Sun-Ken Rock

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tldr: It can be really over the top with everything, mostly for the better except for the ecchi which (for me) is really uncomfortable with few exception.

GOOD BITS: There is a lot to like, there are sillier more comedic parts but also deadly serious and hype parts. Aside from the first 40 chapters or so, the tone is very consistent despite having to balance humour with serious mafia stuff. The characters are quite good, although the women when Ken or a man is involved will be absolute pushovers and it can take away from the enjoyment for a while. This problem does eventually fix itself ... but prepare nonetheless. The main characters are all likeable, and I could see anyone being someones favourite.

BAD BITS: It takes a while for the story and the tone to get set in stone but at around the 40 chapter mark everything feels more consistent and just better in general. At first I didn't like this, but there is a reason for it that you don't even realise until you're halfway through the story. Until that point though, the story can be a bit hit or miss and the tone can be quite inconsistent. My biggest problem however is the ecchi. I understand that Boichi drew hentai and I went in expecting some, but every 10 or 20 chapters Boichi will just feel horny and draw ecchi for a couple chapters. It feels earned maybe twice, but for the most part it can kill any enthusiasm with the current plot.

ART: If you've been involved with manga at all you probably already know how good the artwork is, especially when drawing people. Outside of the amazing character and landscape/cityscape drawings there are the fightscenes which can be hit or miss with the artwork. It feels like Boichi puts too much detail into them which can make them feel a bit stationary and stiff.

CHARACTERS: I talked previously about them but basically, the main characters are good and enjoyable, the villains are dislikable yet sometimes understandable, and the women lose all personality when a man is involved.

ACTION: The action is mediocre at the start, but when Boichi decided to write things better the action followed suit and became really quite good. Nothing outstanding but it isn't bad. That is, apart one of two fights with only women, which would be comical if it wasnt so badly written.

NO SPOILERS ENDING: It's not the best but I will not say any more.

OVERALL: 8/10 brought down by the ammount of ecchi, the ending and the start but overalla great mafia/yakuza manga that is absolutely worth it.

Sun-ken Rock by Boichi review
Spoiler Free

Plot:
The story revolves around a highschooler, Kitano Ken, who went to Korea in hopes to follow Yumi (his love interest who rejected him early on in the story) and her footsteps of bringing justice. However, all of that went crashing down as he had been living as a shut-in for a year and felt that there is no hope to follow Yumi’s dream and during that Yumi achieved being a police officer. On one night, an incident happened where Ken was at a food stall who was ran by an old man who was just so happened to owe some ... gangsters money. With the old man saying that he doesn’t have any, the two gangsters started to violently beat him but Ken stood up for the old man and fought the two, successfully fending them off. A leader of a gang, Tae- Soo, saw Ken and his bravery and thought of recruiting him as their boss as he sees he has potential to be a leader and later, Ken became their boss. This story follows Ken and his gang the ‘Sun-ken Rock Group’ through hardship, unity, gang life and importance of power.
Thoughts:
I read this a couple of years ago but didn’t continue since until this. I picked this up again as the story, which was blurred from my memory, had made realize that there were points that seemed ‘cool’ and that time I left it at CH.40. Seeing the number of chapters, I thought this would be a short read. With all that, I started at square one or ‘level one’, as I need to grasp the story better instead of going in blind. This is also because it is so that I could make a proper review such as this.
As I started to read the manga, the first chapter instantly hits you with the author’s amazing art which is consistent through all of the story. In terms of plot and storytelling, pacing-wise it does good but was rushed in the end. It does well balancing between action and comedy which is difficult to achieve especially in the serious and adult genres of manga because the two do not synergise but the manga pulled it off seamlessly. Being a mature manga, it has a lot of explicit panels, from gruesome to full-on naked sex. Unfortunately, the fights that involve a woman or women are sure to meet with shots of their bare skin which you can tell is because of fan-service and fan-service runs through this manga. To me (and I hope to some or MOST people), the fan-service is way too excessive and really unnecessary especially in fights which are intended to be COMBAT only.
Speaking of the story, putting aside the comedy and the ecchi, the plot felt similar to HOKUTO-NO KEN for most of it because in my opinion, the plot did not feel special or had any standouts and you’re just reading because their fighting and not because of the story which I felt when reading Hokuto-No Ken. However that does not mean that I did not enjoy both of them, I did, but in terms of story content it’s not unique. At one point In Sun-ken Rock, I felt that the story had found it’s direction and this pulled me, but In the end, the story fell apart and was rushed and did not conclude the way everyone wanted to. Looking back now, the Author could have ended it smoothly and without adding unnecessary obstruction which in my opinion could have made me given a better rating. Other than that, the characters, other than Ken, were all average. Just characters with a backstory or purpose just to be or oppose Ken instead of captivating the reader. The journey of the gang could have been formidable but it didn’t feel that way after you finished it and I felt like the main character, Ken, was sabotaged by the author as Boichi broke the build-up that was essential to make him the stand out character but in the last few chapters, he just felt like a character, losing his personality and purpose.
All and all, 7/10, I’ll give it.
It was an 8/10 but as I explained from the review, I dropped it to a 7/10. The rating was mostly because of enjoyment and the art which so far is one of the best manga art that I’ve ever seen.

~END~

Keeping it quick:
- Way too much ecchi.
- Only 1 female has actual personality, everyone else is just fan-service.
- Most male characters are very bland as well, none of them have really complex philosophies, most of them are like "they killed my ***** so now I'm gonna take revenge against the world that allowed that to happen" or "Don't hurt the weak", really has nothing that makes you question your morality or the world with how much potential it had.
- Humour is quite bad, doesn't fit with the atmosphere it's trying to create at all.
- Art is great (not always, but 80% of the time, it ... has some of the most impressive panels I've seen).
- "Plot twist" after "plot twist" to keep the series alive, doesn't really make much sense at the end (due to no fore-shadowing, just ends up looking like a desperate attempt to shock the reader).
You're free to read it yourself but I'm 100% not recommending it.