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Sep 24, 2025
At its heart, the premise of Your Lie in April is deceptively simple. You have Kosei Arima, a former piano prodigy who after a personal tragedy is now incapable of “hearing the music” he plays. By his side are his two childhood friends, Tsubaki and Watari. Into this quiet life bursts Kaori Miyazono, a vibrant and free-spirited violinist who is introduced as a potential love interest for Watari, said friend. Arima is instantly captivated by her, not just romantically, but with artistic adoration for her passionate and untamed approach to music. This is first and foremost a music manga, a genre I adore, and it
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lives up to that label beautifully. The characters’ struggles, their breakthroughs, their pain and their joy are all channeled through their performances. Seeing Arima finally dragged back onto the stage by Kaori’s force of will is the engine that drives the early narrative and it’s an incredibly compelling and addictive ride.
For a long stretch this manga is one of the most genuinely loving and wholesome things you’ll ever read. The romantic development is slow and sweet, built on a foundation of mutual respect and artistic inspiration. I was pretty much just basking in the warmth of it all. And then I found out the story fucking catfished me. What begins as a wholesome journey slowly reveals a much heavier, more tragic undercurrent. The bittersweet sadness that once felt comforting starts to transform into something genuinely harrowing. The story takes a turn so dark and so sudden that it completely shatters the initial tone, pulling the rug out from under you and making it clear that the journey ahead will be far more brutal than you could have ever anticipated.
If this manga has a noticeable quirk, it's that it is built almost entirely on clichés. It uses the simplest and most direct emotional hooks imaginable one after another. At times this, sadly, can feel a bit tiresome. A prime example is a character introduced late in the game whose introduction is pure… cringe. It’s a one-dimensional villain proclamation that is pretty much the simplest, out of place cliche of “I want to destroy my enemy’s life” (I want to remind you, it was a very realistic music romance-drama). But here’s also the weird thing: this reliance on clichés is, paradoxically, also the manga's greatest strength. The story knows exactly what it is. It isn’t trying to be some intricately plotted, subversive epic. It embraces its core and executes it with near-perfect sincerity. Even that cringey character is given a fantastic arc that redeems her initial appearance. The manga takes these clichéd building blocks and constructs something beautiful and profoundly effective with them.
Then comes the end. My fucking god, the end. The final arc is a masterclass in emotional storytelling, culminating in a climax that is both beautiful and absolutely agonizing. The story ties the highest point of Arima's musical journey to the most critical moment of Kaori's personal struggle. But it’s the final chapter that truly broke me. Let me give you some context: I’ve read around 100 manga, I think that’s a lot. I’ve teared up many times, but I have never, EVER actually cried because of a manga. This was the first time. It’s a conclusion that is so perfectly constructed, so emotionally resonant, that it just broke me. It’s brutal but it’s also breathtakingly beautiful. The best way I can describe it is by quoting Fullmetal Alchemist here. It's a terrible day for rain.
I used to hand out 10/10 ratings more freely but as my critical taste has developed, it’s become a rare honor. It has been 23 manga and about two months since I last gave a perfect score. Your Lie in April has earned it. This manga is a 10/10 masterpiece. It might not land in my all-time top 10 favorites but on an objective level it is a flawless execution of what it sets out to do. It’s a story that will lull you in with its sweetness and then with devastating beauty, completely and utterly break your heart.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 16, 2025
The premise of Made in Abyss is so damn sick it’s hard not to be immediately drawn in. You have this massive, world-defining pit that goes down into the earth, with each layer holding its own unique biomes, terrifying monsters and ancient relics. The deeper you go the harder it is to come back alive thanks to a mysterious "curse" that wrecks your body on the ascent. The worldbuilding is incredible; you’re immediately introduced to the society built around the Abyss, the different ranks of explorers/whistles and the core mysteries that drive the plot forward. It sets a pretty fantastic stage.
The story kicks off with
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two really enjoyable kids. You have a main girl who’s obsessed with the Abyss and wants to follow in the footsteps of her legendary mother and a mysterious robot boy who shows up with no memories of who he is or how he got there. The hook is simple but effective; a message from the mother arrives from the deepest part of the Abyss, telling her daughter she’s waiting at the bottom. And so the two of them begin their descent. The artstyle adds a other layer to the experience. It’s very unique with a soft, almost cutesy look that makes the world feel like a fantastical storybook. The characters look like wholesome kids on a grand adventure and for a while that’s exactly what it feels like. The start is incredibly promising and gets you genuinely intrigued for the journey ahead.
But for all its conceptual brilliance the actual experience of reading this manga can be a chore. The biggest problem is the pacing, which is painfully, agonizingly slow. This is an incredibly dialogue-dense series and it constantly grinds to a halt for massive lore dumps. Now, I can handle dialogue-heavy stories if they’re grounded and psychological, but Made in Abyss is a full-blown fantasy and it wants you to know every little detail about its made-up world. For someone who loves fantasy for fantasy’s sake, this is probably a dream come true. You’ll read about every ingredient they find for their meals, every tool they use, every specific rule of the ecosystem. For me it’s just boring. It feels like 70% of the manga is just dragging your feet through unnecessary exposition, and it really kills the momentum of the otherwise interesting story. I found myself wanting to know what happens next but absolutely dreading the process of getting there.
The manga also has this reputation for being one of the darkest, most disturbing things you’ll ever read and honestly, I just don’t see it. I went in expecting something that would hit me in the guts. So far it was just… mild. Yeah there are moments that are dark and fucked up, but it’s nowhere near the soul-crushing psychological horror it’s hyped up to be. What is genuinely uncomfortable though, is the author’s very obvious fetishes. The guy is clearly not sneaky about his thing for lolis and it’s just gross. You’ll have characters, who are literal children, put in weirdly sexualized situations, like being hung up naked as a punishment when it could have been shown in any other way.
Ultimately, Made in Abyss had a completely reverse effect on me. For a manga that’s supposed to be so dark, I actually found it to be a weirdly cute and soothing adventure story at its core. If you strip away the occasional dark moments, the art, the characters, and the atmosphere create this beautiful, whimsical feeling of exploration that I really love. And you can tell the author is incredibly passionate about the world he’s built. The potential here is massive. But I just can’t continue it right now. The pacing is too slow and the reading experience is too much of a slog for me to commit to, especially with its ridiculously long release schedule. I’m not dropping it, but it’s going on hold until the day the final chapter is announced. It gets a 7.5/10 from me. I really want to love it, and I know I’ll be back, but I need to be in the right mindset to survive the slow, tedious descent.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 15, 2025
Context dump: I have a deep somewhat psychological hatred for NTR. It’s a topic that makes my stomach hurt and I typically avoid it like the plague. So, deciding to read Velvet Kiss, manga I’ve heard touches taht topic, was like actively choosing to walk barefoot across a minefield. But underneath the sleaze and the pain, there’s a surprisingly compelling and at times flawed story about two broken people.
The premise is weird? You have this guy who discovers he’s saddled with a massive debt he knew nothing about. To pay it off he’s forced into a weird contract; he has to essentially become a “friend”
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and companion to the debt holder's complicated daughter. And yeah this is an erotic manga so sex happens a lot, and who cares, it gets you bricked up and shit, whatever. What makes it interesting, at least initially, is that the main character isn't some pathetic pushover. He’s got a backbone and doesn't just let everyone walk all over him which is a refreshing change of pace. The main girl is far more complex tho. She’s caught in this whirlwind of high-society orgies and casual encounters and you can tell from the jump that she’s deeply lonely and using sex to fill an emptiness inside her.
For a good while the story builds this fascinating, incredibly toxic relationship. It’s a contract, a prison for him, but for her, it slowly becomes something more. You see her start to fall for him, finding a connection that feels real amidst the emptiness of her life. She starts pulling away from the orgies, starts showing him a softer side, and you see the potential for something genuine to grow. And then the story decides to rip your guts out. This is where the NTR comes in, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty rough. The story introduces a forced drama that pushes the characters to their breaking points, leading to a betrayal that is short, graphic, and just sickening scene to read.
Now, to be fair, both characters are pieces of shit at times. The dynamic is built on manipulation and desperation and both of them make selfish, hurtful choices. It’s a shame because without these bad choices it’s actually telling a pretty good story.
And then you get to the ending and you realize it was all pointless. The ending of this manga is so fucking lackluster it retroactively sours the entire thing. It’s an open ending in the worst possible way. In a story that already played with themes of NTR leaving it open like this just feels like a slap in the face. What was the point of all that drama if this is the payoff?
Velvet Kiss is a messy-ass 7/10. It explores some good themes about loneliness and the emptiness of casual sex, and the central toxic relationship is weirdly captivating. But the experience is fundamentally brought down by a truly painful NTR scene and one of the most pointless, unsatisfying endings I’ve read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 14, 2025
You know what you’re getting into with Boichi every single time, and Origin is no different. You’re not here for a literary masterpiece; you’re here for the art. Boichi is, in my opinion, the best ARTIST working in the manga industry, right up there with legends like Kentaro Miura (and kinda hot take, he’s even better). His art is just… perfect. And yea he is a horny dude who came from drawing hentai so you’re gonna get a ton of ass shots, camel toes, and other fan service. At this point that’s just part of his charm. With his other work, Sun-Ken Rock, the story
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was actually hella enjoyable on its own. With Origin, I’m a bit more torn.
The concept is damn solid. We’re in a futuristic world where the main character, Origin, is a highly advanced robot secretly living among humans. The setup is cool as hell. He can switch faces to blend in and he has a mf katana hidden inside his own arm. The side characters are also really enjoyable, even if they exist primarily for fan service, which again, is classic Boichi.
The problem is, the story doesn’t really go where you (or I) expect it to. For a Boichi manga the pacing is surprisingly slow. I was kinda expecting a non-stop battle series but what I got was a lot of slow-burn setup and exposition. It’s NOT bad by any means but I just think Boichi’s storytelling shines brightest when it’s fast-paced and fight-focused. The story is just good but not great.
Where the manga truly excels, before it all falls apart, is in the relationship between the main character Jin and Mai. This whole plot line is an outstanding point of the manga. Watching this robot, slowly learn what it means to be human by protecting her is… sweet. The manga also explores some pretty nice topics like what it means to be human and what it truly means to exist.
Unfortunately, Boichi just can’t seem to stick the landing. Like with Sun-Ken Rock, the ending to Origin is pretty sucky. It feels incredibly rushed and kinda just stupid. It’s so abrupt that the only logical explanation is that the series was "axed" or hurried along so Boichi could focus on Dr. Stone, which is a damn shame. The story suddenly goes into escalation where some robots after achieving a certain point become godlike beings. The final boss fight is suddenly about to happen. Many plot points disappear quicker than they were introduced. It’s accompanied by all this "smart" philosophical talk that just feels like Boichi trying to sound way deeper and more profound than he’s capable of writing. It’s a mess.
So, was it bad? No. But the story absolutely shits the bed at the end. The real question though is… does it matter? This is Boichi we’re talking about. I’ll say it again; he’s the best manga artist of all time and every single one of his works is worth reading for the art alone. Origin is no exception. In fact the art here might even surpass Sun-Ken Rock at times. I’m not exaggerating when I say that one of the panels in this manga is the most beautiful, breathtaking panel I have ever seen in my life. So yeah, I’m giving it a 7/10. The story is flawed and the ending is a rushed disappointment, but the visual experience is so transcendent that it makes the whole journey worthwhile. And I just fucking love the women in his art style. Boichi my goat.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 12, 2025
I won’t be able to tell you how I felt about the beginning of I am a Hero. It wasn't bad enough to drop, but there was absolutely nothing pulling me in either. It was just… boring. The story tries to be this "realistic," psychological take on a zombie apocalypse but that realism just doesn't land at all. You have this massive outbreak starting and people are just living their lives being completely oblivious. They literally see zombies acting weird or killing people and just brush it off as mental illness or don't react at all. I hate that shit. Everyone has seen a zombie
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movie; you know exactly what this looks like.
On top of that, the main character, Hideo, is hella unlikable. He's a miserable, paranoid loser. He’s a complete man-child, and you have to spend a ton of time in his boring, pathetic life before anything happens. The dialogue is also not my cup of tea, and the manga has a massive pacing problem early on. It will either be 80% silent, fast-paced action or it will grind to a halt for incredibly long dialogue scenes that are either pointless or just clumsy lore dumps. Now if I triggered you, good, because I was baiting. That’s how the story felt for first, maybe three or four volumes… but then…
It doesn't just get good; it becomes genuinely so fucking peak. The pacing problem completely vanishes. The story picks up massively, finds its gear, and just stays there, becoming a relentless, gripping survival horror. The setup is done, and you’re thrown headfirst into the apocalypse. The art becomes a core part of the storytelling. There are entire chapters with almost no dialogue where the story is told masterfully through the visuals alone, creating this incredible, tense atmosphere. And the zombies themselves are fantastic. They are hella creative, genuinely disturbing, and one of the most unique takes on the concept I've ever seen.
The characters also take a massive leap. Hideo, while still kind of an annoying weirdo, starts a slow but steady evolution. He grows on you. You start to see him shed his man-child persona and slowly, believably, become more capable. But the real star, the absolute life of this manga, is Hiromi. She is without a doubt the best character in the series. When the “main trio” is formed with the introduction of Oda, another really good, layered character, the dynamic is just perfect. The mall arc is where it all comes together masterfully.
But after hitting such an incredible high, the manga starts to fall apart, and it falls apart hard. The story makes the single worst decision it possibly could have: it abandons the grounded, gritty realism that made it so special and dives headfirst into dumb fantasy. We get the introduction of "evolved" zombies, which are basically just humans with superpowers like superhuman strength and immunity. This is a VERY bad addition to the story and completely unnecessary. Along with this comes some bullshit concept of a hive-mind connection between them, basically like the Paths from AOT, where they can all feel each other. Another awful idea that takes away from the grounded horror.
From there the plot just gets worse by a mile. We get some stupid-ass titan-like zombie monsters. We get the “main” (or one of) villain, who is one of the most stupid-ass, boring-ass, basic-ass villains I’ve ever seen. He’s just an overpowered, naked monkey who runs around killing people with zero tension or depth. The story becomes less about survival and more about this weird, nonsensical fantasy plot.
And then comes the ending. What a disappointment. It was just a bunch of nothing. It’s just chaos and not in a good way. It’s confusing, rushed, and ultimately resolves nothing. We’re left with many questions unanswered, time-skip, and many characters journeys thrown out of the window. It's a fucking ridiculous way to end a manga. I know there’s an epilogue that was released years late, but a story should be able to stand on its own and this one collapses at the finish line. It’s a 7/10 for me and that score is carried almost entirely by how outstandingly brilliant its first half is. It’s a genuine shame to see a manga with so much potential completely ruin itself.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 7, 2025
One thing I have to say at the start is that Ana Satsujin is not a high-quality, top-tier manga. It’s kinda bad. It’s really, really stupid. And because of that, it’s genuinely fucking peak. It’s so unapologetically dumb, so committed to its own insanity, that it loops all the way around from being "bad" to being an absolute blast to read. If you’re looking for deep themes and masterful writing, turn back now. If you want a full-speed, unpredictable rollercoaster of dumb shit that is more fun than it has any right to be, you’ve come to the right place.
The premise kicks off simply enough,
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relatively speaking. We have a guy who’s a complete failure, so bored with his life that he decides to end it. When his attempt to hang himself fails, it knocks a hole in his apartment wall giving him a direct view into his neighbor's room. He starts peeping, as you do, only to witness her murdering someone. Then another. And another. Soon enough they meet and a "connection" begins to form. This is the most normal the manga ever gets. From this point on, the story slams its foot on the gas and drives straight off a cliff into a canyon of pure, unadulterated nonsense. The chapters are short, the pacing is ridiculously fast, and the plot is so unpredictable I genuinely forgot some of the insane twists moments after they happened.
This is a story where the main characters' twisted romance is just the tip of the iceberg. The world is populated by the weirdest fucking people imaginable. There’s a victim’s sister who is a literal psychic who can predict the future and shit. The main villain for a good chunk is an obsessive plastic surgeon who views the killer girl as his goddess and surrounds himself with a "family" made of people he’s kidnapped and surgically altered. The plot lurches from one bizarre arc to another with no warning. At one point, our MC has to go undercover and "date" another famous murderer, a plotline that escalates to them getting legally married while the main girl peeps on them through a hole. It’s just a constant stream of events that make you say "what the fuck am I reading?"
At its core though, is the central relationship which is a fascinating brand of twisted. It’s presented as genuine love, but it’s a love where the ultimate romantic gesture, the highest form of connection they can imagine, is for her to kill him. It’s a manga that successfully makes you root for the main character to be murdered by his girlfriend because you understand that, in their fucked-up world, it’s the happiest ending they could possibly have. The story constantly plays with this dynamic, with moments of extreme violence being framed as expressions of affection.
Don’t expect much from the technicals. The art is pretty meh. It’s not bad but it’s serviceable at best. The characters are plain weird, driven by simple, insane motivations. The story is just dumb. Its quality isn't in its craft, but in its sheer, balls-to-the-wall commitment to being entertaining garbage. Just when you think you have a handle on the story, it throws a massive curveball that completely changes the game, introducing new factions like a full-blown cult and bringing back characters you thought were long gone. You get the sense that the mangaka is just making things up as they go, and honestly, it works.
Now, about the ending. I’ve seen people complain that it’s bad, and they’re not wrong. But what the hell were you expecting? This manga was never good in the first place; it was fun. Expecting a profound, well-constructed conclusion is like ordering a burger at a five-star sushi restaurant. The finale is rushed, cramming what should be several chapters of resolution into one. It’s stupid. It’s pretty bad. And it’s the most suitable ending this manga could have possibly had. It leans into the chaos, fulfills the central promise of the main characters' death pact, and even throws in a final twist that brings the whole dumb story full circle.
I blasted through this entire manga in a single day and I had a ton of dumb fun with it. It’s a solid 7/10 not because it’s a hidden masterpiece but because it knows exactly what it is; a stupid, trashy, and ridiculously entertaining ride.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 6, 2025
Bokurano throws you right into story about a group of kids who stumble upon a giant mecha and are roped into a game where they have to pilot it to defend the Earth. The art is… calming? I love the brushwork and the overall style. The characters are shown as nuanced but also, frankly, deeply unlikable. The one kid who seems genuinely nice is gone almost immediately and you’re left with a cast of bullies, egomaniacs, and kids who just don't seem to care, with SOME EXCEPTIONS.
The core story, the art, and the fights themselves are pretty damn good and consistently interesting. But the
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execution, especially when it comes to the characters and their individual stories, is where this manga completely shits the bed for a long, frustrating stretch. For first few volumes, the story becomes a predictable pattern of trying to be as overly edgy and dark as humanly possible and it just feels forced.
It’s not just dark; it’s gratuitously, pointlessly dark. The backstories pile on tragedy for the sake of it, often venturing into extreme and vile territory that feels completely unearned and serves no narrative purpose other than shock value. One character’s story involves themes of sexual exploitation that are so over-the-top and poorly resolved that it comes across as some of the worst, most bafflingly stupid writing I have ever seen. Another arc hinges on a ridiculously forced love triangle that is also just stupid. It feels like the author is just throwing darts at a board of tragic tropes, which makes it impossible to connect with these characters because their suffering feels so artificial and manipulative. I really wanted to drop it but the core mystery was just hooking me enough to push through.
Thankfully it feels like all my prayers were heard because the story eventually gets so, so much better. It’s like the mangaka got all the stupid, forced, edgy bullshit out of their system and started writing actual compelling stories. The formula remains the same; we learn about the next pilot and follow them on their final journey, but it gets so, so engaging. The backstories, while still sad or dark, feel earned and nuanced instead of just being misery porn. The plot also expands in a really cool way, raising the stakes for the entire world. Some of the character arcs are legitimately great to really good, and some of the plot twists actually hit hard and feel tragic.
Even at its best, however, the manga can be a confusing mess, sometimes dropping major plot revelations with no foreshadowing or explanation and forcing you to just roll with it. The development of the characters who manage to stick around for a while is a definite high point, with one of the initial bullies growing into a genuinely compelling protagonist. There's even a great section that serves as a breather, where we see the aftermath of the pilots' battles and the impact on their families, which for a long time I felt was lacking.
But then there’s the ending and it’s a huge disappointment. After a heavy and impactful final battle that feels like a powerful, grim climax, the story opts for a confusing and ambiguous conclusion that explains very little. It leaves you questioning the entire point of the journey, making all the sacrifices and suffering feel pointless. On top of that, the story makes the outrageous writing choice to let one of its most vile antagonists get away with everything, facing no real consequences. It only made me question what kind of a person the mangaka is.
Overall, Bokurano is a manga with a 10/10 concept that is hobbled by some 3/10 execution choices. It’s a grim, compelling read with a fantastic core story but you have to wade through some of the most forced, edgy, and poorly written character arcs imaginable to get to the good stuff, only to be rewarded with a confusing and unsatisfying ending. Still worth a read though, if you can ignore the mess at the start.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 4, 2025
The story kicks off with a great concept. We have this dude living out of his car, a man who is clearly on the run from a past he’s desperate to forget but is also obsessed with. He gets approached by a weird medical student who offers him a large sum of money to undergo trepanation. The protagonist, needing the cash to save his car agrees. After the procedure he starts seeing things. He can now perceive the "homunculi" of other people, bizarre and grotesque visual representations of their inner traumas, insecurities, and distorted psyches. This power, or curse, becomes the lens through which the
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story explores its themes.
The first half of the manga is basically a series of vignettes where the main character uses his ability to "solve" the problems of the people he meets all while his own sanity slowly unravels. This section is essentially a massive social commentary. And while it’s good, I gotta be honest, at times it feels a bit pretentious. It feels like a manga that’s desperately trying to be a deep social study but the author can't always pull off the intelligence required making it feel shallow. It was good, but it wasn't exceptional and it bored me at times.
But after the halfway point, the manga gets so much better. The story pivots away from the broad, case-of-the-week social commentary and dives headfirst into the protagonist’s own fucked-up past and the central mystery of his identity. This is where it goes from a good manga to a very, very good one. The last stint of the story is amazing, focusing on the main character's relationships and how his perception of homunculi is intrinsically tied to his own broken sense of self. It becomes this twisted, compelling exploration of madness and memory that is way more engaging than the earlier parts.
Where Homunculus truly ascends to greatness is in the themes it explores, particularly concerning appearance and identity. This is one of the smartest manga I’ve ever read in how it structures its message. On a surface level, you could easily walk away thinking the moral is "looks are everything." Characters get plastic surgery and their lives seemingly improve; they gain status, attract partners, and become more social. It seems to scream that beauty is the answer. But if you have even a bit of reading comprehension, you see that the real message is the exact opposite. The protagonist’s obsession is with "feeling real," with being truly seen. He only achieves this fleetingly when he is at his ugliest, with another person he perceives as equally ugly. The characters who change their faces ultimately become empty, their new looks bringing them nothing but a hollow existence. It’s a brilliant deconstruction of our societal obsession with appearance.
In the end, Homunculus is an incredible piece of work that gets dragged down slightly by a weaker first half. It's maybe a tad overrated when it comes to the shock-value "disturbing" factor. The art is fantastic, with some truly amazing and unforgettable panels. A definite 9 out of 10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 1, 2025
This was my first work of Osamu Tezuka, meaning I had some expectations. This is the "god of manga," the "father of manga," the guy who basically laid the groundwork for the entire industry. So,when I picked up MW I was ready for something special. What I got was… interesting. It’s a hard work to pin down because it’s not some mind-blowing masterpiece but it’s also far from generic. The whole experience felt very reminiscent of reading Monster, just maybe even slower.
The story centers on this bizarre and deeply unsettling dynamic between two main characters: a Catholic priest wrestling with his guilt, and Michio Yuki,
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a beautiful, gender-bending serial killer who feels no emotion and seems to live only to commit evil acts. Their chemistry is the absolute core of the manga, and it’s a pretty fucked-up and fascinating thing to watch. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be doomed gay romance or what, but their connection is this weird, obsessive bond that reminded me of something like Hannibal. The priest is constantly trying to stop Yuki but every time Yuki is about to be caught or killed, the priest is the one who steps in to save him. The priest’s internal struggle is actually the more compelling part of the story, as you watch him get dragged deeper and deeper into this toxic relationship.
It’s a pretty disturbing work. Yuki’s actions are relentlessly cruel and the story doesn’t shy away from showing you just how depraved he is. For a while my main problem with the manga was that I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. There’s a story being told, sure, but the message is pretty hard to grasp. It clicked by the end though. This is a story about systemic evil. About how evil isn’t just an individual trait but something that is born from corrupt systems and powerful people. Yuki is basically nihilism and pure evil personified, a monster created by a world that is just as monstrous. In that regard I think Tezuka succeeded in getting his point across.
That being said, most of the manga for me was just… okay. The whole thing reads like it would make a pretty good live-action movie, but as a manga, it has some serious issues that are very much a product of its time. The art is simple. It's not bad, it gets the job done, but it’s nothing to write home about. The biggest problem, by far, is the pacing. This might be the slowest manga I have ever read, mostly because it is just relentlessly bogged down by dialogue. It can be a real slog to get through at times. The ending was also just okay. It was fine.
Ultimately the most interesting thing about MW is seeing how it probably inspired later works, especially Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. You can see so much of Johan’s DNA in Michio Yuki. As a first dip into Tezuka’s massive library, it was a solid 7/10. It definitely feels like a work from a master, but it’s also flawed and dated in ways that are hard to ignore. It didn't blow me away like I might have hoped but it was unique enough that I’m definitely not turned off from reading more of the god of manga’s work. I just know this probably isn’t his best.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 31, 2025
You hear about certain manga being "classics" or "pillars of the industry" all the time. People tell you that you have to read them to see how they influenced everything that came after. Most of the time, I read those works and while I can appreciate them, I can't always see the direct line of influence they supposedly have. It feels more like a history lesson than anything else. With Devilman it's the complete opposite. It's so obvious why this thing is an icon. From the very beginning I had absolutely no doubt in my mind why this is one of the most influential and
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crucial manga ever created, because it is just flat-out fantastic.
Dude, this is a manga from the 70s and it feels like I'm reading something that was way, way ahead of its time. It feels like it should have come out in the 90s at the absolute earliest. It’s genuinely revolutionary. The art is definitely a product of its era, you can see that, but it never feels dated in a bad way. It’s really enjoyable and the style is incredibly effective. Some of the demon designs are so out there and creative that you can immediately see the DNA of later series in them. I'm pretty sure you can draw a straight line from some of these designs to the stuff Togashi would later do in Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho. You can just feel the sheer amount of inspiration that countless other stories, like Berserk, must have drawn from this single work.
The story itself is just really good. It starts with this weird but cool concept of a dude merging with a demon to become the titular Devilman, and from there it just explodes into a full-on war between demons and humanity. The escalation is insane, and it’s packed with so many moments and ideas that feel foundational to the darker side of the manga industry. The writing and characters are also so good, especially for the time. They're not the most complex characters ever written by today's standards, but they are incredibly effective and, again, feel years ahead of their time. The writing for the women is, well, a product of the 70s, but that’s a flaw you just have to accept with a lot of older works.
What really makes Devilman stand the test of time though, is how unbelievably brutal it is, not just in its violence, but in its themes. This manga was clearly a foundational text for showing just how dark and merciless a story can be. It’s not just about demons being evil; in fact Devilman’s biggest and most powerful statement is that humans don’t need demons to become monsters. The way it explores the absolute worst parts of human nature is what makes it so chilling and so timeless. That message hasn’t aged a single day.
The story builds to an ending that is just… wow. While some parts of the final stretch can feel a little bit rushed, the ultimate conclusion is so thematically powerful that it doesn’t even matter. This isn’t just some great manga FOR ITS TIME; it’s a great manga, period. It’s a classic that not only shaped an entire industry but also managed to be a masterpiece that has aged phenomenally well. It’s a must-read, not just for a history lesson, but because the story itself is just that damn good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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