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Jan 5, 2024
Ping Pong is a philosophical exploration of what motivates people to undertake, well, anything. Some do it to kill time, some for the camaraderie, some chase after a romantic ideal, and some do it because they cannot bear failure, and so on. It starts off brilliantly, laying out the characters that exemplify this or that facet of competition, what they look like if mapped onto a spider chart, how they interact with each other, reconcile contradictions and mature.
However, as competitors drop out of the race and we approach the final reckoning, the manga also gradually becomes a slide show of flashbacks, action shots, symbolism, romantic
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one-liners, repeated mantras, and uh, believing in the heart of the cards. It does a better job than the animated version of build up and establishing the training timeline, a years worth of blood, sweat and yada yada, but the payoff still feels unconvincing. After all, there's only so much resolution and meaning one can fit into a one day regional qualifier tournament, and the manga ends immediately afterward. The mise en place is painstakingly prepared, but then gets all tossed together and doused with shounen spirit.
Even with multiple reads and me trying to be charitable, I can't see the art in the ending. The entire time we are wondering what Smile is chasing after and what it will take to resolve his adolescent angst, and the reveal or lack thereof makes you feel like his story wasn't worth telling. If done right, Ping Pong would have been a far more iconic sports manga classic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 29, 2023
A josei slice of life. My first encounter with Kouno Fumiyo's work, and best I think, because it's more subtle and playful than her war themed manga. It's been years, but I find Nagai Michi unforgettable because the dynamic between Michi and her incorrigible husband Sosuke is one of a kind, and of another time. Supposedly based off Kouno and her real husband, Michi the heroine is sort of clumsy, hapless young woman but can be quite shrewd when she wants to. Her arranged husband is a ne'er-do-well who accepts himself and shows his kindness by not expecting too much from Michi either. Together they
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make an odd but mutually understanding pair. Michi does pull most of the domestic weight, but she accepts this arrangement because she signed the marriage form first to chase after love lost- another man who happened to live in the same area as Sosuke, and Sosuke is aware of this.
The chapters cycle between surreal daydreams, comedic tales of Sosuke's scumminess, poverty, Michi's (mis)adventures, moments where she shows her mettle, and a few genuinely sweet memories. Some chapters are completely sans text, change the drawing style, and have a markedly poetic quality to the paneling, showing off Kouno's creativity and visual storytelling strengths. The variety is a real treat to experience and somehow perfectly appropriate as Michi and Sosuke grow inseparable despite the odds.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Dec 19, 2023
Chiisakobee by Mochizuki is an adaptation of an Edo era novel of the same name, but from what I can gather, Mochizuki has changed the primary conflict and a lot of the characters. The 1964 movie adaptation's synopsis, if it's the more faithful adaptation, suggests a plot revolving around a scrooge-type ML being shown the meaning of life by the FL and her dozen orphans she's taken under her wing. In Mochizuki's version, the focus is on persevering with dignity against what life throws at you despite feelings of inadequacy.
I have only read his earlier work Tokyo Kaido, but not his even earlier Dragon
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Head. According to the author, Chiisakobee marks his full commitment to writing manga the way he wants to, as opposed to what he thinks readers will like, with Tokyo Kaido being like a declarative meta-commentary. Some have described the new style as Wes Anderson-esque, but I disagree. If some artsy framing/paneling is all it takes, one could also compare Chiisakobee to Napoleon Dynamite's opening.
Instead, what Mochizuki seems to be doing, with his flat, clean art, bold lines with almost no shading, dialogue panels that often exclude the face of the speakers, and frequent camera cuts to various body parts, household objects, and the surroundings, is telling us to not be distracted by the unimportant details, and think about the macro. It's not just a pleasant distraction or for showing off. It forces you to be mindful, read between the lines, interpret his symbolism, and the panels saved by not obliging to draw the talking heads over and over is well spent fleshing out the material world of Chiisakobee despite its simple conflict and short length. The style keeps you on your toes and rewards re-reads. On some reads I find some developments too punctuated, but tasteful on other occasions. The dialogue is intelligent and edited to only include the meaningful conversations, so it's an interesting, almost ceremonial, manga all around and has a timeless quality to it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 4, 2023
Soremachi is a manga I find myself coming back to every few years. Why? It's a comedic slice of life told in non-linear format, jumping all over Hotori's 3-year high school timeline, but that doesn't sound particularly interesting. However upon each re-read, I am drawn in by the richness of the world that is Soremachi, and hypnotized by the unique storytelling. I would say the manga hits the ground running, but the episodic plots never get exciting enough to be called fast-paced. Instead, what I mean is that due to the non-linear structure, Ishiguro wastes no time with introductions and starts as if we already
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have several volumes worth of familiarity with the characters. In lieu of standard introductions, we jump immediately to their character-defining episode. Instead of waiting for another opportunity to return and develop a side character further, we skip the predictable formalities and right to the funny -and believable- tomfoolery they engage in with Hotori. Although this feels like cheating, it works, in no small part thanks to the copious omake in between chapters, adding humorous context, continuity to character personalities, giving closure, and greasing the clutch as gears are shifted. Ishiguro goes above and beyond with the extras, adding classroom roster lists, made up alien language substitution ciphers, character trivia and notes, effortlessly immersing readers with lore and revealing how much of Soremachi was pre-developed from the start. Much like Hotori's persona, Soremachi is so charming and charismatic that it eases in right next to you without you realizing. Coupled with the non-linear episodes, reading it is like getting cozy while listening to a family friend regale you with stories from their childhood. The stories are frankly, forgettable, but they are associated with warm feelings and this demerit actually becomes a merit when you want to read it again.
Hotori's appetite for mystery provides ample opportunity for episodes to be told, excuses the supernatural, spooky events, and also ties together running plot lines spanning the first to the last volume. It's a great fit all around, and sets the bar for how ambitious the story is to be. The overarching "concern," if we can call it that, of Soremachi is how Hotori will turn out, being a klutz who worries everyone around her. However, due to the described structure, it's not a coming-of-age story. Instead, what we get is a medley of situations when Hotori is the fool, when she is competent and mature, and a majority of when she's in between the two. It's not clear how she changes- she just gradually reduces the number of really dumb mistakes she makes, like chopping up a gifted $1000 fountain pen because she wanted to attach a magnifying glass to a pen. This approach makes resolution a bit boring, but the upside to this is that Soremachi doesn't overstay its welcome and can afford to dedicate the entire last volume, 16, as an epilogue for all its secondary characters, something exceedingly rare. As mentioned, Soremachi's pacing is deliberate and reassuringly consistent, so even the epilogues feel natural, everyday, and merely good notes to end on. Overall the manga's value proposition offers moderate highs and virtually no lows, and so if this kind of story is up your alley, then you get to enjoy a singularly smooth ride beginning to end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 25, 2023
LOGH is a space sci-fi set over 1500 years into the future, but is noticeably inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, set 1800 years in the past. The author Tanaka is apparently very into Chinese history and has translated a couple of classical chinese texts himself, and apropos, LOGH reads like a projection of Chinese history onto the cosmos, despite the obvious borrowing of German aesthetics.
I dug into the novels with high expectations, as I was tired of reading unambitious and gimmicky light novels, and on that front, LOGH paradoxically both delivered and disappointed. Starting with the good: the scope of active players, their
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motivations and intrigues, their interactions with each other, were indeed complex and believable. With such a large cast, Tanaka did a fine job of choreographing the actors on and off the stage. Particularly impressive were the contrasting parallels of Yang and Reinhard, whose trajectories and struggles were so unique to themselves that they did not seem to belong in the same book, much less as rivaling protagonists. Tanaka demonstrated the typical Japanese aptitude of retro-futurizing, unraveling the ROTK storyline and reweaving it with European and sci-fi elements into something aesthetically pleasing and almost completely original. I doubt most readers or watchers of the anime realize how much the plot rhymes with TK's, but even if you are aware of it, it won't negatively affect your experience. There are no issues with forced Japanese elements, which is common to characters in Japanese stories in a non-Japanese setting, in fact the cosmopolitanism completely excluded Japan, minus, I believe, one quote or historical reference. Tanaka did a good job of writing a post-national, post-racial story. It was certainly the level of maturity I was looking for.
Before moving onto the bad, I want to mention the translation, or its inconsistency. The English translation features three different translators. Huddleston, who is credited on the volumes 1, 2, 3, and 7, was passable. I would occasionally lose focus reading longer paragraphs and have no idea what I just read, but this was not frequent, until the next translator, Grillo. With Grillo, who worked on volumes 4, 5, and 6, this became a constant struggle, which is quite unfortunate because 4-6 was in the thick of it. The last translator, Treyvaud, who did the remaining 8-10, brought a noticeable improvement to legibility, but by then, the plot was already winding down.
LOGH has several weaknesses. It doesn't offer anything new, whether to sci-fi, to its inspiration ROTK, or to the political ideologies that it so heavily depends on for the plot. Democracy, the raison d'etre of Yang's faction, felt like a cheap pastiche Tanaka was using to move the plot, and in the end, only quibbles were made about its importance and weaknesses relative to its alternatives. The sci-fi elements were also unimaginative. Besides FTL travel, the only other progress humanity has made is in the discovery of "Seffle particles," a highly volatile gas(?) that explodes when disturbed. Aside from a few tactical uses in battles, the sci-fi setting was utterly barren, and actually frustrating how primitive technology had remained.
Additionally, the narration became increasingly grating over time. It had a habit of repeating character descriptions and backstories with slight rewordings every time they appeared. By the 9th volume, I was so irate at minor character bantering with each other as if to confirm their personalities, at the expense of timely closure, I considered reading the spoilers just to be done with it. The omniscient narration itself would also semi-spoil you with what was to happen, and often slipped into documentary mode by inserting passages from the characters' future memoirs into what was currently unfolding. It was frustrating for how self-indulgent it was, while giving readers dread of what was inevitably going to happen. Once the fates decided a character was done, they were stripped of their previous agency and forced to drink the hemlock. Too many of the prominent players were conveniently killed off in a short span to force the conclusion that suspension of disbelief failed.
Ultimately, LOGH took the easy way out. It was a jack of all trades, master of none, and didn't finish any of its essays. The tactical battles were very exciting, but without a convincing thesis to all the ups and downs, it shot its own legacy in the foot. It was a chore to read and not interesting enough to warrant revisiting.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 3, 2023
"Why are we here? Just to suffer?"
-80% of characters in Hidamari no Ki
I’m not sure if its Tezuka’s style or typical of that era, but Hidamari no Ki (HnK) is certainly a historical fiction that subverts
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expectations. When Tezuka’s characters are foreshadowed to head down one path, God’s (Tezuka’s) hand invariably has other plans for them. At the very start of the manga, Ryoan the doctor and Manjiro the samurai are set up to be prodigies of sort. Manjiro immediately kills 3 swordsmen without formal sword training, while Ryoan is an early adopter of western medicine and skillfully sutures up a wounded Manjiro without any surgical experience. However, we’re quickly reminded of the historical part of the story, and those expectations are derailed by bigger incidents. This repeats throughout the entirety of HnK. As expected of Edo Japan, many suffer tragic, brutal twists, with dreadful amounts of sexual violence against women in the first half. It may have been necessary to blackpill readers about the futility of struggling against a whimsical fate, but it felt suspiciously gratuitous at times.
The further I got into HnK, the more impressed I was by its consistency with the historic timeline. While I can’t say I’m familiar with Japanese history, the protagonists’ interactions with many important historical figures appeared seamless and logical, after reading Wikipedia page intros on said figures. If you’re interested but not intimately acquainted with modern Japanese history, wanting to find out what happens next makes it a real page turner, and I was able to grasp, and even sympathize with, the factionalism and contradictions leading up to the Boshin War and following the Meiji Restoration.
I enjoyed how the realism also applied to the way the protagonists were developed, or were not developed! Real life challenges are messy; they rarely if ever perfectly match what a character needs for growth to create an elegant, packaged, character arc. As cliché as messages of “it can’t be helped” are in Japanese media, I empathized with the numerous characters who were competent and ahead-of-the-curve, yet ended up stalling out due to macro-environmental changes.
Lastly, HnK includes noticeable commentary on humankind. It reminds us of how far humanity has come, when up to a century prior, surviving cholera outbreaks was still more or less luck of the draw. Yet, with much drama between the smallpox vaccination proponents and their fierce opponents, it also prophetically asserts how the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the same vein, it presents a disillusioned take on “great man” theory, showing the individual ronin, samurai, doctors, and conscripted farmers, all dying for somebody else's cause, only to have their achievements rendered inconsequential by time. Instead, the few with flexibility, and more importantly, luck on their side, shall inherit the country. Overall, Hidamari no Ki provides valuable perspective that manages to mirror the hustle and bustle of today, even 40 years after it was written. Although the story is exasperating and the plot is almost random, the character development via trauma is apropos, and the subtle advice on living the good life is appreciated.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 2, 2022
Machida-kun no Sekai is a pièce de résistance in the first half. A jesus-like protagonist delivering therapy in every interaction is difficult to write without feeling like hamfisted wholesomeness, but mangaka Andou Yuki manages to pass effortlessly by surrounding the ML with a perceptive support network that has adapted to his MC powers. In between highlight reels of Machida killing new characters with his kindness, these old hands step in to fill in the gaps, providing reaction, observation, and context to Machida’s humanist views, as well as lampshading Machida’s outrageousness in an humorous but realistic way. They are the real magic of Machida-kun and are
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what sell the story, and without them, Machida would come across more as a walking fortune cookie dispenser. Also, the mangaka is outstanding at drawing apt reaction faces, one of my favorite and underrated qualities in an artist.
However, if you were to rank every chapter-lesson by their punch, it’s obvious that the earlier chapters just hit different. By the end of volume 4 or chapter 14, the new character per chapter approach starts to become stale. The lessons are less inspired, more fortune cookie-ish, and most importantly, lack the level of integration of older characters previous chapters had because they involve only Machida plus one. They also strain credulity with how willing strangers are to show vulnerability and open up about their base desires. The later chapters aren’t offensive, but they lack elevation to stand above similar manga. It coasts along on earlier momentum and keeps you interested mostly by regularly going back to the romance development, and subtly showing the passage of time as chapters are weeks or months apart in story.
Instead of growing the cast wider, I would have preferred sequel stories with earlier characters, who stopped existing outside brief cameos in the last chapter. The aunt provided a particularly powerful earlier chapter and should have been followed up before the ending. A lesson with the “wingman” trope Sakae, who was relegated to story facilitation and immune to Machida, may have been interesting. If nothing else, less panels would have been wasted in backstory for throwaway characters. At the end of the day, it’s a short and sweet (but not overly so) manga that leaves a memorable impression.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 5, 2022
Finishing Akira left me breathing a huge sigh of relief, not satisfaction. There's no getting around it, the manga is shockingly bad given its repute. Akira felt like one gigantic action sequence without ever stopping for a breath. It reminded me of the Æon Flux short "War," only extended into an insufferable 120 chapters. It was a huge chore following the paneling, and simply action for the sake of reaction ad nauseum. Characters ranged from forgettable to erratic, and the lore of the Akira world was nonexistent beyond its synopsis. Do not expect anything more than detailed backgrounds of destruction and rubble here.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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May 15, 2022
PBR is a bizarre fantasy-action-drama that stands out in this age of JRPG isekai. The worldbuilding and premise is a frankensteined mess that grabs whatever it pleases from other other settings, refuses to elaborate, and moves on. It's got humans, witches, demi-humans, talking dogs, Oni, demons, and angels, all as distinct agents to the plot. From JRPG it's got the generic fantasy continent, human vs non-human strife, swords and magic. From Naruto comes magical eyes and from Attack on Titan, a revenge-obsessed edgelord that would make Eren Yeager blush. Humans with the Geass are granted almost total physical immunity against Oni (which are apparently born
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of human hatred), and can one-punch (exorcise) even the strongest Oni, but these powers are useless against non-Oni creatures, like a card effect from MTG. The Oni on the other hand, are the primary antagonists and have shamelessly devil fruit-like powers. The human exorcists move the plot, traveling around the continent, one obsessed with genocide, the other one crusading for a peaceful coexistence between the races, while the Oni cabal/World Government manipulates them on their chess board.
Sound fascinating? It gets even better. From an episodic story telling perspective, PBR is stupidly good. The foreshadowing, the pacing, the character dialogue, the little details in the panels, the suspense building, the cliffhangers, they are all excellent. But what pushes it into insanely good territory, is the quality never drops, unlike most works that start strong but then coast off their readers' investment. It's as if every chapter treats itself as the first chapter of a shounen. You can test this yourself. Open up a random chapter and you will notice it doesn't require you to already know or care about the plot, to communicate the weight of the pages. This alone makes PBR worth reading as a case study for storytelling.
Tragically, outstanding storytelling makes not an outstanding story. As hinted by its unapologetic premise, GBR struggles to synthesize those chapters into something greater than the sum of its parts. The prioritization of every chapter being exciting on its own legs demotes the overarching narrative to the backseat, which would still work, as in Konosuba, if there wasn't simultaneously, an obvious build up toward the Final Battle. If every character interaction has to feel profound, they all end up blending together. If every deuteragonist and tritagonist needs to have their struggle and redemption arc, then who cares about the angst in this chapter, if we know everything will be peachy within one or two episodes? The weak protagonist motivations stand out like two sore thumbs and are baffling-ly low-effort in contrast to the rest of the work, and rather than subverting expectations by confronting and leveling up the protagonists' banal ideologies, their developments have been ironically neglected so long it would be awkward to address now.
Written by Cool, who is better known for his misfit-SoL works, PBR is a surprising but welcome genre swerve, as it manages to be both refreshingly eccentric, and moderately ambitious. Although I heavily criticized the paradoxical storytelling that is at odds with its narrative, it is at the end of the day only 50-some chapters in thus far, and has plenty of time still to fix its flaws. If you enjoy stories at the creative level, then PBR is surely great food for thought. If not, there are still plenty of worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 18, 2022
Gokusen is a feminist riff on GTO. Daughter of a powerful yakuza gang become teacher to a (all-male) class of bad apples. The protagonist isn't pervy and there's two male romantic interests, but the formula is much the same: a random hoodlum decides to mess with our demure looking sensei or her beloved students, and she opens a can of whoop-ass to save the day. With a cast of yakuza and yakuza-tolerant characters, there's plenty of idiosyncrasies to go around for running gags.
Gokusen takes its time, meandering, so don't expect to binge thru the 150 chapters. The story and drama are light, each "lesson"
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lasting no more than a few chapters. It won't take your breath away, but it's got solid story-telling chops and knows to juggle the characters well enough that side characters have continuity to their own lives. Don't take it too seriously, as Gokusen features talking dogs in the side stories and lines which are referenced later in the main chapters. These side stories are pretty funny though and add a lot of charm to the usually stoic characters.
The biggest draw to Gokusen, though, has to be our female protagonist. Despite possessing boring shounen traits like a strong sense of justice and being dense, she simply oozes confidence. Looking like a Japanese Angelina Jolie in glasses and a ponytail, she is unfazed by everything but romance, and her no-nonsense attitude and mature competency work extremely well allowing the manga to stand out despite coming after GTO. It's refreshing for a female lead to be the one not taking any shit and going around delivering comeuppance, like some light novel protagonist. And since she isn't pervy, the gag set ups are a bit more varied and allows the side characters to shine in the comedy department.
Overall, Gokusen is a charming manga you can recommend to someone who might find GTO distasteful and over the top. It's an odd dichotomy where the female lead has such an iconic design and personality, while everyone else looks like background characters in a delinquent manga. While the chapters are many and the characters mostly forgettable, this could actually be a boon for rereads and enjoying the adaptations. Read it for the main character, and stick around for the good times.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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