ib: Instant Bullet

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Well, you might say I am a little bit generous here with the score, but this one did strike close to heart for me, enough to make every nine into a ten, keeping in mind I'm writing this fresh after finishing it up.

So, the story. It sure is something. You start with Mr. antihero being all NEET in his little room with his two imaginary friends, finding the most mundane excuse for a shut-in to get outta the house, meet the main girl, learn about supernatural setting, go fight a level 1 monster...

And that's where the similarities end. The author takes this story into a ... completely different direction, far beyond the realm of a "clever twist", and breaks all of these conceptions into pieces.

I do love it when smart authors break the rules. Not for the sake of art or anything, but for the sake of giving us some food for the thought. These authors have the great talent of asking "Why?" and doubting conceptions that are overused. not just following them to become mainstream or breaking them to be all artsy and edgy, but actually stopping and thinking about it for a moment.

Now, I don't want to spoil anything, I'll keep everything as vague as I can, but let's just say this quality shines in this manga.

Art: I don't know nothing 'bout art, but this thing was kinda pretty.

Characters: The bread and butter of instabullet is it's characters. You won't find no "tsunderes", no dense main character (but i guess you could jokingly say it's around 80% yanderes). Not kidding, nor am I complaining, Instabullet is all about those twisted characters. nothing yuno gasai/ everyone from tokyo ghoul sorta bullshit, but an actual, legit (though sometimes a bit over exaggerated , which is to be expected of a paraphrase of a battle manga) deciptions of characters with traumas, depressions, and psychopathic tendencies. Emotions, both negative and positive are presented in a honest, real, and even heartbreaking (if you're immersed enough, like I honestly was). Without spoiling anything, that's all I'll say in this regard.

As you can obviously see, enjoyment is through the roof. It was feast of keen observation of the human heart, a celebration of the beauty and ugliness of our specie. The author clearly knew what he was doing with this one, despite this being his first work, and despite him not having the name or resource to extend this to the length he wanted, it was still an amazing piece, all thing considered.

So overall, get there and read it. it's only 27 chapters, you can finish this in an afternoon or two. as I said earlier, i might have been a bit subjective and generous when i had to score this one, but I don't care. I stand behind this shameless row of tens without a single shred of regret. With that said, thank you for reading my review, and I hope you have a lovely day.

PS, keen yet obsessive fans of undertale might notice the similarities between a lazy skeleton and a boy who looks like he works in a ramen shop?

WOW .

No really wow .So this is actually given a 7.9 rating on this site .Pretty amazing if you ask me but I guess that's just other people's taste being different from mine .I don't think this was terrible but I think that it was a serious waste of potential .Mostly because it was so short .

Plot - 6
Not a very common story but not very interesting despite that .I think to many this will come off as a manga that just tries to be (yes I'm using the dreaded buzzword) "edgy" .Nothing is really good about it apart from its uniqueness .I feel like ... this was something that I could like a lot really .Too bad it suffered from bad pacing and poor/insufficient explanations .It all felt so.......uninteresting .Not to mention that deaths in it didn't make me feel the slightest bit of loss .The ending could have been pretty good but it was ruined at the last moment .The meaning behind the story (that there is an unbelievable amount of pain in the world) is also something I couldn't relate to and so found a bit stupid .

Art - 6
The art wasn't anything special either so it would normally get a 5 .I suppose the expressions were a little good sometimes so I can give it a 6 .If the art was better I think I would have liked the manga more too .Nothing special here so I'm moving on .

Characters - 4
Yeah these were pretty bad .Not that they were generic but when you try depicting characters that need a few good episodes of development and then you handle that all in one or two chapters then you can tell that it'll be pretty bad .

Enjoyment - 6
My review is scanty mostly because there really isn't much to say about this .It simply wasn't good but wasn't terrible either .I probably should have spent time reading Absolute Duo rather than this but I don't exactly regret reading it .

It has a standard battle royale premise, with some interesting powers thrown into the mix, so at first Instant Bullet seems like a promising read. You couldn't be further away from the truth.
The author doesn't take long to throw all his edgyness into the pages when it is mostly uncalled for. The plot moves in the most cliché and lazy way possible, and romance happens without prior development whatsoever.
This would already make for a really bad read, but it doesn't end here: Forgetting plot-points established in the prologue, a complete disregard for character development and an overall "fuck you" to the reader.
Yes, this manga ... got axed, so the ending can be excused. But taking all the issues prior to this into account, thank god it got terminated.