Category: Manga

Two First Impressions of Two Psychological Manga

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

I initially come off as someone who only likes happy, fluffy stuff. And while that is generally what I gravitate toward, I do get that variety is the spice of life. I love a good, dark drama; the problem is that there aren’t a lot that satisfy both conditions. But for some reason, I’ve found manga to be my most enjoyed medium when it comes to enjoying the darker facets of the human psyche. And to show how insane some manga can get, here are two examples. Note that neither of these appear on BookWalker’s search suggestions, meaning only one thing: THEY ARE NOT FOR YOUNG’UNS. For fairness sake, both reviews are based on the respective mangas’ first two volumes. 

Back When You Called Us Devils

In this messed up manga, you have the most generic-looking kid imaginable: Yusuke Saito. Apparently, looks are deceiving. He’s been coming down with amnesia, but it isn’t long before some people show up who claim that he was a very, VERY horrible person in his past. 

And I mean horrible. Basically, the most messed up things you can think of, Yusuke allegedly did. I don’t even want to write the words for them, so here’s a basic TL;DR of his crimes: Goblin Slayer Episode 1. No, that’s not hyperbole. I have a good enough grasp of reality and fiction to not get messed up by it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t mess you up.

The main conflict is to get Yusuke to remember everything he did. Fortunately, helping him is his childhood friend who also happens to be one of his alleged victims: Aizawa Yojiro. Since Aizawa actually knows Yusuke, the process is simple: go to the places relevant to his past and jog his memory in said places. The story is fun (albeit a bit messed up), and I’m curious to see where it goes.

The hardest sell of Back When You Called Us Devils is no doubt the characters. If you couldn’t tell, everyone is basically evil. It doesn’t take long for you to find out that Yusuke is indeed what his victims claim him to be, but it feels very unrealistic for a kid to just be like that without the full story. Aizawa is Mr. Ends-Justify-the-Means, and does not hesitate to commit equally bad crimes if he darn well feels like it. Even Yusuke’s favorite victim, Akari Ichinose—whom he supposedly murdered (they have yet to show her dead body, which is a classic trope in pretty much all media)—is pretty messed up as well. She had some bizarre relationship with him where she lets him do whatever he wants to her and hopes it breaks him somehow? It’s something I can’t really describe, honestly; you’ll have to read the manga to find out!

The art is what it should be for this type of manga. It has a sketchy style, and the character design gives me a very 1990s manga vibe for some reason. Thankfully, a lot of the expressions are relatively subdued; a very rare design choice in this medium. Overall, it looks great.

Current Verdict: 8.5/10

My Dearest Self With Malice Aforethought

This manga ended up being, by sheer coincidence, similar to Back When You Called Us Devils; the main protagonist, Eiji Urashima, is also haunted by a dark past that’s about to bite him in the butt. But unlike the other guy, the reason is pretty well-known: he’s the son of LL, a serial killer. Eiji has been able to live a normal life, but he suddenly starts experiencing time-skips. The reason for this is B1, a split personality that seems to be more-or-less following in his father’s footsteps. Eiji now must find the truth behind, well, himself.

Dearest Self ends up, arguably, being more suspenseful than the other manga. Back When You Called Us Devils is built entirely around the anticipation of learning Yusuke’s past, the suspense being in us not knowing information. Here, however, we are fed new information relatively quickly. After all, we’re seeing the consequences of B1’s actions in real time. And every time we’re given that new information, it has the same “Oh crap” feeling that makes suspense good. There’s also a lot more action to boot.

The characters are, sadly, not too spectacular. Eiji is your typical thriller protagonist, where he starts off as super timid, but ends up becoming more and more like B1 as he’s forced to do uncouth things in order to find the truth. The most likeable character is this one loli whose name I actually forgot… oops. Basically, she’s that weird girl who’s super big-brain and knows how to do a lot of unconventional stuff that just so happens to be helpful in plot progression.

The art, for the most part, is much more modern than Back When You Called Us Devils. The eyes are very detailed, and there are a lot more instances of crosshatching and distortion effects. The faces are a bit more exaggerated, however.

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Current Verdict: 8.65/10

Conclusion

These were both very fun, and dark manga that will probably never get anime adaptations. Of course, Naoki Urasawa can eat these for breakfast. But at the very least, these will do fine to tide you over if you’re waiting on more Asadora! to release. In fact, that’s basically why I decided to read these in the first place. Since both are finished in Japan, I should be able to put out full reviews of them sometime next year!

Danganronpa Meets… Soccer?!: Blue Lock First Impressions (Volumes 1-3)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

Most sports manga tend to be the same from beginning to end (even if Haikyuu!! was VERY different toward the end but that’s only like 15% of the story). It’s the usual thing: school is in the dumps, some special kids meet up at said school, bonds form, and in an inexplicable upset, said school is fighting the world champion team. But if you couldn’t tell from the fact that the cover of today’s manga, Blue Lock, shows characters with an eerie blood lust in their eyes, along with cuffs around their necks… this one’s a bit different across the board.

In Blue Lock, Japan’s soccer team has suffered a crippling loss at the 2018 World Cup. Since sports arbitrarily govern a nation’s entire dignity, we can’t have that crap anymore. So, in an act of desperation, an eccentric coach named Jinpachi Ego is hired to lead the final charge. But if you couldn’t tell from his name, Ego’s approach is pretty unconventional. He builds a brutal training facility, the titular Blue Lock, and hires three hundred promising strikers. In this facility, they don’t train together, but against each other, and only one of these kids can graduate from Blue Lock as supposedly the world’s greatest striker. Our main protagonist, Yoichi Isagi, is one such striker. And after experiencing a brutal loss because he chose to pass to a teammate at a critical moment, he kind of picks up what Ego is putting down.

Just one thing I need to get out there first: I love and hate this premise. I love the premise because, from a storytelling standpoint, it’s a pretty awesome idea. Soccer is the perfect sport to tackle this mindset of playing, since there really is no need for anyone but someone who can score points. The manga quotes real soccer players such as Pelé, who bizarrely enough, support this idea (unless this is an alternate universe where Pelé didn’t actually say that at all). On the flipside, I hate the premise because it’s cynical. I don’t need to read another review of Blue Lock because I know people enough to know what they’re gonna say: “This manga is so much better than other sports manga because it’s darker, which is more realistic, since there is never ever any happiness in real life.” Good thing I abandoned MyAnimeList when I did!

So far, Blue Lock does a great job at building anticipation, probably better than any sports manga I’ve read. This is done in Ego’s relatively quick exposition dump on how Blue Lock is set up. It’s divided into five wings, each of which have five groups of eleven kids who are on the same team. It seems that, over the course of the manga, these teams will compete with other teams within their wing, and eventually with the top teams from the other wings. And if my context clues are correct, this will eventually lead to some kind of knockout round between the team of eleven that comes out on top of that kerfuffle. By that point, those characters will have been fighting side-by-side the whole time, and now have to turn on each other. Of course, this is all speculation, since the manga’s barely even started.

So far, Blue Lock’s weakest aspect is its characters. Normally, sports mangas’ casts start off as pretty basic, but become super likeable down the road. However, due to the whole “ego” theme, I do not see the cast of Blue Lock being very likable in the typical sports manga fashion. Of course, with me being the lunatic that I am (what with loving narcissists like Senku), I see the possibility of Blue Lock having my favorite sports manga cast of all time. Yoichi, so far, is sadly the generic character who has the ability no one else has for no reason. The others also seem kind of generic, but time could easily mend that. I anticipate the fan-favorite to be Bachira. He’s the eccentric, mysterious character who takes a liking to the main protagonist (so, basically, he’s Nagito). I also like Coach Ego, for obvious reasons.

No sports manga is worth its salt without awesome art, and Blue Lock does not disappoint. Like the cover art, it’s full of insanity and bloodlust. As with any edgy, psychological series, there is no shortage of exaggerated, creepy faces. The action shots are spectacular, as expected from a manga like this.

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Current Verdict: 9/10

As cynical as it is, Blue Lock is shaping up to be a fantastic sports manga. In fact, I’d already consider it my favorite since Haikyuu!! And if it continues to grow at its current rate, I think it could surpass even that. I recommend it if you’re a critic of sports manga and like psychological stuff.

ASHIDAKA – The Iron Hero: More Like “The All-Caps Hero” (First Impressions, Volumes 1 and 2)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

I’m not one to normally read a new series just over a year after serialization. My first impressions of ASHIDAKA – The Iron Hero consist of the first two volumes, but that could end up being half or two-thirds of the story. A lot of manga, especially battle shounen, tend to get axed as swiftly and mercilessly as a Danganronpa character. But sometimes you gotta live life on the edge, and by the edge, I mean invest early in something that could easily get cancelled even after a cliffhanger. 

In ASHIDAKA – The Iron Hero, the world is full of robots called droids. Fortunately, people in this world are naturally born with two cybernetic arms coming out of their shoulder blades. However, because we HAVE to have racism, anyone who has more than one pair of arms is considered to be in league with Satan, and are persecuted. The titular Ashidaka (whose name is thankfully not in all caps like the title) is named after the Moses of this world, and he inevitably ends up on a mission to take down Mecha Satan (henceforth known as the Centipede). 

The immediate issue with ASHIDAKA is that it kind of dumps a ton of crap on you at once. It jumps right into combat when you don’t even know how anything works yet, you get a Biblical lore dump, Centipede destroys Ashidaka’s hometown that you’re expected to have an emotional attachment toward over the course of five minutes, and he’s roped into some secret Anti-Centipede resistance. Yeah, it’s a lot. 

There are also some things that seem inconsistent to me, but it could be because of either the fast pacing, or the mangaka didn’t put much thought into the story. For example, why are people racist against those with four or more arms when the specific count has to be a hundred in order to be Satanic? I feel like that was just thrown in there just to be symbolic for the sake of symbolism. There’s also someone who’s a massive jerk to Ashidaka exactly one time for what seems like nothing more than shock value. Maybe if the manga runs long enough it’ll get to flesh this stuff out.

Another sad thing is that the writing is pretty bare-bones. It’s not as copy-paste as Kimetsu no Yaiba (which I may or not be saying out of spite against Kimetsu no Yaiba but I digress), but it’s enough to where you could probably read the Japanese version and more-or-less know exactly what’s going on. It’s a real shame, since it looks like it has potential to have a pretty good story moving forward.

The big plus with ASHIDAKA is definitely the arms. Usually, only one character in a series would have robot arms, but for that to be the standard for everyone in the world makes it a bit more interesting. There are many types of arms, along with a whole bunch of rules that will likely be amended on the fly because battle shounen love doing that. At least they look cool; that’s what matters most!

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help the characters. Similar to Musashi from Orient, among others, Ashidaka is a case of a “shounen protagonist in a seinen world”. He has absolutely zero rationality, and will throw a hissy fit if anyone dies for any reason, even if it’s for the greater good. He aims to find a less costly way of fighting, but that’s definitely not going to come into play for a while.

Supporting him is Geji, who is a bit more composed, even if he is super abrasive. And honestly, that’s kind of it so far. There’s several people in the aforementioned resistance movement, but they all consist of extremely basic tropes. At least they look cool?

Speaking of looks, ASHIDAKA is decent enough in the art department. The fights are flashy, but it can be tough to tell what’s going on since everything has robot parts.

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Current Verdict: 6/10

ASHIDAKA – The Iron Hero is nothing spectacular so far. But hey, I only read two volumes. Hopefully, it’ll get better in the future.

Attack on Titan: A Mainstream Series That I… Love?

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Manga

Preface: If you’re wondering how I already have a review of Attack on Titan the day after it finished, don’t worry; I didn’t pirate it! There are official channels through which to finish this manga right now, at least in the U.S. One is to read the last leg of it on Crunchyroll’s manga tab that they actually updated after the death of Flash even though most people never use it. Alternatively, you can buy the remaining chapters on BookWalker for about 2 USD each. Of course, you’ll have to have read all thirty-two currently published U.S. releases for it to work. But you know what, at least you’d be supporting the actual creator!

There are types of stories that have existed since the dawn of man. Romance, for example, as full of BS as it is, is one of the most enduring story types of all time. Stories like Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan are insanely common; plucky teens thrust into a world of strife against some “mysterious enemy” that the main character “happens” to be “special” enough to save the world from. However, Attack on Titan is probably one of the best variations of this story ever created. And here’s why.

The plot is nothing new. We have the Titans—the “mysterious enemy”—ravaging mankind and driving them into hiding behind some walls (“But what about the possibility of an AERIAL ATTACK?!” Squidward Tentacles exclaims). After the designated first-chapter-death, the “plucky teens” join the designated “cool fighter people” and, well, fight the Titans.

I’m gonna tell you straight. You likely already know what’s going to happen, thankfully minus the dumb romance sideplot. As much as this series excels at foreshadowing and build-up, you don’t need it. If you’ve read stuff like this before, then you can probably make several ballpark guesses on what the low-down of this manga’s world is and at least one guess would probably be correct.

But you know what, strong execution beats lack of originality. The rules of how the different units of the military work are all thought out (even if the Survey Corps are the only ones who matter), the “parkour gear” or whatever it’s called is one of the coolest things I have ever seen, and there’s always something engaging going on in terms of plot progress. Even during a later arc that is notorious for its utter lack of Titan combat, the manga consistently keeps the momentum going.

Most of the time, I’m not a fan of “human” characters. But unlike cardboard boxes such as Rimuru Tempest from TenSura, Isayama actually seems to understand the definition OF a human being in the first place, especially what it’s like to be a teenager who has to live in a world of despair, and to have their perception of their established facts of life turned upside down numerous times. Wow, that was all one sentence…

First off, the three main characters—Eren, Armin, and Mikasa—somehow manage to maintain a relatively platonic relationship throughout the whole series. Two male characters and one female character, all of which are childhood friends, is a perfect love triangle, and any [bad] YA author would’ve done it in a heartbeat and ruined the story forever. Mikasa clearly has some level of “thing”-ness for Eren, but it’s seldom ham-fisted into your face but instead shown visually merely by the scarf that she wears; a gift from him when they first met. The fourth main character is Best Boy Levi, who is raw badassery and intellect rolled into one handsome boy. What’s there to dislike? The supporting cast is also phenomenal. From gambit-happy Erwin Smith, to potato-eating Sasha Blouse, to Actual Best Girl Krista, these kids are surprisingly easy to love.

This manga warrants a reread, because re-experiencing the story by watching the anime from the beginning, after having read past chapter ninety, really shows how organically they have developed over time. I cringed at the first episode, at Eren’s incessant whining, thinking, “Is this really the SAME GUY who I grew emotionally attached to?” THIS is character development at its finest.

“Rough around the edges” is an understatement for the art in this manga. Based on the “rules of art” that have been established over the years, Attack on Titan has “objectively” bad art. It’s not smooth nor crisp, but for me, it somehow “works” (It’s as if art was never meant to be assigned rules to begin with…).

If there is one “rule of art” that it follows, it’s gesture drawing. The many (MANY) tiny strokes in Isayama’s technique helps to convey motion in a spectacular fashion. I didn’t need the anime’s sakuga to feel the force of the parkour gear as our intrepid heroes flew through cities and forests, striking Titans as they went. All this in addition to his great sense of good panelwork makes Attack on Titan a tightly paced read. Not even the dialogue-driven chapters feel like a waste of time.

For the last paragraph, I’ll touch on the one thing that always ends up being divisive for long-running battle shounen series: the final act. Don’t worry; I’ll word it in the least spoilery way possible. Late-ish in Attack on Titan, an epic battle—one of the best in the series—unfolds in spectacular glory. But the aftermath opens up a can of worms that drastically changes the entire tone of the manga. Although it is still a great arc, the biggest problem is that it introduces a metric ton of new characters that I honestly didn’t care about, let alone remember their names in the first place. It also didn’t help that this was the arc where I had caught up on the most recent chapters, and ended up playing the waiting game most often. Since I’m always pressed for time, I can’t reread volumes to make sure I still remember stuff. 

And honestly, like a lot of long battle shounen, the plot gets pretty complicated. There’s even the possibility that it was retconned at some point. But you know what, I still love this manga to death. You gotta give mangakas some benefit of the doubt, since a lot of them are forced to make this stuff up as they go along. No matter how confusing it got, I still loved Attack on Titan all the way through. Isayama knows how to make a story feel engaging regardless of what’s happening. That takes talent.

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Final Verdict: 9.8/10

Attack on Titan is one of my favorite manga of all time. Isayama draws (no pun intended) influence from the very best of Western culture, without using any of the BS, to make a fantastic battle shounen series that miraculously maintains a consistent state of cohesion for a decade-long runtime. I’d recommend it if you want a shounen series that’s light on the fanservice, but I also just recommend it in general. The biggest issue will likely be the art if it doesn’t suit your tastes, but other than that this manga is a masterpiece through and through.

Peach Boy Riverside: Not Your Grandma’s Momotaro (First Impressions, Volumes 1-3)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

This was a spur-of-the-moment decision for me. Normally, I tend to have a bulk of blog posts ready to go well in advance. But at the start of this year, I really dropped the ball. I started a lot of reviews but had no intention to post until the respective series were finished, like The Owl House for instance. I decided to pick up Peach Boy Riverside for three reasons: it’s by the creator of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (even if the artist is different), it’s getting an anime that I can hope to ride the hype of, and it’s about the legendary Momotaro… to an extent. 

In Peach Boy Riverside, Princess Saltherine (henceforth known as Sally) wants to go on a journey, despite her overprotective dad. Fortunately, a pretty-boy named Mikoto shows up and sweeps her off her feet. The thing is that he’s someone who came from a peach, and killed a bunch of ogres (yes they localized the name “oni” for some reason). 

Despite how shoujo the manga looks, Peach Boy Riverside ends up being very shounen, and surprisingly edgy. It’s pretty normal stuff for the most part, but when Mikoto gets serious, he gets all “SAO-villain-y” and has upside-down hearts in his eyes. 

To be brutally honest, the manga up to what I’ve read has been a pretty typical shounen fantasy. It starts off with being completely aloof, then Sally is suddenly like “I’m going to end all racism!” The Momotaro aspect isn’t even evident, beyond the whole “boy who fights oni” thing. The world doesn’t feel defined enough to even tell if it’s an alternate Japan or a straight-up fantasy realm.

And, of course, I wasn’t particularly fond of the cast. Mikoto is the bread and butter of this thing, because pretty-boys are popular and he’s super strong. He is kind of an ass, which sets him apart from other men of his ilk, but that doesn’t make him any more remarkable. In addition to him is Sally, who is pretty much your typical power fantasy girl, and Frau, a bunny girl who’s basically one of those tragic waifus that you’re supposed to fry buckets for. Volume two introduces a female ogre who ends up being named Carrot after going through the whole shounen “from bad to good” thing, but so far, she’s merely been the peanut gallery.

The art, sadly, is not by Coolkyoushinja, but someone else who’s nowhere near as good. The manga has a very basic, standard look with very “stock”-looking character designs across the board. The action looks nice, but even that is outclassed by other series.

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Current Verdict: 7.35/10

Peach Boy Riverside isn’t awful, but it’s not that engaging right now. Mikoto being a creep, and the unsubtle social commentary, are more-or-less what this manga is running on, and it could peter out at any moment. I recommend it if you like TenSura, since Mikoto is the same type of character as Rimuru.

Chainsaw Man: Too Seinen for Shounen Jump?!

by macksamson, posted in Full Reviews, Manga

It’s no secret that Weekly Shounen Jump has not had the best run in the late 2010s. The newest manga by Naruto’s author got axed, among MANY other 2019 and 2020 debuts. And when they actually had a good series, it would either end off on a bad note (Shokugeki no Soma), or one of its writers would end up being a felon (ACT-AGE). But one series managed to be a standout franchise until the bitter end: Chainsaw Man, published in English by Viz. I gave it a good word in my First Impressions. Let’s see if it’s held out.

In Chainsaw Man, a dreg named Denji makes a living by hunting devils, with the help of a chainsaw-dog-devil named Pochita. But “makes a living” can be read as “barely scraping by”, for he’s shouldering a serious debt from his late father. However, when he’s almost cut to pieces, he fuses with Pochita and becomes a chainsaw man, after which he is taken under the wing of Makima, a beautiful girl from an official team of devil hunters.

Chainsaw Man is, for the most part, a very straightforward manga. The plot is very traditional shounen at first: bad guy appears, kill it, then wait for the next one. Denji’s heart becomes a major MacGuffin, but we aren’t informed of why for a pretty long time. Things heat up in the second half, and by the final third, it goes absolutely berserk with insanity.

What makes Chainsaw Man a great manga is its characters. The mangaka takes common shounen tropes and puts a seinen twist on them with Denji and the people around him. Denji himself seems to be a generic, self-insert shounen protagonist, but he’s more complicated than that. He’s very attracted to women, but he at least tries to maintain his feelings for Makima, despite the amount of other beautiful women who tempt him. I don’t like using the word “human” to describe a character, but it’s done exceptionally well with Denji. He’s an innocent kid thrust into an adult world, and his simple-mindedness made me sympathize with him.

The other thing is that the women in his life subvert common conventions as well, especially with Makima. Us readers are informed very early on of how suspicious she is. But Denji doesn’t know any of it, and he’s naively in love with her. Unfortunately, she takes advantage of his love for her to essentially exploit him, which I think is a great commentary on the idea of waifus in general. 

Of course, Makima ain’t crap compared to Best Girl Power. She’s just… effing awesome. She’s like the best friend that you’re so close to that you just start busting each other’s chops. Her chemistry with Denji is one of the best I’ve seen in all of Jump. Sadly, I didn’t really care for the rest of the protagonists. For one, I forgot a lot of their names, which is a bad sign for me. Fortunately, the antagonists are as fun as they are plentiful. They have some of the more memorable character designs and personalities, especially compared to the supporting protagonists. 

Somehow, I went almost the entire review without discussing exactly why Chainsaw Man is big (or would be if it weren’t for Kimetsu no Yaiba). Weekly Shounen Jump has some cute girls with cleavage, but that’s usually about it; the magazine is for early-teens kids after all. Chainsaw Man, however, has R18+ stuff; pretty much everything except for female private parts are shown. The manga is full of extremely visceral gore, and one character just straight-up asks Denji if he wants to have sex. The fact that something like this ran in Jump is insane.

That’s where my biggest gripe with Chainsaw Man lies. Its whole thing is that it’s very mature for a Jump manga. But the thing is—and the reason why I’m posting this so soon—that Chainsaw Man is getting a part two in Shounen Jump+, home to a lot of seinen series, from Jigokuraku to World’s End Harem. As a result, Chainsaw Man loses the one thing that makes it stand out from its ilk. This was probably inevitable because, you know, minors.

Anyhow, the artwork is fantastic. It’s rough, and dirty, with some phenomenal action scenes, and a surprising amount of abstract panels late in the series. The managaka is also able to contrast such insanity with some genuinely heartfelt and emotional scenes. It’s going to be so sad to see this twisted beauty dumbed down in the upcoming anime.

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Final Verdict: 9.15/10

Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite Jump manga of the 2010s. It’s over-the-top, with a lot of quirky characters, and a very alluring charm. Seriously, how in the world did Kimetsu no Yaiba beat this?! I highly recommend Chainsaw Man to anyone who likes their battle shounen super dark and edgy. Hopefully, if Viz licenses the sequel, I’ll be doing a post or two on that!

Horimiya: Realistic to a Fault (First Impressions, Volumes 1-5)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

As someone who’s been more into manga than anime, I’ve frequently heard people discuss manga that deserve anime adaptations. And in those discussions, Horimiya has consistently come up. It didn’t look too interesting to me, but when it actually got its anime adaptation confirmed, I read a bit in order to see what the hubbub was about.

In Horimiya, a girl named Kyouko Hori seems like a typical high school girl, but has a secret life where she has to take care of her entire house (baby brother included). Her life changes after a chance encounter with the seemingly stoic Izumi Miyamura, who is actually some kind of goth dude or something. Since they both have secrets, that gives them some sense of commonality, and they decide to become secret friends.

To be honest, I don’t get the big deal with Hori’s secret. Miyamura’s I get, because of the dress code and all that. But why does Hori have to keep her thing a secret? “Oh my gawd, she’s a responsible, upstanding citizen who cares for her family. How disgusting.” I’m not saying it’s easy for her to support her household while going to high school, but I don’t get why she has to keep it a secret. 

Also, I have no idea if this is a romcom or merely a rom. The reason is that nothing in Horimiya is actually, you know, funny. There are definitely jokes, but a lot of it is really bog-standard. The manga uses a lot of the “text box tells you what’s supposed to be funny” thing; I have no idea what it’s called. It’s where the character is like “Why is this guy acting weird?” and the text box points at that person saying something like “Has no idea that they’re the reason why he’s acting weird”. Yeah, I dunno what it is. Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle and Dragon Goes House-Hunting use this technique a lot better, mainly because those manga have actual comedy in them (Ohhhhh snap). 

At the very least, they don’t beat around the bush with the romance. However, that doesn’t make their relationship any less cringe. They practically confess their love to each other as early as volume two, but try to pretend like they never said it. I guess the positive is that they are actually dealing with their own emotional anxiety instead of being like “Why did I feel weird holding his/her hand? I DUNNO MAN!”, but it still left me unwilling to give any of my spare rats’ asses to them. 

What really made me not care about their relationship was Hori and Miyamura themselves. Like I said before, I have no idea why she can’t tell anyone about her family situation. I get that teens are judgmental, but she can’t even tell her teachers “Sorry, my grades kind of suck because I’m forced to care for my younger brother all by myself.” Miyamura is a bit more tolerable, since his tattoo thing can be a big deal. The running joke of his “feminine” traits don’t make him much better.

There are also other characters and I don’t like them either. From jealous Ishikawa to… also jealous Remi, everyone in Horimiya has basic romcom tropes, with little-to-no personality. “Eeeeeeh but that makes them realistic,” you argue. I’m sorry, I don’t understand why people think subdued characters are more human. In my experience, REAL teenagers are much louder and bombastic than the cardboard cutouts in most slice-of-life series. I’ve even seen grown men and women playing around like children (well, specifically on Twitch but it’s still an example), and I sincerely doubt that anyone can actually grow up to be THAT boring in real life (and if you do, I feel sorry for you). 

The art of Horimiya is just about as flat and subdued as the people in it. If you told me that this was a redrawing of a web manga á la One Punch Man, I would not believe you. The characters are only distinguishable from each other due to their hair, but they would easily blend into a crowd of other series’ characters their age. The facial expressions feel like they’re from a how-to-draw-manga book, and have no impact because they’re all “realistic” looking.

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Current Verdict: 6.25/10

This is something I could’ve only brought upon myself. Horimiya is probably good for a romance, but I simply hate romance with every fiber of my being. I wanted to check it out because of the anime hype, and now I know that I’m going to be very mad during the January 2021 anime season when everyone I follow is going to be Tweeting about how great the anime is and make me even more stressed out than I already am on social media—*huff huff* Anyway, I recommend Horimiya if you deeply care about human relationships.

Mission: Yozakura Family is Literally All About the Waifu (First Impressions, Chapters 1-30)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

Spy X Family is a manga about a spy who makes a fake family, and that’s all well and good. But they’re not the only ones on the block. Mission: Yozakura Family has a family made entirely of spies. It’s managed to last a year in Jump’s ruthless gauntlet, so that means it must be doing something right. 

In Mission: Yozakura Family, a shy boy named Taiyo Asano has been coping with the abrupt death of his parents and brother (which is not at all a cheap emotional hook). His only friend is this girl named Mutsumi Yozakura, the adorable school idol. When Taiyo is attacked by Mutsumi’s overprotective brother, Kyoichiro, he is introduced to the Yozakura family (of spies). Because he’s the ultimate husbando (and because he doesn’t want to get assassinated), he marries into the family and vows to protect Mutsumi with his life.

I don’t know of many manga attempting to combine gag shounen with battle shounen (apparently, Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is one example, but SOMEONE (*cough* Viz *cough*) doesn’t have the manga licensed), but Yozakura Family has been a real fun time. Of course, there really is no narrative to speak of. The death of Taiyo’s family is pretty much glossed over until it gets to the designated “It wasn’t really an accident” plot development (which, honestly, isn’t a spoiler because that pretty much always happens).

The sillies are what matter, though. Yozakura Family is loaded with bombastic, over-the-top comedy that completely disregards realism, including a literal spy magazine and social media group. I also have to post a trigger warning: there are cases of minors (and adults) carrying firearms to school, so if you have any memories tied to an actual school shooting, then this manga might not be for you. There haven’t BEEN any school shootings so far, but I doubt that’ll stop you from being triggered. Also, as of where I left off, the manga hasn’t gone straight-up full battle shounen, like many gag series do. 

Unfortunately, Yozakura Family fubars one of the most important aspects of shounen: training. They show some of Taiyo’s training early on, but it’s gone over super-fast. It’s so abrupt that he goes from wimp to Bruce Willis overnight. Since this is primarily a gag shounen, I’m not too butthurt about it, but I’m definitely the minority in that.

This manga has a great cast of characters (for once). Taiyo is kind of that generic guy, like always, but the series isn’t called Yozakura Family for nothing. While Mutsumi herself is that “waifu” type, her siblings are where the personality comes in. Kyoichiro might (read as: “will”) annoy some people, but I think his ludicrous devotion to Mutsumi, plus his overly lacking subtlety of how much he hates Taiyo is hilarious. Her other siblings have very distinctive character design and memorable personalities, but sadly, they don’t have too much screentime. In any case, the antagonists are all fun, even if a lot of them (so far) have been in the throwaway category. 

The art is great. It’s simple, but effective. The action scenes are swift and packed with line work, while the facial expressions are on point. It’s what you’d expect from a shounen manga.

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Current Verdict: 9/10

Mission: Yozakura Family is starting off strong. I have no idea how popular it is, so I don’t know if it’s going to be ending soon, but I hope it has a solid run down the road. Of course, you can never truly know with a Jump manga.

Two Muscular, Magical Reviews in One Post!

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Light Novels, Manga, Other

I had every intention of reading Mashle: Magic and Muscles since its debut in Weekly Shounen Jump. But then, Seven Seas came out of nowhere and licensed a light novel with an extremely similar title: Muscles Are Better Than Magic! Since they seemed so identical, I decided to review them both in this post. Although Mashle came out in the U.S. before Muscles, the latter actually predates the former by three years. So naturally, I’ll go over it first!

Muscles Are Better Than Magic! Volume 1

In Muscles Are Better Than Magic!, a boy named Yuri lives in the forest alone. He has managed to train himself to the point where he’s super ripped, and can take on anything. When he finds an elven girl named Filia Windia, he decides to go on adventures with her, for no reason whatsoever.

If Muscles appears to be a run-of-the-mill, typical shounen fantasy light novel to you, that’s because it is! The whole darn thing is the two of them hanging out. A lot of the interactions are just him using his muscles and freaking people out. And like I said in the premise, there’s no purpose to anything that happens. They just go on adventures that are no different from your typical slice-of-life fantasy with no real spice beyond Yuri’s muscles.

The mostly boring cast doesn’t help either. While Yuri and Filia have some legitimately cute and funny interactions, they are surrounded by idiots. All the other characters are inconsequential NPCs who have no personality other than being shocked by Yuri’s muscles. That’s literally it! But even then, Yuri is also incredibly bland, with Filia being the only remotely likeable character.

The biggest issue is the writing. Muscles is one of those light novels that feels like a rough draft and not a publication. Although the action scenes are pretty good, descriptions of locations are as bare minimum as they typically are in these series. I get that writing is really hard but that doesn’t excuse when it’s bad in a published work!

Verdict: 5.75/10

Muscles Are Better Than Magic! is no better than your typical blazé fantasy. Similar to Buck Naked in Another World, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and others, it uses some defining character design trait to pretend that it’s subversive. My chances of reading more are pretty low. But let’s see whether or not it’s the lesser of two evils when I review Mashle!

Mashle: Magic and Muscles First Impressions (Chapters 1-15)

In Mashle: Magic and Muscles, a boy named Mash Burnedead lives in the forest with an old wizard guy. He was born in a world of magic, but has no magic himself, making him an easy target of the police. When he bests the police with his bare hands, he is given a deal: enroll in Magic School and graduate at the top of his class or be pursued by the law forever. He accepts the deal, and attends the school with no magic power whatsoever.

I made a big deal about how Muscles and Mashle are the same, but… it turns out that Mashle resembles Black Clover more than anything else (oops). In any case, Mashle already shows greater personality than Muscles. Not only is the humor (and its delivery) much more substantial than in Muscles, but there’s also a purpose to the shenanigans that ensue.

So far, Mashle’s biggest issue is its simplicity. While I love a good, clear-cut Jump manga, a lot of [very vocal] people don’t. Because of this, there’s no rhyme or reason to the magic that gets used; they don’t even bother to explain the rules. And of course, let’s not forget the magic word, “unrealistic”, because of how impossibly strong Mash is for a teenager.

Mashle has a similar issue to Muscles: everyone other than the main character exists just to react to how swole said main character is. Furthermore, the lead girl is less remarkable than Filia, to the point where I already forgot her name. But unlike Yuri, Mash is a significantly more likeable character. In fact, he’s the bread and butter of this whole manga. While he’s completely devoid of personality, the author somehow makes that lack of personality into its own personality quirk. Also, his inane obsession with cream puffs makes him even more hilarious.

The art doesn’t look like much, but it’s more than enough. The panel composition expertly sells the humor, while also delivering the appropriate amount of punch to Mash’s attacks. If there are any issues, it’s that the black wizard robes make a lot of the foreshortening shots look kind of weird.

Current Verdict: 9.35/10

Muscles might be better than magic, but Mashle is far better than Muscles. It’s a risk investing in a new series when you don’t know whether or not it’ll get axed, but here’s hoping that Mashle stays for a couple of years at least. I recommend it to people who like battle shounen and fun (i.e. not cynical).

Jujutsu Kaisen is at least Better than Kimetsu no Yaiba (First Impressions, Chapters 1-75)

by macksamson, posted in First Impressions, Manga

Weekly Shounen Jump has had some really great manga, and it’s had some not so great manga. While they have a system to weed out the latter, cases like Kimetsu no Yaiba show that it’s not perfect. A little manga called Jujutsu Kaisen (published in English by Viz) has risen to a pretty high level of popularity, without the need of a successful anime adaptation (even though the anime will no doubt make it quite popular overseas). Let’s see whether or not it deserves its popularity.

In Jujutsu Kaisen, a high-schooler named Yuji Itadori has a run-in with Megumi Fushiguro, a student from the curse-fighting Jujutsu Highschool, when he seeks a cursed object that Yuji’s classmates have come across. Yuji helps him fight back the curses that attack them, but things get hairy. Yuji ends up eating the cursed object- a severed finger- and becomes more than powerful enough to fight the curse, but is nearly possessed by the finger’s owner, Ryomen Sukuna. Due to Yuji’s strange ability to suppress its power, he’s recruited as a new student of Jujutsu Highschool in order to collect and consume the rest of the fingers… after which he will be executed. 

Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it; this is a First Impressions, after all. I had thought, based on Chainsaw Man, that Jump is trying to become more mature in order to recover from the slump it’s been in lately (a lot of series from 2019 onward have sold poorly), but alas, it seems that Chainsaw Man is an exception and not the rule. Despite how often it waxes poetic about life and death, Jujutsu Kaisen is a pretty typical shounen manga. 

As expected of most Jump manga, Jujutsu Kaisen starts by getting us acquainted with the main characters as they fight random enemies in self-contained mini-arcs, followed by a training arc. For the most part, the ideas of cursed energy and techniques are pretty generic, but the neatest aspect of the combat in Jujutsu Kaisen is the domain techniques. These are basically field effects that look really cool, and add a bit of spectacle to the fights.

The manga picks up after twenty-odd chapters, which is when the first major arc starts. It introduces the main antagonist (who will likely get replaced by someone less memorable if the manga ends up running for eight more years), and ups the ante by a lot. And I mean A LOT.

Typical shounen manga means a pretty one-dimensional cast. Yuji is a pretty generic, brash idiot, and the thing with Sukuna seems more like something to make him edgy than to give him a moral crisis. His classmates, Megumi, and the female lead, Nobara, aren’t that interesting either outside of their fighting abilities. Fortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen at least tries with some of its characters. Yuji’s teacher, Satoru Gojo, has got a pretty good sense of humor, for instance. There’s also some other students in other classes who are pretty wild, such as a literal panda bear, as well as some interesting folks from their rival school in Kyoto (such as mah boy Toto). 

The art of Jujutsu Kaisen is where it shines. It’s sketchy and dirty, but full of personality. The fight scenes are fast and spectacular, and really help the manga shine. The character design is also excellent, with a plethora of good-looking women.

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Current Verdict: 8.75/10

Jujutsu Kaisen is indeed a very mainstream manga. However, with great art, and a number of admittedly creative ideas (such as a decrepit old geezer who fights with an electric guitar), it stands out from the rabble. I recommend it to any battle shounen fanatic.