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I just finished reading Fire Force after continuing and pausing my readthrough for about two and a half months.
Fire Force is not bad.
Mangaka Ookubo put a lot of work into it. Fire Force published for nearly seven years, and contains a unique world with its own powersystem and a large share of characters.

You might have read in some reviews that Fire Force is a prequel to Soul Eater. While this is hinted at in the ending, fire force basically has nothing to do with Soul Eater, and you won't miss out on any crucial lore details if you don't read Fire Force.

Fire Force was a ... Manga that was in the back of my mind and on my watchlist since quite a while. As a Soul Eater fan myself i was suprised when i fround out that both Manga are written by the same Mangaka. This, and the character Shinmon Benimaru (whom i had seen in some clips), got me into reading this story.

So let's start with the chracters. There are quite a few, and they definetly span the whole spectrum from bad to good. As I had stated I started reading partly because of Benimaru, and he measured up to my expectations, although I would have liked it if Ookubo gave him some more engaging fights, as he is often just a mentor figure for our main characters.
Other characters i didn't know before reading but loved in the story were Arthur, Charon and Hinawa.
But sadly there are also a ton of characters that make the reading experience worse and even boring at times.
I didn't really like Captain Hibana from the start, which is sad as she plays a big role especially in the beginning of the story.
Tamaki is basically a fanservice character, which can be annoying at times. She does have a few cool scenes, like her storyline with "assault" and her training with the two girls in Asakusa, but that's about it. Her "final fight" (She was more of a bystander but still the center of the fight) was completely weird, and didn't strike a cord with me.
Many other characters just "exist" and don't really mean a lot to the reader, although it is often stated that they have a deeper connection to the main characters. Other are only introduced shortly before they are needed in the story, like Benimarus Mentor, which i am not a big fan of.
The main character, Shinra, also wasn't that interesting, he was a pretty basic Shonen MC that never loses hope and always comes through in the end. Which in itself isn't that bad if there was just something more to him.

Similar to the characters, the fights also had a huge quality range. There were two fights that really stood out to me. Hinawa vs. Arrow and Arthur vs. Dragon.
Hinawa vs. Arrow had a great setting and amazing visuals. While being a really cool concept for a fight in and of itself.
Arthus vs. Dragon wasn't a singular fight, but multiple, closely tying into Arthurs overall storyline and really feeling like the completion of a journey from him. Even though I didn't like Arthur that much in the beginning he had some of the funniest and most interesting scenes in the span of the story. The way he himself gets stronger is great and his final enemy fits all of this perfectly. The final fight between Arthur and Dragon was also absolutely insane, and definetly the highlight of the series for me.

Sadly many other fights just weren't that great, my biggest problem is with the final Shinra vs. Burns fight. I think the premise of the fight isn't even that bad but Shinra just wins it without a problem even though Burns is insanely strong and undergoes multiple Powerups in the fight, to me at least, it didn't make sense at all and left me quite unsatisfied.
This brings me to my next point, the powerscaling in this series is all over the place. I never had a good idea of how strong a characters really was. Especially with new characters, that often just exist for the sake of fighting, popping up all over the place. Even now if you would name two characters and have me guess who is stronger, it would be hard to say except for a few exceptions. And you might argue that this is good and keeps fights interesting, and i would agree if it didn't cause for most outcomes to just be confusing.

Lastly i want to touch on the ending, which, as you can read in many reviews, isn't that great. I also dislike the ending, although with that i only mean the final shinra and haumea confrontation. The last third of the story / the last arc had some great scenes (Arthus vs. Dragon, Hinawa shooting at Charon guarding the door...). In my friendgroup we have a saying for this kind of ending, it is a "firepunch ending" which, if you haven't read fire punch, is basically an ending that completely overshoots the scope of the series. We go from firefighters fighting with firepowers to the MC becoming a literal god and creating the world and humanity anew. This is crazy. And even the message that the ending wants to convey to the reader, that we "shouldn't take death as seriously", is debateble.

In conclusion Fire Force is still not bad, even if it sounds like that in this review. If you prepare for a series where the last maybe 20 chapters aren't that good, and some characters overall being rather boring, you can have a lot of fun reading the more engaging and interesting parts of the story. Although this may sound a bit mean to the Mangaka but you can also just stop reading after the final Arthur vs. Dragon fight(272), it just goes downhill from there

I am writing this review as the first "big arc" of frieren has just about concluded. Contains slight spoilers.

Frieren is really pretty good.
I am not a big Isekai fan. I know that Frieren is not an Isekai, nevertheless the story takes place in a rather normal fantasy world containing demons, heroes and the like.

Frieren really shines through the exciting "principals" that the author wrote into the story.

Starting off, our story takes place after the hero party has already beaten the demon king, and revolves around the mage of said hero party - Frieren.
Frieren is an elf, a being with an inconceivable lifespan. Looking at the ... broader picture, "Time" is an overarching theme of the story.
Years for a human go by in the blink of an eye for our main charackter. This principle starts off the manga in chapter one, where Frieren can barely shed a tear when the hero of her party dies of old age, many years after their adventure had concluded, as she only travelled with him for a mere ten years. More than 100 years pass in the first three chapters alone.

Next, is magic.
In this world, magic is all about "visualization". If a mage can imagine a miracle, they can conjure it.
This is best shown with one of the later characters - Übel. She is a mage who fights by cutting things, like with a scissor. Now imagine some things you can cut, like cloth or hair, and less stone or dragonskin. At one point Übel has to face off against a strong foe who fights with her hair. Even though her hair is hard as steel and an unstoppable weapon, it is just hair. Übel can imagine herself cutting it, cause that is what you do with hair, and so she can cut through it.

There are many more principles, like the demons relationship to talking, but I don't want to pre-empt all the great parts of the story in this review.

To touch on some other aspects. All the main characters are very likeable. They have a funny and entertaining dynamic. Frieren is actually way funnier than you would think at first, even though it is not a comedy. Small jokes and scenes to laugh at, often just a single panel long, are scattered all over, appearing in most chapters. This is also a big part of Frierens charm.

I do not know when you will read this review. The arc which has just concluded was about Macht and the golden city. The surely biggest arc so far, followed only by the mage exam. Macht is an amazing and terrifying villain, containing motives and an in depth backstory, he is really well written. Him fighting with the power of "gold" already looks great in the manga, I can't wait to see it in the anime at some point.

In conclusion, read the manga. It is not too long and has a nice flow to it. There are enough aspects that set it apart from the fantasy worlds you have seen in dozens of different stories.

Note for collectors:
In germany the Frieren Manga is currently being published by "altraverse" and widely available. The volumes have great quality although being a little more expensive than you regular volume, having the same price as "Demon Slayer". The first three Frieren volumes were actually a gift for me and are the first altraverse volumes in my collection. I will surely buy volumes from the publisher again in the future.

I am a huge One Piece fan, although i dislike most of the movies i have watched so far.

After watching Stampede a while ago i went into this movie with low expectations. I just wanted to have a good time in an almost sold out cinema screening with some friends, regardless how the movie would turn out.

But I was positively surprised, especially from the first two thirds of the movie. Even though i knew the movie was about the singer "Uta" it turned out to be way more musical like than i expected. Before seeing the film I only heard the main theme "New Genesis" ... which i quite liked. But throughout the movie there are many more songs sang by the artist "Ado" which are really the highlight of One Piece Film Red.

Although not canon, the plot of the movie is way more interesting than i anticipated. Of course you could see some twists from a mile away but I would never have guessed who the antagonist was going to be.

The Action scenes were sadly incredibly boring. They were so hectic and all over the place that most of the time you had no idea what was going on. I guess it is hard to write good action scenes in a non canon movie where nothing is at stake, but the fighting was still the weakest aspect of the movie. The main problem is probably, just like for many One Piece movies as of late, the sheer number of charackters packed into it. We have the strawhats, Law, The Marines, CP0, The Red Hair Pirates, Big Mom Pirates and so on. There is no time for all of these charackters to get good written and noteable scenes in a two hour movie, so many of them are just quickly packed into some short action scenes.

If you have the chance to see the movie in the cinema, i would say go for it, it was a nice experience. I don't know if I would watch the movie alone at home, although you should listen to the soundtrack. Just search "utas songs" on youtube and you will find a playlist from the artist "Ado" containing all the songs (and even her singing "Binks Sake" which is really cool). My personal favorite is "逆光".

Note for Collectors:
Sadly in germany there was no short Manga / Artbook when visiting the cinema screening like they did for "Jujutsu Kaisen 0" and "Demon Slayer Mugen Train". On Ebay you can find the "Uta Volume 4/4" and some posters from Japan. There is also the possibility to buy the CD containing the soundtrack. The first limited edition CD has great design and will look amazing in the collection. The packages should arrive sometime the next few monts, maybe i can give another update then.

I am writing this review right after finishing Volume 11.5, the last volume of the first year of "Classroom of the Elite".

Year one feels like a long and extravagant setup for something that is about to happen, but has not happened yet. It seems like a stepping stone. It teaches the readers the basics of the story, shows us how the school works and builds a an impressive cast of characters.
But most importantly, it constantly hypes up the main character, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

Year one is really good, but not amazing. Mainly because the pay-off to the above mentioned setup didn't happen yet, which makes me ... all the more excited about the coming years.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of things happen in year one, although I doubt the full potential of the world, which the author Kinugasa has created, has already been exhausted.

The series strongest aspect is its great cast of characters. Almost none of them are uninteresting, and many undergo actual development in the span of the first year. New characters are added all throughout the first year, making the cast just expand endlessly.
My favorite character so far (apart from Ayanaokoji) is surely Ryuuen.

I will keep this review spoiler free, so I won't go into any details about the plot. All I will say is, that the story surprises you quite often. Although they did exist, there were seldom moments where I could predict how a story-point would play out. It was a great feeling when I was able to anticipate the resolution of a volume, but it was just as fun being surprised in cases where the outcome is nothing like you thought it would be.

Regarding the volumes, my favorite one would surely be volume 10, because its story is a huge surprise, while also being completely different from the other volumes. My least favorite volume is probably volume 2, which is quite a bummer for new readers, as it is quite slow and the conflict isn't that intersting. But do not worry, the pace picks up well, starting with the third volume.

In conclusion, the success of the series will be determined by the following years, but year one works as a great starting point.

Note for collectors: The Classroom of the Elite Light Novels als published by "Seven Seas Entertainment". I can't say much about the state in the US, but outside the US (in my case in germany), it is currently basically impossible to get your hands on most of the year one volumes, which is quite misfortunate. So be somewhat warned.

Spirit Circle is an amazing read.

The first Manga which I read that was published by Mizukami was "Hoshi no Samidare". It was a great breath of fresh air and I can wholeheartedly recommend it, even though it didn't make my favorites list, unlike "Spirit Circle".

A while after that I started reading "Spirit Circle". First of all, don't be tricked by it having "only" 45 chapters. Even though the chapters are only slightly longer than average regarding the amount of pages, every chapter is filled to the brim with plot, so much happens, this series isn't a short read.

The concept is one that I haven't seen ... before. Basically we follow our protagonist "Fuuta", who has been reborn many times. Through current circumstances he relives each of his prior lifes. These sub-plots are insanely captivating, you stay quite a while in most of these immersive stories, just to suddenly be pulled back into the current timeline at a certain point.

The artstyle is good, it is good in his other works as well. It will only take a few days to read (in my case, I am not the fastest reader, you can surely read it in a day). The concept is unique and the characters are interesting. From the beginning there are multiple great mysteries floating around, these get solved throughout the story.

Overall I can't say too much about the manga apart from "read it, you surely won't regret it".

A small note for collectors:
The Spirit Circle Manga is published by "Seven Seas Entertainment". I don't know about the state in the US, but outside of the US (in my case in germany), it is quite difficult to get your hands on volumes from this publisher. This does not only go for Spirit circle, but also "Classroom of the Elite" and "Lucifer and the biscuit hammer". I was lucky to buy the Volumes used, although it was for a rather hefty sum. So just be somewhat warned.

Just recently read this Manga until chapter 91. --SPOILERS--

In my opinion you can look at this Manga in 2 parts. The first half, until around 45, which is rather "boring" and the second half, where it picks up quite fast.

First, i wanna talk about the biggest problem i have with this manga, there are never any problems, in the whole story there is never anything at stake.

Orc Lord? Easily defeated, Rimuru just lets Great Sage take over.
Charybdis? "No Milim we will fight it ourselves", after 10 hours of fighting "oh yeah why don't you just kill it".
Commander of the Church will kill the MC? Luckily ... it was just a clone he made.
Many friends and Shion died? Their souls are still here, just become a demon lord and revive them.
Clayman is in control of Milim? No he isn't, they were fooling him from the start.
2 Charybdis appear?? Benimaru kills them instantly.
Apart from that the MC is best friends with literally two of the strongest beings in this world, Milim and Veldora.

As you can see i still gave the manga an 8 because this can be overlooked, but i would understand if this really gets on the nerves of some people.

Also the Manga is quite long, 91 chapters doesn't sound that much but there is a lot of text and the chapters sometimes span more than 60 pages. This isn't necessarily a bad thing although i am not a big fan of it.

My score comes to be because most of the manga is a mediocre 7, it is a good read but nothing more than that, until Rimurus Demon Lord transformation and Walpurgis begins, there are many chapters and panels that are actually amazing, so that bumps up the score accordingly.

Also there are many interesting charackters. I was a fan of Souei from the start and like Diablo a lot as well. My favorites are Milim and Ramiris, as their scenes are always really funny.

This is my first review, it isn't structured that well, i just wrote what came to my mind.