Let me tell you how obsessed we are with skin these days. In manga, there is a simple technique where stuff is applied with different shades of gray, and give us an idea of what color something is within the medium’s grayscale trappings. It can be used—for instance—to imply that a character has a tan or brown skin color. Issaka Galadima made the decision for the main protagonist of Clock Striker to have one shade, giving her brown skin as a result. This one decision has turned the entire manga industry on its head. In true hypocritical fashion, it even earned the mangaka racial backlash. It doesn’t help that the main character’s skin has been the ONLY thing used by the publisher, Saturday AM, to promote it. However, it still looked like an excellent battle shounen. So, let’s see if I can discuss it like a human being in my review of its first volume (although by the time you’re reading this the initial controversy has probably died down).
In Clock Striker, a girl named Cast wants to be a Smith. However, everyone bullies her and tells her no (classic). Double however, she has an encounter with one such Smith, a woman named Philomena Clock. Naturally, after the first major battle in the series, Clock recruits Cast as her Striker, which is a Smith’s apprentice (title drop). The two go on adventures to dispose of the ancient superweapons that survived some war that probably doesn’t get touched on for a hundred-plus chapters.
So, in a way, we were being played for saps with this manga. Calm down! Spoilers, this post will be mostly positive. However, I must note that, despite the heavy emphasis on Cast’s race in Clock Striker‘s marketing, racism is in fact not a theme whatsoever, at least not in this volume. Sexism does seem to play a role, but right now, it’s a non-issue that feels like shock value. Again, this could change in the future.
They really didn’t need to play into sensitive social issues at all, because Clock Striker is off to a rocking start regardless. First off, the art is really good. In fact, it’s probably the best looking manga I’ve read from Saturday AM thus far. It’s not a particularly novel look, but Clock Striker conforms to classic shounen aesthetics really well. Characters are really memorable and expressive, and the fights are explosively cinematic.
It is also as creative as any battle shounen worth its salt should be. Cast’s superpower would fit really well in Dr. Stone; her prosthetic hand allows her to create chemical reactions, which she uses to blind her enemies with science. Clock, in addition to superhuman strength, has the ability to have tools spontaneously created by a 3D printer that gets beamed down via satellite. It is implied that Cast will have this ability added to her arsenal in time.
As for the story, it’s pretty standard shounen fare so far. Cast does have a goal to become the Pirate King Hokage of Smiths, which is probably where the issue of sexism will be touched in earnest, but for now, it’s all about cleaning up those superweapons. However, no episodic battle shounen is complete without detours! This time, the first distraction involves a kid named Klaus, a runaway from a royal family who has a handsome bounty on his head. The first people who come after him are the Demon Bandits, and like any bandits worth their salt, they rob a train.
Fortunately, Clock Striker is starting out VERY well-paced. It doesn’t feel rushed, yet this volume covers the manga’s first THREE arcs in full, at about 217 pages in total. It helps that it’s this tightly paced in a slower, independent magazine like Saturday AM; it forces Galadima to trim the fat and make every page really count. Although, with that being said, I’m pretty sure that this is at least three years’ of chapters in this volume alone. The next one might get us practically caught up with the publication!
Anyway, there are only three staple protagonists in Clock Striker thus far: Cast, Clock, and Klaus. Cast is a classic spunky protagonist; she doesn’t do anything novel (other than the one thing that people like her for), but follows in the footsteps of Jump heroes quite well. Clock is the Best Mom, though. Possibly Best Grandma, depending on her age. She’s all hoity-toity looking, but packs a punch, and never fails to put on a most formal attitude. This volume hints at her backstory, and knowing battle shounen, we won’t know anything about it for a hundred more chapters.
Klaus is the weakest link. He seems like a typical rich kid with snobby parents. However, the Demon Bandits who try to capture him are pretty cool. I hope they show up more in the future.
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Current Verdict: 8.85/10
Clock Striker shows a lot of promise. In fact, it could very well become an equal to Jump‘s best, and maybe even surpass a few of them (especially the ones I don’t particularly like). At the rate it’s going, I’ll probably publish the full review in about ten years. I recommend it to any battle shounen junkie.
Bukumi Miki’s Shy could be one of the most hyped and controversial upcoming anime, potentially warranting comparisons to My Hero Academia, and according to RiseFromAshes, people getting obsessed with whether or not girls kiss. Wow that was one sentence… Anyway, I’ve actually known about it for some time, since stumbling upon it back in my MAL days, being intrigued, and waiting for it to get licensed for Western consumption (since pirating is for bad noodles). Well, it’s finally here… goodbye, wallet.
In Shy, the world is free of war, thanks to the appearance of superheroes. One of them is the titular Shy—a.k.a. Teru Momijiyama. In case you couldn’t tell, she’s insecure and socially awkward. However, when a strange boy starts messing with people’s hearts, she might end up being the key to saving the world from calamity.
Immediately, this manga showcases the pressure that heroes are faced with. Shy gets involved with a typical amusement park accident in the opening chapter. One person ends up injured, but that’s enough for the entire world to want to cancel her. What makes it even more awkward is that the same person—Iko Koshikawa—ends up transferring to Teru’s class on crutches.
The main premise of the series sets itself up right off the bat. As I stated before, a very dubious boy—whom the heroes name Stigma—is able to amplify the darkness in people’s hearts and turn them into monsters. Iko is the first victim that we see in this volume. The fight is your classic “save the broken waifu” sequence.
It was then that I realized that Shy is really more like Kingdom Hearts than My Hero Academia. Instead of commentating on classism and societal pressures, Shy’s core theme seems to have to do with problems of the heart. Even planet earth has a heart… apparently?
So far, if there is any problem I have with Shy, it’s that… it’s not as creative as I thought it would be? So far, the ideas are all very simple. Each nation has one hero, and they report to a being named Unilord who lives in a space station. Stigma’s power has been seen a billion times in fiction, and—I dunno—the first encounter didn’t exactly wow me. It was good, but I guess it’s starting to get tiring to see the whole “people’s fears manifest into physical forms” trope. Aesthetically, the transformation wasn’t too interesting either.
However, Shy does some great things right off the bat. So far, the cast of characters are very likable. Teru, as Shy, is going to have a lot of baggage moving forward. Poor thing… I can totally relate to being an introvert yet having the entire world forced onto your shoulders; I’m sure everyone can these days, with how aware we all are of discrimination and climate change.
She’s nice and all, but I have a feeling that everyone is going to like Pepesha Andreianov, a.k.a. Spirit. She’s compassionate, perpetually drunk, and her physical qualities are above par with the base wants of the superficial man. Stardust (whose birth name I already forgot) is an eccentric rock star who has a bit of an anti-hero thing going on. Unilord is also unexpectedly quirky for what appears to be a god-like figure. Oh, and a fair warning here: so far, there has been no sexual tension among the overwhelmingly female cast.
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Current Verdict: 8/10
Shy is off to a good start, but it’s too soon to say if it’s actually really good or not (although I can presume that many people in the community will say that it’s better than My Hero Academia because no one but me likes that series anymore for some reason). It lays the groundwork for something, but there are a LOT of series where that something ends up being nothing. You might as well get on the bandwagon before it gets sardine-packed with himedanshi.
I literally said I was never covering light novels again, yet here I am talking about Keishi Ayasato’s Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen again. Because I can never be consistent, I had the thought of “Well, in the rare chance I manage to finish a light novel series, I can do a full series review of it as if it were a manga, right?” And so here we are. If this becomes a thing, it will be the only time I discuss light novels in any capacity (and if it did, it would be pretty rare because I haven’t had good experiences with most light novels, and all of them are massive money sinks).
In Torture Princess, a young lad named Kaito Sena gets isekai’d, not through death by truck, but death by abusive relative. The world he ends up in is a hot mess to say the least. Oh, and here’s the kicker: he’s the servant of Elisabeth La Fanu, the Torture Princess who has been tasked with slaying a bunch of demons, afterwhich she is to be publicly executed.
What immediately jumps out is how edgy Torture Princess is. No, “edgy” doesn’t even describe it. The world in this series is what H.P. Lovecraft would come up with if he was born and raised inside of a Hot Topic. It’s gothic and broken, full of innocent people being killed indiscriminately in over-the-top ways.
Yes, “over-the-top.” That’s a term that comes up in criticisms of anything that has an excess amount of gore. Seriously, Torture Princess has gore in perhaps the most excess of anything I have ever experienced in my life (it’s at least up there with Chainsaw Man). But you know what, Ayasato commits to it. The prose is both poetic and misanthropic, and always finds creative ways to convey its despair and hatred for humanity. The ways that people are brutally destroyed are varied, creative, and wildly effed up. In fact, I might lose this blog if I listed an example.
However, the plot is perhaps Torture Princess‘s weakest aspect. It starts off straightforward enough, but in typical Japanese fantasy fashion, it goes down a road of conspiracy theories revolving around the in-universe religion that isn’t even subtle about it mirroring Western religions. You can even say that the novels have battle shounen-like escalation. To be perfectly honest, most of the story is pretty tropeish, and since I haven’t reread them since first starting the series, I can admit that I forgot most of the story itself.
However, there are still two things that make Torture Princess really good, one of which is its truly star-studded cast. Kaito is a legitimately complex isekai protagonist, full of insecurities and conflicting emotions. He’s edgy, sure, but having an abusive father who murders him is a pretty good justification this time around. When he confides in his waifus, it actually feels emotional this time, as opposed to fan-service.
Speaking of waifus, Elisabeth is a badass, who can bring on both verbal and physical assault with elegance that would make that old dude in Spy X Family kneel before her. She has tons of baggage, courtesy of society, which makes her an ideal waifu.
Of course, the best girl is the automaton, Hina. She’s perhaps the best yandere of all time, with her manufactured love for Kaito feeling more real than most actual human girls. She’s powerful and priceless in every way. Other waifus include a warrior named Izabella Vicker (whose story I won’t get into because of spoilers), and the rootin’-tootin’ Jeanne de Rais.
From the peanut gallery is Elisabeth’s nonchalant, nihilistic father, Vlad. He is killed off early on, but his spirit sticks around for the bulk of the series. He’s an ass, but I still love him. Same goes for the demon known as the Kaiser. He just chills while watching the world burn.
The other thing that makes Torture Princess so enjoyable is that it’s actually well-written for a light novel. Like I said before, the prose is poetic. Everything is described in gruesome detail, especially the violence. There are some clever instances of redundant phrases and passages that actually help make the story have more impact. I can’t say why, though; you’ll have to experience it for yourself to see.
Of course, it’s not a review of any media franchise without saying it gets iffy toward the end! The first six volumes of Torture Princess are, for all intents and purposes, a perfect, complete story. However, the final third is a second act that is… weaker in some areas. The action and insanity are still high, but there’s a lot more dialogue, and the story isn’t that much better. I get that the second act is there as an allegory to how humans will keep wanting to destroy themselves for no reason, but it still puts a few knicks in the series’ armor.
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Final Verdict: 9.85/10
Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen is one of the best light novel series I have ever experienced. It’s a dark take on isekai tropes I feel like actually works, and it has some of the best characters in the market. It’s also cartoonishly gorey enough for me to not be able to attribute it to the real world, allowing for some semblance of escapism. I recommend it if you’re sick of those typical harems.
I learned of this magazine thanks to my local library stocking the first tankobons from them. Saturday AM is one of several magazines by a small outfit called MyFutPrint Entertainment, that publish manga made by people who aren’t Japanese. I thought it was a really good idea, but it’s not perfect. For starters, serialization is way slower than in Japan, either due to the company being smaller or because they treat their mangaka like humans. Also, my library didn’t bother to order some of the titles I was particularly interested in, which means I’ll have to subscribe. With no mention of a trial period, I decided to read the first volumes of several of the series that the library did have, to gauge whether or not such a risky investment would pay off in the long run. I don’t normally read manga when they only have their first volumes out, but I’m doing this because I also need to gauge whether or not it’s worth waiting for more volumes in the first place (given how slow serialization is). After all, my only other gaijin manga experience was Radiant, a manga that I found to be very middle-of-the-road, and haven’t resumed reading since that review was published. Anyway, preamble aside, let’s just hope that I don’t hold these titles in the same regard as Radiant.
Apple Black by Odzune Oguguo
Well, for a battle shounen, Apple Black is way more involved than expected. To put it simply, it stars a boy named Sano, whose left arm—Arodhis—is the last legacy of his late dad, Merlin. It’s the ultimate weapon that can trigger the cataclysmic Infinite Night. Sano, being a battle shounen protagonist, instead wants to end all war (and become the #1 Sorcerer Hokage of Pirates probably). However, there’s a lot more to it. A LOT more. There’s all these organizations, and not to mention, a magic school with its own intricacies. It took me an hour to read this volume, which is not at all the normal reading time for a shounen.
For a manga I wasn’t looking forward to, Apple Black has been much better than I initially thought. It definitely looks the part, with phenomenal artwork and spectacle. The ideas are also off-the-wall, and the humor checks out as well. The large cast of characters is quite good, but due to how many there are in this volume alone, I feel like I’ll only remember Sano and his classmates. Sano himself is a typical dumb shounen boy, but his upbringing in isolation justifies how dumb he is. Oguguo combines the nerd and the pervert tropes to make Symon, a sleazy four-eyes who likes the in-universe equivalent of Wonder Woman comics. Ryuzaki is a typical brash boy, but the end of the volume shows he’s more complicated than that. The female lead is a girl named Opal, who seems pretty awesome, but hasn’t gotten too much screentime yet. There are many other characters, including a very sexy grandma, but this post’d be too long if I discussed them all.
Unfortunately, the biggest flaw with Apple Black that I foresee is a matter of circumstance. It does appear to be one of the more consistent series, since it’s apparently a reprint of the series as of ten years ago. However, like I said before, Saturday AM is a lot slower than Jump. With how ambitious and complex Apple Black is, Oguguo better put recaps in future volumes, or people might forget MANY of the finer details. Sure, you can reread the older stuff, but I’m someone who rarely—scratch that, never—has the time. Sadly, this is something that’s going to bite the bums of every mangaka under this publisher.
Current Verdict: 8.5/10
Titan King by Tony Dawkins
Titan King is significantly simpler than Apple Black: a boy named Eli Santos is abducted from Earth and forced to compete in an intergalactic tournament. The participants are able to summon a bonded titan to fight alongside them and have anime powers. Like I said, simple.
With the entire manga being a tournament arc, there is a much higher focus on action than in Apple Black. I definitely enjoyed the artwork and fighting more. However, I don’t know if it’s because of being nervous to read these manga or what, but I didn’t enjoy it as much? Honestly, it was probably the nerves, because the manga is pretty damn great from an objective standpoint. The only real flaw is that the characters are way more by-the-book. They have awesome designs, but are everything you can expect from a battle shounen cast.
Current Verdict: 8.45/10
Saigami by Seny
Full transparency: I wanted this section to be The Massively Multiplayer World of Ghosts, which is the one I was looking forward to the most, but my library doesn’t have any copies. So, here we are with one of the titles I was least interested in: Saigami! Like Apple Black, it seems to be a flagship series, so I should probably give it a fair shot out of respect.
The reason why I wasn’t interested in it is because it’s a traditional isekai: a girl named Hanasaki Ayumi is miserable, and then gets sent into another world. She then discovers that she’s one of the titular Saigami for a hitherto unexplained reason. However, even with badass fire powers, her new life is hard as nails and a lot of folks don’t like her.
The idea of isekai where the other world isn’t exactly a bed of roses feels as dime-a-dozen as your typical harem power trip. However, Saigami was initially penned by Seny many years ago, so it’s technically one of the first instances or possibly THE first instance of this. However, given my timing with reading it, that whole aspect of Saigami lost its novelty fast.
In any case, there’s nothing overtly abhorrent about the manga so far. It looks like it’s going to be quite lengthy, with this volume just introducing the world, its characters, and setting up for the first major arc. It’s a slow start, but by being a manga, it’s SIGNIFICANTLY more tolerable and faster-paced than 99/100 isekai light novels. It could be a yuri, assuming that the RWBY reference at the beginning was foreshadowing, but for now, Ayumi is the only girl…
Which is a perfect transition into discussing the characters! Ayumi herself is what you’d expect: someone who constantly gets dunked on, and has to learn to embrace her inner power. She’s weak and whiny now, but I’m assuming she’ll be a badass down the road. The other three characters introduced are all boys. Sean is a silly, fun guy, who is basically Ayumi’s BFF in five seconds. Angsty Reyji doesn’t trust her at all, since she’s not from Saigami-land but has Saigami powers somehow. Last but not least is Daiszke, another underdog who gets treated like crap, this time because his powers were taken too far.
Sadly, I do find the artwork to be the weakest of what was discussed today. It hits all the right notes, sure, but compared to the others, it’s just the weakest. It has a shojo-y look to it, but thankfully, the characters actually look like people instead of Grey aliens wearing human suits; that’s one big positive at least. There haven’t been any major fights, so I can’t really say how good the action looks. In conclusion, this volume was the least impressive, but I imagine it’ll only get better with time.
Current Verdict: 8.25/10
Hammer by JeyOdin
Hammer is, believe it or not, EVEN SIMPLER than Titan King! It stars a boy named Stud Hammer, who has all the relatable quirks of being lonely, having a missing mother, and a dad who’s always going to work. In a depressed stupor, he finds his dad’s journal, and gets Blue-Skadooed into it. He then proceeds to have adventures.
The opening arc of Hammer revolves around the mysterious murder of the Ocean Kingdom’s king. It’s basically a setup volume, because it’s clearly implied that there’s more to this murder than meets the eye. Otherwise, it’s a very Dragon Ball-ish, comedic battle shounen with great fights.
Hammer is, visually, the one that stands out among the manga discussed today. That’s because its artsyle seamlessly blends American cartoon aesthetic with monochromatic manga goodness. It looks awesome, and is by far its greatest strength.
I don’t quite have an opinion on the characters because I really didn’t feel like I’ve gotten to know them well enough. They have memorable designs, but are pretty basic for the most part. Two of them, Stud and a young police officer named Dan (who I enjoyed imagining Dan from Game Grumps as his V.A.), currently rely on classic emotional hooks to get brownie points from you. Dan’s older sister, Diane, is cool, but she’s a pretty typical onee-sama trope herself (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Current Verdict: 8.5/10
So, Will I Be Subscribing to Them?
The answer, for the time being, is “undecided.” If I was richer, I’d do it in a heartbeat. However, I have hundreds of dollars worth of subscriptions, including a $300 annual fee for WordPress that I need to pay off, all off of minimum wage! Crunchyroll is something I’d be willing to abandon, since I have gone on record saying that I don’t enjoy anime outside of the movies, but I actually have a relative who’s using my account in my stead pretty consistently.
Even if I could afford Saturday AM, I still don’t quite know what I’d be getting into. The website is pretty bare bones, and according to the description of their app, they don’t even have a series-by-series list like Viz; you still have to pay separate, flat rates for “chapter packs” specific to each series. Also, I’ve known about them for three months now, and they haven’t added a single new serialization since. There was a recent collection of one-shots, but I don’t know if they’re doing the Jump tradition of “the most popular one-shot gets to start as a full series” or not. Also, due to the aforementioned slow publication, I’d be flushing money down the toilet just playing the waiting game for more content. The other caveat is the world itself. Every day, we’re getting showered with news about global disorder, the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, China, etc. The talking heads estimate that we don’t even have a decade left before the next mass extinction. Saturday AM might not even be worth investing in, because there might not even be enough time for them to grow into something truly great; they’ve been doing this for almost ten years, and are only just now printing their first tankobons.
If I could find a way to get out of Crunchyroll, then I’d probably be subscribed to them now; the monthly rate—even if you factor in the chapter packs—is cheaper. However, whether or not I go through with it remains to be seen; after all, what if there’s a TV anime that’s actually good for once? In any case, if you’re reading this, and you have a much better income than me, then I implore you to check these guys out if you’re interested. I don’t want to sound like I’m forcing you… but this little team needs support, and the price of admission is peanuts. I hope you enjoyed this post, and that you highly consider subscribing to Saturday AM!
When I did my first review of Rooster Teeth’s RWBY, I watched the first five seasons and walked out of it pretty stoked to finish the series. It had flaws, but not enough for me to be leaning on the side of the series’ very loud critics. Now, as of being caught up with everyone else… I can finally say I am one of those critics. I touched upon my feelings regarding RWBY in my small dissertation on cynicism, but here, I will elaborate on my change of opinion in more detail.
In the world of RWBY, people rely on some magic junk called Dust, and that’s their only way to fight these monsters called Grimm. One night, a girl named Ruby Rose takes on some criminals with a crazy scythe-gun, and is sought out by Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. He decides that “you’re a wizard, Ruby!” and instantly bumps her into the prestigious school, two years in advance. There, she meets three more color-coded girls (her older sister, a tsundere, and an emo girl) and they go on adventures together.
Like any show that’s entirely CG, RWBY takes a hot minute to get used to… especially the first season. The movements are janky and the backgrounds are dull. However, by the third or fourth season, the models get more polished, and the quality is substantially improved in all areas. Most importantly, they incorporate more of the subtle mannerisms that I actually give a crap about in animation as a whole. The fight scenes are also really appealing, even if they violate all forms of actual fight choreography, and have the camera swing like it’s attached to the end of a yo-yo.
The team at Rooster Teeth really understood what it takes to make a good battle shounen. The first two seasons are genuinely hilarious. The comedy is on point, and the spectacle-driven fight scenes really help sell the sense of fun that the show tries to provide. One of my favorite scenes was at the beginning of season two: an over-the-top, epic food fight in the school cafeteria. That scene really showed what a great gag shounen RWBY can be.
However, if you’re no stranger to shounen series, you know that RWBY wouldn’t be all about the LMAOnade forever. It happens to a lot of them, from Yuyu Hakusho to Dragon Ball. Around the halfway point of its third season, RWBY takes itself more seriously. MUCH more seriously. At the time, RWBY‘s original creator tragically passed away. And while I could just yell “They ruined Monty Oum’s legacy!”, I won’t do that because I don’t believe there was any documentation of what he actually wanted to do.
Fortunately, the show stays pretty consistent on committing to a more serious atmosphere, unlike series such as Re:ZERO. The plot does get more involved, but it maintains a relatively solid sense of cohesion, which is something that most shounen can’t do. With better animation, it’s much easier to take the show seriously because they actually have a good chunk of money to spend on it.
However, the transition isn’t made without a few bumps in the road. This is also common among shounen, but RWBY had it particularly rough. It didn’t just become a more involved version of what it already was; it tried to become a seinen. Seinen is a term used to describe manga and anime for mature audiences, and they tend to be everything that shounen is not. Taking a gag shounen and turning it into a seinen is literally like transforming an apple into an orange.
I sound like I’m just dissing it for being a genre change because it’s not goofy like it was before; a common criticism apparently. However, I’m someone who’s enjoyed something silly like Spy X Family about as much as something serious like Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. I’m not criticizing the change in RWBY because I’m not too big a fan of cynicism (even if that is a bit of a factor), but because it’s not… interesting. The story goes from novel to typical. It’s practically a generic YA fantasy with boring, ham-fisted social commentary on first-world problems. Oh, and the cherry on top is that any attempts at horror elements consist of predictable (but effective because eff the human mind) jumpscares.
One example of this is the Faunus. They’re a race of animal people that are—surprise, surprise—harshly discriminated against. And, well, the symbolism with said discrimination is practically spoon-fed to you. They live on an island called Menagerie that segregates them from humans (Native American reservations), they were used as slaves in the past (African slave trading), and there’s an anti-racism extremist group called the White Fang (oh, and by the way, Rooster Teeth didn’t predict the protests from two years ago because Black Lives Matter had already formed at this point). I mean, how much more ham can you pack into that fist of yours, Rooster Teeth?! I get that the issue of racism is important, but at this point in human society, what is the take-away of showcasing it for the billionth time (besides virtue signaling that is)?
No matter how awry the plot goes, what kept me going were the characters. And I’ll admit it: RWBY has a solid cast. To a point. The four girls are all likeable to some extent, plus they get genuine character development to boot. I liked Ruby the most because I tend to default to the “lovable idiot” trope of shounen protagonists. On the flipside, Blake ended up being my least favorite, because she does the most whining and brooding.
The side characters are a mixed bag. In my First Impressions, I stated that my favorite character was Ruby’s frequently-drunk uncle, Qrow (angstily misspelled of course). However, as the show went on, Qrow came off as less of the bad-ass old timer, and more of a Debbie Downer; the minute things don’t go the squad’s way, he’s all “We should give up and crap” and the girls have to pull a nakama power speech out of thin air to tell him otherwise (and don’t get me started on that “relationship” he has in the seventh season). My new favorite ended up being the underdog, Jaune. He literally begins the series being called “Vomit Boy”, but over the course of the story, he grows and matures into one of the best supports for Team RWBY. A kid named Oscar tags along as well, and while he starts out as baggage, he ends up growing into a man rather quickly.
Unfortunately, there are some less-than-remarkable folks on their team as well. Out of the main group, a stoic boy named Ren ended up on the bottom. He was pretty boring normally, and what little character development he has is covered in its entirety over the course of three episodes. And after that, the characters act like the experience never even happened. His companion, Nora, isn’t that much better. She’s likeable for the same reasons as Ruby; she’s ditzy and bouncy and fun, but it’s to the point where she basically is another Ruby.
One of the worst is an android named Penny. You’re expected to fall in love with her as soon as you hear her first “Salutations!”, but remember that this is Rooster Teeth. They do that because she’s the punching bag of RWBY. She suffers to no end, being framed for crimes committed by the villains, discriminated against as an android, and even “killed” once in season three (before eventually being rebuilt of course). I’d feel bad for her, but RWBY sucked out any empathy I can have for anyone in it by this point.
The following passage contains spoilers, because I can’t not bring up the squandered character arc of James Ironwood. He starts out as that gruff, military Mr. Magoo, but doesn’t return until the seventh season. By then, he has a slow descent into madness. At first, it’s compelling because there are necessary sacrifices to be made for an edge in the war against the Grimm. However, in between seasons seven and eight, someone didn’t get the memo that RWBY isn’t a shounen anymore. In the most recent season, Ironwood basically becomes Hitler, allowing for no fascinating moral debates; a decision that could’ve been made in part due to pandemic stress, and since it feels like all American media is politically charged these days.
And my disappointment doesn’t stop there. RWBY’s antagonists have the one-dimensionality of most shounen villains, but none of the appealing personality. The first antagonist introduced, a one Roman Torchwick, is a legitimately entertaining villain, but if you know anything about the first antagonist of a shounen, it’s that they don’t tend to last. A staple antagonist ends up being a woman named Cinder, and other than trying too hard to be sexy, she’s very boring with a really basic backstory that tries too hard to tie into the show’s uninteresting edgy fairytale symbolism. Cinder has minions in these two kids named Mercury and Emerald, and they have no personality other than owing their whole existences to Cinder because of their incredibly basic tragic backstories. Cinder reports to the main antagonist of the series, a witch named—get a load of how creative it is—Salem. She is also very boring; basically just Maleficent without any of the charisma.
No shounen antagonist gets by with just three minions! In addition to Cinder and Co., Salem has three more cohorts… of lacking substance. In fact, I even forgot two of their names, and hereby designate them as Pedophile McSwordArtOnlineVillain, and Mustache. Those names are them in a nutshell, more-or-less. The third person, Hazel (henceforth known as Hazelnut), ended up being my favorite villain. He was just about as boring as the rest, but his voice actor’s performance was a hilarious to me. For some reason, American audiences seem to think that all male actors should speak in deep, gravelly voices. Hazelnut takes that mindset to such an extreme that I laugh every time he speaks! Oh, and for the record, all of the villains, except this umbrella lady named Neo, have the least interesting character designs in all of RWBY.
Current (Possibly Final) Verdict: 7/10
While I normally love hating popular things, I really didn’t want to do it to RWBY. To be honest, I think both its diehard fans and most toxic critics are in the wrong. However, in their defense, the way the series flops can catch you off guard if you’re not as familiar with battle shounen tropes as someone who’s seriously deep in the otaku hole.
Unlike most battle shounens, however, I am particularly mad at RWBY for a unique reason. From the beginning, I could tell that Rooster Teeth weren’t “casuals” who watched Dragon Ball and the other internationally beloved anime. They really seemed to understand it on an intimate level. They should’ve seen how their favorite series drove themselves into the ground, and worked to avoid it. Maybe they could’ve taken inspiration from something like One Piece, which has only gotten better after twenty-plus years. But no, they followed the genre to the Nth degree. They didn’t only make the same mistakes; they did it with that distinctly American cynicism.
To be clear, I am not mad at RWBY’s more serious arc because it’s darker. I’m mad at it because the ideas going into it become stale. They resort to contrived teen drama, smooth-brained judgements, and the writers being extremely arbitrary in various aspects of the story. After the tone shift, everything about RWBY feels meh. I. Stopped. Caring.
RWBY, I just… don’t know. For what it was, it remained consistently cohesive and had great directing. But alas, it just didn’t feel like, well, anything. If you’re an adolescent teen, then you will probably think RWBY is the greatest thing ever, and you won’t even notice any of the mistakes it made. Otherwise… enter if you dare. Side effects include major depression and mood swings.
Hoooooo-doggie! If you’re reading this, then I’ve either completed (or, more likely, gotten tired of completing) one of the latest of the grind-heavy Dynasty Warriors crossovers: One Piece Pirate Warriors 4. I had loved the third game (to a point), and a relative gave the newest installment to me for Christmas. So, after about eight hundred hours, here we go!
One Piece is my favorite manga of all time, so I naturally knew the story going into Pirate Warriors 4. And you better know too, because you are spoiled to death regarding everything from the beginning up to Whole Cake Island. The Wano portion is game original, but you will still be spoiled on where the climax of the actual manga arc takes place (I had luckily just started that part when I played the game).
Honestly, with the amount of One Piece videogames out there, you can almost tell that they’re tired of telling the same story over and over again. The Japanese voice actors are excellent, but they even seem more “oh boy this line again” than the previous game. The dialogue is stiff and awkward, but that could be because of the localization. The cutscenes are also half-assed, even reusing some pre-rendered cutscenes from Pirate Warriors 3. Fans buy this game for the gameplay.
All five thousand hours of it!
If you haven’t played a Dynasty Warriors game, the idea is simple: you vs. eight million enemies. Maps are pretty simple, split into different rooms. There’s your allied force, the enemy force, and an occasional rogue force. Every playable character has an elaborate combo system that can be expanded upon (and you will have to memorize every single one of them). One Piece is a series where the protagonists have gone head-to-head against entire armies by themselves, so the Dynasty Warriors system works perfectly.
In addition to your usual combos, you have JUMPING. If you jump after landing a hit, you launch nearby foes into the air and can unleash an ENTIRE EXTRA SET of midair combos. These can get absolutely obscene if performed well, but you seriously gotta memorize the moves. There are also four different special moves you can equip at once for each character. There are many types of special moves beyond the ones that freeze time and have a cinematic cutscene. Ones that provide buffs (including transformations like Gear Two) are tied to this system. There is also a Power Dodge that sends you forward and deals damage, making it a good panic button; just be wary of stamina.
The game also introduces different “types” of characters, which honestly, makes it way more complicated than it should be. All the types are pretty self-explanatory, and since you’re expected to be familiar with these guys, it’s not really an important detail. The only stand-out is Sky-types. These characters specialize in air combos, and most importantly, their Power Dodge can be used in one constant burst until stamina runs out. This can be a lifesaver since Dynasty Warriors games tend to have important events take place at opposite ends of the stage.
Like most Warriors games in general, mooks are utter jokes that you can basically look at and kill instantly. Tougher enemies have an armor gauge that must be drained to get them into a temporary vulnerable state, where they glow purple and can be comboed more easily. Of course, actual bosses are even tougher. They can have a temporary “super-shield” that doesn’t drain. But honestly, you just have to do what you always do in these games: smack it a lot!
They pretty much abandon the XP system from Pirate Warriors 3 to introduce the Growth Maps. Each “island” on them needs a lot of Beris and Coins to give them stat boosts, new abilities, and more. There’s a beginner map that applies to all characters. It’s important to prioritize getting the big stat boosts here so that new unlocks aren’t insanely weak right off the bat. In addition to the beginner map, EVERY PLAYABLE CHARACTER has TWO unique Growth Maps! I prefer this change because getting everyone to Level 100 is a far worse undertaking than maxing out all the Growth Maps. Other than these changes, Pirate Warriors 4 runs pretty much the same as others.
The environments have never been the strong suit of these games, but they at least go to lengths to make them feel more organic. The layouts, for example, are no longer sectioned into square-shaped keeps, but territories. These function the same, but can be any shape and size. The most important aspect of this is that they can get pretty large, which makes capturing them easier. They also add the ability to destroy environmental objects, which can help make navigating easier since you won’t have crap in your way.
In terms of difficulty, Pirate Warriors 4 is a bit tougher than Pirate Warriors 3 for a number of reasons. You can get juggled a lot more easily, especially in Treasure Log where you’ll be fighting more boss characters simultaneously (especially against Ace and Law). I’ve also had less luck with healing item drops, even with the skill that allows little mooks to drop items. Fortunately, min-maxing the Growth Maps helps make things easier. The Indomitable Spirit skill is a lifesaver, and it can be obtained very early on in Treasure Log. What it does is cause health regeneration during a buff, and at max level, you can heal back to full from the brink of death. With Concentration to fill up the special gauge faster, you can basically never die, even on the toughest missions.
Sadly, that does not stop the bosses from being absolutely obnoxious to fight. It could be because I use this game to veg out, thus refusing to learn the nuances of the game, but it’s also a license tie-in, so… Anyway, when you destroy the armor gauge, the meter turns purple and slowly fills up. Obviously, you have until it’s full to combo them before it refills. However, when fighting bosses specifically, they have a completely random ability to use a shockwave attack which instantly frees them from your combos AND immediately recharges their armor. It’s stupid and you just have to deal with it (or, you know, actually know how the game works).
Pirate Warriors 4 has three modes, just like the previous game. Dramatic Log is the main campaign, which has all the stiff cutscenes and stuff (seriously, these games probably made us desensitized toward Ace’s death). The missions are shorter and more numerous, allowing for a more accurate experience of the story arcs as they actually happened. But sometimes, it gets a bit much. Why is there an entire stage just for the first battle against Sir Crocodile? The Free Log is the ability to replay story stages, but since they no longer have Treasure Events or that stupid grid thing (THANK GOD), there isn’t much of a point. S-Ranks are as easy as ever to obtain, and there’s no reward for playing on Hard Mode, except maybe a trophy in the PS4 version.
My personal favorite mode is Treasure Log. Similar to Pirate Warriors 3’s Dream Log, Treasure Log is a series of short, semi-random missions. I love it because there’s no boring cutscenes; just straight gameplay. Also, you get to live a number of impossible, fan-fic like scenarios, such as getting to beat the crap out of that sumbitch Akainu, or winning a 2-v-1 against Big Mom and Kaido as someone like Bartolomeo. It’s also a lot harder, doing crazy things like pitting you against the entire Straw Hat Crew at once. Unfortunately, you still need to progress in Dramatic Log to unlock the Straw Hats’ later move sets, like Gear Four and all that. But bizarrely enough, I actually look forward to these games for playing as anyone OTHER than the Straw Hats. I love the crew, but there’s a weird charm to being able to play as one of the villains, or characters with interesting abilities, such as Bege. Of course, if you want to get 100%, you’ll be playing as the Straw Hats in this mode a lot, along with everyone else. Just be wary of playing as Sanji in this mode, since female enemies can spawn in for random side missions even if it’s a stage that guarantees all male opponents.
I didn’t actually complete the game as far as maxing out everyone’s stats and doing every stage, but this game is pretty reasonable by comparison to others of its kind; it’s no Hyrule Warriors that’s for sure! As long as you have the Coin Collector and Cat Burglar skills and do the most of your grinding in the New World-tier Treasure Log stages, it doesn’t seem like it’d take that long. Maybe 100-odd hours, which is—yes—shorter than the previous Pirate Warriors, and WAY shorter than Hyrule Warriors (that goes to show you the standard that the Warriors games set). If you wanna complete one of these games, do this one!
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Final Verdict: 8.35/10 if you’re a fan
One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 feels great if you really love and understand the series. The combat is fun and over-the-top, and the way they handle special moves give it a lot of depth and customizability. In case I didn’t make this clear, ONLY play this if you’re a diehard fan of One Piece!
This, I hope, is the first post where I cover the final volume of a light novel series. The reason why I’m unsure is because BookWalker doesn’t list Last Round Arthurs as “Completed” on its page. This might be a Yen Press thing, since it doesn’t say Silver Spoon is completed either. But based on what happens here, the afterword literally saying “the series has come to an end”, and it literally saying “FINAL” on the cover, the fifth volume is the finale of Last Round Arthurs, so let’s review this thing already!
When we last left off our intrepid heroes, Luna’s team just found the Holy Grail, while leaving Rintaro to fight his dad. When they get back, however, things aren’t too pretty. It’s more-or-less the end of the world, actually. There’s only one thing to do: whoop butt!
As the finale, there really isn’t much to the plot at all. Basically, we establish King Arthur himself as the real villain (as if that’s never happened in edgy retellings of his legend), and he’s just nonchalantly going to destroy the world. We get the full backstory for everything, including Morgan’s motive. This takes just about thirty to forty-ish percent of the volume.
And the rest is pure action! Without wasting any time, we just go, go, go straight towards the final battle. As always, Last Round Arthurs excels in its combat, and this series of fights is no slouch. You can expect the detailed descriptions that somehow don’t nerf the pacing, as well as the hype battle shounen moments.
Unfortunately—this sounds cliché—but the finale is a bit rushed. I initially thought that the series was axed, given its relative unpopularity. But nope; the afterword says that this was meant to be a five-volume series. Everything resolves without plothotles, but the whole establishment of the climax is VERY sudden, and King Arthur being a baddie comes way out of left field.
Verdict: 8.5/10
Final Thoughts
Last Round Arthurs is one of the most underrated light novel series, but it still has some of flaws. It felt like Rintaro had a whole “face his inner demons” scene about eighty times over the course of the story, and it got quite repetitive. Also, despite how awesome Luna is, she ended up being his damsel in distress numerous times. Furthermore, I concede that Luna and Rintaro are the only really good characters in the whole series.
Fortunately, I enjoyed it immensely due to its sheer entertainment value. The action was always over-the-top and fast-paced. I could picture what was going on, and it looked phenomenal because of how well-written it was. An anime adaptation would probably not be capable of doing this series justice, but at the very least, it would only need one season to be a complete adaptation. I’d recommend Last Round Arthurs to battle shounen fans who don’t mind protagonists with a massive ego.
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.
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.
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.
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