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tl;dr: Battle Royale is a manga targeted at "SO EDGY xD" teenagers and a bit about the sequel.

I don't see anyone can possible take the setting of Battle Royale seriously. You essentially have a government that picks classes of children and force them to kill each other for no plausible reason -- Apparently Japan in BR have a lot of time to waste while the USA gives two fucks. The idea that ANYONE would pass such a horrible, horrible idea and funding something as disgusting as this is baffling.
The setting is thoughtless and insulting to anyone with a fucking brain.

Another thing is the art -- which people praise and I can only assume they have no artistic standards or have looked at too much Naruto. The manga-ka expresses insanity by turning characters into drooling retards instead of depicting it with some actual though. Combine this with some needless gore, retarded expressions, and you have terrible art that most manga fans will lap out because they think it's "mature". If you think drooling retards is "realistic" then please go outside, please.

For the characters you have the useless protag and main heroine. You also have a villain who can survive a bomb, being shot with a fucking shotgun and point-range, and several other impossible feats! He's basically the ultimate Gary Stu! You also have a bunch of side-characters that randomly go insane and kill each other. Such deep characters that only sophisticated manga fans can hope to understand how the manga-ka deeply weaves his complex cast of characters.

Battle Royale is like a B-movie that somehow got taken seriously, and will continue to do so for years to come. Even Tomizawa of Alien9 fame couldn't make this juvenile setting work.

3/10

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Another prime example of how bad of a writer the God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka was. The Book of Humans Insects could have been a really interesting piece of satire on the sexes and dark humor, but it falls under Tezuka's horribly executed plot-devices. You would think he would be ashamed of using some of these, but nope. He pulls on and shamelessly using this in each of his adult works. And yet, his fans eat the shit right up.

It's rather sad that Vertical is wasting their resources on mediocre manga, and having them printed in hardcover. These hardcovers are nicely printed, but essentially goes to waste. The only thing that isn't topnotch is their translations and cover designs. These covers are hideous, and I have no idea why they thought pasting random panels of the manga for a cover was a good design....
It's really not, Vertical.

There's a girl who's good at copying stuff. She sucks the nipple of a wax doll of her mother, just because. Everyone else is uninteresting, to say the least. They all die when it's convenient. The characters serve no purpose other than
forcing the plot along.

Enjoyment is pretty good here. It's fast paced and amusing, but nothing more.

Overall is suffers from Tezuka's overplayed tropes and cheap writing. read more

Not even god knows why this abysmal piece of crap needed 20 chapters.

Swallowing The Earth had a neat premise, but essentially falls flat. It showcases Tezuka's inalienability to make a satisfying manga/story. Never in my life have I've seen such aimless writing. This was apparently Tezuka's first adult oriented manga, but that's not a proper excuse for this incompetent work. I can not fathom how anyone can call this a "masterpiece". Sure, it was Tezuka's first adult work, but its aged horribly.

The first problem I'll start with is the art.

Tezuka will randomly use a wacky style during serious moments. Not only does this ruin the mood, it shows that he had no idea what he was doing. The next problem would be the lazy recycled designs. I will admit that "Zephyrus" was indeed gorgeous, but that's ruined too halfway in. So props for the greek goddess like designed inspired by old sword and sandal films. The only thing the designs lack is greasy men drenched in oil.

Characters are up next...

I can't really write much about characters who lack personality. So I'll write about our drunkard protagonist. He seems invincible, and he has no interest in women. He's the only one not drawn in by Zephyrus. Instead he prefers cheap booze. And that's about it... He's kind of interesting, I guess.

Now to the worst part...

The story. It's horribly paced. Swallowing The Earth probably should have been about 200 or so pages, but nope. The story is fine for the most part for the first half(or less) of the manga. He starts to quickly go down hill after we arrive on Moo island. After arriving on Moo island he get a few irrelevant stories which ultimately serve no purpose. Maybe Tezuka was getting payed for by the page? After those irrelevant stories it pick up again near the end, but then decides to jump off a cliff. So we have a bunch of loose strings and a pointless ending, complete with ugly sagging women.

Swallowing The Earth was fun, but certainly not worth 26 dollars. Try finding a used copy if you're interested. read more

Warning: Do not read this manga if you have a basic understanding of...anything.

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It's slightly hard to understand what Tezuka was going for with MW, in my opinion. It's a deeply flawed thriller lacking commonsense, justice, and did I say commonsense?

The portrayal of homosexual relationships is laughable, until you realize Tezuka is quite serious with his portrayal of their relationship. But this is only one of the many problems with this manga.

You have characters introduced, only to be killed off for no particular reason once they served their purpose in the story. Wait, you can't even call these characters. They're lifeless, empty, silhouettes. Tezuka appears to have been rather frustrated with women, considering how most of them die cruel deaths.

Amazingly the authorities and the ENTIRE government had a hard time dealing with Yuki. It took them over half the manga to even CONSIDER him, but it was far too late. Yuki in general is full of stupid little plots, which people actually fall for. His stunt at the end being the most absurd. The "great" and all "knowing" detective appears to have lost his sense during the ending scene . Funny how no one even bothered checking Yuki's identity at the end, though.

The art is extremely gritter, as opposed to Tezuka's clean trademark style.
Don't worry, Tezuka randomly uses a cartoonish style during serious moments, Strange how people praise his art when he can't even properly draw a person walking.

Speaking of art... The design choices are rather questionable. Yuki, the "cunning" and "intelligent" man who often disguises himself as a women, has sideburns. He certainly isn't very feminine- unless you consider Jeff Goldblum feminine....

Tl;dr
Deeply flawed thriller with poor storytelling. Read Angel's Hill instead. read more

Black Jack is probably Osamu Tezuka's most popular series in the west. Spanning 17 thick volumes of episodic tales. Black Jack was originally brought over to the west by VIZ, but dropped soon after. A few years ago a company named Vertical picked the series up. Amazingly, they released a volume each month. Their release is of super high quality. The only problem would be the horrible cover designs, but this is only a small problem. Each volume is over 320 pages, so 16 bucks is an amazing deal.

Now to start the review....

Black Jack is a series of episodic tales about an unlicensed doctor who charges amazingly high prices. He is known as one of the most talented in the medical world. He is respected and loved -- and hated by his peers.

The major problem with Black Jack is that it relies way TOO much on chance meetings and coincidences. Sometimes you will probably be staring at your screen in pure disbelief. Each chapter will range between good- absolute garbage.

At this point I'm going to assume asspulls and laughable chance meetings are a part of Tezuka's trademark style, but it's certainly not good writing. At times the attempts at drama is quite laughable. So take your time to savor the good and the horrible.

I'll forgive most of these problems since Dr. Black Jack is really, really cool. He's like the Captain Harlock of the medical world, but less consistent and harder to understand.

Another good thing about this: It's probably the only Tezuka worked aimed at adults that doesn't attempt to be edgy. It's also his only adult work that was a point. It's just good. No bullshit.

The art is also inconsistent. The styles often change between panels. Characters are often way too small for their own good. But the surgery panels are usually well handled. Props to Tezuka, I guess.

Recommendations:

Angel's Hill
Astro Boy
Marvelous Melmo
Dororo
Princess Knight
Monster
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Vampires is a manga by Osamu Tezuka. This was one of his first dark works(1966-1967. It's filled with terrible art, failed perspectives, and poor plot-devices.
It's not very good, to tell you the truth. It's bad even by Tezuka standards, which is really saying something, in my opinion. Anyway, feel free to ignore my points.


Story:

It's horrible. It's terrible. It's a great example on how NOT to write a story.
Vampires is dark for the sake of being dark. Most characters are empty silhouettes that only exist to advance the plot for a few pages. The designs are recycled because Tezuka probably couldn't be bothered to actually make new designs.

Rock is a terrible character. Rock is by far the worst in this manga. He's bad just because he is, literately. His "plots" are so incredibly dumb it's amazing the authorities had such a hard time having evidence.

Our protagonist is second in line for the dumbest character in Vampires. Everything could have been easily resolved with an anonymous report, but that would make sense! Instead he follows Rock like the lowly dog he is.

There's a fat guy that Rock doesn't want to harm because they're super best friend. This would have been fine if he didn't show out of the blue. I'm not even sure why he exists.

There are more characters but they're an empty bag of cliches and bad writing.

Art:

Do not draw what you are not capable of pulling off. Tezuka once again fails at basic perspectives. His backgrounds are empty shells. Tezuka also seemed to be under the impression that adding a billion little lines to something makes it more DETAILED and REALISTIC. It doesn't. Sometimes I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to look at a panel. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking at!

People claim he's an amazing artist, but I haven't looked at any of his works that deserve this title. He's a mediocre artist who bites more than he can even dream to chew. He should have stuck with his Disney style because that's what he was good at. Not this bad experimental art.


Enjoy:

To put it simply, Vampires is Dumb. It's like watching some B movie on the Syfy
channel. I'm not going to lie, Vampires was indeed enjoyable. But Vampires(Or any of Tezuka's work) certainly isn't high-literature.

It feels like people praise his work simply because he had a large part in making manga popular. Because of this they blatantly ignore bad writing.

Vampires is where he took an "edgy" drift in his work and it's a laughable attempt. Read this if you want to see Rock at his worst.

Suggestions:

Here are some of Tezuka's readable works

-Angle Gunfire
-Next World
-Angel's Hill
-Princess Sapphire
-Black Jack
-Phoenix (Very dated but it at least has a point)
-Metropolis (Nice core message) read more

Such a waste! Especially considering how awesome the first volume was.

Note: This review is based off an amateur translation.


Story: The story started out pretty solid, surprisingly. It's not until the second volume where it starts going down hill. Tezuka introduces new characters at a rapid pace, only to use them as a cheap plot device.There's not a single chapter in the second volume that doesn't rely on a cheap Deus ex Machina. I have no problems with using Deus ex Machina, but these are just horribly executed.
There's zero suspense in the manga, considering Luna runs into an old friend every time she's in danger.

Now moving onto the good part of the story! The mysterious sense of adventure, the unique island and its inhabitants and the core themes presented in the story. And it's because of these that this manga was so fun to read. Not much stuff like this is scanlated so I really appreciate the scanners effort.

Art: Holy fucking Christ, it's actually good this time! The island is wonderfully designed, the characters look great, and it's just fun to look at. It's just so much fun looking at the art for quick cameos of Tezuka's characters. But that's not even the best part, the best part is the unique angles Tezuka uses for a few panels. As usual, there's a lot of size problems conflicting with the style, probably because of the small panels Tezuka uses.

Character: Quirky! If we ignore the characters introduced in volume 2, this section would have a solid 8. There's the wonderful group of mermaid twins, the troubled mother, and her problem-ed child. The mother daughter relation ship is quite possibly the best part of this manga, it's wonderfully executed, too bad it's shafted in the second volume.

Enjoyment: Pretty great until the lame excuse of a second volume. Way too many new elements and plot devices. The ending is also quite unsatisfactory. read more

Nextworld is a manga written by the famous Tezuka Osamu in 1951. As said in the after notes, Tezuka removed over 400 pages for the release, originally being 1000 pages long. The artwork is influenced by old western cartoons, as usual.

Note: Tezuka did not intend for this to be an "imitation" or a "rip-off" of the HG Wells film 'Things to Come', as he found the film boring. Anyway, Dark Horse Comics release this manga along with several of his other works.

Story: The concept of the story is pretty interesting, as you can see from the synopsis above, but is driven down my aimless writing. I simply can't imagine reading the unabridged version, Tezuka simply spends too many panels with useless dribble. Considering the amount of text on each page, this should have been about a volume long, but like I said, it's driven down by way too much useless content. Sometimes it's even hard to follow, apparently this is because of the removed pages, which I can understand. Overall the story is pretty rough...kind of like this poor excuse of a review.

Art: Inspired by Disney, obviously, I'm not really fond of it. The panels are way too small for their own good, probably limiting Tezuka's artistic talent.
There are a few 2 page illustrations and Tezuka crams quite a few of his characters in them. There's also a bunch of reoccurring character designs, which slightly bothered me.... Pretty decent overall, though.

Character: Racial stereotypes to the max! Not only are they outdated and crude, they're also amusing! There's also a few reoccurring characters like Rock, Mustachio, and Kenichi! The characters are usually quite comedic, even during serious scenes. Not much I can say about characters that lack depth, though.

Enjoyment: Nice ideas, poor execution. I hope to see some of these ideas used properly in his newer works, which I will start reading quite soon.
Read this if you're looking for a nice and rough piece of copper.

Suggestions: Any other Tezuka work, Captain Harlock, and Queen Millennia. read more

Intro:

Dororo is one of Tezuka Osamu's darker works, and I'm honestly not sure what the author was aiming for here. Anyway, this was released by Vertical in 3 separate volumes, instead of 4. Vertical's release features a new cover design, which is possibly the worst cover design I've ever seen. Describe the cover?
Imagine taking random panels of manga and pasting it onto some human flesh.
Cool,right? No, not at all.


Art:

What happens when you combine Disney with rather violent fight scene? You get a manga like Dororo. The monsters are awesomely designed, while the humans are rather boring, and just unimpressive. The violent action scene lack detail and the panels are too small of its own good. But it does create a rather interesting atmosphere....


Character:

I wouldn't say that they're anything special, but Dororo is a really cute character, and is more than I can say for the rest of the cast. I guess Hyakkimaru is cool, but he's not a very deep character. Can't really say much for the side characters since they're just kind of there....


Story:

It's really fun and fast paced. Dororo is full of action and cool monsters. Dororo is episodic, ignoring some slight continuation. But these words of praise on apply to the first 2 volumes, while the final volume is a poorly written mess. The 3rd volume introduces possible new allies, only to kill them off at the last possible moment, because writing in a new character is hard.
It's just really incomplete as a whole.


Enjoyment:

It was fun, certainly not worth the money, though. Plenty of better samurai vs youkai/monster stuff out there. read more

I apologize that this review is a bit of a mess.

Princess Knight is a shoujo manga written by Osamu Tezuka in 1953. It is also one of the earliest shoujo manga in existence. It (probably) inspired many classics like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rose of Versailles, and many more. I will be reviewing Vertical's release, which is 2 volumes.

Art: Love old Disney cartoons? Then you'll probably love the artwork. Unfortunately, I don't like it at all. The male characters often feature exaggerated facial proportions, while the female characters feature much of the same. None of the characters are particularly attractive, ignoring the young female lead.To go more in depth: The characters usually have rather long noses, floppy feet. Pretty much everything about them is silly. The backgrounds aren't very impressive either. Most of the time the floors look like cushions and the backgrounds are usually not very extravagant. Having such small panels could possibly be an excuse for the lackluster backgrounds.

Story: Nothing too impressive, but I'll try to elaborate. Most chapters follow a set formula of: Bad guy has plan> Plan starts> Plan backfires> next chapter. I can't really elaborate much since there's not so much I can possibly say about it. It would be nothing more than generic by today's standards.

Characters: Everyone is pretty much a cardboard-cutout besides the young female prince. She's interesting because she's forced to lead a life playing both genders, but all she wants is to be female. The villains(for the first half) try to expose the fact that she's a women, and they eventually succeed.
The villains are pretty much standard dumb-asses. There's also a prince and he's apparently handsome.

Enjoyment: You'll probably enjoy this as long as you don't take the story seriously. Because it's certainly not a well written piece. I would suggest only reading this if you're interested in the history of shoujo manga, or huge disney fans.

Recommendations:
-Revolutionary Girl Utena
-Rose of Versailles
-Fushigi na Melmo read more