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Feb 26, 2024
Mama Yuuyuu starts off with an interesting premise: in a world of peace between humans and demons, heros and demons from other worlds begin to appear and fight. However, through horrible pacing, the manga flies through support characters, bog standard shonen tropes, losing any real flair while leaning into harem-eque character creation and a nonsensical plot.
For example, the first chapters set up dual protagonists between Mamama and Corleo, but Mamama quickly disappears into the background of the story, rarely appearing overall. This choice hurts any immediate and easy development between the characters. Corleo is forced into a situation where he has no established relationships, and
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Mamama, who should function as his foil, fades further away from the plot.
Corleo as a hero and main character is fine, but since the plot always has to push Corleo to action to discover his hero nature or for him to repeatedly take the same action to save someone, it doesn’t make him complex as much as boring. He is the chosen one, the Hero. Compare that to someone like MHA’s Deku, who gains the power by chance and has to earn his value. He has the traits to be a hero, but not the ability. Corleo shows us nothing new as an main character.
The plot introduces things at either a breakneck pace and most of those ideas aren’t that interesting. The focus becomes so much on getting to the next story beat for Corleo, that the few chapters that delve into a new character background, while nice, never give enough time to each one. In an ideal world, the author would have time to give each hero/villian an introduction arc to show their unique nature. Instead, everything feels thrown in to get things moving, mysterious villians are introduced to kickstart a plot that needed more time to cook. As the series continues more characters appear, many women, all who have a thing for Corleo or to create harem relationship triangles. Nothing of interest happens.
Artwise, Mama Yuuyuu feels like a throwback to earlier styles of manga, which gives it a unique flair compared to a lot of other things within Weekly Shonen Jump. The design of heroes and villians each have decently interesting styles, but it begins to blend a bit too much at the end. Other works (in other genres and mediums (such as Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse) have shown how multiverses can feel more alive with artstyles that contrast as much as possible to show the difference between the characters is more than just an outfit. They literally do not belong in the artwork. Here, however, the blending gets the better of the manga’s style, and the throwback feeling loses its uniqueness among itself.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 12, 2023
Ice-Head Gil Freezes Up Before It Can Get Going
The problems with Ice-Head Gil are many and consistent. Like all struggling and short-lived manga, it has flaws that push away any interest, and those problems are many.
Gil, the protagonist, feels too much of an archetype than a character, with the naivety of other Shonen protagonists, but none of their charm. This design choice makes it hard to connect with Gil and his actions. The benefit of this style of naive protagonists is usually that their purity cuts through complex immoral worlds and allows for their moral righteousness to win the day. Gil’s world, however, feels
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cut and dry, especially when it comes to the Liches. It also doesn’t help that Gil constant shouts “No one can beat me when it comes to axes,” in a horrible attempt at a catch phrase, that only induces cringe.
Next, while the art, at points is quite nice at some points, especially shots of cities or detailed backgrounds, some shots are awkward. The first pages of the first chapter is a great example of this contrast: from a beautiful gorgeous city shot to an awkward shot of Gil running on a roof, positioned as if he was added as an after fact. Also, while some of the fighting artwork is really nice, during a few fights, it can be easy to lose track of how the fight is going or why the attacks work as such, especially as abilities are thrown out and introduced and used.
Plot-wise, it’s hard to give a fair shake to most Weekly Shonen Jump titles under 25 chapters, but Ice-Head Gil attempts to rush through its story at breakneck pace and wrap everything up, which is an author choice. However, it makes the pacing confusing. Also, if the pacing was an issue only during the later chapters, that would be a different response. Here, the pacing seems confused pretty early on as it introduces characters, attempts to find a way to stay around, flounders, and dies.
Finally, Ice-Head Gil shows a lot of love to some Shonen series before it, but it doesn’t understand the gravity of the choices those series made artistically. For example, the idea of leaving the island home for adventure, which calls to Hunter x Hunter, sets up Ice-Head Gil’s first chapter effectively. This series wants to leave the mother figure behind and explore the world. However, because the world lacks that same gravitas as the world of Hunter x Hunter, it’s hard to feel the same magnificence in it.
What Ice-Head Gil needed was some more fine tuning to really find what could make it click, but nothing ends up firing off. Instead, it freezes up and leaves a mess of a completed and rushed story with
no reason to return.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jul 17, 2023
Nue no Onmyouji is a waste of time and one of the worst current Weekly Shonen Jump manga. The premise and characters are generic content. The series switches genres at a breakneck pace as if to only confuse the audience, and nothing makes sense as new ideas are piled on top of each other, for reasons never really fully explained. The main character does nothing to drive the plot forward, and has no interesting or redeeming qualities, instead opting to try to stop things from happening. Every chapter, there's more a focus on breasts than anything else with the newest female character moving the plot
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forward while creating boring ecchi situations.
The fact that there is so little to say about this manga says enough. Avoid this series and save yourself the trouble.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 17, 2023
Set in 1945/1946+, Do Retry emulates moments associated with Grave of the Fireflies, the violence of war and how that can change a child's outlook. Sadly, the manga doesn't attempt to follow up with this interesting idea of what it might be like to get involved in underground boxing for survival in the same way they treat that opening chapter, and instead devolves into the ridiculous with lacklustre fights, an unclear plot, and flat characters.
At first, Do Retry sets up an idea that permeates most shonen manga: what can a strong heart overcome? This question is interspersed with a firebombing of Japan in 1945. The
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first chapter takes a risk on the topic and the time frame. The manga sets up the idea that a strong heart cannot solve everything. Then, it spends the next several chapters instead saying, yeah it totally can.
Aozora is set up as a weak protagonist who gets by on that heart and determination, while his sister has the family's fighting strength. After his sister gets sick, Aozora tries to take care of her and, by the end of chapter 1, is invited to take part in underground boxing matches. The story sets clear stakes, creates a driven protagonist, and by chapter 2 begins to undo that setup. The protagonist is more concerned with "bad guys" than his sister's health. His reluctance for involvement screams plot contrivance rather than engaging in the post WW2 situation, a world where he has to fight to get food. And it gets worse from there.
The manga's characters blend into the absurd. One boy has an arm that is three times the size of his other arm. Characters stare down the barrel of a gun to no fear multiple times. And none seem to really develop as characters. The manga establishes some character motivations, but doesn’t challenge them with the sport itself. Sports manga thrive on diverse casts with different wants, needs, and beliefs. For example, Haikyū!! uses character’s backgrounds and experiences to increase the tension and importance of the fight. Do Retry, tries to do this, but fails spectacularly. The clash of the absurd character design and the plot muddle the ability to root for those Aozora must fight, to understand that regardless who wins, it comes at a cost.
At the centre of it all, Aozora just isn't that interesting. What seemed like a fluke win in the first chapter with his fighting the gang member, suddenly he just has a strong punch. He's thrown into the deep and succeeds several times.
Finally, the pacing of this manga is weak. A boxing manga should understand the value of the build toward a fight and the fight itself. For example, Hajime no Ippo weaves boxing training into the character's development. Ippo’s strength (physical fitness) is offset by his reluctance. The opening chapters explore opening him up to boxing while training and preparing the audience for the future. Do Retry tries to do everything immediately and suffers for it. It focuses more trying to make it funny that a child is being chased through the streets getting beaten up, rather than how dark this story set itself up to be.
There was the chance for something gripping with Do Retry, perhaps in another life as a seinen with the content and setting this manga used. Instead, it ends up lost within itself, unsure how to pace its story, while lacking a strong core cast or any reason to read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 4, 2022
Blue Lock would be if you took everything interesting about sports manga and threw it in the trash and instead played with boring shounen tropes. A lot of reviewers try to talk up the idea of egotism in sports manga as being new, but that idea is usually best served in 1 on 1 sports (see Hajime no Ippo) rather than team sports which provide a different window into character development.
Blue Lock shamelessly crosses the content or feeling of darker mangas (such as Deathnote or Kaiji) in this weird idea that "survival of the fittest" is the best method to grow players, but instead, it
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creates false tension that makes it impossible to root for any character since competition is always placed as the most important thing. Its story often feels ridiculous, over-the-top, and nonsensical.
The sports tropes it does take are the worst ones: like characters feeling more like super heroes than people. It's filled to the brim with characters such as "The Angry One" "The One" " and everyone's favourite "The Average MC." Blue Lock's premise also reduces the ability to have side characters in different roles related to the main character, forcing everyone to want to be "The One." This setup makes it so everyone's goal is the same, makes it so all the characters must be men, and misses what makes shounen good when it comes to competition and the drive to want the same thing.
It's a tension that can't be maintained in an interesting manner.
The art is wonderful though. Crisp, clean, and beautiful.
I read up to chapter 44, and I feel like you'll know if you like this premise by chapter 38 for sure, if not earlier.
People are going to love this as an anime, even though there's better stories out there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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