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Another special for this franchize recapping Seikai no Senki.
Compared to the previous recap that didn't work as a stand alone, this one is longer by 30 minutes which may sound weird because SnS was basically 13 episodes of space battles, the producers could have easily made a one hour special revisiting the important moments in preparation for SnS II. But doing it this way we actually got an interesting movie, scenes tie up together, the pacing is very good and it feels that you're following the story develop from point A to point B naturally and not forced.

I didn't analyze it so much as to ... point out the extra scenes, I missed them but not noticing them means that they weren't that impactful or they were used in minor areas to make it look better as a one episode special, the story developments are the same as the TV series, it's useless to wrap your head around that.

In the end, it was a very good recap which I can recommend it as an alternative for the main show. I even recommend it to total newbies because we get all the background info in the first minutes, Seikai no Monshou was a prologue story anyways, the real deal starts with SnS when our main duo is in the Space Force and fights in the war.

Segawa Hajime's latest installment that didn't come out good. Shikabane Gatana is a zombie apocalypse survival manga with an abrupt end, it was most likely axed for being unpopular (just like Raise Kamika), since then, the author is doing art for some isekai manga, you can draw your own conclusions.

Technically speaking, the story is decent and simple for the most part, boy meets girl, some hidden supernatural powers here and there, zombies, mysteries, destruction, the whole plot revolves around Tsutsuki trying to find his twin sister and the dangers and the friends that come along the way. It's basically Highschool of the Dead without ecchi ... and High Rise Invasion without panties.

A very good element that Shikabane has is the gore and violence which is unlike to Segawa-sensei, prepare to get sick because the art is impressive in this aspect, it's a good touch, we need to see brains, guts and blood flying around when our main characters cut the zombies to pieces, it will certainly get a strong reaction from the audience. The tone is serious with some occasional light hearted-moments and drama, I think the atmosphere fits, it doesn't seem forced and the dialogues come out clearly but don't expect that much in such a short work.

Nothing much about the art style, it's Segawa at his best, awesome backgrounds and cool character designs (almost copy pasted from Tokyo ESP), a thing to notice is the thicker lines compare to his other manga when the characters are in close-ups, I liked the idea, it's a small change but it's refreshing and looks imposing (if you remember Shingeki no Kyojin season 1 then you know what I'm talking about).
My only complaint is the main characters' designs, they look like 14 year olds, Tsutsuki is short, same as Karina and she wears glasses, she's not that special when thinking about the mangaka's past girls who were literally beauty queens.
The monsters and the fights look impressive, people will love the fight scenes, I have no worries here.

But all good things come to an end, for some reason the manga got axed and the author managed to give us some closure in the last 2 chapters, it looks forced, it looks choppy, it looks fast paced but it is a conclusion, we got to know some overall secrets, it's not like we read this for nothing.

I think there are better zombie apocalypse manga out there and some may even be complete, Shikabane is not the best thing ever and the ending will disappoint lots of readers, but if you have time to waste and you're into these types of stories about fighting zombies, then why not.

A simple recap of Seikai no Monshou lasting for 90 minutes pointing out the most important moments of the show.
I do not recommend it as an alternative to the TV series because the cut scenes are chaotic and sudden, it's better to watch this in preparation for Seikai no Senki if you already watched SnM and forgot about some key elements/info/plot, it's good for remembering stuff but the flow is out of whack, it certainly doesn't feel like a movie.

It doesn't have extra narration or reanimated scenes, the only things added to this are some minor scenes with Jinto and Lafiel at the end, if ... it does have more then I didn't notice but it doesn't matter because the show good enough and the sequel exists.

I guess completionists and super dedicated fans will like it, more Lafiel-Jinto is always a plus so why not recapitulate 13 episodes in one and a half hour? The video quality and everything is the same so no worries here.

The title of this manga translates literally to "Third Year Funny Face Gang" and it's the perfect explanation about the "plot". The extreme comedy Kimengumi was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump from 1980 till 1982 (6 volumes, meaning 78 chapters + once extra chapter) and then it just changed its name and continued to be published for another 20 volumes in the same magazine because why not, let's enhance the comical.

The most important thing that the eventual reader has to understand is that this manga was made in order to make people laugh, the mangaka provided a high school setting, he populated it with some ... high schoolers (makes sense), some teachers and random citizens. Let's call it "slice of life" but only funny weird things end up happening because our Funny Face Gang aka the Kimengumi are the weirdest of them all.

The reader must be confused by now or have a vague image of something like danshi kokosei no nichijou or any other cute girls manga in high school eating cake and telling jokes, I say that they are badly mistaken. Our 5 main characters are ugly, they are so ugly you will laugh the moment their comical faces appear on the panels, they are so stupid they can't write correctly or they will even forget how to walk, what one does when he forgets how to walk, you may ask? just hand walk. That's the core mentality of our guys.

Like I said above, the comedy is made by the characters and as cliche as they are presented in the beginning, they destroy those cliches with their stupidity (now this is what I call good comedy writing). We have a "leader-type" character yet he's the most idiotic of the bunch, a guy who looks like a pro wrestler and drinks sake, is he even 18? a guy who eats all the time and he's lazy (this is kinda boring I guess), a feminine boy who's into dudes and a pervert that has 0 luck with ladies. Their goal in life and philosophy is to make people laugh and with that them laughing too because people laughed at their ugly mugs all of their lives and they got annoyed. They basically embraced their weirdness and chose to have a good laugh out of it.

There is this weird social commentary here, all Kimengumi taken one by one have individual traits, they are so different compared to the normal high schooler that would prefer to just sit around quietly and say nothing of importance, just follow the flow, Kimengumi are opposite, everything a good japanese will do, they will do it backwards.
Now we have other groups: a sports one, a delinquent one, a bishounen, a nerd one and others, all members of these groups will act the same, in the exact cliche manner that we would expect from them, even the mangaka tells us breaking the 4th wall that we "shouldn't bother learning the names of all members, just remember the leader and that's it, all are the same anyways".
Kimengumi clash with these groups and hilarity ensues, they do their own cliche thing while Kimegumi destroy that in a nonsensical and absurd way.

But this doesn't matter anyways, it was just a cool explanation, it's not like you have to think too much about it, the idiotic author will tell you lots of times, he will write that in between panels, I don't know why, maybe he was bored of drawing or maybe he went insane. The amount of times the mangaka draws himself talking to the reader about random stuff or just complaining about his characters is staggering.
And to be honest he's right to complain, all his boys do is act like imbeciles, say stupid things, transform into chibi, make references to something only the author understands. The only breath of fresh air is when this girl Yui appears (she is also a main character by the way) but she opens her mouth and we start laughing again not because she's stupid but she has to say something funny that works with the boys actions, it's that bizarre and chaotic every chapter.

It's a manga where anything can happen, there will be pages of people walking down the street and suddenly... they will strike poses. Why? I don't know but if you laugh you lose or you actually win because it's a comedy?
You may say: "mister pseudo-reviewer, I saw that the manga is structured, it has a sports festival arc and a school trip arc, you're an idiot!" You're right but it doesn't matter, the action is more chaotic than Brownian Movement, do you actually think the Kimengumi can sit still in a train?

The art style is shitty but it works, I'm sad it wasn't worse, the panels are small and 14 pages feels like an eternity spend in "idiot jail", you may say that fun things are fun and it should feel fast when you're having a good time. Not in this case, it's Kimengumi, everything is backwards.
You can look at Yui, at least she's cute, oh yeah, all characters have puns in the names, Kawa Yui means cute because she's cute, get it?

The author's name is Shinzawa Motoei, he wanted to write romcom but he discovered that he knows nothing about romance so he decided to make fun of everything he could've imagined, the result was this manga that was somehow loved. 26 volumes in total, one TV anime, one anime movie, let's get over the fact that he refused 3 offers to have this animated before, his reasons? he didn't want to see his idiotic characters on TV but scratch that, those 5 idiots are adorable in their own weird way.

Is the manga as bad, repetitive and all over the place as this review? yes but just like the characters, I have good intentions and honorable feelings, if you laugh reading this, I'm happy.

This is your usual recap that summarizes the first 12 episodes of Hoshi no Samidare.
It doesn't have any new scenes, everything here is cut straight from the anime, it's only addition is Noi's narration, don't expect any long monologues, just simple and to the point emphasizing the key moments in the show. Another new thing would be the end card with the next episode title.

You can watch this only if you had a long break between the anime parts and want to refresh your memory, otherwise I see no point to it, maybe if you're a big fan and want to see/read all of this ... IP's entries.

Tsuina no Shou is a 4 chapters long manga serialized while the publication of Ga-Rei was still on going and at its peak popularity (2007-2008). It serves as an extra story about the characters that appear in the latter part of the main manga, Tsuina and Mikado. In simple words, it's Tsuina's coming of age short story and exorcist origin.

It's 100% canon, written and illustrated by Segawa Hajime and it has the same feeling as Ga-Rei early chapters, a simple adventure with one girl trying to exorcise spirits in Tokyo, she is helped in her quest by other people, most notably being Mikado and our ... beloved Izuna. Compared to Ga-Rei it lacks the overall plot, mystery and high stakes, the only important thing here is to see how Tsuina becomes an exorcist and gets accustomed to this new life.

It feels a lot like a coming of age story, our main girl is a weak fragile simple kind of girl in the beginning but she will try to get over her hardships in the span of these chapters in order to become a better person and a full fledged exorcist.
Like Ga-rei, the tone is light-hearted so to say, characters joke and smile and Izuna is still same ol' Izuna, we also get comedic moments and ecchi situations, it's fun and it really made me feel happy reading another story set in Ga-Rei universe.
It also has action, we need to fight some spirits from time to time or it's plain boring, and we have that. Of course, we're talking about small spirits, we don't want our characters to die (they are weak now, let's be fair) but it felt engaging.

In regards to the technical aspects of this manga, the art style is typical Segawa Hajime, nothing more nothing less, the spirits look great, the backgrounds look great, character design is as usual, nothing to complain and like I said above, we get to see some sexy scenes.
It took me one hour and 15 minutes to read it all in one sitting and I never got bored, it was meant to end in 4 chapters, it's exactly what Segawa intended to do with this project, a short promotion for these characters.
Was it necessary? To be honest, not really but if it exists and you're a fan of Ga-Rei, why not read it? It's enjoyable and I bet there are some people who love Tsuina and want to know more about her, this manga should do the trick.
If you aren't a Ga-Rei reader, it still works, in a short read you will be presented with some elements that make the main manga appealing (if you wanna get into that but don't feel like starting it because of its length), as in the spirit exorcism, the cool art style, the general setting and Tsuina's story is completed, she really grows and becomes a stronger girl in the end, it really feels satisfying.
Personally, I can safely say that this work is a good introduction to the main series and a good stand alone story about a girl trying to become a spirit exorcist and a better/stronger/you name it person overall.

It's Levis' backstory but now in official full color, if you read the normal black and white manga you know what this work is all about. The only new thing that this has are 6 extra chapters (a prologue and 5 side stories) telling some funny miss adventures of Levi, Isabel and Furlan from before they joined the scouts and after.

The art is spectacular, nothing to complain, it's like reading a more beautiful version of Attack on Titan and the colors match the gritty setting of the manga. To note that Isabel's hair is a powerful red that gets in your eyes, makes her cuter ... than in the regular version and I loved that. She looks better here than in the OVA adaptation. I can say the same about all characters but she made too much of an impact.

The extra chapters are short and to the point but very funny, not idiotic funny though, imagine Levi trying to clean stuff and you get the idea.
I recommend it to all Shingeki no Kyojin fans, it has young Levi and his friends doing unintentional comedic slice of life things, the fanservice we all want from a crazy series like this.

A weird and unnecessary entry in the Sailor Moon franchise, this "Hero Club" project is comprised of 3 weak recap episodes of Sailor Stars (the last arc) which aired in a TV time slot alongside other recaps like this from 1996 till 1997.

Because it aired almost in the same time as Stars, I'm guessing it was made to promote the show by showing us how good it is but it actually fails as a recap. The first episode show the defeat of Nehellenia but without the battle part (the most important), it shows some random dialogue and narration by some characters but it really doesn't ... feel that tied up together.

The remaining episodes spend time with random fights against Phages, Nezu appears from the Animamates team but we'll get a glimpse of Siren and Crow and we see Galaxia in only 2 scenes. The pacing is all over the place and it doesn't really help that we never see the end of the fight. It's like Toei made 3 30 minutes long previews to promote the main show and teased the hell out of the viewers. If you wanna know the plot you better read the synopsis from somewhere cause this anime won't tell you. The only think that you'll get here is that new enemies appear and the sailor soldiers have to defeat them (that if you didn't watch Stars).

It's unwatchable before Stars and unwatchable after Stars (because we have Memorial), it's just a quick preview to hype/tease the audience and they never show the last battle against Galaxia or any cool fight from beginning to end.

The only good part is that we see a lot of transformation scenes and some special attacks and we have some short narration but don't expect anything note worthy. Also the usual Starlights songs inserted from time to time.

No Sailor Moon fan will get angry if you skip this one, you'd be better off watching AMVs.

A short anime with super deformed characters (chibi) of Shingeki no Kyojin Final Season, totaling 10 minutes.
These specials were included on the BDs when they were released in 2021.
The creators handpicked 16 scenes (one from each episode) from the main show and decided to make comedy skits out of those, even the glorious scenes got the parody treatment.
As a big fan myself, I couldn't skip this entry, I love SnK and I am always prepared for anything.
If you you watched the former seasons' chibi anime released, you will definitely know what to expect, it's in the same art style with little to no changes than ... WIT.
Go ahead and have a good laugh, detach yourself for 10 minutes of the depressing world of the main anime.

A blast from the past from one of the most influential men behind Gundam, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. He wrote this manga from 1979 till 1984 (his peak creativity period), a saga which blends Greek mythology, revenge, war and tragic love, telling the story of Arion in 5 volumes.

Calling it a historical fiction manga is a big stretch considering that the gods of ancient Greece existed only in myths yet the journey of our main character throughout the land, meeting people, going to well known cities, climbing famous mountains might make us readers question what is fiction and what is reality. Do you know those people who ... jokingly say that The Lord of the Rings happened in real life? yes, this manga gave me the same feelings.

At its core, Arion is the revenge story of our titular protagonist, he is a little boy in the beginning who only cares about his mother but because of politics and the evilness of some characters, he has to renounce his former life in order to become a warrior, a chosen fighter who has to finish the old war of the gods between Hades, Zeus and Poseidon.
We probably saw and heard about this type of story a thousand times, even Hollywood made movies like that, take a demi-god character and make him fight the gods for some reason in an old world setting, add in a cute girl who loves the main dude, lots of violence and cool fight scenes, finish it with some important character deaths and a big war in the end, our guy wins, gets the girl and all is good in the world.
I hate to be blunt but this is more or less the structure of Arion, some may consider it generic and boring but I loved it because of the setting and the plot for I enjoy myths and revenge stories, even if I read a copy of a copy of a story like that, I still wouldn't get bored. Ever since I was a kid I used to read Greek myths like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the legend of Heracles and so on, Arion feels like in the same category as those but in manga format.

Arion has some tropes which are very well crafted into the story, it doesn't feel like a drag reading and they weren't added in for the sake of being added in, it complimented the rest beautifully. Like I said above, it's a matter of preferences, if you read and liked these types of stories, you will certainly have no problem with what's happening here.
- the mentor
- a flashback arc lasting one volumes
- main character goes from weak to strong (lots of training, as in sword fights and spiritual training)
- love story

What bugs me the most about this manga are the comedic scenes. I think it just doesn't work with the tone of the story, we're trying to have a tragic saga and we're suddenly hit with weird gags. I'm not saying comedy should not exist but this is over the top obnoxious, I am a funny guy, I like funny manga and I can totally see that Yoshikazu can't make a joke. Forget the dark humor of Chainsaw Man, forget even Puck from Berserk, Arion deals bad in jokes, there's this guy who's in a sword fight then he starts playing baseball, there's also a guy named Pervertus and guess what, he's a pervert. I just couldn't laugh or smile, I just wanted to forget and move on. And if you don't trust me, my proof is the movie adaptation, they cut off all of the jokes because they really didn't fit in and the show turned great.
This is a big minus but if the reader gets passed it, the overall elements should be satisfactory and enjoyable.

The main character Arion is fun to follow, he starts as an annoying midget who cries for his mother's bosom and he grows by the end of the story into a fine man, he really went though a lot. His development won't feel forced or sudden, the pacing is kinda fast but all of Arion's important moments are treated with care, there will always be scenes with him questioning his ideals and actions. It's not a psychological manga per se but it has its good scenes, I was never disappointed in how he was portrayed.
The rest of the cast is interesting to a degree, the adversaries of Arion are written not as simple as random evil villains, they have their reasons for taking a certain side, be it Athena, Zeus, Prometheus, to be short, it's "Mount Olympus politics".
And I said something about a girl, she's cool and all, she's mute too and does absolutely nothing for 90% of the time but she's cute. Take it as you want, some people just don't like "useless" girls like Orihime. I think Lesphina is a perfect fit in this manga, why the hell would I hate a girl for being weak? She has some great qualities though, she's kind, gentle and feminine, I love her character.

People who watched Gundam are familiarized with Yoshikazu's art style, the characters look the same but with more details. The mangaka managed to draw some good clothing, I don't know what the ancient Greeks were wearing but at least they look ancient in the manga, the armors are great, the weapons are simple swords, shields, axes etc. The backgrounds look gorgeous, every time I saw a river, some mountain or a panorama of an old city I was impressed. The author uses a lot of black in the panels, I mean it's more black than white, it works well for the dramatic and thriller scenes. To be fair, it was made in the 80s, a reader who knows only post 2010s manga may not be that attracted to it, in the end it's a matter of preferences.

In conclusion, lovers of mythological Greece stories should take aim at this manga, it has all of the elements we all know and love. Also, Gundam fans will probably dig the action and politics presented here. It's very easy to read even though I mentioned all that stuff about myths, drama and politics. It works for action fans too and for the people who want to read something with a grand plot.