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I feel like there's three major arcs in Dungeon Meshi, and these will help readers decide if they want to stick with the manga.

The first arc feels almost like it's a Dungeon and Dragon's companion, while it might not be directly based on D&D, it's mostly about a party of adventurers in a dungeon, needing to find food, and thus cooking monsters. If you're already a D&D fan, you might enjoy this section the most, but I feel like it's the roughest part of the series.

The biggest issue is that while the main story line is introduced in the first chapter, it's ... almost immediately dropped and so much of the story is "What are we eating today". Monster appears, quick fight (though chapters are of a decent length so there's a bit of action) and then the party sit down while the cook makes something and displays it.

While I really loved Shokugeki no Soma where everything was something that was over engineered, but potentially realistic, Dungeon Meshi clearly lives in the fantasy world, but still has minor pieces about interesting techniques. You won't learn how to cook here, but it's not intending you to and that's kind of the problem with this Arc. It seems more intended to delight Tabletop RPG players, or people so immersed in fantasy that they might discuss how a Basilisk and Cockatrice differ, or how to properly cut up one.

For me this was by far the weakest part of the manga, but also the one truest to the name of the manga.

About a third of the way through the manga, the real story finally hits it's stride, and it comes suddenly. The main thread of the manga is picked up but food still is very critical to the party. The story is well done the writing is excellent, and there's still a strong food theme. This is definitely the part of the manga that I would easily recommend, and if the manga started here, I probably could have even given it a 8 or maybe 9.

The thing is, when Dungeon Meshi wants to tell a larger story they can, and even while it becomes over convoluted, there's enough interesting stories that every chapters is engaging.

But with three arcs, there's always going to be a third one, and here... It's a mix. Ultimately the final third of the book loses a lot of what made me love this manga. It's pass the point of no return, readers need to finish the story, and unlike Shokugeki no Soma (which falls off hard), this arc is still well written, and engaging, but oddly enough I feel like the cooking and food becomes forgotten, or just thrown in enough to satisfy fans.

Again the writing isn't terrible, and there's a lot of interesting action and occurrence, but there's a little more plot convivence, and a lot of characters seem to be persuaded by words just because they have to do something that they might not normally do.

The thing is, I don't hate this section of the manga, but it's really obvious that the writer was wrapping up the manga, and it just took a very long time to do so.

I Believe each of these main arcs are about 30 chapters long, and I feel the weakest arc is the first arc, but I also think the change doesn't exactly benefit the manga, as it would have been lovely to have a strong story the entire manga, rather than a "McGuffin" that the party is chasing for that opening part. In addition while I see the meaning, if the manga really is about food, meals, or consumption of foodstuff, that could have been handled better in the final arc. I do see where that's attempted, but I also think there could have been a stronger connection to the story, rather than it being shoehorned in to check a box.

Overall it's a good, not great manga, I'd recommend it, but I would caution readers that they should have some love of RPGs/D&D/fantasy monster based media before jumping into this. Still I enjoyed it, I easily finished and since it's under 100 chapters, I might even read it a second time as the characters are interesting and well done.

Note: Giving this a mixed feelings ONLY because of the heavy focus on "Fantasy Dungeon monsters" early on. I feel like if I wasn't already interested in D&D I probably would have given this a pass.

Second Note: This only has 97 chapters.

After the first Kaiji manga I had some issues, mostly the number of extreme closeups on Kaiji's face to almost pass time in a manga.

The sequel, Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji, is slightly better, however if you look closely you can see the same character, layouts and panels used multiple times in a chapter, even on opposite pages.

However similarly the best thing in the original, the fact it was based on three games that went on for entirely too long but felt compelling the entire time is pushed to the limit in Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji. There's really two games in the entire ... manga, and some plot development, and while the plot development really helps, the games just don't have the same draw. Where the original manga has a number of clever tricks that kept the reader engaged with the manga, it felts like the first game was a bit too obvious of a game, and the final game had a few too many asspulls just to drive up the tension.

And that's not a miscount, there's really two games at the core of Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji over the same number of chapters as the original game, not even evolved games, but just "two challenges". Many of the chapters go too quickly and have almost no real movement in the story. Kaiji might do something over and over for a full chapter, and then his opponent will do something, and so on.

But in reality where the first manga felt like the pacing really developed the challenge or the time being taken, Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji feels like it is entirely too slow. You can read the manga faster, and ultimately that's what I did, but if I was paying for the manga instead of reading it from a library, I'd be more upset that this manga probably could have been half the length or less with a lot of the filler removed.

Ultimately Tobaku Hakairoku Kaiji isn't as good as the first Kaiji manga, it doesn't mean I'm done with the series, but ultimately, I struggle to really recommend this manga because of the very low signal to noise ratio. There's one compelling game, that lingers far longer than it should have and while Kaiji is an interesting character, even he feels like he's lacking a lot of development here for most of the manga.

It is significantly hard to write a review of any manga that is more than 1000 chapters, and especially one as popular as One Piece and make it worthwhile, but I think there's a way.

Simply put I started One Piece expecting to give up around couple hundred chapters in when I got bored, when it was too filler heavy, or when it felt like it wasn't valuing my time. 1000 chapters later, I would honestly say it never even got close to any of those marks. I am honestly quite shocked because I intended to be extra critical.

There's a reason this ... series has the fans it has, has gone on for 1000 chapters, and still is popular as ever. It's extremely high quality, well writing and has characters that are interesting.

You can get a good grasp of the positives just by reading the first few chapters, so let's focus more on why might someone not like this manga.

One complaint I've heard from someone I trust was he didn't like how the character's don't grow and develop. Over 1000 chapters, I do believe that's incorrect, but they really don't grow that much outside of a few points in the story. The thing is, I don't see that as a problem. Luffy and his crew are the focus of the story in the way Frodo carrying the ring is the focus of the story. The story is just the ability of the author to build a vast and interesting world. Every major character Luffy meets whether friend or foe gets development and usually a back story. Every villain is unique and interesting, every location is fresh and new and novel. I'm surprised I can't think of a single concept that feels like it was used more than once, outside of "Fishing villages" early on, and yet each one is unique. That's why I love the story, and if you want a lot of interpersonal development of the main characters you're in the wrong place.

I will mention that Luffy is... a force of nature and after reading a bit, he's great at what he is, but he also will rub a lot of people the wrong way. He's a guy who falls ass backwards into treasure while not even meaning too. Also he's a pirate, but he's a "good guy" so no murder, no pillage, no looting, he's basically a bad pirate. "He defies the law" but even then... he doesn't really, he just fights corrupt law enforcers for the most part. If you want a "real pirate", this will definitely upset you. But I do think again this is perfectly acceptable, especially for the time it came out at, and the target audience.

At the same time, I do have one complaint and it's what keeps me from giving this a 10. The action. This has definitely improved over time, but I still feel like the action is very hard to follow at times, and at the beginning it was just the typical "Shout a move name, show it" and then that's it.

Now the action shows more of the background and areas. Battles are perhaps too large, and the combat is better. But it's still not "Epic level" And seeing stuff like Gantz (Which has too much action, or at least too in-depth) and Berserk, I start to realize why those mangas stand out, when this is more indicative of the typical action in manga. (Again it becomes better, but never truly epic).

The one other thing I'll say is I found Punk Hazard's arc to be a little messy. It made me worry that the writing/story was going to take a downward spiral, but it is probably the only arc I'll say was a step down in quality, and likely doesn't need to be mentioned in my review, but it is, so apparently it does.

Ultimately I'm onboard, I'm ready to ride this to the end and I'm ready to see what eventually happens to the entire Straw Hat Crew. While I've heard this will end in 2025? I don't believe it. Wrapping up everything in just two years seems impossible, and at the very least extremely rushed.

But at the same time, I also don't want it to end in 2025, this is a series that needs a satisfying ending, not an info dump, not a "That's the story". There needs to be multiple epilogues for all the characters if they're not all wrapped up, and I really hope it doesn't play out like some stupid "their stories don't matter any more because X happened".

I probably won't return to update this unless my score heavily changes, but at the same time, I'd recommend almost anyone to read a few chapters of One Piece. If you don't enjoy it, that's ok, your opinion is valid as is mine, (And don't be afraid to review it if it doesn't speak to you). But at the same time, if you do enjoy it, be prepared because you're not on the ride yet, you're only in the line waiting to get on the roller coaster, and even then we still don't know where it will end. But the one thing is you will almost certainly enjoy the trip.

PS. The only manga I can personally compare this too for its length is Hajime no Ippo. I prefer Hajime no Ippo more, it's a 10 in my book, HOWEVER, there are reasons I prefer Hajime no Ippo to One Piece, and there's are probably a thousands reasons I can suggest that One Piece is more popular or appeals to more people. And the fact is... They're both great mangas.

It's one of THOSE mangas. Main character is "Can't we all get along and live in peace. Let's just be friends".

But in this case the naive main character is placed in what is known as "Liar Game" where deception is the name of the game, yet our main character is so wonderfully naive... well this is the perfect synopsis for a weak manga that gets lots of love because people like the main character, but everything is setup so she can win.

And flat out I'll say... our main character doesn't win. At least not in the way these things ... go, where the pacifist fighter somehow always wins and no one dies. Instead she has to constantly fight against games specifically designed to make it impossible to co-exist with others. And even then... She's really not the star. And thank god for that.

The Liar Game really is the center character of this manga, along with out actual main character, and a con artist she gets involved with named Akiyama. However while the games start simple (who can hold on to 100 million yen, and get the most of the other teams). As the games go on, they take on a life of it's own and so many of them become multi level challenges, where players have no clue who is going to win or how. Even when the players come up with strategies, they tend not to always work because of interesting challenges, as well as much of the game is design to be a psychological deception based game, so player A might lie to player B, but player B may have already teamed up with Player C and shared information and so on.

This manga reminds me a lot of Gambling Apocalypse: Kaiji where the games have a wonderful depth to the point where a single game can remain for far longer than expected but remain engaging, and Liar game does this well through out the series, even keeping characters who should become a single note part of the melody it weaves because it constantly is changing their understanding of the situations they are placed in. The games themselves also are wonderful simplistic at first glance, but then much of the manga spends it's time unveiling how challenging each game's internal dynamics are.

However Liar game does have ONE issue, and it's not a major one but the final four chapters or so reveal what's been going on through the whole story. The good news is there's a solid and interesting explanation of it, but the bad part is that for a series that has revealed in this ability to weave the narrative, this feels like a simple exposition dump at times. There's even two characters that are like "I'm X's Y" and that's it. These aren't characters mysteries are really built up around, but just "Gotta give them a reason for being here."

What sucks is, the ending could have been a little more eloquent or interwoven with the rest of the story, but instead... it's done as a dump, with a quick semi-cliffhanger ending (though probably not intended to be that way). And then the manga is over, and it's time to go read something else.

Overall though, I really did enjoy this series, I'd probably consider reading it again in a few years once I forget a lot of the smaller pieces of the manga, because it's so engaging, but a big part of me just wishes it could have nailed the landing because out of a 200 chapter manga, almost every chapter was interesting unique and kept me turning the page. And that's not always the way mangas go.

I really want to sit here and say "This is one of the best mangas that exist and you ABSOLUTELY should be reading it." It would be so easy to leave it there, and move on.

But I can't, I just simply can't. However Death Note starts off as one of the best mangas ever made. A big piece of it is that the manga breaks a lot of bounds. Instead of focusing on the backstory of a character, the main character gets a Death Note, a book that will let people write names in it that will kill ... people, and then starts doing so.

What truly works here though is the main character, Light Yagami, is smart, charismatic and interesting, instead of seeing his day to day life, we can just accept it exists and the focus becomes around the Death Note and how it has changed the main character as well as how he protects it. Right from the get go, Light knows the power he holds and continues to wield it in a way that says he's taking precautions.

And then before the second chapter is over, we have an enigmatic L who directly challenges the main character (known by the public as "Kira") and from there Light and Kira compete to find each other. Now this would be a spoiler in most manga, but this is just two chapters into Death Note and Death Note keeps this accelerated pace for the entire 108 chapters. There are a couple weaker choices, but the competition between L and Kira is exceptionally well done, and more importantly keeps the readers attention because the writers change up the formula more than readers will expect at first.

But that's all great, and honestly, this is just a top notch manga... so what goes wrong?

Well eventually the competition between L and Kira finally change, about half way through, and the follow up never really reaches the same heights, I don't wish to go into spoilers, but it's sufficient to say the level of "play" between the opponents in the second part of the manga never can reach the height of the first. It would be possible, but the changes made make for a weaker story. It's a shame, because I would read the first part a million times, it's just that good and well written, but I can't help but notice how little the desire to reread the second part, and that's a shame.

Should you read Death Note? Absolutely, at least the first part. In fact I'd probably recommend people reading the entire manga at least once, it'd be hard to stop, but this will always be half of a perfect manga... and that's a shame, because it could have easily been just a perfect manga.

It's alright.

I have a bit of mixed feelings on the first Yu-Gi-Oh (Real mixed feelings not recommendations. I like the original series, the Duelist Kingdom City is a little rougher, and the final story was good. But I always felt like the original series was the strongest.

I wanted to see what happened next so I tried GX. What's interesting is GX is in the universe of the GX anime, but telling a different story. It appears everything in this manga is unique to the manga, and it's done well. The characters don't have enough development, as the manga ... assumes readers will probably have seen the anime before, and while I know some of the story I've never watched the anime.

That being said, you still read these mangas for the big battles and the shocking twists, and in this GX has the same problem that the original Yu-Gi-Oh has, since a majority of the manga is about cards that had not been released yet (According to the card lists in the manga), I'm not sure how much development was done on making the cards work into a real meta. The fact is there's the usual "asspulls" where Jaden has a developed deck, that he keeps being able to pull almost any card from usually something new and still winning.

That being said, it's still a more mature version of the franchise compared to the childish presentation of the anime, it's not as dark as the original series but still a good story, and while I feel the end feels a bit rushed, and the big villain feels under developed other than being the bad guy, I enjoyed it overall, and it gave me a feeling that I wanted to play more Yu-Gi-Oh which ultimately is why I like to read this franchise. Check it out if you liked the original, but this more a pleasure read, given a score of 8 in the assumption you want something light and happy, I wouldn't put this in top tier categories, but for fans of Yu-Gi-Oh you'll be well served here.

Gambling Apocalypses Kaiji is a rather solid Gambling manga, and honestly it's quite good with a couple caveats.

The main story is about a down on the luck guy named Kaiji who constantly takes gambles and fails quite often. Life has screwed him over, but at the same time, I feel like it's also mostly his fault for putting himself in those positions. However early on he's enticed by an offer to clear his debt, because of a big money game. I normally won't give away spoilers, but to understand Kaiji I feel like the first major arc needs to be explained. ... That's of a gambling boat where players on board play a card version of Rock Paper Scissor. This is not a special or magical game or anything, is just a game about Rock Paper scissor, and this takes up around a third of the story, but I also will say it's a very compelling story, and so is the rest of this series.

The reason I mention this is many gambling mangas seem to go for quantity over quality. While that's entertaining most of the time Kaiji develops the situation and how the players approach it far more, and it leads to a deeper story. I'm someone who usually wants to be entertained and move on, but the elongated card game is excellent and really illustrates the strength of Kaiji's narrative. The characters in the manga are well fleshed out but more importantly games aren't a "one and done" experience.

However this is also where I have to bring up a flaw. Many of Kaiji's panels, I feel like there's probably hundreds of them are devoted to a close up of Kaiji's face where he's doing what reminds me of the shifty eye look that most cartoons now spoof. He's not shifting his eyes, it's more meant to be a thoughtful moment, but there's multiple pages that have that on more than one panel, and it's excessive. At the same time, that's really the negative I have for the art style, even though it's a dated look, this is still an iconic series and well worth enjoying.

The other thing I'll mention is the ending, not to give a spoiler, but I didn't know something important, but before that I have to say I appreciate Kaiji not just wrapping up the story with a happy ending but gave some meat to the the narrative and left me impressed... except I didn't realize this is actually part of a long running series. Kaiji has multiple follow up series and while I enjoyed this story, it's left on a note where readers are almost going to have to read the next series... and that's not a bad thing, considering how much I enjoyed this.

Overall the big take away from Kaiji is it's a bit dated, and the art is definitely from a different time, but the story is so strong that I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys narratives about gambling. This is a gambling manga, but unlike most of this genre, it's more about the characters, and the condition of the game, than that rapid fire style of different games, and that makes this more unique. Easily worth a read.

I'm going to review this manga with a major assumption. If my assumption is correct, then my score would stand, if not. Well it'd be far worse off.

So let's get into it. I think Life Is Money was given a short window to end about 3-4 chapters.

But before we get to that let's talk about the positives, and for that it's due to an interesting premise about a game where players are just forced to live in a location for 10 days, with a small game each player has to play where they can be forced to lose one sense ... for the day. I feel like the senses lost is a bit extreme. (Taste means you also can't speak for some reason) But it adds an interesting and unique twtst to the "game" at the heart of it.

The other huge positive is the art style. There's a very unique art style that Life IS Money chooses to use, especially for a number of it's full page horror panels, and they are damn good. I'm not a horror fan, I'm not normally not focused on the art, but I have to say these are both memorable and well detailed.

On the other hand... well this isn't really a spoiler, but around chapter 10 you'll notice a problem. They're on day 3 of the the experiment/game at the heart of the story. 3 out of 10, so originally I thought the main character was going to die suddenly.

That's not what happens, instead the manga that has long interesting chapters suddenly breaks into the fastest dash ever. There's a large interesting question, and instead the manga RACES through the final 3 or 4 chapters, jumping forward several days, dropping almost all the plot threads, and just getting to the big finale, and the ending.

The problem though is the buildup for these big moments aren't complete. The main character just is thrust into a situation at such a breakneck speed that the payoff of what he is going to is completely lost. The lost threads are interesting questions fans should have been asking about, and the flash forward is a payoff that is unearned. Imagine if you watched a great murder mystery but 30 minutes into the film, the movie jumps to the final minutes, and says "The inspector confronted his demons, and figured out the Butler did it! The end." The thing is that's what Life is Money does.

The good news is the manga does end and does tie up an important plot line, the bad news is it's such a train wreck of a final couple chapters that it really tears down all the narrative that has been build up to that point.

I give this manga a 5 only because the build up to that point, the art, the design, the ideas are so good. However that score is based on the fact that the ending was made out of necessity. I'm forgiving some of the sin because I imagine this rush was due to limitations and the results of those limitations are the best possible. If this was actually the intended result of the manga, and it was always intended to be this rushed, I'd probably drop this to a 2 or a 3.

Basically read the manga for the art. If you want to read this because of the story... Read something else. I'm currently reading Gambling Apocalypses Kaiji and that is a very different story, but it's far better than this one.

I feel like the only way to talk about Yu-Gi-Oh is to talk about the three major arcs in the series, as they are all different but they all show different facets of the work.

The first is the original series "Yu-Gi-Oh" In this we meet Yugi, his group of friends, and join him as he solves the Millennium Puzzle. What it is will be hinted at but mostly we learn about what's contained in the Millenium puzzle, a spirit who uses Yugi's body to extract revenge on various people.

The thing is this first series is my favorite but it's not "Yu-Gi-Oh" ... at least not what the series will become and how it'll make all it's money. Instead it's a gambling manga, usually high stakes games, though usually with the added benefit of the hero, punishing those who cheat at the rules. It's also quite a dark story at times, and honestly, I rather enjoyed that.

But the thing is, during the original story, "Yu-Gi-Oh" stumbles on a card games and everything changed. It was revisited a couple times, but suddenly the second series emerged.

"Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelist" would sound like the point where the series hits its stride, but I actually think this is the weakest part of the series. While it's the longest part covering two major stories of the Island Tournament, and Battle City... it also struggles a lot because it was based on a card game that was evolving at the time.

The thing is the rule of any bet or battle need to be consistent and when Yu-gi-oh started it throws out that anything can be summoned without effort, Players had 2000 life points (normally 8000) and cards have random effects. Some of this was due to the manga needing big exciting twists and the real cards while useful never would be able to turn the tides of the battle as much as the manga needed, or at least people would use the "same" combo over and over. How many times could Dark Hole be played to reset the board before it became stale.

Instead the rules of the game slightly evolve over time, however from a manga view, it's kind of strange how tournaments keep changing major rules of the game or adding new features such as field effects. It feels unfair to the players, but ultimately it's due to how the card game itself grew over that time.

The third arc was "Yu-Gi-Oh: Millennium World" And started to develop the story of the spirit inside the Millenium puzzle, giving him a full backstory and starting to answer most of the questions about him. This section is a mixed bag for me. I like the fact they step away from the card game while still developing a bit of the idea of the card game and where it came from, but there's a plot shift about halfway through that changes the meaning of the arc, and it feels abrupt.

However, it's still a well told and tight story, and if you've already read the first two arcs, this one will be enjoyed just as well. The writing is good, and while the action can be a little muddy at times, overall this helps to bring a proper closure to the story.

I absolutely adore the first arc. The second arc is good but the person who enjoys the card game really hates the liberties the game takes both with the format and the fake cards they just pull out of nowhere, and the third arc is a perfect desert finishing off the entire series in a solid format.

But the thing is Yu-Gi-Oh is entertaining the whole way through, even though there's three distinct arcs, I'd still read all three of them with out a question. The first continues to be my favorite, getting me starting into the "gambling" genre of manga. The second I love for its recreation of the card game however flawed it may be, and the over the top experience, and the third gives me a satisfying conclusion to a series that I love.

Overall this is a series I recommend. Really my only complaint is that the initial arc is a little more "mature" focusing on shadow games, and really games of "death" that disappear later in the series, but I wish remained. Yet the entire series is still an excellent read that I'll return to time after time.

I could write a long piece on Kamisama no Iutoori, but... I think I can summarize it like this.

Take the Squid Game tv series, but make it all seem like alien or otherworldy entities have done it. Then play the killing games on a growing scale, rather than a shrinking one. Avoid giving any explination or any hint of what's really going on, and end it with a completely unsatisfying ending in the middle of the story.

Then reveal there's a second series coming.

Kamisama no Iutoori isn't a bad manga, and if someone told me they liked it, I would understand, in ... that way it's far better than some (Real Account), but Kamisama no Iutoori also isn't a good manga, it's not satisfying, the main character has the same stupid expression on his face for a decent amount of the time because he's "Shocked" and random stuff happens just for the characters having to do something. There's even points where the author just seems to get bored of an idea and just switches the game because he had nothing more to say about one of the killing games.

Hell 80 percent of the way through the story one character reveals she's a "mega hentai" which apparently means she gets excited when she risks death. This is a character who we've know for long enough that it could have come up before, but it's just gets dropped then... and never mentioned again.

This is a series that had potential, the idea of 'killing games" or "Gambling" is always interesting, but none of the characters really evolve or get defined, none of the ideas get fleshed out, none of the puzzles are really that deep or interesting and many are solved entirely too easily.

This is just masturbation. It's a lot of fun, you might enjoy it, but when you're done, you realize "it was a bit pointless, but you still might want to do it again because there's no lasting sense." Kamisama no Iutoori is like that. Fun for the moment but not exactly something that good or something that will leave you fulfilled.

Personally I wish I didn't spent the time reading it, but it really was only a couple days of my life. Now that I've ready it's I'm good to move on quickly.

Check out Gamble Fish or Alice in Borderlands instead of this.