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Book reviews
One Piece
One Piece
One Piece
One Piece review
One Piece
Apr 17, 2021
One Piece review
This review will focus on the strengths in One Piece over other shonen manga and provide examples to support them, but less so on weaknesses in One Piece since they seem to be pretty obvious among the experienced manga readers.

First of all, characters. One Piece provides a strong cast of main protagonists with emotional backstories and unique characteristics. Each member in the crew doesn't overlap each other in terms of personality, appearance and abilities. Now you may think that is a common trait in all popular shonen manga but there's something different about One Piece.

There's consistency with the characters. Oda doesn't randomly make punchlines with his characters. The punchline is usually related to one's backstory. Usopp tells lies because he wanted his mother and people in the village to be happy; Nami loves money because she once had to steal money to save her people; Chopper loves when people praise him and he can't hide the pleasure when he try to because he has very low self esteem and refuses to befriend with others due to his trauma. He believes in everything Usopp says because he lacks life experience; Brook keeps cracking jokes because he had to keep lightening himself before he went insane when everyone in his crew died.......etc. It offers so much nuance to the characters when Oda put these comedic moments here and there.

Don't get me wrong. None of these character traits is exceptionally subtle. But when it comes to One Piece, it works incredibly well.

It is a manga with more or less the same main cast the cast only adds people but generally doesn't drop people. (If you don't count Vivi or Jinbei who didn't officially join.) This provides One Piece with a strong advantage. Oda can give a lot of nuance to the characters. While they go through different adventures, they react a wide range of different ways. Whether it be a escort mission of a ordinary, warm-hearted princess to her own country, a fantastic journey to the sky island or a slump of the crew where people leave for the greater good or for a small quarrel, strawhats seem don't run out of ways to interact with each other and with their adventures. This makes the cast incredibly fun to read. Also, Oda adds new members to the crew to keep the character dynamics among the crew fresh and fun. His wacky way to portray the characters fit perfectly with the vibe of the story.

Though One Piece suffers from a formulaic way to characterize new members by having everyone a tragic backstory in a flashback, the character development in the main story is interesting enough and their flashbacks are effective enough to make the characters work.

Next, let's talk about the story. It's obvious that the main protagonists are supposed to be unstoppable. Every arc it's very clear that strawhats would beat the villains and the conflicts are going to be resolved at the end of the arc because the story is progressed by having strawhats travelling to different places and meet new people and opposing forces. The same villain won't stick around for a long time. But One Piece is less about who's gonna win and rather focuses more on how they inspire people they encounter to fight for their lives and dreams. Though every arc follows a formula of strawhats meeting new people, knowing their lives suffer, then fighting for them. Lots of arcs tell a different story with a different theme with alasbasta being an escort mission, Jaya being how should men fight for their dreams, skypiea being a romantic story between two men, Water Seven being a romantic story between comrades by the disobedience of the tyranny etc.

The story does repeat itself after time skip. All in all Oda is still a human being, he runs out of ideas.

The art is probably the weakest aspect for One Piece. While the fight scenes feel powerful, the way Oda design the panels lacks fluency. From time to time when there is too much stuff in the panel, the drawing feels messy. The color covers are really good but they aren't related to the story.

Overall One Piece is a really exceptional manga for romantist who is looking for a story about friendship.


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Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling review
Solo Leveling
Apr 16, 2021
Solo Leveling review
The premise of Solo Levelling is very simple: A weak character with strong principles who obtains an unqiue ability of "levelling up" and improving his strength and skills in a relatively static environment where power levels are fixed. The Manwha constantly enforces this where we see him grow constantly and the comparisons and contrasts to other characters.


Story- 8/10
Once this is out of the way, we see the story revolve around this. There isn't too much in the story: the world-base is fascinating where we have "hunters" with supernatural powers who appeal (or seemingly) to the common good by ridding the world of monsters, typically through clearances of dungeons. Dungeons vary in difficultly based on ranks that correlate to the ranks and ability of hunters. The story starts out very intriguing giving the reader the glimpse of the real world dread of the story seeing the real glimpse of what a dungeon represents. The MC on the brink of the death manages to obtain a mysterious power- turning him from the weakest hunter into someone with unlimited potential. The story follows the MC with the pondering question of who or what the system is through the interaction of the interesting world. At this point, the story of the MC is average since we don't truly dive into the main plot points. It gets a boost for it's interesting arcs of exposition and environment.

Art- 10/10
The art is truly spectacular. The manwha clearly displays consistent, versatile effort with some of the most spectacular shots. There isn't much more to say.

Character- 8/10.
While we do see the MC change quite noticeably and gradually along the series the character does seem to lose some of it's intrigue and fleshiness glimpsed in the beginning of the series. Sure, the MC gets powerful along the way, but he quickly becomes quite bland and generic. To some this may appeal because it displays "being a badass" but often, there seems to be a divide over the series into the reader understanding him as a character such as his more vulnerable parts. Again that ties in to becoming more powerful, he is still likeable and grows but becoming stronger increases his confidence and we rarely now seem in his deathly or dire situations that show out his character. Perhaps this will happen in time.

Enjoyment- 10/10

Seriously, this Manwha is action packed to the max where every chapter seems to have amazing scenes. The thrill by the author of having more and more characters in an enormous world keeps an endless potential for readers to see both the aspects of the world itself and the MC's dynamics towards it. The best part? Every arc is worth it because we as the reader are rewarded with seeing the MC grow in power- new skills, skill point enhancement (think RPG), job classes, its always a thrill.

Overall- 10/10

This isn't everyones cup of tea. Solo Levelling definitely appeals to a more generic audience looking for amazing skills, abilities, monsters in an interesting setting with easier and quicker payoffs. The pacing set allows readers to never feel dull. Because of the many aspects of the world and character, readers can be captivated knowing each chapter is worthwhile.
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Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss
Made in Abyss review
Made in Abyss
Apr 15, 2021
Made in Abyss review
Now first i'll say I really enjoyed the anime.
The next thing i'll say is that I consider the manga a step down.

Put your pitchfork and torches down, I have my reasons.
1. Visuals
The manga has great visuals but sometimes the detail is so much that you pretty much can't see or understand what's happening, especially with all the concepts flying in and out.
The humanoid characters are drawn pretty well, the other characters are as if H.R. Giger became a furry. Phallic shapes everywhere with weird mutant fleshy deformities.

I guess that's nice, but it still confuses me and I wouldn't mind something a bit more ... normal, I guess?

2. Story
As I said, the concepts are tiresome.
The Bondrewd arch was great, but it was also very linear.
I also noticed that in this supposedly uncivilised world waiting to be explored they spend almost all of their time at some kind of shady bed and breakfast.

I wouldn't mind a little less towns and a little more cool world to explore.
I don't like me being showered with lore either. I don't care about that, I care about the world at hand. Not to mention we still haven't seen traces of Wakuna or Srajo.

I went into this expecting Dante's Inferno meets Girls Last Tour but instead I got Fallout: the manga, traveling from settlement to settlement and having to sit through epochs of fucking lore through conversation.

3. Character
I really like the characters. I could dive deeper into this but I complain better than I praise.
All I have to say is that the characters are diverse and well written. If you like femdom, I really recommend this series. I particularly liked the merchant fellow from the Narehate Village but he's pretty much the only good thing about that entire place.

4. Enjoyment
This manga can be tedious at times because of the incredibly slow pacing. You'd have to wait months to get a glimpse into this new cryptic story that ends in a cliffhanger. I wish I didn't have to rack my brain and quell my haste every time I tried to read this. Don't hold your breath folks, nothing spectacular really happens here.

Even the shock value has diminished.
"XD daddy's rod, aren't I edgy"
":DDD whip sexy naked kids"
"oh shit, it's the anarcho capitalist world DDD:"

I think that sums it up.
Don't enter this with high expectations. This really is quite mediocre, despite what contrarians will say, trying to show how open minded they are by following this new, avant-garde cringefest where the author tries to keep us entertained with the occasional shock.

I've been on the internet for too long for this to work on me.
Liveleak and Bestgore pretty much ruin this manga for anyone.
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JC NO LIFE
Hiai Mousou
CROSS EPOCH
Dokuzakura
Dokuzakura
Dokuzakura
Dokuzakura review
Dokuzakura
Apr 09, 2021
Dokuzakura review
As you can tell by watching at my profile, I'm not really the type of person that does reviews very often.. but after reading this manga, I though that the previous ones about it were pretty strict.
In fact compared to others manga of this period, or in general, it's not one of the worst. If you like thrillers, you may give it a check.

STORY - 7/10 (It might makes some little spoilers, but only about the plot in general)
I start saying that it's not that much original, but it isn't bad.
It has the typical base plot that you could expect by reading a thriller: somebody gets involved with something fishy and need to investigate on it, of course being suspected as well. In the story are mixed also some supernatural elements that are at the base of it. It also goes plenty on the route of an harem, in fact the protagonist has really an aptitude for girls.

ART - 8/10
It's a great art, I kinda like the style, although it's pretty used.

CHARACTER - 7/10
The main characters are five: the "protagonist" (the guy around whome the events happen) and four girls all connected with him. He isn't the classical MC of an harem, but he's pretty smart and not lost in his lust as too many of them nowdays. The girls are different between them, and everyone of them has got a resonable motivation to trust and stay near him.

ENJOYMENT - 7/10
It's good. Nothing special, but I'm happy that I started it, I'll keep follow the story. Obviously hoping for its success, and maybe a good anime adaption in the future.

OVERALL - 8/10
Eight because there're a lot of manga worse than it. And it's done pretty well.
It's only at its first chapters, so I don't know if it's going to become even better or to get bad, but take the review till it's now.
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Abara
Abara
Abara
Abara review
Abara
Apr 07, 2021
Abara review
After reading several of Tsutomu’s stories, I have come to the conclusion that the major flaw keeping me from enjoying any of them is the way the characters are presented and developed throughout the story. Short, long, it doesn’t seem to matter; the characters are introduced all at once and in a manner that makes it impossible to remember who is who. We get the names in roundabout ways without any characterization, making it very difficult to follow the plot. Abara is no exception.

This is because Tsutomu prefers to tell his stories using visuals rather than dialogue. Despite this, he does not flesh out any ways the reader could become attached or interested in the characters, even with the dialogue we have to work with.

The art is the high point of the manga. If I were to observe some of the pages as objective, apocalyptic, gritty stills, I would find them fascinating. Reading this as a coherent story, however, is just plain confusing. The motive of the characters is obscured, replaced by vague reasoning and urgency used to spur the action forward.

I understand that withholding information is a plot device, but Tsutomu keeps everything to himself but names and basic terms, leaving the reader with little beyond cryptic drawings to unearth some motive along the way. While people praise this as a “deep, psychological” manga, the reader simply has to work harder to uncover why anything is happening, hiding an exhausting guessing game behind psychological intrigue.

The author wanted to draw gritty, sci-fi-esque monsters and fight scenes, and the plot and characters were sacrificed because of that. Beautiful art aside, my score is low due to sloppiness. There was no reason why the author couldn’t add in a detail here or there to help the reader keep the characters in order and understand the plot.

I will say this: I am aware that I am impartial to character development and a fleshed-out story. If you don’t mind feeling a little confused or detached from the characters, this is a grungy and action-packed read that you may enjoy.
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Dead Tube
Dead Tube
Dead Tube
Dead Tube review
Dead Tube
Apr 06, 2021
Dead Tube review
Where do I begin with the mess that this manga's story is? As a person who doesn't like survival games, yet I have read a fair bit of Btoom...not sure if that is it's correct spelling or not, but I do not see any story in Dead Tube. Btoom is the only other survival game manga I have read which had a story. Dead Tube has a plot, but that is all it has. The plot being film gruesome scenes and get the most views. It's a good idea as a plot point, but not as a story.

And the "story" is hardly held together by the two main characters who at 33 chapters in haven't displayed any real kind of development aside from some dull moments of forced emotional distress. Adding to this, we also gain quite a few one off characters which are introduced during the arc and subsequently killed off in the same arc. Few characters have hung around long enough to see the next arc, but still no development even from them.

Even the villans hang around just long enough for their roll and then they die.

The point here is explaining why there is no story to this manga and why all the characters are more or less side characters and not main. There is no over arcing plot, unless you count the psycho girls backstory which we've gotten already. What is the point of Dead Tube? Seems it would be better suited as a case by case story, each chapter/arc being a new set of characters.

Now I've stray from the review a bit but only to show that this plot can be part of a good story, it's just horribly handle in this authors hands.

There are one or two interesting arc's within the manga but they are poorly done as I mentioned prior. Not to mention easily predictable. But if you are one for blood, gore, and lots of nakedness--as well as other bodily fluids that has decent art. Then this is the manga for you, just don't expect a story. It's just a bunch of killing.
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