There’s this common belief that Princess Knight is the first shoujo manga ever. While this is not necessarily true, what is true is that Princess Knight is the first shoujo manga serialization. The first long-story of the genre.
It’s the Astro Boy of Shoujo, and that makes sense, because it’s mangaka is very much Astro Boy’s own Osamu Tezuka.
Written in 1953, Princess Knight is nonetheless a very important landmark in the history of manga as a whole. But I’m not here to review the 1953’s version of Princess Knight. Mostly because I didn’t read it, as a matter of fact, I doubt most people who have
...
it in their lists did either.
It’s more likely that they read the 1963’s remake. Completely re-written and re-drawn by Tezuka himself, this is the version that’s widely available for us, and has been translated in multiple languages.
Since I never read the original, I can’t really tell you a comprehensive list of differences, but improved art and panelling are the most obvious, an extension from 3 to 5 volumes (while keeping the chapter count at 27) and a change of villains, from Mephisto to Madame Hell, and, perhaps the biggest being the introduction of Captain Blood. It’s hard to say if these changes are for better or for worse, so I’ll be talking about the manga as is from here on out.
The story of Princess Knight is about a princess (I bet you didn’t see that one coming) who, due to a mistake, is born with both male and female hearts.
At first I thought this would make Sapphire, our main character, a hermaphrodite, but not really, specially because genitals seem to be inexistent in this word. Instead, this means that fate forced her to hold two personas. Being born as a girl, for half a day she gets to wear dresses, learn feminine etiquette, enjoy fashion, dancing… etc.. etc..
But, to make sure the evil Duke Duralumon doesn’t take the throne, she has to pretend to be a prince, which she does in the other half of her day. Learning how to swordfight and other manly, manly things.
Due to this plot, it’s natural that a big portion of this manga revolves around gender roles.
How it handles it is something that I think might be subjective…
It’s clear that, to a certain degree, the forced gender roles are taken as a bad thing, or as a joke. They put a baseball bat and a cap on the bed to make it look like the baby is male, which is still my favourite joke in the entire manga.
There’s multiple characters that think that the Princess should be able to rule as a woman, and not have to hide her gender. And the women in general have a strong presence in the later part of the manga, in a very fun battle of sexes.
But Princess Sapphire has two clear sides to her coin. Without her female heart, she’s brash, rude, strong. Without her male heart, she’s cute, weak and frail. Which is fine, but it also goes against other portraits of female characters within the same story. Makes it a bit… inconsistent.
With that said, the major villain of this manga, Madame Hell, is trying to steal Sapphire’s female heart so she can give her to her daughter, who she believes is not girly at all. So maybe those girls also have a male heart? Who knows.
The story itself is pretty fun to read, we follow Sapphire as she goes from adventure to adventure, to stop people from finding her real self, or to protect her heart from Madame Hell, which, by the way, is married to SATAN himself.
Everything is adorned with a clear early Disney influence that is sure to captivate the fans of those movies.
Evil witches, princesses and castles, dancing animals and, of course, a Prince Charming, literally named Franz Charming, here to save the day. With that said, Sapphire is much more proactive than the early heroines of Disney movies. Fighting the bad guys with her talent in sword fight, and even taking care of the good guys when in need.
The Disney influence gives this a whimsical and fun atmosphere, which helps making it’s somewhat straightforward and simple narrative more enjoyable. We should note that this is very much a story made for kids, and I think kids can easily enjoy it, even now, 60 years after the manga was released, or re-released, I suppose. I think that, despite talking about gender roles as a main topic, it’s still very much a timeless tale.
But even with the straightforward storyline, I still feel like there’s a couple of things that come out weird and lead to an anti-climatic ending.
First being Venus, a villain that is introduced at the end without any real kind of build-up, which isn’t even consistent with the rest of the mythology, which is clearly rooted in Christianity. There’s Madame Hell, Satan, and a major helper of Sapphire is Tink (which looks like Link, but he came first, so I guess Shigeru Myamoto was a Tezuka fan). Tink is an angel who’s in service of God, and even uses a crucifix… So why do we have a Roman god out of nowhere?
Well, that’s a nitpick, honestly, but I found it weird.
Something that’s less of a nitpick is Captain Blood. I found out that he’s an addition of this manga while doing some research for this review. It's hard to believe that he wasn’t in the original, since he has such a large screen time, and he’s even given a major plot twist and relation to another major character in the story… That’s never concluded. It’s incredibly weird that you’d plant the seeds for his character arc and never bother to conclude them, but alas…
Princess Knight is far from being “a masterpiece”, but it does its role perfectly enough. It’s a kid’s story that’s bound to entertain most kids, while giving them some to think about what it means to be a boy or a girl, plus I think any Disney fan will be able to take something from this story.
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Apr 5, 2021
Ribbon no Kishi (1963)
(Manga)
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There’s this common belief that Princess Knight is the first shoujo manga ever. While this is not necessarily true, what is true is that Princess Knight is the first shoujo manga serialization. The first long-story of the genre.
It’s the Astro Boy of Shoujo, and that makes sense, because it’s mangaka is very much Astro Boy’s own Osamu Tezuka. Written in 1953, Princess Knight is nonetheless a very important landmark in the history of manga as a whole. But I’m not here to review the 1953’s version of Princess Knight. Mostly because I didn’t read it, as a matter of fact, I doubt most people who have ...
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 4, 2021
Venus ni Seppun
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Not Recommended
Well, let’s get the obvious thing out of the way. I don’t read yaoi normally. It’s not a genre that I’m particularly positive that will enjoy, as an heterosexual male, I’m not necessarily the target audience.
That hasn’t stopped me before however, and I’ve even liked the one manga that I read in the BL genre. The Heart of Thomas looked, however, like a very tasteful shoujo that could be enjoyed by everyone. This isn’t that. But when someone comes to you with promises of the ultimate trash, how can one refuse? I couldn’t. I didn’t. And so here we are. By the way, there’s spoilers and very ... NSFW descriptions. You are warned. Venus ni Seppun is a yaoi manga written by Mika Sadahiro, which I’m not familiar with, but the friends of mine that have, assured me that she mostly dabbles in weird, downright offensive at times, yaoi. So, this is not even her worst, it’s just her normal. Now, I could tell you the premise and shock you right away, but I want to go slow. The manga starts with the introduction of two members of the Yakuza, Toma and Miyako. These two are friends from before the Yakuza days, as both lived in the same orphanage, and even back then Miyako loved Toma…’s hands. His dirty hands, to be more specific. Which is not weird, it’s symbolic. Because the manga starts with the boss of the family ordering Miyako to cut BOTH of Toma’s arms, because Toma killed the boss's dog. Why, you ask? Well, Miyako asked the same and the answer couldn’t be more obvious… a panel of Toma being raped by the dog. Yes. I don’t even understand what led to that moment, but the author seemed to think it was obvious enough, so I just...I just have that panel on my life forever. But if you think that this manga will be these two friends running from the Yakuza while having hot sex… you don’t really understand where this is going. Miyako really cuts Toma’s arms, but only after letting Toma touch… whatever he wanted. This also causes Miyako to.. uh… ejaculate. I’m rethinking this review. Miyako leaves the Yakuza after this, and the rest of the manga is a very “romantic” story about these two, as Toma needs Miyako to help him with everything, from peeing, to wiping his ass, to feed him and to shove prosthetic arms up his butt. I’m rethinking this review. Toma cannot do anything without Miyako around him, the only thing he does after chapter two, is to jump in a car and instantly gobble a dick. Outside of that, he cannot do anything, even when there’s other people around him. At a point in the story Miyako leaves him so he enters in a fucking coma. Toma does something else, however, cheating with a rich guy that I can’t remember the name of and I’m not sure I care enough to not just call him “Rich Guy”. So, at first I wasn’t really understanding the whole Rich Guy plot, but this is what I can gather. Our main characters are attacked by gangsters, and to save them, this rich guy just gives the gangsters a REALLY expensive watch. Which is something very specific that happens twice. This guy just gives watches to every person he sees with a knife… which is understable, I suppose. But to pay for the watch, Toma turns into Rich Guy’s sex slave. So what does Rich Guy do? He forces Toma to have sex with Miyako, but blindfolded. The rest of the manga is just various degrees of these three guys doing it, while the mangaka tries to still make this a dramatic story. Miyako slowly gets more jealous of Toma and Rich Guy’s relationship, so he shoves a prosthetic arm up Toma’s ass and sucks Rich Guy’s dick. Understandable. There’s also a bunch of flashbacks of these two characters in the orphanage which serves to explain that Miyako was a bit of a bitch, having locked Toma in a house for a while, and then when the nun finds Toma, Toma proceeds to be gay with Miyako. I cannot relate with anyone here, and it’s not because of their sexual orientation. Miyako does it again, by the way. He locks a dude with NO ARMS, inside his house for four days, until he realizes that the Rich Guy also didn’t check on Toma, which, why would he? You’re the one that lives with him and you locked him inside YOUR house. What the fuck? So they rushed to the house because it was more than likely that the guy was dead, because, again, he cannot do anything other than gobble dick. The ending is left open ended, as the trio gets inside a car and leaves to the horizon, assumingly while Toma sucks dick. Nothing really left resolved, but… as I wrote that, I also wonder if there’s anything to resolve here? There is a sequel that I’m not sure I’ll check, because I’m sure it’s just more of the same. So conclusion? I dunno. I read this in a voice chat with two friends and it was pretty fun to just trash it as it goes, but I’m not sure how many times I want to repeat that experience. I still wouldn't name this the worst manga I’ve ever read, but it is close.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Dec 24, 2020
Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai
(Manga)
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Recommended
I love romcoms, which is a nice way of saying: "I really love ecchi harems". Now, I don't need the ecchi, but I do like good ecchi. And I could go on and on about what, in my opinion, makes a good ecchi; and I will later.
90s and 00s ecchi harems are a big part of the reason why I am a manga reader. A lot of my first reads were part of that genre, Love Hina was one of my very first manga and since then I tried to consume the most I could of it. That's why I came across Nisekoi and I ... loved it, so I'm going to talk a little bit about it. "Oh, but this is a We Never Learn review!" I hear you say, look don't downvote this, I swear I will talk about We Never Learn soon, I promise I'll write more than enough about it. Okay? Okay, Nisekoi. I loved it, the characters, the comedy, the way that Naoshi Komi does visual comedy is just perfect. And Raku and Onodera, man, it hits me in the heart. And sure, the pacing is the most outrageous thing to ever exist, so I understand if you don't like Nisekoi, but rest does save it for me. Now if you do like Nisekoi there is another manga from mangaka Taishi Tsutsui that I recommend reading, it's... No, it's not We Never Learn. Look, we'll get into that soon, but first! Magical Patissier Kosaki-chan! A Nisekoi spin-off about Onodera being a Mahou Shoujo. It's a good read, but curiously, Nisekoi doesn't have any ecchi in it, but Tsutsui looked at it and said "No, we need boobs", so we get to see everyone naked in Kosaki-Chan. That's not why I'm rec'ing it, I just think it's pretty funny, but if you read Nisekoi and wanted nudity... well, there IS a solution. However, it's funny that Tsutsui wanted to write Nisekoi with ecchi, because as soon as he got a serialization in Jump, that's very much what he wrote. Yes, I'm talking about... WE NEVER LEARN. So let's get on it. Some of you may argue that Quintessential Quintuplets is a more apt comparison, since We Never Learn tells us the story of Nariyuki, a very poor boy who is given a chance to enter a big university, all he needs is to tutor two beautiful girls, with others joining later on. And yes, it's very similar in plot to Quintuplets, who was released just a couple months after We Never Learn started, but both are handled completely differently. We Never Learn is more of an episodic manga, with each chapter having Nariyuki with one, or more, of the girls in funny situations or misunderstanding, with a lot of visual/reactionary comedy, very similar to Nisekoi. Of course, a lot of that comedy comes from ecchi situations this time around, except it's more the girls that end realizing just how riské the situation is, and it's our main character that ends up being oblivious to a lot of what's happening. This helps give We Never Learn a more wholesome and innocent feel than most ecchi manga. Which, yeah, is exactly the ecchi I like. Rather than just have girls be naked due to situations just because you want to show them naked, We Never Learn's ecchi is made for the comedic effect and more often than not, ends up advancing the plot of that particular chapter. Although it does have ecchi in pretty much every chapter, I also would argue that it never exaggerates, contrary to... Magical Patissier Kosaki-chan! And I guess that makes sense, as this is a full on Weekly Shounen Jump series.. but then Ayakashi Triangle also exists. The strongest point of the manga, however, is the characters. As tends to be the case in both manga that I like, and good romcoms. Ecchi harems generally work only if they have a good cast of female characters, and while WNL does include the ever annoying little sister who wants to marry his brother, she is just a minor part of the cast, and the real female leads are great. At first we have only Fumino and Ogata, who perfectly balances each other in terms of personality, strong points and breast size, Fumino being the best student in liberal arts, but horrible at math, and Ogata, which is a genius at math and horrible at liberal arts, which wouldn't be a problem if both didn't want to follow courses in their respective weaknesses. That's the gist of the first couple chapters, but soon Nariyuki's childhood friend, Uruka, appears, which is a sports freak, but needs better grades all around, and finally Asumi, a part-timer worker who is in the same cram school class as Nariyuki. Finally, the last main female character doesn't really study, in fact Kirisu is the teacher. Each chapter generally follows Nariyuki and of these five as we learn more about them through funny shenanigans. Each of them has their own personalities which fits greatly with their goals and respective strong and weak points, and their character designs. I do think that the artstyle of the characters in general is good from chapter 1, but to me it does only get better and better, because it slowly morphs into a rounder, cuter, nicer version of the original designs, so much so that I kinda don't like looking at early WNL now. The biggest difference is probably seen in Nariyuki. I do think the later artstyle fit the manga style more, as it does help with that innocence feel that I mentioned earlier. Also the mangaka took notes from Nisekoi's Naoshi Komi, because the visual comedy and the character reaction are fantastic. I especially love Rizu's Grump face. But while harem manga may give you the feeling that it's all about the girls, a good main character can do wonders for the manga, and that's where Nariyuki comes in. At first glance Nariyuki may not look that different from the normal main harem characters, and I'd even argue that he is NOT that different, but he's one of the more well executed. Nariyuki is tasked to help these characters and that's what he does. Pretty much everything he does he does it for the female characters, constantly helping them in daily activities and in fighting for their dreams, and it feels genuine. One of the hardest things in harems is to make a believable reason for every single female character to like a guy who, generally speaking, tends to be a massive loser. It helps a lot that Nariyuki isn't a loser, and his obliviousness, to a point, for anything perverted helps as well. I have no problems in understanding how every single one of the girls ended up liking him or admiring him. Because I did too. By virtue of being the main character he has the slowest character development of the cast, but he still has it in the end, which makes me have no problem in declaring him one of the best main characters in the genre. However, probably the biggest problem in the manga is the early middle part. The manga very rarely develops past the slice-of-life comedy situations with ecchi flavour. I wouldn't say that this manga has pacing problems, I think the story evolves at a nice pace, but it can get tiresome for some, specially for people who have a low tolerance for ecchiness. But if you manage to keep up till the second half I would say that you'd be rewarded. Not to say that the manga evolves and changes much, it very much stays true to its genre, but it does start to explore more the goals of the main cast, and that's when this manga turned from "fun ecchi harem" to "one of the best in the genre". By this point we are already familiar with what each female character wants, but we start to explore more about why they want it and how far they are willing to go for it. It helps a lot at developing the female characters and making them even better. Because they are not just generic personalities like yandere, tsundere, and they are not just there to be ecchi victims and have the audience declare who is the better "waifu". No, they are deep and have reasons and goals and more things to them than just romance and sex appeal. I think that is a good example of a shounen manga handling female characters right, and from an ecchi manga nonetheless. And it doesn't take much, all it does is give them something they are working for for themselves and not just for the boy. The core message of the manga is to study, if you couldn't tell from the title. To work hard for our dreams, and sure, the message is present in a lot of battle shounens, but personally I relate more to a girl who's struggling with math, but really needs it for the degree she wants, than a pirate using his rubber powers to punch marines in order to reach an hidden island. And I tell you "needing to study for your goals" is a good lesson to have. It's not too different from what your parents and teachers may tell you, the difference is that We Never Learn never feels preachy about it. It just has people doing their best and it makes us want to do it too. Finally I wanted to talk a little bit about the ending, I will try to not spoil anything major, but if you rather go in blind, then you can skip this part. I have one problem with the ending, and it's the fact that it has multiple ones. The truth is that over the course of the manga, while the romance between the girls to Nariyuki was well developed, the feelings of Nariyuki for the girls kinda wasn't. You reach the final part without really any idea of who the final girl may be, or if there will be one. Of course, then the mangaka pulls multiple routes and has Nariyuki end up with all of them, each on their own little arc. The first route isn't too bad, it connects with the main story perfectly. And I'd say that actually, for most of the routes, it did a good job at developing Nariyuki's romance between the characters in 9 chapters. The third route does it better because I think it was the one with more roots on the main story, and the fourth route is my overall favourite as I think tells the better story. The second one... is bad. It really doesn't develop the romance at all and just spends 9 chapters following what feels like a side story. But what I enjoy the most out of the routes is their variety. It would be easier to just pull an Endless 8 style arc and just have every route being slight variations of the others, but each route takes place in a different time, different location, developing different characters and different things that had been left unsolved in the main story. It makes each story feel interesting even if it's not your favourite girl's route. The final chapter actually does a good job at connecting everything, which I wouldn't think possible, but it's great to be proven wrong. Yet, it still feels a bit of a cop-out, while I don't hate the ending as is, I'd very much appreciate a real decision from Tsutsui's part. But alas, We Never Learn has a few moments in it's run that could use some perfecting, but I do think it's overall pretty great. It's called very often a Nisekoi spiritual successor and the influence is very visible, but I do think Tsutsui took notes of some of Nisekoi's flaws and didn't make the same mistakes. The result is a great romcom, and a great harem ecchi. I think it's one that can be enjoyed by people who aren't fans of the genre, and specially if someone wants to read an harem with good female characters there is nothing wrong in going with We Never Learn.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 24, 2020
Saishuu Heiki Kanojo
(Manga)
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Mixed Feelings
Well, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way first. Generally I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but with this one I'm really going into a lot of details of the story, so if you want a spoiler-free experience the best I can say is to scroll all the way down, check my last paragraph, where I write my overall thoughts, and see if that interests you or not.
I want you to follow my experience with the first chapters of Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, or Saikano, in the oficial English translation, as I went into it pretty blindly. I knew it was a 2000's ... manga, and the artstyle really does feel like straight out of late 90s, early 00s manga and that it was written by Shin Takahashi, which I only say because I like acknowledging the author. I assumed that this manga was going to be your normal teenage romantic drama and the first chapter reinforced that idea. In this first chapter we meet our two main characters, Chise and Shuji, as they just started dating and they are really bad at it. At the end of it, they get to know each other a little bit better and they vow that they will learn to love each other, which gives the idea that they don't care about each other just yet, but they both proceed to talk exclusively about the other person for the rest of the manga. But it's on chapter two that the big reveal is done, as our characters are caught in the middle of a bombardment that ruins their town and kills thousands, and in the midst of all this confusion Shuji finds out that Chise isn't just a normal highschool girl, she is a mechanically engineered ULTIMATE WEAPON. This is a reveal so bonkers that I understand if people don't like it, as it does feel that it came completely out of left field when you're reading, but I personally appreciated how bold it was. These two chapters introduce us to the two main themes of this story, the classic teenage romance, and the ambiguous war that creeps into all character's lives. It's a unique and interesting concept, as we see these characters trying their best to have a normal teen life in this bizarre existence, but it's in it's execution that the manga falls apart. The first problem we encounter is the comedy in it. Now, I can excuse a drama focused manga to not have the most funny of jokes, the real problem is on how they are inserted in the middle of the dramatic parts and actually end up ruining the flow of the manga. It doesn't help that a lot of jokes are about how the main duo should have sex. This is something that happens more frequently at the start and thankfully gets better as the story progresses. But don't let your sighs of relief out just yet, because it's now that the real problems start to appear. These two characters have this ideal role that they both have to abide, as "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", and both of them seem to be more focused not on loving each other, but on dating each other. And that's all fine, but suddenly Shinji has basically an affair with a new character, Fuyumi. A married adult that really wants to fuck Shinji despite the big focus that we will have on how she really likes her husband. Admitedly, hey don't have sex, in fact this is the very first example of a character doing a lot of sexual stuff with one of our main characters, but without doing the real thing, which I guess it's supposed to make all of it okay? It's then further excused for both sides because "they are horny". But that doesn't really excuse you. And this is the first example of the biggest problem in the series, a lot of the characters motives, problems and solutions end up revolving around sex. And sex is just TOO much of the focus here. At certain point our couple decides that this relationship is too much to bear and decide to break up, this ends up exploring two alternative relationships that I think are the highlight of the entire manga. We get to see more of Shuji and, arguably the character he has most chemistry from day one, Akemi, Chise's best friend and also an old friend of Shuji. It's shown that it's with her that Shuji really can be himself, and I have no idea why this is the side romance and not the main one. On Chise's side, we get to focus on her on the warfield, with soldiers, in particular Tetsu, which is actually Fuyumi's husband. It's adorable and sad to see Tetsu and Chise walking around the deserted and destroyed cities, as he tries to save a bit of Chise's innocence in the midst of all of this. In general, the parts of the story that happen in the battlefield and with the soldiers are the most successful of the manga. Sadly these two decently build romances have a pretty horrible climax. And I'm not talking about the that both Akemi and Tetsu both die, I think that's an interesting and logical end to these arcs. No, it's the fact that they both die while thinking of sex. Akemi finally confesses to Shuji and therefore it's Shuji's "duty" to grope her tits and let her grab his dick until she dies. Tetsu dies confusing Chise with his wife, so it's Chise's duty to let him grope her tits until he dies, which would be slightly better executed if it wasn't for the fact that Tetsu had went as far as fingering Chise just a couple chapters before. I felt like that was quite disrespectful for these characters as in the end they were only horny beasts waiting for sex until their last breath. Not that much after we get Fuyumi crying and being super sad about Tetsu, just to try to rape Shuji right after. It's probably the worst segment of events of the manga, but you know what? It's actually followed by an actual nice "arc". Shuji and Chise decide to run away from people and end up living on a different town, and we get some really nice and touching moments. As the duo live their lives alone, we finally get some moments were the couple does look like a real couple and have nice chemistry, too bad we're already on the second to last volume. Due to circumstances however, Chise needs to return to the army and the city itself is being destroyed, so we actually are back to have them separated. We only get to meet each other together again near the finally where they finally do what they wanted to do since chapter 1... they fuck each other all night long. At this point, it only makes sense, as sex is the main drive and theme of all the relationships, so to end it finaly by having the two characters have sex with each other, it's thematically coherent. Which doesn't mean I personally enjoyed it. And then the ending came, which was not the worst, but it led me to some confusion. See, the war that's happening is only ever talked about vaguely, we never know the enemies or reasoning for the war, and for the most part, it really doesn't matter. But at the same time, there's also earthquakes happening over the course of the manga, and sure, we're led to believe that it's because of Chise and her enormous power, but there's also a moment of an earthquake happening while Chise isn't around, which is confusing. So when we finally get the reveal that the world is ending, it makes sense that it's because of Chise. At this point in the narrative we're so used to see the now apocalyptic scenario of Hokkaido that it kinda feels fitting. But here's the thing, Chise, after revealing this, also mentions that there's things happening around the world, things that we never get to learn what they are, but it makes sense to assume that whatever it is is what's causing the end of the world, but then it's implied that it's because of Chise. I dunno if I read the ending wrong, but it was all very confusing, and it was with that note that Saikano reached its end. It was really hard for me to judge this manga. It had a good premise and it had good ideas, it even has good moments, chapters and I even go as far as say volumes, but for everything that it does right, it also does one thing wrong. The couple and the drama could have been handled better, the comedy as well, but ultimately the nail in the coffin is for sure the fact that every single character is completely horny and we're supposed to accept their sex drive as something that drives the drama in the series. With less focus on that and more focus on the romance, or you know, the war, this manga could have been leagues better than what it ended up being.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 9, 2020
Time Paradox Ghostwriter
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Recommended
Weekly Shounen Jump is the most famous manga magazine in the world, with series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Yugi-Oh, Bleach and Yaiba, just to name very few. It’s a magazine that always seems to have a hit title on their sleeves, and this can give people the idea that Jump spends a lot of time curating their manga, making sure that only the best of the best are published, but this is actually far from what really happens.
On the contrary, Weekly Shounen Jump has a new batch of manga every three or so months, and each batch comes with two to four brand ... new manga. And every time a new manga starts, another ends. This creates a magazine where most manga that debut ends at around four or five months after they start. Only the manga that managed to create a core audience and have decent sales in their first volumes survive. It’s important for a manga to have an initial buzz. And Time Paradox Ghostwriter had that buzz. It had the luck of starting the exact same issue that Kimetsu no Yaiba ended, so people point at it as if it was the manga that came to take the place of one of the best selling manga of recent times. And while, yes, it was the manga that came to take Yaiba’s literal spot in the magazine, it was just another one of a batch that happened to start when Yaiba ended. But that didn’t matter, people were reading the first chapter and talking about it. The first chapter is about Teppei Sasaki, a mangaka that is trying his best to get published in Shounen Jump, but keeps getting rejected, because, despite writing decent manga, they always feel generic. The editor asked him to write a manga that only he could write, but he fails every time. After many tries, Sasaki is ready to give up, but during that night a lightning strikes his house, burning his microwave and this somehow puts an issue of Shounen Jump inside it. Not any issue, but an issue from 2030, ten years into the future. The magazine has a lot of manga that Sasaki does not recognize, but most importantly, it features the very first chapter of White Knight, a manga that according to him is literally the best thing to ever exist ever and your favourite manga is dumb and stupid when compared to it, and you if you don’t rate it the objective 10 out a 10, I’m blocking you. When Sasaki wakes up the next day he realizes that the issue is gone, so he concludes what any sane person would, he was dreaming. But in that dream he read a fantastic manga, one that he could now put into paper. He adapts it to a one-shot and everyone in Jump loves and publishes it. But when he comes back home he has the issue of Chapter 2 of White Knight waiting in his microwave. He was not dreaming, and worse, he just stole someone’s work. This is the premise, and it wasn’t too long for people to point out similarities to Bakuman and Steins;Gate, which I think helped getting more buzz, but the manga is incredibly unique as is. Sure there are elements, being a manga about mangaka in Jump, it would of course have some similarities with Bakuman, which talks about the exact same thing, but the story itself is very fresh. This, together with the fact that the art is incredibly solid, clean and gorgeous, making it one of the best in the magazine, made people be sure that this wasn’t just another manga to be axed soon. Time Paradox Ghostwriter had potential and it could be one of the next pillars of Shounen Jump. And as the next couple of chapters came out more people seemed to get into it. Looking at Anilist and Myanimelist rankings, TPGW was easily one of the highest ranking debuts in the magazine this year. It seemed like TPGW was set to be a success with a solid fanbase… OR WAS IT? Sorry… I… I like Vsauce, I wanted to do that. But this was just the reality of the western audiences, the reality in Japan couldn’t be further apart. See, remember when I said that Sasaki just stole a work? Turns out that Japanese audiences didn’t particularly enjoy a shounen main character doing that, and they let it know. And I understand, but I think the way the manga tackled it was interesting, the mangaka showed remorse when he realized he stole a work and, yes, he continued to do so, even after meeting the original writer of White Knight on his timeline (who eventually becomes his assistant), but he did had his reasons. The main one being that by having the one-shot be published he destroyed any chances of Itsuki Aino (the original mangaka) to write it in the future. So only he could do it in his timeline. It doesn’t completely excuse him, but he never seems to be doing it out of spite, and the story never really tries to pretend that plagiarism is good. Over the course of the story you can catch glimpses of Sasaki slowly making White Knight his own work. It didn’t matter though, the Japanese people, you know, the ones that actually buy the magazine and the volumes, didn’t like the premise and they made sure to let it know, especially on the internet. To the point that the first volume tried to remove any mention of plagiarism. Which… I haven’t read the volume version, just the mangaplus weekly translations, but I don’t see how you can do that on a manga where it’s part of the core premise… Either way, even with this, the volume got bad reviews and bad sales, although, surprisingly, not the worse Jump volume of that month, because thank God that Guardian of the Witch exists, and thank God more that it’s axed already. This pressure to appease the audiences and gain some fanbase wasn’t present just on the volume version of the manga. The chapters started suffering too. You could tell that the mangaka was trying very hard to go through the plagiarism “arc” of the story as fast as he could, so he could potentially deliver something that the audiences could relate more to, but the result was an atrocious pacing. Each chapter started to spawn months of the story’s timeline and things just happened, and then moved onto the next thing that should happen. In one example, we are finally introduced to a chapter that Sasaki will have to write completely on his own, a chapter that he has 7 weeks left to write. It is a big deal and we spend about a chapter and a half exploring the fact that he’s going to that, just for the manga to then skip months ahead and not mention this INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT POINT TO THE STORY ever again. It seems that almost every plot point that is introduced in the middle part of the story lacked a proper build-up and a proper conclusion. It didn’t save it, of course. The manga was scheduled to be cancelled on it’s 14th chapter, which is incredibly early, even for early cancelations and the earliest I personally remember seeing. When a manga gets axed, I’m not expecting a perfect ending. The mangaka was not able to tell the story he wanted to tell and they probably set up plot point that will not be resolved. They can either go for an open ending or a rushed one… but TPGW’s ending… it was good. It was really fucking good. Maybe because the manga was rushed in the middle, when the fourth to last chapter starts to wrap-up the things, it doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere, and maybe because the mangaka has nothing else to lose, the pacing goes back to normal, and you feel like the story can breathe again. The following chapter is probably my favourite and the mangaka even manages to throw a small remark at the fact that he didn’t had the time to tell the story he wanted to. It was probably the best ending he could go for, it was a fantastic read, it was emotional and it was more than I could ask for. I did want to give this manga a better rating. Or rather, I’d like this manga to have had the time it needed to tell the story it wanted the way it wanted. There’s a lot of axed manga in Jump that are cancelled because they are too generic, or have too many flaws, and sometimes because they are too niche. But Time Paradox Ghostwriter was rejected because people didn’t want to accept it’s slightly morally grey character, even though they will openly accept Light’s murdering ways in Death Note. It was never that TPGW couldn’t tell a good story, Hell, I think the last four chapters show a capability to do just that, but it never was given that chance, and that is sad. The start and the ending are solid, but sadly the middle has too many problems for me to raise the score higher than the one I’m giving it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 1, 2020 Recommended
Whenever someone thinks of "Horror Manga" it's very likely that the first name that pops on their head is Junji Ito. Ito is well known among anime, manga and even horror fans in general. Since 1987 that he has been giving us horrific nightmares, something that he still does even till this day. But among all of his works one stands out the most. 1998's "Uzumaki", a story about a city consumed by The Spiral. Uzumaki has since been adapted into a live-action movie, and more recently it's being adapted into a 4 episode anime mini-series. It seems that now, more than ever, is a
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good time to see what Junji Ito is all about.
In Uzumaki we follow Kirie and Shuichi, two citizens of Kurozu-cho, as they slowly see their town be more and more haunted by anything and everything spiral related. That's the gist of it, so lets address point one: Spirals are not scary, right? Well, Junji Ito rarely uses things that are scary by themselves, he generally grabs things that we take as granted and distorts them until they are frightening and it is just that that he does here. Part of the reason to read Uzumaki is to see and discover just how much he can do with just a pattern. With 19 chapters, spread along 3 volumes, eventually released in that giant omnibus we all know, and having an extra chapter, Uzumaki isn't necessarily a huge manga, but it's still one of the longer works of Junji Ito, as he mostly focuses on writing one-shots and one-shot compilations, and sure, Uzumaki isn't the ONLY long work of Ito, but his non-one-shots are still the vast minority when compared to sheer size of his bibliography. Now, I'm bringing this up because it shows that he's a one-shot writer. Ito's one-shots focus on having short, mysterious and unexplainable events happening to random people. It doesn't have big, deep stories, it doesn't complex and interesting characters, it's all about the primal, raw feeling that it invokes on people who read it. Uzumaki is very much the same, with almost every chapter feeling like a self-contained one-shot, with the exception of the final couple chapters. And yes, there is a story being slowly told across all of them but it doesn't really go much further than "this town is being haunted by spirals". Sometimes there are two chapters in a row who might be connected, but for the most part, I could show you chapters in a random order and you probably would not notice it with the exception of maybe a line of dialogue. And while we do follow the same character through all of the 20 chapters, it's not like I can say that she is a complex or interesting character, it still feels very much like any other Junji Ito character, a blank state that we can use to self-insert and explore the actual main character of the story, the horror. Kirie's boyfriend, Shuichi is the only character that has a bit more going for him, and that's mostly the fact he's the only one who seems to understand what the fuck is going on. With that said, one does not read Ito's manga for complex stories, or characters, we read it for the fantastic and horrific pay-offs he delivers, and Uzumaki does deliver, having some of the most iconic of Ito's imagery. Each chapter is a wild and fun ride full of weird events. We start with pretty basic ideas, first chapter is about a man in love with anything that has a spiral pattern and the second chapter follows his wife, who has a deep fear of anything spiral related. These chapters are ideal to start with, since not only eases you in into the idea, it also shows you just how much this hypnotizing pattern exists in our lives. You'll come back out of these two chapters noticing it everywhere. The first chapter also has one of the best page turns in the entire series. For those that may not be familiar with the term page-turn, it's a technique that is very used in horror and comedy manga, the idea is to build upon something that is revealed in the next page turn, this means that it can have some seconds (or even minutes, if you really don't want to change the page) to build up on your expectations and then subvert them. In horror, specially Junji Ito horror, it can be used to let you know that in the next page something horrible is gonna happen, but not tell you exactly what, so it's up to you decide if you're feeling brave enough to see what's on the other side. This is something that is present in pretty much every chapter of Uzumaki, and each page turn is fantastic. This is where the artstyle of Ito comes into play, his artstyle is hardly the most beautiful to look at, but it's perfect for a horror series, it's weirdly realistic and he is known to spend hours upon hours on some of these pages, making all of them mesmerizing and haunting, with so much detail that it won't look like something out of painting, but something disgustingly real. It calls upon a very visceral and raw feeling, and this is the strong point of Uzumaki, pages that will most definitely stay burned in your mind forever. Everything else is pretty much a slow build-up for those reveals. Some of the chapters deal with some ridiculous ideas, some too ridiculous that just make it all too silly and feel more comedic than scary, but even those are enjoyable, and even those have visceral pages. It's in it's final chapters that Uzumaki starts flowing more fluidly, as it develops it's conclusion. It's some of the best chapters in the whole manga and it's good to see it call back some events that had not been mentioned again. The ending, without spoiling, is not the most in-depth conclusion, but you should not expect that from Uzumaki. Junji Ito follows the mantra of Lovecraft, and his stories are not to be explained, the horror lies in the mysterious and the unknown, so it makes sense that story concludes by keeping most things a mystery, just giving us small details of "why" it could have happened. Junji Ito does not use Uzumaki as a way to explore his weak points or to expand much on his strong ones. Ultimately, this is still a Ito manga 101, so if you're coming into Uzumaki expecting more, you probably will leave disappointed. If you're not a Junji Ito fan or don't like horror either, this is also not going to be the manga that's going to convert you. But if you know his works and you're a fan or if you know what to expect and that still sounds interesting to you, then you'll probably enjoy what this manga has in store. Uzumaki isn't a masterpiece, but what it does, it does it very well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 28, 2020 Mixed Feelings
When I first heard about JoJo's Bizzare Adventure this was a fairly underground manga in the West. It was a known series, but there definitely were more people that knew the name but never bothered reading than the ones that did. Things started to change, however, in 2012 when a new anime adaptation of Jojo started and as it adapted more and more parts of the story, the amount of fans grew and grew. It's hard to be an anime fan now and not have heard of Jojo or met a fan of the series. It was only recently that I decided to cave in
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and check what the hype was all about, so join me as I go through the series and tell you what I think. Put your seat belts on as we go all the way back to 1986.
Now, Jojo is huge and there's a lot of people that love it to death, but lets be fair, most of them will tell you that Part 1 is weak compared to the rest of the series. Sure, there's a lot of fans of it, and even people who prefer it, but the consensus is that it's not the best part, and I can see why. When I first started reading I liked a couple of things, I like the atmosphere, that Castlevaniaesque vibe it had, it's definitely different than most manga that I tend to read, and I think that's probably because it's not a Japanese setting. It had this mysterious and Gothic aura to it that I really appreciated. It's in this setting, in Victorian England, that we meet our main characters, the titular JoJo, Jonathan Joestar, who was very happy boy until the day his father introduces him to the newest member of the family, "It was me!" Dio Brando, who is basically Satan. Phantom Blood works around the fact that these two characters are the basic opposites of one another, natural enemies in a battle between morally good and morally bad. This is very cool in concept, but in reality, Dio is somehow the best character in the manga and even then, he is just "evil" and Jonathan is the most bland main character I think I've read. It's easily the worst character in the Jojo parts I've read and it's probably the worst character I've ever encountered. And this is my main problem. I definitely have more gripes with part 1, that I'll talk about in a bit, but I would've excused it if I enjoyed the characters. If you read my reviews, or just know me, you may notice that I like works that have a good cast in it, and maybe I give it more importance than other people might give, depending on the story told, but I still think it's a very important aspect regardless. Because the story itself isn't bad, I like the setting, I like the mask a lot, I think it's interesting, the story around it is probably the best part of the first two parts of Jojo's, but alone it can't save it. And the main character is the one that I have more problems with, but I can't say that I found any of the supporting cast interesting. Really didn't care for Zeppeli or Speedwagon, and much less for characters like Dire or Straits. Plus, it's not just the characters, there's a lot of points that, to be fair happen in a lot of other manga that I read from the time, like Devilman and Saint Seya, so one could blame it's age, but I've also read other manga from the same time that doesn't really have these flaws. I'm mostly talking about the dialogues, they are clunky, they feel unnatural, which doesn't help the characters either, because now they're not only bland, but every time they talk I feel a disconnect from the series, because people just don't talk like that. The art too, I appreciate the designs, I think that amidst everything that I'm criticizing about the characters, their designs are unique and it helps them look varied, but the art itself is not that great. The poses they do, I know it's a meme now and part of the appeal to some people, but they don't look good to me, they are just... well... bizarre and look very ridiculous and non-human. Before I read Part 1 I've seen some artwork of Araki, so I know that he is good, that his art is amazing, but it's amazing now, definitely wasn't in 1986, and that's fine, I appreciate that he improved a lot, but we're judging Phantom Blood for what it is, and while it's not the worst art that I've come across, or course not, but it's quite ugly. Ultimately, even knowing that the first part was probably the weakest, I still got considerably disappointed. It has a good concept, but there's too many flaws to make this an enjoyable experience. Thankfully a lot of problems I talk about would be improved in later parts, but talking about Phantom Blood on it's own, is it a mark on manga history? Yes, definitely! But is it good? Well, in my opinion, not so much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 7, 2020
Dorohedoro
(Manga)
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Recommended
I think it was around 2005 or 2006 that I first heard the term "anime". One Piece started airing on Portuguese television, and it claimed to be "the best anime since Dragon Ball", in school all the older kids in my class started talking about this new edgy anime on TV called "Hellsing". And when I got into high school, with everyone obsessing over the Big 3, I finally started to get into the medium, but due to lack of a decent internet connection I ended up opting for a static, black and white version of the stories that everyone was watching. Manga. For people
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who know me in 2020, I'm a full blown manga fan, one that respects the animated part of this culture, but stays away from it. Over the years I've gotten pretty familiar with the genre, styles and tropes of manga, specially those of Shounen and Seinen. And a year ago, I was finding myself still enjoying the stories the media could tell, but had been well over 5 years since I had one manga that I truly could call a favourite that wasn't written by some of my long time favourite mangaka, Asano and Urasawa.
But then, in January of 2019 I saw a picture of a man in a full body suit and mask with a ghost on his shoulders and this picture was just... so hypnotizing, so grotesque, yet beautiful. It's the kind of thing that I, as a Silent Hill and Alien and whatever fan, love. And in the corner it said the word "Dorohedoro". This wasn't the first time I heard about this manga, Dorohedoro exists since Q Hayashida started it in 2000, and it was ongoing until September of 2018 and throughout it's run it was always decently famous, culminating earlier this year when it finally got the anime adaptation it deserved. But that was the first time that I REALLY felt like reading it, and I did as soon as possible. I was expecting a gory, horror manga, maybe trippy, with some steampunk elements, and to be fair, Dorohedoro is all of this, but as I found out, it's also much, much more. To dive in the story of Dorohedoro I should probably start with the setting. Here we have two dimensions, one is The Hole, a horrible, horrible place where humans, like us, live, and the Sorcerer's or Magical User's world where... well... sorcerers live, there's also Hell, where devils live. What makes Dorohedoro amazing from the get go is that the concepts of what is a devil and sorcerer is completely unique to this setting, you never seen anything quite like it. It does thinks different enough that a manga about "magical users" still manages to feel novel and unique. But this story is about Caiman, Caiman is a human from Hole who has a lizard head which has a human head inside him and to boot, he has amnesia so he is as confused about this plot as you are right now. And we follow him as he tries to figure out why him, out of all people, managed to get stuck with this bizarre head. With him is the ever reliable Nikaido, restaurant owner and overall badass girl who helps him around to try to solve this mystery. It's early in the story that they talk about a powerful family of sorcerers, called The En Family, ruled by, well... En. Look, the names in the manga are very straightforward. I was expecting En and his family to just be your run of the mill villains, but then you actually start following them as much as Caiman and Nikaido and I think this when I started noticing the strength of this manga: The characters. This is my all time favourite cast of characters in any medium, see, you don't get a hero and a villain in here, you get factions, each of them with their unique cast of marvelously and hilariously crafted characters, each of them with their goals, and ambitions and stupid behaviors, but it's not separated that they are great, it's together, it's how they interact with each other that truly makes this worth a read. You see, Dorohedoro has a depressing, dark and edgy setting, one that is enhanced even more by Q Hayashida's rough, messy and beautiful artstyle. But the characters on the other hand are all incredibly fun and wholesome. They are always having the time of their lives and in return they make me have the time of my life. It's a contrast that should not really work, but Hayashida does it in such a flawless way that it looks so easy to pull off, but I think only her could really write this. Dorohedoro is a mystery, it's an horror, it's a comedy and it's a slice-of-life with a weird small baseball arc in the middle, and never really feels like the mess it should be. It manages to have a bit of everything for every one and have it done well. It's an experience I never really felt in manga before or after. If I'm pointed a gun at point-blank and forced to say a negative point to Dorohedoro, I would possibly say that it got dragged a bit, the last arc is around a third of the entire manga. It got extended longer than the author intended for, and I assume that was because it changed magazines near the end twice, and I assume magazines wanted to have it run at least a bit more in their pages, but since things around the mystery of Caiman do get a bit convoluted midway through, the length of this last arc actually helps explain everything in a digestible way that I'm not sure it would have otherwise. The term genius is thrown a lot to describe some mangaka. Urasawa's thriller manga are definitely works of a genius, and One Piece's Oda has to be one too to write the story he's writing for so long and make it all connect so flawlessly, but Hayashida is a different kind of genius. Dorohedoro isn't the most complex and well realized thriller mystery, it's not the most complex of worlds either, but Dorohedoro is, to me, the definition of a fun, enjoyable manga. In my 13 years of watching and reading things in this medium and in my 27 years of being alive and experiencing movies, series, books, comics, games, music, and even wrestling storylines, I didn't expect it to now have the best experience in storytelling ever in my life so far. But I did. I love manga because of how varied it is, and how much fun and passionate and incredible some stories are, there's manga that makes me feel so much stuff, like happiness, anger, sadness and horror and I love feeling those emotions, but Dorohedoro? Dorohedoro makes me feel ALL of them. This manga is the embodiment of why I love this medium and why I'm so passionate about it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 5, 2020
Akane-chan Overdrive
(Manga)
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Mixed Feelings
I was exploring some random manga when I came across a manga that immediately caught my attention. It was a short shoujo, which I could clearly tell from the "Margaret Comics" banner, but the art felt very familiar. This was because this manga was written by Mizuki Kawashita, a female mangaka I'm familiar with for years for creating some of the best romcom harems I've ever read. Ichigo 100%, Ane Doki and Hatsukoi Limited are all ecchi filled Shounen Jump titles that are incredibly fun and enjoyable. To find out that this artist had worked on a shoujo magazine before made me incredibly curious as
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to what kind of manga she would write for a female audience, and this is how I started reading Akane-Chan Overdrive.
Akane-Chan Overdrive's plot follows Takashi Amamiya, who, after tripping on a bottle, finds himself outside of his body and being pushed into the body of the titular Akane-chan, he now finds himself living as this girl until the spirit of the girl comes back to her body. Hopefully soon, because Amamiya's original body is dying slowly. It's a simple premise, not too original, I've seen the whole "people switch lives" plot a lot. But most of them end up following the cliched message that "everyone's lives are hard and you shouldn't judge them" and, while I'm not sure what the message is here, it definitely isn't that. We mostly explore how Amamiya reacts to now being a beautiful girl and tries to live with it. Knowing that Kawashita had written this manga before her time in Shounen Jump, I was actually expecting this to be a fairly "by-the-books" shoujo manga, and despite me not being the most expert reader of Shoujo manga, I do think this is the most shounesque shoujo I've read so far and it would made sense to me that people would change Kawashita to the Shounen branch of Shueisha because of this manga. I don't say this just because this manga is mostly male characters (even if one is in a girl's body), although it does only have two recurring female characters, and one of them appears for like 2 chapters and the other basically serves for Amamiya to hit on sometimes. No, it's more that this is the first time I remember seeing an ecchi shoujo. We are given various panels of the girl naked or wearing questionable clothing, and if you need panty-shots, let me assure you they have it, they have it on every single chapter. Plus, on the first chapter we get this very uncomfortable joke about her dad trying to have a bath with his grown up daughter. The pervy dad joke happens a couple more times throughout the manga, but it's done in a more tame manner than I can accept, but this one sounds all the red alerts. Now, I don't think this joke should be in any manga, at least not as a joke. But I think that specially as a manga that is being read by young girls, you shouldn't write-off your dad trying to see you naked with clear sexual and creepy intent, this is not what you want to teach kids. But you know what, this is just one page, and I think the rest of the chapter is alright. It's funny, it has some good enjoyable moments and it does have a good artstyle to back it off, that, sure isn't as polished as Kawashita's later output, but is still very good. Chapter two and three, of ten, just follow the story more, exploring Amamiya and Akane's life, and then chapter four is a completely unrelated one shot. Now, one-shots at the end of a volume happens, either related or not to the main story, it's not unusual to have the author write something new or put a previous work to fill up space. Thing is... this one-shot... is in the MIDDLE of the volume. Chapter 5, the last chapter of volume 1, have us back at Akane-Chan. This shouldn't be a negative point, because it's just a weird structure, but what? Why? Why in the middle?! Just... why? Well, whatever, I'm calm now, so lets jump to volume 2. At this point we are having a romance triangle between what is basically three guys, that are all clearly very heterosexual, but for some reason whenever they are in Akane's body (yes, they switch) they feel weaker to the opposite gender, or to be specific, to the beautiful guy who's desperately trying to get into Akane's pants. Having in mind that two of the three are completely aware that the girl is a dude, this has some slight BL tones in it, leading into the final chapters. Which, to be fair, is actually an interesting development. One that I would love to read. At the end of chapter 8, we have the three of them fall off some stairs and completely switch bodies with one another, having the oblivious guy being in Akane's body this time. Making it all full circle and having us from now on, three dudes fighting for a girl, who's one of them. Chapter 9 is a short side story that reverses this situation and has a teen girl dying, switching to a male body and trying to gain back her boyfriend. It's a fun story, that I wouldn't mind, if this wasn't the second to last chapter, but whatever, lets see how this manga ends. LAST CHAPTER IS AN UNRELATED ONE-SHOT. Last chapter... What. WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL MANGA?! EH! EH! KAWASHITA! I trusted you. I have told people to read your stuff. And you give me this? This is how you repay loyalty? We ended on a fucking cliffhanger. They all switched bodies. The real Akane didn't even appeared, none returned to their original body. We just stop the manga at a random chapter. And then fill the volume with two TWO TWO unrelated stories. Because why would one person write a conclusion? Conclusions are pussies. You don't need conclusion. Read a manga, and when you're 74% near the end, burn it. BURN the manga, you don't need conclusions. Just go read an unrelated one-shot. IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR AKANE-CHAN OVERDRIVE'S EDITORS IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. Okay. Okay... So... final thoughts. I didn't hate this. It was fun, if I hated it, I would've not be mad about the (lack of) conclusion. There are funny, and interesting parts in this manga, perverted dad aside, enough that I don't want to give this a negative score. But I can't recommend this one to anyone because the story lacks more than just an ending. It lacks a middle. It's the start of a potentially good manga that never was. I would tell you to check Kawashita's older works instead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 15, 2020 Recommended
Muhyo to Rouji is a Shounen Jump manga released between 2004 and 2008 that, weirdly enough, only got an anime adaptation in 2018 that actually slipped under my radar. I first heard of it back when I was playing Jump Ultimate Stars, and the connection with Nougami Neuro both in atmosphere and time made me curious about it, but I never really did give it a read until now.
The plot is simple: Muhyo, the executioner, and Rouji, his assistant, work together to exorcise spirits that may be lost in this world and causing problems. For this, they use magic laws, and their respective sentences, that ... the ghosts may have broken. It sounds like an episodic style manga and it does start like that. For the first couple chapters we get to follow our two leads as they are asked by people to exorcise certain ghosts. It really helps to set the tone for this series. The cute, round and bubbly art may look like it doesn't fit with the theme, but when the ghosts and envoys appear, they look gorgeous and downright creepy at times. Plus, it's interesting to see the ghost's past and such. Since all ghosts have reasons to do what they do, we often have some heart breaking stories to follow in the chapters. It doesn't take long for the actual story to start though. Soon we get to meet the rest of our core cast and our main villain, Enchu, an old friend of Muhyo. And from there on out our manga turns more into a traditional battle manga series, and while the actual story and characters are interesting enough to make the change work, the battles themselves are never really the reason to read this one. The magic laws are used basically as attacks with pacts with envoys, which are the creatures that carry out the sentences asked by the executors. The envoys are varied and great, ranging from humans to animals to bizarre lovecraftian creatures, and they're appearances are some of the best parts of this manga, leaving us with great double spreads. But visuals apart, there really isn't much battle to have, generally when Muhyo sends an envoy that's the end of the battle. And the fact that some of the executors (mainly our main character) have a supply of almost infinite number of envoys, you never really get a sense of strategy or thinking in the battle. Plus, the power system isn't really deep nor it does seem to follow any logic that we, readers, can follow. You can kinda tell that some envoys are stronger than others, but you're not really given much information about each's strength, nor how can someone get stronger or weaker. Things just kinda "are" and you accept it. And since Muhyo, with some exceptions, always calls different envoys, you don't really get any attachment to any of them. While I'm pointing negatives, might as well tell you the other one. Personally, this one didn't bugged me much, but character growth is almost non-existent between our characters. There's some power level growth within Muhyo that you know happened but can't really tell, but other than that, most characters are very much the same from start to end. With that said, the characters work as they are, and that's why the lack of growth isn't that detrimental to this series as it could have been. I feel that what hurts the most is the lack of power growth in Rouji, because we're teased about it a lot, but you never really get that big moment for him. The story itself is great though, and one thing that I really enjoy is that it establishes a villain and a plot and everything else expands from there, with every arc being about getting closer to him in some way. It all culminates in a final battle that, rather than going for epic fights, goes into an intense battle against the clock. While I'm a fan of some manga that follow a arc by arc basis, I am a bigger fan of those that follow the pattern of Muhyo to Rouji since it helps it feel more solid and flow better. It all wraps up real nicely by the end of volume 15. Which is when I realized that I still got 3 volumes to go. I felt a bit of a disappointment and fear, but I pushed through the same. We are back at episodic chapters for a while before we kick into a short and final arc. This arc isn't necessarily bad and it does lead to some explanations of things about Muhyo and Rouji that weren't explained before, but it really has no reason to be the final arc, and it would fit much better as something happening in the middle to later part of the manga, before the battle with Enchu and Co. Thankfully, the manga ends with a few chapters to wrap things up between Rouji and Muhyo an emotional and satisfying end to the whole thing. In the end, this manga isn't perfect, by any means, but it's a solid battle manga that has been incredibly underappreciated and is sure to satisfy and entertain the fans of the genre.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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