soon as this review is done. Now, onto the final paragraph!

Overall, Black Bird is really terrible and it’s one of those series that I’ll never even look at again. I would never flip through the pages of any volume because there is no reason too. If I want to re read a series, I’ll check out Megaman NT Warrior for some quality entertainment. This manga is best left forgotten and if you want a fun Shojo series, check out Kitchen Princess or Angelic Layer. (Layer is close enough to a Shojo anyway) Those are series that retain their composure and tend to provide us with some good stories. That’s what we expect when we read a manga so that’s why you’ll want to skip Black Bird. On the bright side, the next manga review should be significantly more positive. (In theory, that will be the Naruto review unless I finish another manga before that)

Overall 0/10