Back to Historical's Profile Historical's Profile

A story cut short, but for obvious reasons once you take the time to notice, Black Torch is an action fantasy about a boy named Jiro and his encounter with the mononoke that secretly roam this world. The modern setting helps the story out a bit since the premise isn't all too unique, but what really sells the story is the art. Unfortunately, the overall look of the manga from page to page is rather lifeless with the bare backgrounds and sparse scenery. The backgrounds are generally sparse and most times barren to really highlight the character art, which is quite good, but not unique ... and eye-catching enough to stand on its own. Maybe if given more time it could have gotten there since the overall designs of the characters and powers were quite good at the end. It's just not an artistic angle that appeals to me. The characters are somewhat likable but overall, pretty flat especially since we never get to dive deeply into any of them. Ibuki ends up being in my opinion the only side character I actually want to see more of, and they're present for only a few chapters in the story. Our MC Jiro stays headstrong and simple-minded throughout with minor influences here and there. The story itself could have been interesting with some overarching philosophies of life that get mentioned at the end. Overall, I understand why this one didn't make the cut. It's a good effort but just doesn't go deep enough in any direction.

An interesting fantasy adventure about our main character Musashi as he travels Hi no Moto with his best friend and brother-like figure Kojiro. After a life threatening encounter, they make a vow to each other to become the greatest band of bushi to exist. It's a fun story with an interesting world of mystery and excitement that the author is able to depict early on.

The character work in this story was for the most part well done which is always good to see in a shonen series. The characters are relatively likable, and you want to root for them throughout the story. Even a couple ... of the antagonists have a level of charisma that makes them likable as well. The depiction of trauma that many of these characters endure is also presented well. The characters labor over complicated feelings of loneliness, belonging, and purpose, which leads to them feeling like more complex characters. This only gets thoroughly explored in the main cast, but it's still a welcome development. However, there is a flatness that you feel from many of the characters that aren't Musashi and Kojiro. It's an unfortunate disappointment that contributes to the overall story in a negative way.

The art is also wonderful throughout the story. From the unique style of the swords characters use to the way their powers are depicted, also the way Shinobu Ohtaka depicts light and the brilliance of their powers is very detailed and pleasing to look at.

The story tends to be the weak point of this series for me. It's a simplistic premise, which isn't bad at all. A world of demons and the bands of bushi work tirelessly to slay them and free their people. The mystery behind how their world came to be is interesting along with the powers used to combat the Black Demon God. However, the power ups that happen for the protagonists feel, at times, unearned. Additionally, the explanations surrounding the history of Hi no Kuni and its leaders didn't feel very impactful for the overall story. It's a strange dynamic that there are many good storytelling elements of this series, but none of the payoffs, reveals, and twists in the story felt truly impactful. Possibly because the proper buildup to those moments wasn't given.

Overall, it was a solid ambitious series that I think did a lot of things well, but not great. Hoping for another Ohtaka masterpiece in the future!

Blood on the Tracks is a very intense detailing of a type of mother-son relationship that I think doesn't get discussed at all. Seiko, the mother of the main character Seiichi, is so overwhelmingly smothering to her son it creates a plethora of problems for both him and his relationship with her. Their relationship is confusing, terrifying, and fascinating all at once.

Oshimi Shuzo is also incredible at portraying what his characters are feeling without verbalizing their thoughts often. It's truly an incredible ability he has coupled with a beautiful art style to accompany it. Getting the amount of depth he does with his iconic hatching ... style of shading is a really unique experience to have in modern manga.

The highlights of the story are its incredible depiction of tension between characters, and the exploration of how trauma affects different individuals. The focus is mainly on Seiichi and his POV, so we see how he struggles interacting with just about every person in his life: classmates, love interests, family members, and even his own mother and father. It's not just this stress induced stutter that makes this possible, honestly it's barely even acknowledged by other characters. He's just been stuck in his shell his entire life and was told to act a certain way so instead of taking agency over himself he projects how others want him to act back to them so that he can be liked/loved. The trauma bonding that happens throughout is also very believable aside from the dreamlike sequences.

However, the tension in the story does die down in the second half. Instead, we focus on Seiichi's life after the climax of the first half of the story. We get an in-depth look into his daily life and how he deals with his personal traumas. Seiichi's quest for closure is short and poignant as the story ends in a way that feels very appropriate for these characters.

This story isn't inspirational, or trying to teach the reader a lesson. It's a hard story about relationships, love, and unrealized potential, and finding content in your own individual experience. There are other stories that have done this, and better, but the charm of Oshimi Shuzo's writing/art style makes this an enjoyable read even if it's not a happy one.

Jujutsu Kaisen is a dark, bloody, riveting story about the world of Jujutsu sorcerers as they take on cursed spirits. There's a very unique spin from the beginning since we know from the start that the final and strongest curst spirit is inhabiting one of the protagonists.

The characters in this series really ended up selling the story in a big way. From the extreme personalities, quirky personas, and endearing sincere main character. Not to mention the strong cast of side characters as well. Their interactions throughout the story are what keep the events interesting and tense.

The power system is probably one of the crowning ... jewels of the series. Cursed techniques have clear rules and restrictions that make sense for both the reader and the characters. The complexity and creativity that Gege was able to reach with cursed techniques also rivals any other power system in the genre. However, the complexity does get a little hard to understand in the latter half of the story. For the most part it didn't subtract from the overall story or make me regularly question if the rules of the world were being broken so in that sense it was handled well.

The art in this series is also worth giving a lot of praise to. Gege has created some strong distinctive character designs and frighteningly detailed ghoulish designs for curses as well. The combination gives the series an atmosphere of horror that's very uncommon to have in an action series such as this. Along with that the fight scenes and choreography are well done as well; the story has some very memorable fights and scenes that definitely separates it from the average shonen series.

When it comes to the story JJK doesn't do anything far out of the box for an action series. The story and goals of the characters start simple and branch out over time to a more complicated web of goals and ideals by the end. This expands quickly once we get through the first half of the story. From there the second half goes in a few different directions and they don't all make a lot of sense. Some of the outcomes of these branching events have very shallow contributions to the overall story or don't ever get a satisfactory explanation. So, readers are mostly left to figure out themselves what becomes of the Jujutsu world. An extensive amount of injudicious writing ends up staining what would otherwise be a great experience with relatively tight writing until that point.

[Story 9/10] At first glance the story seems pretty basic. A character that proclaims himself to be the "savior" because he wipes out what he sees as evil. As the story progresses though you see that the main character actually knows that what he's doing would be considered "evil" and that there are other ways to change the government besides what he's doing, but he wants to change the government himself and his methods are the only way he knows how to do it. That course of action is what takes place through the majority of the manga. Along the way the dynamic parts of ... the characters are shown and you get to see a little bit of their development, and then the series closes with all of your questions resolved. (Or at least all of mine were) Which in my opinion is one of the best ways to end a manga. Complete closure, and not much left to the imagination except for what the characters will do next.

[Art 10/10] I haven't read all that many different types of manga especially seinen to be able to critique the art so don't take this part of the review seriously. Honestly I hardly even pay attention to backgrounds and such, but I would know that if there were no backgrounds the manga would look rather empty. My main focus art-wise in on the characters. To me though, out of all the manga I have read this has been some of the best art I've seen. I really really liked it.

[Character 10/10] I really enjoyed each and every character and how they were really humanized. You could relate with all of them even all the way down to Shou who just wants to help his country out in the only way he knows how. Then back up to the policeman who is trying to stop Akumetsu, but has to deal with the "politics" of law enforcement that hinder him from doing his job.

[Enjoyment 8/10] Now of course I've been giving this manga pretty high marks but I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. Mostly because the world of politics is mostly unknown to me so bringing Japanese politics into that is even worse. The author tried to give the most dumbed down explanations he could, but even then most of the political aspects of this manga really went over my head, which really takes away from the intensity and enjoyment that could be had from reading it. I still gathered the main idea and some of the more simpler explanations though so it still gets pretty high marks from me.

[Overall 9/10] Honestly this is a really great manga and if I could understand maybe 80% of the political aspects in this manga it would be a masterpiece to me. Still, it's a great work of art and I would recommend this to everyone I know. Yeah it gets pretty gory (it's seinen), but politics aren't pretty. So I would imagine changing an entire country's politics would be very very ugly.