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Warning: Massive ending spoilers ahead. I'm very sorry but that 6 up there can't be properly explained without delving deep into spoiler territory.

I wish Usagi Drop had 2 separate entries, one being the start and one everything after the time-skip, starting in chapter 26. It's for one very simple reason. Usagi Drop is a prime example of how a great concept can still run off the rails badly. It's a masterclass in turning what starts as a warm, cute and fuzzy story into a catastrophic failure of a 'romantic' drama.

The gist of the premise is that Daikichi (a man who couldn't more obviously be unhappy ... and feeling unfulfilled unless he stuck a neon sign on his face) takes a 6 year old girl, Rin, into his house for the sole reason that everyone else either hates her or straight up doesn't care for her. And it's not hard to see where this goes. A man with no experience with children now has to take care of one with the comedic hijinks that ensue. During that time, we see Daikichi and Rin grow as characters as we learn more about them, who they are and their relationship. I'll be honest, the first part of Usagi Drop is one of the best and most enjoyable things I've ever read. It's just sweet enough to tug your heart strings and make you feel great but also sincere enough to show the problems Rin and Daikichi cope with. I was ready to give this a good solid 9, maybe even a 10!

Now, those of you who have seen the anime or the live-action movie might notice there's a considerable amount of material that wasn't adapted. There's a reason for that.

The great part about having one person both writing and illustrating a manga is that you have synergy. Who else can better convey their thoughts, mental images and general ideas to paper than the writer themselves? The problem that comes from it is that there's no second person to openly doubt your decisions and no manga is a better example than this. I'm not sure what Yumi Unita was thinking but I hope she realizes how poorly it worked out.

In chapter 26, we leap forward about 10 years. Rin is in high school and Daikichi is 40, having to deal with the appropriate issues. Already this brings up some headscratchers, such as how both of our protagonists still hang out with the exact same people they did 10 years ago with no new additions. One of two bigger problems is a shift in tone that is about as smooth and fluid as trying to walk while both your legs are asleep. Gone is the happy heartwarming slice of life, in comes an unnecessarily angsty and gloomy 'romantic' drama. Everything is a lot darker for no adequately explained reason other than some cardinal rule that anything involving teenage characters must be existential, dark or depressing.

No, the biggest problem of all is that the second part builds up to an almost gutpunchingly disturbing conclusion.

Part of the second part involves Rin dealing with her relationship with Daikichi getting more....complicated. Her feelings for him get out of the comfy wholesome foster parent/daughter zone and instead the considerably ickier kind. It's just as disturbing and just as well-executed as you'd expect. After an ass-pull 'but they're not really blood-related' card (on the level of SAO episode 14), Rin decides she wants to marry Daikichi and he goes along with it. Oh boy, where do we begin?

Let's start with the fact that at its very core, this is still creepily close to parental incest. For all intents and purposes, these 2 had a father/daughter relationship for the last 10 years and now she's genuinely in love with him. There's also a distinct lack of consequence shown. There's one character who's ever made aware of her attraction and, no joke, she encourages Rin to go along with it. But there's another layer of disturbing that you might not pick up on the first time. Hell, you might not pick up on it until a good while later. Namely, Daikichi just rolls with it. There's no real shock, no real contemplation to speak of, he listens to her and accepts it. On the surface, it's bad writing. Underneath, it's worse. Disregarding for a moment that this is quite clearly an action of impulse, since his feelings for Rin have always been parental and it was never really hinted that it was more. What we have is a man who's more concerned with the age difference than with the fact that he raised her as his daughter. A man who has no qualms doing so. A man who, I swear I wish I was making this up, is okay with her carrying his child and raising it. A man who's just plain given up on a proper relationship.
A man who by all rights shouldn't be in one because he isn't fit for one.

The first part of Usagi Drop is a 9 or a 10 for me without a doubt. It's well-crafted and heartwarming to see these 2 misfits grow on each other. The second part is disgusting in every way. The change of tone, the ending, how it plays out, the implications it carries, it's nothing short of insulting your readers.

If you want to read this, by all means do so. Sounding like a broken record but the first part is excellent. I highly suggest you finish chapter 24 and stop there. Because unless you're into poorly written, poorly executed semi-incest, there's just nothing for you there.

I feel like the best way to describe Aoi Sekai is as follows:
Say you're at a party scouting for a nice girl. You see some nice ones, you see some slightly less nice ones but nobody that really grabs you. And then it happens. This [insert your favorite hair color]-ed vixen appears and draws you in. And after getting to know her better a bit, you're drawn in even further. So when you wake up after what you hoped would be a great night with her, you instead wake up disappointed and wondering if it was all worth it.

Don't get me wrong, Aoi Sekai certainly ... has a good concept behind it. Personifying the 90s console wars, what could go wrong? Well, lots of things sadly.

The major problem lies with the characters. Gear, our protagonist, decides to join the Segua army after losing his brother (a character so memorable and important that I can't remember his name) in a fight against the Ninteldo empire. And here we run into our first problem.
Avenging a fallen family member is as good a reason as any to go on a crusade but Aoi Sekai forgets the crucial ingredient to this; actually introducing the characters and building them so we can actually give a shit. Literally the first thing that happens is Gear's brother is dead, boom. We don't know why or what their characters are like, he's the hero, the likable one. Hell, for all we know Gear and his brother are actually gigantic asshats who committed grave crimes against the Ninteldo empi-okay, I'm just gonna call them by their proper names now, this is getting annoying. Anyways, for all we know Gear and his brother are actually gigantic asshats who committed grave crimes against Nintendo and Sega are the real bad guys!

Next up, purple-haired useless damsel du jour, Nel. Holy shit, what a useless character. Literally all she does, LITERALLY ALL SHE DOES is stand around and make sounds like she's orgasming at whatever exciting business is going on around her or spouting random superfluous nonsense. You could replace her with a sex doll with a tape recorder cellotaped to her face and you'd get an equally deep and useful character.

Then comes....Titties McArcher, I forget her name. The primary fanservice character. Cute? Check. Big....tracts of land? Check. Skimpy and incredibly self-defeating outfit? Big check! So called "professional" and "incredibly skilled character" who gets her ass handed to her by the main character first chance he gets? You guessed it!

But now we get the big one. Tejilof. My god, this guy is awful. I mean, REAL awful. Why? For starters, he's a walking Tetris reference with all the subtlety of a raging bull in a china shop. Ear ring shaped like a Tetris block that's on screen all the time. And if it isn't, you'll DEFINITELY notice how his sword handle looks suspiciously like....A TETRIS BLOCK! HA! DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING, DID YOU? LOOK AT ME, I'M A TETRIS REFERENCE, CAN YOU TELL?!
Now now, this won't be THAT much of a problem if he's funny, right?

Oh.

Yeah, not only is this guy a walking Tetris reference but his dialogue consists of nothing but stupid double entendres. In fact, let's just cut this short and say that the only good thing about this character is that his VA is also Keima Katsuragi, one of my favorite characters of all time.

This is the part where I normally talk about the plot and such but there's nothing. And for an anime that fails to properly introduce its characters or make us sympathize with them, that's a pretty big feat.

I suppose the nicest thing I can say about Aoi Sekai is that it looks actually kind of decent, considering how bad everything else is. But to hop back on the other hand, the action looks disjointed and messy as hell. Characters seem to randomly move between shots at times.

What I'll simply leave as my final words is that Aoi Sekai is probably the most disappointed I've ever been in an anime. An interesting idea that had true potential is driven into the ground by characters that make a piece of paper look deep and action that is beyond unsatisfying.

What's this? A short Beatles-themed manga with no reviews at all? Better make one then!


Story: 7/10
Contrary to what the synopsis actually says, 2 of the band members end up in past Japan. Besides that, interesting premise. Just a shame it never went anywhere in its short runtime. Granted, there's not a whole lot you can do in 9 chapters but even for such a length, nothing really happens.

Art: 8/10
BwB looks good. In fact, it looks great. Environments are detailed and look very nice, as do characters. It's just that the faces look....off. I can't quite put my finger on it but they look sort of ... fucked. But that shouldn't really distract you from an otherwise great looking manga.

Characters: 4/10
One of its shortcomings. The main characters seem to be just there and the side cast is not very interesting or at least not interesting enough.

Enjoyment: 7/10
I'm a little on the fence. I liked reading it but it somehow managed to slow to an absolute crawl at times which is simply beyond annoying.

Overall 6/10:
To be honest, I'm a little on the fence. On one hand, I'm a little sad that it ended so fast because the premise has enough potential to grow into something that's at least decent. On the other hand, it was so ungodly slow and boring at times and has such a niche appeal that cancelling it might have been for the better. A 6 will have to do and that's a little disappointing. It's not bad, it's not great, it's just.....mediocre. Average. And for a manga with an idea like this, it's not what it should have been.

Note: Some minor spoilers. Beware.

The summary on MAL is a little confusing so I'll try my best to make a more coherent one.

In middle school, there was a certain basketball team whose players had immense talent. This caused them to be dubbed the "Generation of Miracles". After finishing middle school, they all went their seperate ways but talk remained of a mystery 'phantom player', their 6th man.
The story starts with Kagami Taiga, a returning student joining the Seirin high school basketball team. Another person who joins is Tetsuya Kuroko. He's weak, can't shoot and has no presence on the court but herein lies his ... secret...

Story: 8/10
An interesting premise that is well executed too. It progresses nicely thus far and there's real development in both the plot and the characters. And it's nice to see a manga like this that isn't all victory and glory all the way, there's some real issues Seirin runs into along the way and watching them deal with these is interesting. There are some things I'd like explained sooner rather, such as the oath Akashi mentions at one point that was apparently made when they split up after middle school but up until this point has not been elaborated upon. But hey, ongoing manga so plenty of time to get that taken care of.

Characters: 9/10
Let's start off with the main character, Kuroko. He's quiet, always calm (to the point where I'm wondering if the author has been watching a few too many Christopher Walken movies), bad at basketball. However, his strong point is helping others by way of his completely and utter lack of presence on the court (something that quickly turns into a running gag off-court where his team mates will think they're alone until Kuroko actually says something). He's neutral but not boring. He's calm but not a pussy. Disliking Kuroko as a character is difficult because he always puts other people's needs ahead of his own.
Kagami (or to call him by my favorite nickname for any character ever, Bakagami) is the second main character and, as mentioned, a returning student from America. He's as blunt as a hammer, he is self-centered, he's a bit of an ass, so you could be forgiven for disliking him at first. But Kagami is a good example of character development in Kuroko no Basket. What starts off as a self-centered douche with all the subtlety of a brick to the face turns into a real team-player. He quickly finds Kuroko teaming up with him to help him and while he does so somewhat reluctantly, this helps him not only discover Kuroko's magic abilities but discover that teamwork can be far more efficient than going at it solo. He becomes more involved with his team mates and caring more about their individual skills and how they can help the team.
The side cast is a joy too. There's Riko, their second-year coach who has the magical ability to learn a player's skills and potential just by looking at their shirtless bodies (because what is shounen without some sort of absurd abilities), Hyuuga, the likable team captain and 3-point shooter and of course the rest of the Generation of Miracles.
They have distinct personalities, some of them funny and a joy to 'listen' to (Kise's fairly one-sided admiration of Kuroko never gets old), some of them a bit rotten (Aomine, looking at your general direction, just saying) and others are downright weird (Murasakibara, are you not secretly shizophrenic?) but they're all well-written characters.

Art: 8/10
Say what you like about KnB but it looks good. Characters look great with plenty of detail and the environments (and the courts in particular) are also easy on the eyes. The amount of sweat on the characters during matches did distract me a little bit at times but this is a sport manga so I'm going to call this a case of 'par for the course'.

Enjoyment: 9/10
186 chapters read and furiously awaiting the next one every week. Yep, sounds like enough enjoyment in my book!

Overall: 9/10
A solid sport manga with good story, interesting characters with development to go and a healthy dose of comedy mixed in. I'm calling this one a must-read for anyone interested in basketball or sports manga in general.

A miscellaneous note on KnB's portrayal of basketball:
I've heard some people call KnB over-the-top for its sometimes ridiculous display of matches (and reading chapters with matches against Aomine, I can definitely agree with that), making it too dumb to read. You have to take into account 2 things here. For starters, shounen targets kids aged 10+ so it just needs a lot of action to keep the attention of the target demographic. Second, and this is speaking as a basketball fan, having realistic depictions of basketball would be boring. KnB basically takes the best bits in basketball matches (fast attack, great defense, slam dunks, impressive plays) and throws out the rest and you know what? That's fine. I don't want to be flying through pages to get to the exciting bits, I want the exciting bits now! Preferably 5 minutes ago. Yes, it does get BEYOND over-the-top as mentioned before and you won't get arguments proving the opposite from me there. Kise's 1:1 copying of player's abilities, Midorima's ridiculous shooting range, Kuroko's vanishing and (the biggest offender in my book) Aomine's suspension-of-disbelief-butchering shooting, they're indeed over-the-top but they help keep everything fresh and original rather than every member simply being another good player to beat.

All I can say for Drifters of the Dead is that if you thought that HotD got too pervy at times, you'll REALLY want to steer clear from this.

I would talk about the plot but there's barely any to begin with and what's there is beyond stupid. Amusing as hell though. Even if it's a little contrived but why should I care when it entirely consists of the female cast dressing up in bikinis 2 sizes too small and some more girl-on-girl action, right?

Not a masterpiece but you could definitely do worse. It's got babes in bikinis, it's got humor, everything looks pretty, it just ... works.