Tegamibachi

Apr 20, 2010

Scrypt

Recommended

Preliminary (38/100 chp)

"You're the first man who's ever made me wear pants" - Niche

If a line like that by the 2nd chapter, doesn't strike your attention as amusing than Letter Bee(or Tegami Bachi in Jap) may not be the manga for you.

I was first attracted to this manga through the anime adaptations 1st season which had aired recently, and wanting to know what happened after ep.25 piqued my interest to read on.

Story - 8
Without going into detail and providing spoilers; TB is a unique tale on its own which escapes from the mediocrity of school life stories which seems to be the common setting for most manga ... these days, and although you may find similarities in reference to characters and traits from other manga(from hair that change to swords to 'special' eye powers), what TB does provide is a fresh new outlook in storytelling.
We are shown(what looks like) a post-apocalyptic world of AmberGround where an "endless night" governs over a man-made sun. Towns are scarce and only ways for communication to each town is through letter or parcel which are delivered by the Letter Bees. Government delivery workers entrusted with the population’s letters which carries their 'hearts' and emotions. Now if you like me, thought how can a postman's story be so exciting? As long as you think outside the square you will realize it’s not just about a story of mail delivery but a story about the emotions that come with that mail. There is also plenty of shōnen action goodness in TB as outside the towns of AmberGround reside giant insect-like monsters which only the Letter Bees can take down. Postman Pat dressed as Mad Max? Maybe.

Art - 8
Artwork can be visually stunning at times, and the fight scenes are understandable from panel to panel (which is uncommon for action manga as it can take a few reads before a fight scene can choreograph in my head). The post-apocalyptic background is what I believe breathes the story to life (and is visually done right) as it brings new depths of emotions to each character and the hardships that is AmberGround and living in that world. Although the creator of TB Hiroyuki Asada is not highly recognized(his past work is none I've ever heard of anyways), his tale through manga is at least noteworthy to capture audiences over and even screen an anime adaptation.

Character - 7
Within the TB world, we are shown the Letter Bees and their traveling companions known as 'dingoes'. Each Letter Bee is equipped with Shindajuus(or heart bullet guns) which are the only methods of being able to take a Gaichuu down as these insect-like creatures have shell-armor which an average gun would just tickle it. Whilst each Letter Bee has a unique story of their own alongside the main character Lag Seeing, what really captivated me was the introduction of their companions or dingoes. Dingoes came of any shape or form and fought alongside their Bees. From pet dogs, to wild panther-like creatures to seasoned mercenaries who fought if the Bee had the money to pay them. They also acted as trackers which have been shown as a common trait for most dingoes as well. One particular dingo I really liked is Niche, Lag’s personal dingo, who although looks human is not. Also known as “the Golden Sword”, Niche is similar to Eve from Kentaro Yabuki’s Black Cat(but in an even younger loli-body) and can manipulate her hair into blades. Like a newborn child, Niche’s personality(and curiosity) can at times be amusing and what I believe serves as on-going humor(and cuteness) for TB. You also meet other characters in TB which are unique in their own way, and just as emotional as the main characters.
The only reason why my score came to be a 7 instead of an 8 or 9(which some may find biased) is due to a certain character and their excessive display of being a nake-mushi(crybaby). I’m not sure where the author was going with that one as the emotions portrayed from other characters were heartfelt enough without the main character having to add to it in most(if not every) chapter.

Enjoyment - 7
Although I wouldn't go as far as saying its one of the better reads I've had in the past year, I can safely recommend TB for anyone of all ages.Whilst it does start off slow like all shōnen, its after a few chapters and learning the world of AmberGround and its residents that make TB an enjoyable read to past the time or for those waiting for the 2nd season of the adaptation to come out.

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Sep 6, 2016

deadoptimist

Recommended

Tegami Bachi is ok. It’s a bit slow at the beginning and rushed at the end, but both of these things do not matter much, since you’ll solve the main mystery much earlier than the characters, and what makes this manga worth reading is the world – unusual, intriguing, yet consistent.

When I read more traditional shounen, I tend to take notes of mature details and to imagine what a seinen built around them would’ve been like. With Tegami Bachi this exercise yields unusual results – this manga doesn’t have a middle ground, there’s the plot, centered around the main 12 y.o. character, with all the ... friends, dreams and heart moments, and then there’s the bleak world with secrets so messed up, that it probably wouldn’t even work in a more serious interpretation, everybody would have been already dead. Not that this dichotomy isn’t underlined by the author himself: the older more jaded cast does create their own plan to save the world and it’s, er, peculiar. These two currents sort of clash – when deaths of comrades are quickly downplayed, sort of compliment each other – when it’s easy to see why a bit of kindness would be valuable in a world like theirs.

It’s not that dark fantasy can rule unchallenged in the world of Tegami Bachi: after all it has its own metaphysics, centered around “heart”, including the human one. Heart is basically the most important source of energy in their world. That’s what I mean when I talk about consistency - everything of importance is heart-related: letters contain heart, Bees deliver letters, use heart to fight, monsters want heart, etc. The world is also memorable visually, considering the atypical lighting, postapocalyptic “moonscapes”, star symbolism and occasional bold fairytale-like designs.

The art is considerably good. I didn’t think it’d click with me, yet, as it turns out, it flows surprisingly well and there are plenty of gorgeous panels. The better parts are the landscapes, Bee uniforms and gear, the more boring are the enemies (bugs are bugs), the characters are a mixed bag, everyone looks way too sweet and somewhat similar.

Three things about Tegami Bachi should be pointed out for the sake of potential readers:
- Firstly, Tegami Bachi is full of crying, speeches about heart and tearjerker moments. It’s all plot-related and world-motivated, tearjerkers are perfectly effective (I did cry a bit, tho, probably, my age makes me sentimental), yet I feel the need to warn you about attempts to exploit your empathy.
- Secondly, fighting in Tegami Bachi is also done with heart bullets, and the side effect of any shot is a leak of heart, when people see each other’s memories and feelings. Somehow that always helps. But the battles are not exactly readable or tense as a result.
- And there’re some distasteful things, like the sexualization of the aide of the main character, who looks like a loli and usually jumps around without pants for a comedic relief. And she is immersion-breaking even when dressed.

I can’t say that I dig the main cast too much. I must give it to the manga, that it’s nice to see a low-key environment for a change: Bees are technically post officers, not superheroes. Their work makes them see a lot of people, so at times the manga resembles a procedural. Side-characters are mostly enjoyable and well-rounded. Yet the main character is a bit too predictable and saccharine, and the relationships between the mains are conflict-free, all forces of attraction - the few promises of potentially interesting disagreement are quickly stiffled, which, in my opinion, makes the interactions a bit too bland.

The tropes that play central part and may be not to everyone’s liking are special kids are special, chance meetings (the most important characters simply bump into each other) and following one’s inspirational figure (one of the major plotlines, if not the major, is about a bunch of people trying to find one cool guy).

The plot picks up around the 30th chapter, the ending is a bit rushed, I guess the manga got an axe chapter limit. What drove my attention was the wish to see more of the world, not the characters or plot, to be honest. Yet, between it all some truly powerful moments form, when, say, a giant monster nightmarishly drinks people’s hearts dry from the sky or a bullet reveals that a character inside his heart stands alone and hopeless under the rain and people can connect to him to alleviate the grief.

Structurally and by worth of some characters Tegami Bachi is a typical shounen, yet on the scale of friendship and battles it’s so skewered towards the former that it starts to stand apart. Tegami Bachi probably isn’t something that should be in your first dozen of titles, but it’s an interesting read worth checking out if you look for different settings, pretty high-contrast art and, maybe, a chance to shed heartfelt tears.

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Oct 21, 2011

SilentAmarok

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/100 chp)

Be gentle with me because this is probably my first manga that I'm up to release date's with.

A story about a land, covered in pure darkness. With no light other than radiance of a man made star, hanging over the main capital. Under the light of this star, a job is being taken place, a job to deliver letters, and the heart contained in these letter's. The story follows a young boy named Lag seeing and his dingo (familiar) Niche, and her snack Steak. Together, they take on the task of defeating giachu, and delivering letter's at any cost. Their goal. To save their dear ...

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Jun 21, 2009

Guyver1

Not Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/100 chp)

I started reading Letter Bee in shonen jump, like most beginings of manga, its a slow start , however the story continued at a slow pace. the main character is the biggest crybaby I have ever seen, and his crying starts to get repetitive after a while. The artwork is done well at least, barren wastelands, huge forrests, and small towns are the many sceneries I have seen so far. If the character of Niche didnt appear, I would have dropped the series out of boredom. Overall, Letter Bee moves at a snails pace, but from what I have read so far, the story could ...

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Dec 19, 2019

makushima

Recommended

This is my first review adn I write this because a lot of people seem to sleep on this manga. It is not the most popular one and in my opinion the the critics were to harsch for no reason. And I am actually very picky myself.

8 Story: The story is solid with an relaxed pace. Overall the story is quiet good and no complains there.

10 Art: The art is simply awesome. It may not be the most detailed one but the world building of AmberGrounds and presentation is just so awesome. With the eternal night setting you have really cool shadowing and lightning ...

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Jul 12, 2020

rectified_rascal

Not Recommended

This has been a disappointing series to read.

The first 5-6 volumes of the manga are the usual "world-building" part of the series where the characters and how Amberground works. A mystery is introduced, a character goes missing, our main hero grows up by crying every 10 pages. The art is gorgeous and there are some moments of tenderness. From the 7-8th volume, the series goes into high gear and until volume 14-15, the series continues to ascend and the reader is drawn in. I read 6 volumes of the series in a single day. It was that good.

And then given how well the ...

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Jun 14, 2015

TohyaHachijo

Recommended

Preliminary (72/100 chp)

I would give to this manga a solid 9 but until I see more development in the future chapters, I'll refrain from rating it so higly.

Story - 9
The plot seems to be childish and silly when you read it, it was very slow and it's still very slow during the last released chapters, but I realized many questions are being answered lately in the newest chapters, furthermore even though at a first glance it will look silly to you, it gets darker and darker.

Art - 8
I won't say it's the best drawn manga I have read, but if you can exclude the "off models" most ...

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Aug 3, 2023

LegendOfMazda

Mixed Feelings

"hidden gem, but not really." This is what Tegamibachi can be described as.

CHARACTERS:

-Lag, the main character, is defined by his empathy, though you can make a case for him being a crybaby, his emotional reactions are fitting for the situations he encounters, and he balances his vulnerability with taking initiative.

-Gauche stands out as the best character, with his amnesia being handled masterfully. Rather than reverting to square one after regaining his memory, Gauche's old and new memories blend, leading to internal conflict between helping his friends in the Letter Bees, the protagonists, and his friends in Reverse group, the antagonists.

Niche's character isn't inherently bad, but ...

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Feb 6, 2022

guhahahaha

Recommended

Tegami Bachi world setting is definitely one of the most out-of-the-box I've seen. A Sunless world, where the Sun is a mere fairytale. A world of cat-eyed humans who seek to get closer to the artificial Sun. A world where memories and emotion matter the most. Also big insect monsters?! I'm sold.
The MC is a total crybaby, but I'm ok with that because of his true origin, and biologically he just entered the teen phase. Now that sounds a pretty childish world, but it doesn't! The truth between the artificial Sun, the Head Bee, and the capital of Amberground is definitely worth a read.

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Mar 6, 2022

Shellshock123

Not Recommended

A series that forget what the main plotline was.

Some light spoilers in this review upto vol. 12. Nothing super major, because the main story actually takes a small break before getting back into it.

The series is about Delivering Letters... Mostly. They're 3 main concepts to the series. The artificial Sun, Being the best bee & delivering letter and killing Gaichuu's which is the main enemy of the series.... I think. It's not entirely clear. The idea here is that the chads, the Main characters are people who deliver letters known as the Letter Bee's. However letters here are more than just simple words on ... a piece of paper but rather contain their heart or piece of their soul. Letter Bee's have a weapon called a shindan which uses the user's own heart/soul to shoot. They use there dingo's (sidekicks) find the weak points of Gaichu's and the Bee's shoot them dead with there Shindan. That's basically the story for the first 15 volumes until the author realized that the actual main story about the main character's mother was also a thing and very abruptly came back to it.

The main character is a very uncharismatic character for like 18 volumes of the series. A constant crybaby that really destroys the emotional weight this story could've had. When a scene does require him to cry it just falls flat due to how much you cannot take the main character seriously anymore. Its disappointing but what can you do. You can choose to not read the manga. That's a bright idea.

The action and the story was actually very underwhelming. Though I was initially interested in the story, the way it was unraveled was one of most boring and poorly paced ways ever. The story is 2 fold. 1 is finding the truth about the MMC"s mother and what happened to her. Why she was taken to the capital. However we talk a long break from this main story to fuck around. For about 10 volumes there is this big fucking gaichu that attacks peoples hearts. Huge problem but this guy is fucking annoying. Its literally a giant monster with no absolute personality. He's not vicious either. The *taking heart* basically borrows the people's soul so when the MC can inevitably defeat it they can return back. This completely destroys any sort of tension the you may get when the characters themselves are in no real danger.

The things I enjoyed about the series was the characters and world building which also fucks right off. However the actual solid moments of character interactions are just constantly bogged down with information about shit I don't care about. Imagine you are playing a video game and you pick a codex that's underneath a bed that tells you the minute details about shit you can't even connect to. That is the main dialogue of tegami bachi between characters. It sucks too because they are some great characters they are just severly underutilized. Jiggy Pepper and the Bearded Dingo were probably the best characters in the series.

The MMC"s Dingo Niche was a problem as well. I quite liked her as well. She was funny and had some decent action scenes. There is a running joke where she doesn't wear underwear which would be fine when its done once.... Not the amount the author decided to shove in to the point that it became very uncomfortable.

I was under the impression this was a good series but not a single person has told me this was a good manga so far as I was Live reacting on discord. Everyone told me that it was boring and I can see why. There are many characters that get sidelines, many plotlines that get dropped out of knowhere. It is incredibly disappointing.

If there is 1 refuge I can say about the quality of the series, its the quality of the ending. The ending is ballsy. Yes everything leading up to the ending was an asspull and the way the actual ending occurred was also an asspull. But the consequence that occurred did make me think, ok yeah, this is a decent ending to the series. Its not a well written series but the ending did take some balls. Either that or the author realized that he should just throw some action on the screen.

Overall. I'm disappointed. Gonna go back to playing Hades. At least that was entertaining. Due to the ending I did consider giving the series a 5/10 because I'm not made of stone damn it. However... Considering I've typed all of this out, they were moments where I did enjoy the series it was just far too few in between and if push comes to a shove I would not recommend this series.

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Feb 21, 2023

silvaelf

Recommended

not the most satisfying ending, but great emotional story throughout. interesting characters (for a kids comic), not too cliche but a bit of it. also i would say its a tasteful manga, i would be confident a kid/young teen reading it would not develop behavior that can be demeaning or inappropriate to other. very cool world building and every aspect of the plot and characters follow it; feels like a real world. i was really invested in this at age 13 or so. still coming back to it for its gorgeous art! im struggling to recall a manga artist i like their art style of ...

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Sep 18, 2023

JBeo

Recommended

Despite it's flaws, Tegamibachi's positives are more than enough for me to recommend it to someone.

Lets begin with what tegamibachi does well:
-The main cast is interesting and the character development and interactions are really good. Each character has a relatively fleshed out backstory that drives them forward. Gauche's issue is handled very well and really drives forward that the heart is what matters most in this story. There are a lot of tearjerker moments and a lot of heartwarming ones even revolving around characters you'll see only once.
People have complained a lot that Lag is a crybaby but you need to keep in mind ... that he's a very compassionate 12yo kid on his journey to self discovery. Niche is ok-ish and gladly the author realized quickly enough that the underpants gag grew tiresome.

-The world and world building are equally very good. Lag's and co travels around the world have this adventuring air around it that makes you somewhat excited about what are they gonna discover next. Amberground is a land filled with mysteries which keep you wanting to keep reading in hope that your questions are gonna be answered.

-Tying everything together is a very clean art which makes clever use of lighting to drive forward that this land is almost devoid of light and life. The characters are also really well drawn out and this manga has some of the most expressive eye drawings i've seen.

Now lets move on to the main issue that is the last 30-40 chapters of the story.
Tegamibachi's peak as others mentioned is around the midpoint when the gang has to battle a really strong foe endangering the entire world. At the same point, some mysteries about the world are solved with even newer ones, bigger ones presented. At this point you feel that the story has enough momentum to start solving the loose plot points and reach a satisfying conclusion, but this is where the author dropped the ball hard.
Instead of moving the story forward, he introduces some new characters presents them as an antagonising Plan-B and proceeds to a very rushed ending that leaves open ALOT of questions and plot-points either about characters either about the world itself. To give you some context, the strong foe i mentioned above is a struggle that lasts more than 15 chapters whereas the "final boss" takes place in 6.
I can only attribute this rushed ending in editorial pressure but still for a manga that has had such a good way of handling mystery, it feels very awkward to the point where you wish there was an extra 2 chapters to tell you what the hell happened afterwards.

Keep in mind that the ending itself (ie what happened to the main cast) is very good and if you take into account the entire manga's characterisation, rather moving. But those 30 or so chapters leading to that ending were spent badly on unnecessary stuff.

To conclude, tegamibachi has some very good messages and heartwarming moments, has some good mystery that will grind your gears a bit, but drops the ball near the end. Still for all those good moments i'd say you should give it a chance.

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