Grey

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Grey is a manga with post-apocalyptic setting, which follows the life of our protagonist, Grey, after he joins the military. The manga vaguely portrays the current caste system the surviving world is based of, and mostly focuses on the missions of Grey, along with his fellow troopers.

The story of the manga has interesting takes, and the dystopian future which is presented to us is both exciting and terrifying, and the presented world can give us interesting ideas to contemplate about, but sadly the world building is not the main focus of the story, it's the actions that are the main point of interest. The ... missions of the soldiers are filled with action and detailed gunfights, but the strategic element is always persistent, giving the conflicts more grounded, and serious tone. The mangaka is mostly portraying the militaristic life on this world as a depressive, bleak existance, devoid of meaning and full of grief.

The art is very appealing, but it does matter if you enjoy reading older manga or watching older anime, the artstyle is distinctively from the 80's, but beside this point, it's very crisp and refined. Specific detail was given to the various vehicles and tanks, as well as an expressive character design.

In this manga, the characters are few and some of them have more of an episodic nature. The main character is motivated, as well as most of his reasons for his action are explained, making him entertaining character to follow, but beside that, not much of a character from him or the other supporting cast is displayed or shown, which is a letdown considering the well-crafted concept for the world and it's inhabitants.

Overally, this manga is quite the entertaining read, it is a throwback to the gritty and realistic sci-fi mecha series of the 80's, like Votoms and Southern Cross, but in the same time it has short, simple, nicely excecuted plot as well as entertaining military skirmishes.

Review is based off the adaption by Viz back in the 80s.

2/10.
A special 0/10 specifically for volume 2

One of the most useless and boring manga I've had the displeasure of reading.

Pointless and uncreative action scenes fill the pages, especially in vol 2. Explosion after explosion, so many explosions Michael Bay would be turned off. Dull, uninteresting characters. Everyone speaks like a robot. The dialogue is atrocious. Example given below. My issue isn't that it's chauvinistic, but that no one speaks in that manner. I would blame a horrid translation, but Gerard Jones the English Adaptor had translator notes where even he said the characters ... were boring. Leaving me to assume Tagami is an awful writer who doesn't actually talk to people. A bunch of robots named different things always showing up. The main enemy who don't really do much cuz our protagonist always defeats them. And some how a 2 volume series has such a jumbled plot that ends with no explanation.

This is fucking atrocious and I pray to god for forgiveness for exposing myself to this. I can't call it worm food because not even worms would eat this shit. This is on a completely lower level of hell in how bad it is. I could write 2 full pages on everything terrible about this series, but it doesn't deserve that attention.

Nice titties tho

https://imgur.com/a/tNch54E

Turned out to be a rather fun manga which could have easily been an 8/10 or higher with a few tweaks.

The main draw here is the art. It is dated and shows its age, but often in ways that are enjoyable. The designs are unique, characters are identifiable from one another, and it has a fun style to it. Paneling is really great, and you get some really well-done scenes (especially in Vol 2). For the most part the action scenes are easy to follow, I did find towards the second half of the story as things are wrapping up, we had more skipping ... around during the fight where it was harder to tell what exactly was going on.

That flow of combat is one way in which the story could have been improved. Too many times I had to re-read the last page to ensure I was really following what was happening. There are at least 2-3 panels I still *am not sure* what was being shown in them, usually some explosion that I cannot really figure out how it plays into things.

In the design category, I wish the mangaka had not incorporated old tank designs so prolifically. For a story 500 years in the future, it feels odd to have old WW2 tanks all around. As the story gets more sci-fi in the middle and end of it, the world improves for it. I wish the tanks had been some fictionalized wheeled vehicle that fit the world better and did not feel so jarring (same with the weird baseball helmets throughout). This feels like a gripe, but it really does a lot to break the world feel.

The story was fair to good. It could have been done better with a less episodic start, but overall, it wasn't bad. The concept of man and machine is interesting and thought provoking, but not as deeply done in this story as it is in many others. The character does not go through much growth but given the length of the story that is not too bad. One thing I did really enjoy about the story is it does not pull punches, there is death it in - in ways that will subvert your expectations.

Overall, I recommend it so long as you know what you are getting into. The art is old (pro and con), the story is short and direct (pro and con), and a bit of the designs are both jarring and unique (pro and con). In the end I liked it, but it barely passed into the 7/10 rating I gave it.