Übel Blatt
Ubel Blatt

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I binged this manga over the last few days after having it on my PTR list for way too long. Because of that, I can offer you a review that is not shrouded by nostalgia or anger at hiatuses. It was running a whopping 15 years after all.

Art: 6

Nothing groundbreaking but pleasant to look at. Character designs are though out and make named characters easily distinguishable, though faces sometimes look weird and deformed. There was a little bit of inconsistency with some frames having obviously put tremendous effort into them while others being done more 'efficiently' (eg. no background, shading, etc). My biggest beef ... with the art is battle scenes, not to be confused with fight scenes which were done very well. Battle scenes were a mess. Half the time you have no idea what is exploding, where a shot is coming from or going towards, or simply what are you even looking at. This makes for a fairly chaotic experience and will force you to pause at frames very often just to figure out what's going on.

Character: 6.5

I really liked the main character even though he's total Gary Stu. His motivations make sense and are consistent, his character changes ever so slightly with how he is influenced by the progress on his quest and new friends joining him. Supporting cast is mostly made up of standard archetypes, so I'm not gonna expand on them. Villains were kind of a mixed bad. Some of them were written amazingly, with great motivations and gray personality, while others (especially the minor and nameless ones) were just cartoonishly evil for the sake of being evil.

Story: 6.5

The story set up a very interesting premise and managed to keep its dark tones all the way until the end. The later part of the story felt a little bit rushed but was enjoyable regardless and managed to deliver a fairly satisfactory conclusion to itself at the end. The main problem I had with the story is how convenient everything was. There is always someone coming to rescue the main cast, or when they do lose there are very little consequences to it. The most convenient of all is how almost every character immediately accepted Köinzell's side of 'the truth'.

Enjoyment: 8

I'm a sucker for dark fantasies, so despite my previous complaints, I still enjoyed this series very much. Though the fluency of going through chapters was occasionally disrupted by messy battle scenes, it still allowed for a decent immersion and an enjoyable experience. There was a plethora of hype and badass moments, and I can't really remember getting bored at any part, even when exposition was being delivered.

Overall: 7

If you like the dark fantasy genre, then this is definitely worth your time. This series has both very original parts and very cliche parts, so your enjoyment will be standing on whether you like these tropes or not. If you are a fan of hype fights, MC being a badass, and the dark side of people being portrayed without kiddy gloves on, then this is definitely the series for you. Just don't expect to have your mind blown and enjoy the ride.

Before getting into the review, I have to give some background information about Ubel Blatt which will explain the reason many flaws this manga have. Ubel Blatt originally started as a Seinen Dark Fantasy manga but ended up as a run off the mill shounen story due to several cancellations. I think it changed 3 magazines, cancelled then picked up by another magazine. This is the reason why it had ran over 10 years.

Ubel Blatt is a revenge story; MC betrayed by his friends and left to death then raised from death to get pay back. As a fan of dark fantasy genre, I ... can say this with confidence that it has a great story, at least the first half of it. Top of that, it has very beautiful world building and art that can rival to Berserk (I know it is blasphemy to even think of that).

Story started very strong and fluid, introduced a likeable main character with good supporting characters, as well as well written villians. Everything was going well until the first `forced haitus`. Then quality started to drop when another magazine picked it up. After picked up by new magazine, editoral touches became more obvious. Characters become annoying and stupid, tone shifts from dark to pink. `Forget revenge, we have to fight against evil!` Wtf?Last parts of the manga is straight up main-stream shounen. Everyone gathers together to fight the `evil` then everyone lives happily ever after.

You cannot start your story with main character slaughtering 200 soldiers to whom he has no personal beef, then end it with he is becoming advocate for peace and harmony. It is too unnatural to explain it as character development. I dont blame the magaka for this. Clearly the magazine editors pushed him to turn the story to mainstream so it could sell. Still it is disappointing as hell for me.

Ubel Blatt had the potential to become Berserk but ended up like Shaman King. Still, it has great artwork and a good 70-80 chapters worth of story. I recommend to cheack it out but stop reading when plot strays from revenge or MC disappears after a fight. Just consider him dead and call it a day.

Have you ever read something captivating as fuck and suddenly author -san decide to step on your face with harmoured knight sole , if not, i recommend to read ubel blatt , you will surely have the most amazing training day at the gym of your life and become the strongest of the neighbourhood

So basically the first 60 chapters are interesting , his vengance is nuanced between duty , honour , and the best decision to take for the citizen ,sometimes you feel like , he is the bad guy , but he has any right to do what he is doing ... , it’s a good dark fantasy .

Then come the 100 last chapter, author-san just said fuck off , the story ? Let’s put time skip again and again , add new characters to have new fight again and again , redesigning old minor characters so that you can’t recognize them and it’s not their fucking german name with 4 time the same letter in it who’s gonna help you remember.
But i guess he need to sell it to not be axed , so here is coming the naked woman , unlucky for him i wasn’t down bad , strangely enough it was during these 100 chapters that the art became incredibly good

To synthethize it for people who don’t wanna read it :

70 chapter : good dark fantasy manga
100 other : an hentai with endless number of fights like one of those extended one piece episode fighting sbires .

Btw this is a fake seinen