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Perfect. Disgusting. Captivating. Unreadable. Thoughtful. Atrocious.
Metamorphosis, or Henshin, is simultaneously one of the greatest and one of the worst manga I have ever read. A horrifying exposé on the depraved dark side of modern society- masquerading as a hentai manga- Metamorphosis is an experience you will *never* forget. It's a story you'll read, ponder for a very long time, and then never want to think about ever again.

Story: 10.
The plot of Metamorphosis is almost flawlessly arranged. An innocent girl's nightmarish spiral into a world of filth and disorder carefully laid out over 225 pages, Metamorphosis is impossible to put down no matter how much ... you want to do just that. Just when you think the worst has come to pass for the MC, Saki Yoshida, the author leads her even further into the depths of her own personal hell. It is no doubt one of the scariest pieces of fiction I've ever come across, and that's for one main reason: none of what happens to Saki is her own fault. The only sins she actually commits of her own free will: being innocent and being self-conscious. These two very mundane flaws, character traits anyone can relate to and sympathize with, are the root cause of everything that will go on to ruin her life.
That's what makes Metamorphosis so scary. There is not a single moment in the story that you can point at and say: "There. That decision. She could've made the choice not to do that, and everything would've turned out fine." The story is a nightmare made reality, a horror story Saki can't escape from no matter what she tries at every step of her downfall, because she's afraid to resist, too pure to understand what's happening, or just forced into making choices she can't refuse.
So that leads me to the next part of what makes this manga frightening: So, nothing that happens to Saki is her own fault. But everything that happens to Saki is everyone else's fault. From the people who just ignore her plight to the ones who uncaringly abuse and manipulate her, Saki's fall from grace is orchestrated by the actions of all of the other people in the story. If just one of the people she encounters along her journey into darkness decides to help and support her, she could be rescued from her plight. Still, whether or not that does end up happening is something I'm not going to spoil. The author does an incredible job of exposing the world of apathy and agony that lurks just under the surface of civilized society, and depicting Saki's headfirst plunge into that world.
The torture and abuse in this manga aren't just for shock value and the sex isn't just jerk-off material. Everything has a purpose and actually builds towards themes and the overall storyline.
And the ending.... man, the ending... It might take you a few minutes to understand what happens, but let me just say that it's going to stay with you for a very long time. (And a piece of advice: throughout the bathroom scene at the ending, pay very close attention to how her appearance changes.)

Art: 7
The art is pretty good for a hentai. The artist's use of perspectives, angling, and decent focus on realistic body proportions isn't something you'll find very often among hentai artists.
My only gripe with the art, and my main problem with this manga overall, is that it makes most of the sex that happens in the manga look visually appealing. Yes, I get that's the point of a hentai, but in the case of a serious story like this, where every sex scene involves Saki and someone who abuses and manipulates her, and in many cases even tortures her, it takes away from the somber tone of the story. Every sex scene is a horrifying representation of her disappearing dignity and sense of self, and the art that goes along with it should reflect that. But in many cases, the art glorifies and sensualizes the act instead.

Character: 8.
Metamorphosis is full of disturbing and sleazy characters, but what makes it even more depressing are the good people who turn their backs to Saki because of misunderstandings.
Saki's metamorphosis as a character is particularly well done. Her gradual corruption and debasement are masterfully executed, and with every scene of the manga the author makes you really feel for her losses.


Enjoyment: 2.
I give the story a full ten, the art a pretty high rank of 7, the characters an 8, and the manga overall an 8/10. So why am I putting the enjoyment at a 2?
Because Metamorphosis is NOT an enjoyable experience. And it's not meant to be. If you're still jerking off 70 pages into the story I'd say you're into some weird stuff. But if you're still going at it 200+ pages in, you're definitely a threat to society. (Just kidding, but seriously... wtf??)

Metamorphosis is a vile, disgusting, depraved piece of fiction. It is a manga you'll read once and never want to read ever again. But it's one that'll leave you thinking about it long after you finish. How could Saki have been saved? Who was the worst person she met? Could something like this actually happen in real life? What did the ending mean? Metamorphosis is a story that will capture you and never fully let go.

Overall: 8.
A perverse, gloomy, sordid tale, Metamorphosis is not for the faint of heart. But if you can make it through all 225 pages I think you'll come to the conclusion that it was worth reading. Just not something worth reading again.
The well-written plot, good art, complex characters, depressing tone, and healthy dose of social commentary all come together to create a truly horrific tragedy, and a uniquely serious outlier in the hentai genre.
8/10. Would recommend with caution.

P.S.: If you're a JoJo fan, I'd recommend that you read the Josuke ending too. It's on nhentai along with the original.

Story: 9
Attack on Titan's story is masterful, *especially* in this season. The way the plot progresses in Season 3 is really well done. It tosses out clues that tease answers to every mystery in the series and feeds them to the viewer one drop at a time. The anime is so full of cliffhangers and half-reveals it made me hunger for every next episode the same way Sasha lusts for a big slab of ham. Seasons 1 and 2 had that intense layer of suspense too, but it's only in Season 3 where we FINALLY get a satisfying payoff. What really happened in that flashback ... Eren had of his father erasing his memories? Who was Levi before he joined the Survey Corps? Why can some Titans produce crystal from their bodies while most Titans can't? How do people turn into Titans? How do people become Titan shifters? All of these questions and more get answered in Season 3. There's still many, many very big mysteries yet to be uncovered in the world of AoT, but this season takes a big step closer to the truth.
Another thing I love about Season 3 is its themes and messages. Not only is this season amazing because of its gripping action, but because of its depth as well. It continues Season 2's big theme of making tough choices, but it focuses more on some new ideas, like living for your own self-happiness, understanding what makes people special, the mix of good and bad in everyone, and the moral dilemma of killing people. So there's plenty of thought-provoking stuff in S3 too.

Art: 9
The animation in Season 3 is top-notch. Every battle is beautifully animated and thrillingly depicted. Levi's crazy aerial maneuvers are dizzying and the Titan battles are glorious and rich with wonderful detail. Seeing the horrifying new Titan designs in Season 3 was a treat in itself.
My only problem with the art is that they used CGI for the shots of the bigger Titans and it doesn't look very good... but the animators did try to hand-draw as many closeup shots for those Titans as they could, so that's something.

Sound: 8
Overall, I'm not an enormous fan of the AoT OSTs. A lot of the action OSTs are good, but just don't fit my taste. But I *did* like the opening and ending songs. The opening might catch you off guard because it's not rousing and patriotic like Sasageyo and Guren no Yumiya, but more bittersweet and affectionate. It took me a few episodes before I really started to like it, so give it a few more listens if it rubs you the wrong way the first couple of times you hear it. The two previous openings were all about the fighting, sacrifice, and determination in Attack on Titan, but this one represents the companionship and the sadness of loss that are also a big part of the anime.
The sound effects are also good. The guns, the 3D maneuvering gear, the explosions, everything sounds pretty realistic.

Character: 9
The characters are really well developed, too. Historia becomes pretty much the main character for a significant portion of the arc and her growth as a character- and her full backstory- were both really interesting to see, even though I didn't really care about her in the last season. Also, since Season 3 involves a lot of clashes between people there's a whole moral dilemma that a lot of the members of the Survey Corps are forced to face: whether or not they are willing to kill humans instead of titans. This gets even more intriguing because so many of the enemies of our main cast actually get development, so you actually kind of feel for them when they die. Even the merchant from the first season, and his son, go down an interesting character arc that was pretty surprising to see in an anime. All in all, the story fleshes out the characters in this season very deftly.

Enjoyment: 10
The sheer amount of hype I got from each consecutive episode blows past anything I've ever seen or read before. The series builds up a sense of mystery so teasingly I can barely hold myself back from just throwing myself into the manga and finding out what the hell is going on in this show. To be honest, I'd recommend exposing yourself to a teensy bit of spoilers just like I did accidentally. Trust me, it'll only make you even more hyped up for what's coming. (Don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything here. As Levi would say, it's a choice you have to make for yourself.)

Overall: 9
Attack on Titan season 3 is pretty damn good. It might not be a mind-bending masterpiece, it has its flaws, but it's such a treat to watch that I have to consider this anime one of my favorites.

Story- 6
I feel the story is the weakest part of the anime. It's not terrible, but the writing is lazy in a lot of places. It's made pretty clear that the writers didn't plan out the story from beginning to end before the anime started, so the series changes super drastically halfway through without any buildup and hints laid out beforehand to explain the sudden twist.
Honestly, pretty much none of the plot twists in Kill la Kill get properly foreshadowed before they're revealed, they sort of just... happen, and the explanation for them gets made up on the spot. In a lot of ... the fights, new abilities are pulled out of nowhere with barely an explanation as to why they exist.

Another major problem is the tone. Kill la Kill is a comedy at heart, but this actually makes it hard for the show to be serious. The anime don't give the serious moments of the story the attention and intensity they deserve. With jokes and gags thrown in every other minute no matter how serious the scene is, it's hard for us to feel sadness and worry for what's happening onscreen. The big thing to take away from all this is that Kill la Kill is ridiculous. It's meant to be ridiculous and over the top and funny all at once, but that isn't always a good thing for the story.

The strong point of the story is the core theme: the importance of bonds- like teamwork and friendship. Every power-up Ryuuko gets in the series is because of a strengthening of the bond between herself and Senketsu, or gained from working together with others. I really liked how the theme stayed constant through all 24 episodes.

Art- 7
Visually, Kill la Kill looks pretty good. There's a lot of fancy CG effects used throughout the series, and I like the art style even though it's a little on the cartoony side. There were some very well animated moments in some of the fight scenes but a large portion of the fights are just cycled frames and generic slashy and explosive animations.

Sound- 8
The sound effects were all sounded fine to me, that said, I'm not an SFX expert or anything. But the music was really good. There were some great OSTs in here, and Satsuki's theme, Harime's theme, and Ragyou's theme were my favorites.

Character- 8
All of the characters in Kill la Kill are well-written, easily recognizable, and unique. I also love how some of the major villains, like Satsuki Kiryuuin, aren't pure evil, but actually care for and trust the people they respect.
The other great thing about the characters is how they grow. Unlike most anime, a lot of the characters in Kill la Kill change and develop in different ways over the course of the series. When something major happens to Ryuuko in the show, the way she reacts to the situation and changes as a person is really interesting to see, and this sort of character development isn't limited to just the MC.

Enjoyment- 7
I think I'll talk about the sexual fanservice here (I didn't put it under Story because I don't think it affected the quality of the writing.) I swear, Ragyou Kiryuuin is the horniest character I've ever seen in an anime. The show has some very erotic scenes involving her and several important female characters. Let me just warn you, be prepared for a lot of butt slaps, moans, and sexual groping- basically softcore lesbian hentai- if you watch Kill la Kill. If that's your thing, then go full steam ahead, but I just think it was a little too much for a shonen.

And while Ragyou might be the worst of it, don't assume the rest of the series is any less lewd. I can guarantee you WILL see every single character naked at some point in these 24 episodes. And while a lot of the nudity, especially the naked dudes, is just meant for humor, there's a ton of fanservice in every episode as well. Honestly, I think I'm just desensitized to anime fanservice now that I've seen so much of it in KLK.

But even with all that, Kill la Kill is still a very enjoyable show. While it does have trouble balancing its silly tone with serious moments, the good art, characters and music made this magic girl shonen fantasy superhero comedy fun to watch anyways.
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FYI: When you get to the recap episode, don't skip it.

Story-4
The story is nothing to write home about. It's pretty obvious Togashi wasn't involved in this movie because of how flat the plot is. There's nothing particularly surprising or really emotional about this movie. The movie tries really hard to get you to sympathize with the villains but it's very sloppily done. More on that down below.

Art-9
The art style felt slightly different in this movie compared to the rest of HxH, but I can't put my finger on how. Overall, the art just felt a lot sharper and fresher than Phantom Rouge, to the point where I was amazed the two movies came out in ... the same year. The movie just looks *glorious.* While the first half hour or so of the movie off-screened most of the fights, the later half 100% made up for it. I loved all of the flashy particle effects, both CG and hand-drawn. There's a lot of effort put into details like hair movement and facial expressions, a lot of use of foreshortening and camera movement in action shots that adds to the energy of fight scenes, and a real sense of speed and motion that you don't see in most anime. Every punch or attack really looks like it packs force and impact.

If there's one problem I had with the art, it's that it made the characters seem to be way stronger than they are in the anime. Due to the animators' glee for using up this movie's clearly titanic budget, there's tons of explosions and flashy effects for every attack. One important aspect of Hunter x Hunter was how grounded it generally is: Gon has no right to be punching hard enough to bust human-sized holes through 10 inch-thick concrete walls and make dust clouds the size of small buildings.
Because of this flashiness, the fights just felt like generic shonen, with everyone jumping around spamming lasers and energy blasts at each other like something out of Dragon Ball, instead of Hunter x Hunter's usual style of more mentally and psychologically intense battles.
Another minor issue is how far the movie's original characters stray from Togashi's art style. All of the antagonists look like generic anime villains.

Sound-6
I'm not an expert on SFX or anything but they didn't sound too weird. The OSTs were all taken from the anime.

Character-5
Gon and Killua don't develop in any way in this movie. It tries to develop the villains more instead, but it was really poorly thrown together- a few flashbacks of their "sad" backstories didn't make me feel anything at all for them. How on Earth does the movie expect us to sympathize with sociopathic murderers who slaughtered hundreds of people without mercy?

Enjoyment- 6
The flashy fight scenes made up for the shoddy plot to a certain degree. In any case, it was great just to see Gon and Killua on-screen again.

Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge wasn't horrible, but it wasn't that good either. Without either of Hunter x Hunter's strengths- interesting character development and super-strategic fights with the use of interesting powers, a lot of the movie was a boring experience. The lack of tension didn't help either- the whole Phantom Troupe just sweeps in to help the good guys whenever things aren't looking too good. Well, seeing the Phantom Troupe again was nice. The villain is snooze-worthy and cliche, but at least he has a motivation and a sorta-sympathetic backstory. He ain't no Meruem, but at least he's better than the bomber guy from ... Greed Island. And as expected, Leorio is useless as usual.

Even with all of the bad sides to it, Phantom Rouge isn't a blight on the face of anime either. Even though it's clear the script writers couldn't match the greatness of Togashi's writing, Killua was pretty well written in this movie- his struggle to overcome his assassin past to be a good friend to Gon, and the darkness this leads him to, was honestly heartbreaking to see. The main thing holding Killua's character arc back is that because Killua can't actually overcome his issues in this movie because that would contradict the Chimera Ant arc of the anime, which is when Killua actually does overcome Illumi's control. So Killua's arc was pretty much guaranteed to be a dead end from the start of the movie.

All in all, this isn't a movie I can't say I recommend. But while Phantom Rouge isn't all that important to the overall story of HxH, if you want to fill the hole Hunter x Hunter left in your heart after you finished the last episode, this movie might do it- at least for a while.

Story- 3
The MC is crazy overpowered, and there's absolutely no tension left in the story because of that. There's not a single point past the first 50 chapters of the series where I could at least kind of imagine that he could've died because he NEVER loses. The most he'll get out of a fight is losing a handful of his soldier minions- meaningless when he has a million of them- and maybe a scratch on his cheek- which he can heal with a single thought.
The plot is super formulaic. Weak dude suddenly gets blessed with amazing powers and becomes an awesome hero who shows ... up all the lazy corrupt muscleheads who think they're strong. It's just a power fantasy.

Art- 8
The story might suck, but the art is amazing. The artist's constant use of glow and blur effects for action scenes really adds to the sleek aesthetic of Solo Leveling.

Character- 6
The protagonist, Sung Jin-Woo, had some minor character growth in the first 20 or so chapters but since then he's devolved into an edgy edgelord with zero character depth. (Who happens to be incapable of wearing clothes colored anything BUT midnight black.)
He's a Mary Sue through and through. In Solo Leveling, the entire world revolves around this guy. Everyone wants to get close to him and use him, or wants to worship him as their savior, or is scared of his power and wants to kill him. A lot of characters want to do all three. He isn't just a healer or a summoner or a mage- he's every Hunter type *and more.* He's overpowered, infamously famous, dark but not evil, intelligent and never conflicted, perfect in every way... how are we supposed to related to this guy again?

The writer even misses out on a key opportunity for giving him character growth. Since he's killed so many people and monsters, and since both people and monsters are shown in the story to be sometimes good and sometimes bad, there's plenty of room for a moral conflict there- should he stop killing everyone so mercilessly and give them a chance to change? Or is he in a kill-or-be-killed world where compassion becomes weakness?
The writer completely ignores this opportunity for giving the story some depth and instead goes with a story revolving around our protagonist, a necromancer mage summoner supreme overlord of dark energy and death and flashy attacks, clashing with big angry demons in big fancy smashfests, each one more grand and explosive than the next.
No one else besides the MC even gets any development. There are some interestingly conflicted characters who were around at the start of the series, but since then they've been quietly shuffled into the background of the story. By the midpoint of the manhwa, there's little to no character depth in the series at all.

[Side rant- The manhwa doesn't even hesitate to take a dump on the one actually well-written scene from the light novel, where we get to see Sung Jin-Woo from the point of view of ordinary citizens, as people react to his fierce battle watching from their TVs at home, as his heroic actions restore an old man's faith in the strength of Hunters. From that scene in the light novel, readers got to see Sung Jin-Woo as not just a monster-slaying warrior, but a symbol of hope for humanity. The manhwa downplays and shortens this whole sequence so much it might as well not have been included.]

Enjoyment- 2
Solo Leveling was an immensely disappointing experience for me. The story and characters are flavorless and boring and the writing is downright lazy.
All this manhwa has going for it are the action scenes but even flashy fights don't mean anything if they lack all forms of emotional weight and tension.
At the end of the day, there's not much I can say I enjoyed about this series. All I can say is that if mindless action is your thing... by all means, give Solo Leveling a shot. But if you're turned off by bad writing and a boring cast of characters, please stay as far away from this series as possible, because it is not worth the read.