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How long can a shallow story, about determination and manliness keep a thinking fan's interest?
Well, this particular shallow story can keep it up its whole length of 108 chapters.
It is a story about two young boys who, after surviving the horrors of Cambodia war and its aftermath, return to Japan, deem it unworthy of their ideals, and decide to “conquer” it.

The hellish conditions the two boys survived account for the forging of their iron will, but not for the charisma and their suaveness. And the mangaka emphasizes that aspect of them the most. Also their motivation for rising to the top is ... a bit rickety; they hated the image of Japan they witnessed after they returned from Cambodia: Listless Japanese living niche lives, so they decide to rule the worlds of politics and Yakuza in order to recreate Japan in their own, hard-boiled image. It is not a bad premise, but it can not rid itself completely from the smell of cheese.

So the story foundations are shaky, but we can easily let it slide, since most of the time Sanctuary reads like Jojo with suits; the characters are making cool poses in their cool clothes while spewing manly one-liners. That art directions should not come as a surprise since the story is written by the father of posing, Yoshiyuki Okamura, AKA Buronson, the man who made Hokuto no Ken.

Additionally, the story manages to maintain its grip on our interest by alternating between the escapades of Akira, who tries to become a Yakuza boss, and Asami, who tries to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Of course, their aggressive pursuit of the top provides an abundance of adversaries; champions of the establishment, or ambitious hot-shots like them, who manage to test their mettle in a variety of situations.

At this point you have a good idea about how the manga reads. The “battles” have enough blood and intrigue to ensure entertainment, but as the manga progresses the realism factor drops. That lack of realism becomes annoying during the end of the manga, when the plans of our two debonair boys grow in scale and reach macroeconomic levels and the resolution of the conflicts becomes more and more far-fetched.

In general, the flashy package that is Sanctuary manages to hide its shallowness pretty well, aided by the spectacular drawings of Ryoichi Ikegami, and delivers an entertaining story, which has its thought-provoking and inspirational moments. If you ever enjoyed one Shounen work, you will find something here for you. 7.0/10.

From the moment one finds out that Onanie (or onani) translates to masturbation, it is expected that this manga is yet another silly ecchi addition to the high-school genre. That is not the case. Instead we have a manga that, like its protagonist, takes itself very seriously.

Specifically, our protagonist, Kakeru Kurosawa, takes two things seriously: His teenage angst and his everyday, ritualistic masturbation session. That doesn't sound very serious, I know, but please bear with me. His apathetic middle-school life is forced to change when he witnesses both the bullying of a classmate and the indifference of the rest of the class, so ... he decides to... take matters into his own hands (Oh no I didn't!) and deliver punishment in a way that suits his interests. That, maybe selfless, act will trigger the events that will force him to confront the realities of his everyday life and grow as a person. Or at least that was what the story writer intended. The degree of his success is debatable.

The story consists of two parts. The first part is pretty good. It captures the misplaced malice and poor judgment of the two main characters in an unapologetic way, avoiding the common (and annoying) pitfall of presenting the main characters as blameless and their evil actions as justified.

So after a good misanthropic first part, it is now time for our raunchy protagonist to face the music. And that's where things start to decline. It is true that when you exact revenge you can become the same (or even worse) as the one who wronged you. But that does not mean that the victim of the revenge is absolved of its sins. That is something the writer completely forgets and offers a clean slate to the wrongdoers of the first part, focusing only on the revenge what was exacted upon them. Around that part of the manga, the handling of various events starts to appear sloppy and unrealistic. That decline in pragmatism seems to be due to the author's desire to conclude the story in a predetermined way and he does not hesitate to force events in order to achieve his goal.

The writer is partly successful, the end of the story offers closure, but I wonder if you can consider it a happy (or interesting) one. Is regression to the mean a happy outcome for an individual? Should that individual find peace in the fact that the mean welcomes him? Becoming the thing that you used to resent is a sign of growth or resignation? I do not have the answers, but Onanie Master Kurosawa offers one set of them. Those answers even seem to resonate with the majority. Still, my question in the first line of this paragraph stands.

Concluding, Onanie Master Kurosawa, despite the shaky plot leading to the conclusion and the average drawing style, is a good read, but fails to become extraordinary. 7.0/10.

Regarding Anime genres, after a certain point it is difficult to constantly find new titles to pique one's interest. I was avoiding Ping Pong the Animation for the longest time, because I really did not want to suffer through another Masaaki Yuasa overrated mess. But given the lack of any interesting sports anime (on my radar at least), the high rating, and the NoitaminA length, I decided to give it a go. On hindsight, maybe I should've tried to get into the Mahou Shoujo genre.

I already can hear the opposition arguing that this is not a sports anime. Well, we have high-school sports clubs, ... rivals, mentors, training montages, and tournaments. So, yeah, it is a sports anime. Maybe it transcends the genre you say? Failing the aspects that make the genre great does not imply transcendence. Not sure what the right word is, but it is not transcendence.

Let us examine why. Firstly, there are no stakes in Ping Pong the Animation. There is zero interest for the outcome of the matches. And as a side-note, the outcome of each one is painfully predictable. The sports genre has been successful, for at least 35 years, in creating stakes using as simple a device as “Zettai Koshien”. Simply disregarding that characteristic takes away much of the flavor. Even the various skill levels and the closing of the skill gap is presented without consistency and logic, making the matches even less interesting (and I repeat, they are already predictable). A final note on the subject of the matches, I dare you to try to handle the cheese of the semi-finals.

You would think that since the sports facet is not emphasized, the characters would be well written and a coming of age story would emerge. It does not. The characters are a collection of over-the-top scenes that highlight their traits, and then, we receive neither substance nor development. Ok, I guess Wenge Kong, even though he started as a caricature, had an interesting story, but he is only a minor character.

That lack of substance is the major problem; no matter how many times you repeat “The hero comes” and “Blood tastes like iron”, no matter how artsy you make the image while you repeat it, if you fail to attach any meaning to it, it's just pretentious and hollow. I would rather hear “Katsu! Katsu! Zettai katsu!” for the millionth time from a character I care about, than this pointless drivel.

To be fair, there are some interesting psychological ideas present in the beginning, but they are not worth mentioning because they are immediately dropped in favor of the pointlessness and the pretentiousness. Even Battery, a later NoitaminA addition which the consensus (rightfully I think) judged as a failure, tried harder to get away from the typical genre tropes and touched more mature psychological subjects with better care.

I should say something about the weird art style.I do not even mind it. I think in general it is good to experiment with different art styles, especially when the CGI dominance is upon us, but the style was not something special. It had some artistic moments, but nothing that could come even close to saving the train-wreck.

I wrote too many words where one would suffice to describe Ping Pong the Animation. That word is insipid. My suggestion is also brief: Do not watch it. I know that taste is relative and “To each his own” is a very important axiom to me, but I think the Anime/Manga community should not fall so easily for blatant pretentiousness and/or hype. 3.5/10.

Azumanga Daioh is a 4-koma high-school comedy. If you ever enjoyed a manga or an anime consisting of even one of those three components you should pick it up. The setting is simple: We have some high-school girls and we witness their 3 years of high-school, one hilarious 4-koma gag at a time.

A word of caution: While this is a masterpiece, there is a good percentage of people who dislike the overall silliness of the genre, so don't go around recommending it to your work supervisor simply because he has enjoyed Death Note and Attack on Titan.

The anime adaptation follows very closely the manga, ... so this review can be applied interchangeably to both of them. The greatness of Azumanga Daioh can be found after you peel the initial layer of simplicity, in the underlying complexity of the work. The main focus is too make you laugh and it delivers. The cuteness of the scenes and the wackiness of the surreal elements are welcome additions, but they always remain byproducts, and are never allowed to upstage the comedy.

The principle of initial simplicity and underlying complexity can also be found in the 8 or 9 main characters. Initially they look like stereotypes that can be found in dozen other works, but the fact that they are masterfully written, makes them lovable and memorable.

The magaka gave me the sense that he really knew what he wanted the manga to be about and never bothered with elements he did not care about. For instance there is no romance (just a few o-nee-sama gags), no adversity (well, there is a hateful cat), or any drawings of boys (a fact that is farcically mentioned in the anime). I found that this lack of elements the mangaka did not care about made the whole much stronger.

The greatness of Azumanga Daioh has spawned many copies, but they cannot capture the brilliance behind it. There are a lot of 4-koma manga (and their anime adaptations), a lot of “cute girls do cute things” slice of life manga/anime, but Azumanga has no peers. The only one getting kinda close is Nichijou, but its success lies on the fact that it copies Azumanga shamelessly.

So if you loved the manga the only thing you can do is watch the anime (and vice versa). To get yourself a work of similar quality you will have to cross genres a little bit into high school shoujo (Ouran Kokou Host Club, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun) or shounen (Great Teacher Onizuka, School Rumble) comedies. Great stuff 9.0/10.

[Spoiler Warning]

Let me begin by mentioning that I enjoy pessimistic works with nihilistic elements. So given the hype of this manga, I had high expectations. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I would have dropped it before its first quarter was completed, but its extreme high ratings, on both websites I follow, left me with a drifting promise of a hidden depth, or at least of an extraordinary ending. The work was shallow and the ending was horrible, so all that's left for me to do, is to write this review and warn anyone who will listen.

This manga has only one good point; it ... has a great technical structure. What I mean with that, is that the artwork, the panels, and the direction are great. Unfortunately, the technical competency of the mangaka is wasted.

It even begins with promise; managing to conjure up some locked-up nightmares from primary school. But then it's a free-fall. The time-jumps undermine the importance the prior events. The side characters eat a good chunk of space without being interesting, and -what's more important- never contributing anything. The uncle, the father, the two classmates, the overplayed cult; they offered nothing, but asked to be paid handsomely in panels.

We continue. The forcefulness of some events make the manga look silly, for instance the way Punpun lost his virginity, or the uncle's “tragic” back-story. And then it's the pretentiousness, a strong blossoming pretentiousness that manifests twofold: All these attempts to make the story a little darker, puny attempts to insert some sick or hardcore elements, and of course all those dialogs that tried so hard to appear philosophical and deep.

Last but not least, it's the ending; I expected fireworks, but a fart is all I got. The way I see it, the mangaka was a coward; he could have gone with an inspiring happy ending, or a dark one that could leave a scar. But instead, it is like he was afraid to be mainstream with the happy ending, but also he did not want to descent underground into the darkness. And that undecisiveness lead a complete failure of an ending.

I could go on, but I think my point is clear. It is also clear that my opinion regarding this manga makes me a minority, but please take note that I rarely rate so low any work, regardless of medium. So: 2.0/10.

The highest rated new addition of the Fall 2016 season is a sports anime that offers to showcase a lesser known sport, figure skating. I found early in my anime career that a enjoy anime like that; learning some of the intricacies of sports I've never encountered is amusing. That aforementioned affection for the genre is the sole reason that I have yet to drop the below average All-out. Given the hype surrounding Yuri on Ice, I got into it with excitement.

The first episodes set the mood nicely, presenting our main character ,Yuri; the sport; the sport; ... the major players; and, of course, the drama. The creators seem to understand the building blocks of sports anime and do a good job utilizing them. One problem is the reasoning for the creation of the main pair; it was not believable at all, but they offer a cute justification towards the end, so it gets a passing grade.

After the stage is set, we begin the tournament portion of the anime -no surprises here. It is pretty interesting, with beautifully animated choreographies and an interesting cast of rivals.

One element I did not like was the continuous homosexual slapstick between (but not limited to) the main characters. The constant stream of gay gags was not funny at all; it seems to exist solely as a form of fan-service. In my opinion they should have gone with either some actual romance, or with a manly camaraderie theme.

Yuri on Ice attempts during its 12-episodes to run a full circle, which is admirable, but ultimately fails, because the ending was hollow and unsatisfactory. The writers went through the motions to offer a proper ending, but it did not resolve any of the underlying issues and it lacked a sense of epicness.

One could argue that I am asking too much out of 12 episodes, or even that the setting of a second season needs some sacrifices plot-wise; fine arguments, but I really think they could have done a better job writing the end.

Concluding, Yuri on Ice a good sports anime. It feels formulaic at times and suffers from a lukewarm ending, but it is a very enjoyable watch. Of course it is overrated; I do not know where did it got its hype from, but there are a lot of sports anime better than this. 7.0/10.

This is my third effort to complete this review. I have never written a preview for an unfinished anime/manga before, neither for one I dropped. I didn't see the point. Also, I didn't like the idea of judging a work that I had not experienced as a whole. I pushed myself to finish the ~750 pages of Red Storm Rising (don't read it) just to be “able” to review it.

After watching the first episode of the new Berserk I simply had to write something. I retouched this review after watching the first four episodes, as I was ... disappointed that things didn't move towards the right direction. After I finished the series, I thought it was worthwhile to visit the review a third time.

I love Berserk. The anime adaptation was reason I abandoned my initial hesitation and started reading manga. Berserk is a genre on its own. And even though the anime is a 1997 work, I still recommend it to my friends. I didn't watch the 2012 movies because of the horrid CGI in the PVs, meaning I was really not prepared when I started this.

It was... well in a single word: Unacceptable. Please don't disregard this comment because I am a CGI hater. Every aspect of it was unacceptable. OK the CGI was horrible,but not only that, the direction reminded me of old console RPGs, those that you didn't get a good sense of the action. Finally, never in my life, I commented about neither music in movies/TV etc nor about seiyus, I probably have a thick and/or untrained ear, but that episode astonished me because I found that everything in the audio department was appalling.

The anime covers the second act of the Berserk story, following the excellent “Golden Age” arc. While this act is not as good as the first, it still remains a masterpiece.

During the first four episodes you get glimpses of the beauty that is Berserk. Unfortunately you have ugly CGI, poor direction -full of strangely rotating angles and trite shots- and irrelevant sound. All of the above makes watching the anime unbearable.

I cannot understand how such a popular source material was given to such an amateurish studio. If you are new to Berserk, you can read the manga. This product does not even come close to replicating the beautiful panels of the original work. If you don't do manga, watch the 1997 anime. It's awesome. On your own risk, you can try this anime if you want to get acquainted with the world of Berserk; if you don't get a headache from the camera work maybe you will enjoy it, or at least whet the appetite for more. I know it made me want to read the manga all over again from the beginning.

While the production values are worth less than 0, underneath looms one of the best stories in any medium. 4.0/10.

This two-volume manga is a prequel to the excellent Litchi Hikari Club (2005). The first volume follows the 9 boys' lives before the nightmare begins. The second volume offers insight for the events that take place in the first one third of the original.

If someone wants a pithy edict, it is this: Not only this manga offers nothing, but it can conceivably inflict harm upon the original, therefore it should remain in obscurity. For the doubters' sake I will elaborate.

Litchi Hikari Club demands its reader to suspend disbelief, it demands amounts of disbelief I usually abstain from mustering. But, in order to convince ... us, it provides a hellish atmosphere, filled with Grand Guignol delights, and quickly succeeds to drag us inside its maliciousness. Instead, Bokura no Hikari Club -while not shying from showing gore, or boy flesh- tries to shed light in the boys' characters, motives, and actions. A noble purpose most of the time, but this is a most dark of stories; it does not need the light, its rays will only manage to dispel the bleak illusion and call attention to the improbabilities of the story. I have to say the second volume of the manga is at greater fault than the first, since it runs in parallel with the main story.

Based on the above, under no circumstances you should read this manga first. It will spoil the original's greatness. If you like dark, graphic stories, then please read the original. And that's about it. I don't see any reason to continue with this one. OK, maybe if you absolutely loved the original and you want some more time with the boys, you can read this one, but still, in my opinion, you are better off re-reading the original. To be fair, before I end this review I also have to say that the art work is very good and it has a couple of powerful scenes. 3.5/10.

One of the first, and lesser known works from horror master Kazuo Umezu, Orochi consists of 9 tales linked between them by the eponymous narrator; Orochi, has the appearance of a beautiful girl and is a keen observer of humans she deems interesting. Sometimes she will even exit the shadows and intervene with the lives of those she observes, altering their fates using her array of supernatural powers.

Unlike more famous Umezu works, like Hyouryuu Kyoushitsu (The Drifting Classroom) or Kami no Hidarite Akuma no Migite (Left Hand of God, Right Hand of the Devil ), horror; gore; and the supernatural, have to backpedal to a ... lesser role and allow the humans to take the spotlight; this is a series of dark secrets, revenge, and accumulated hate. With Orochi as our guide, we get to witness the corruption of our human hearts with little-to-no aid from the traditional supernatural scapegoats.

There is a variety of themes explored and some stories will better suit your tastes than others. I found some of them lacking, especially compared to Blood -the last one. All the stories are pretty long for manga ones, averaging well into 100 pages, meaning that characters and plot are well developed. The psychological focus, may alienate some readers who were maybe expecting a more mainstream horror setting. I have to admit that sometimes I, myself hoped for a more sinister turn of events.

The artwork is superb. Umezo puts to shame today's computer-aided mangaka. Each panel is masterfully drawn; the women are especially beautiful and the depth of the details of the backgrounds seems to draw the reader inside the story.

This is an important manga because it can be clearly seen how it influenced Ito Junji, arguably Umezo's successor and a horror master in his own right; we have the beautiful women, the existential dread, and the heavy panels. Although Ito always opts for the most sinister of turns, it is obvious that this manga was a big inspiration for him.

Orochi is a good manga, although the quality of the stories is uneven. If you find Blood at some bookstore's shelves do not hesitate, the great story and even greater artwork will make it a great buy. 7.5/10.

Chikan Otoko was inspired from a post in a certain forum, that read something along the lines of “Today I was mistaken for a stalker”. Indeed that is how the manga begins. Actually, our protagonist seems like a suspicious guy due to his foul bachelor lifestyle; 20 years old, living alone, half-assing his studies, and acts as a woman repellent. His gateway out of his half-hikikkomori, irl-friendless lifestyle is the darkest corner of the forum, where the foulest of bachelor's lurk, ready to troll and humiliate. A most glorious lifestyle. Hail to those of us who have experienced it (except the repellent part. I sure ... hope no one lived through such a phase).

After clearing the misunderstanding with the cute girl, he manages to get her to have another cup of coffee. Along the way he meets 3 beautiful friends of hers and the story goes on.

The first thing that is clearly wrong stares right at you; the art is bad. Simple as that. As you read the first handful of pages a second problem emerges; the panel arrangement has no sophistication. A lot (and I mean a lot) of pages consist only of text squares relaying a forum post or an email, basically switching the medium to a novel. A third thing that's wrong is, that while this manga tries to pass as a comedy, it is clearly not. After a couple of OK jokes in the beginning the humor dries out and the genre becomes that of a hardcore slice-of-life.

I noticed that people praise that style and find exciting the meticulous realism in the way that the manga develops. That would be nice and well, if it retained that realism in the major plot turns. Well it doesn't; at every major “event” the outcome is unrealistic, all to force the conclusion upon us, making all the realistic details we have been reading pointless and tedious.

Nothing in this manga stands out, and I can not understand the hype. Overrated, while being mediocre through and through. 5.0/10.