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Book reviews
Koe no Katachi
Koe no Katachi
Koe no Katachi
Koe no Katachi review
Koe no Katachi
Apr 16, 2021
Koe no Katachi review
The path of redemption by the male lead was done very well. Regardless of the male lead's intention to change, selfish or otherwise, he tried and did change. Both leads drove the story and carried most of the other characters. Why the low rating, tough?

The other characters that bullied the leads did not change at all, but somehow the author wanted us to feel sorry for them. The only reason they were interacting with the leads was because the male lead went out of his way to talk to a few of them. As the story progressed, it seems that it was the victim's fault for all the bullying. I understand victims of bullying maybe able to prevent it if they stand-up for themselves, but it could make it worse. After the constant bulling on the female lead, she finally told the adults, but it made it worse. Later on, one of the characters mentioned that it was the female lead's fault for getting the adults involved. After reading further, I began to think the author wanted us to blame the victim. When the male lead called-out the bullies on his group, they started blaming him and the male lead felt he did it to isolate himself. After completing the story, I still can not understand how the leads are able to befriend those terrible people, at least the male lead changed. Both victims of lead wanted to commit suicide at one point, but the bullies themselves lived alright and only blamed others. With the exception of the male lead, the story seemed to teach bullying is okay as long as you blame others and eventually the victims will forgive you. The teacher himself was involved in bullying indirectly, and did not change either.
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Death Note
Death Note
Death Note
Death Note review
Death Note
Apr 16, 2021
Death Note review
*NO SPOILERS*

Death Note is a series that I hold very dear because it illustrated to me that anime/manga can be very smart, clever and at the same time, enjoyable.

When I first read the series, I loved it and considered it a masterpiece; I wouldn't do the same thing now, but it's still a great series.

The series itself is very clever in nature and is very original. It has great use of literary devices such as foreshadowing which can be seen in the first chapter, great character development, and several red herrings peppered throughout the series. The mangaka duo, Ohba and Obata, seem to change Shounen manga series each time they write a series. With Death Note, they delivered a great complex mystery thriller that is a great gateway for people who generally don't like manga or anime.

Story:
I really liked the cat-and-mouse game between L and Light. Each battle was extremely intense, and each genius always was attempting to outclass the other. The subsequent arcs were very methodical in nature and greatly planned out. The whole story basically questioned your morals and whether or not you thought it was right to kill criminals to create a utopia in a extremely hypocritical manner. The second half is much weaker than the first half as an important happens that changes the course of the story; the second includes two very prominent but weak characters who seem to be duplicate L's. That's it; it was as if you took the "logical" side of L and turned that into a character, and his "emotional" side and turned that into a character resulting in two very bland characters: Near and Mello respectively.

Characters:
First we have L. L was an amalgamation of everything odd with humans. He was an extremely paranoid individual who really didn't know how to present himself in society whilst at the same time being so incredibly intelligent that many people considered him to be one of the smartest in the world. He was pretty cool with his weird quirks, BUT he was also pretty bland, almost only there to move the plot forward with his plans against Light. On the other hand, we have Light Yagami. A genius high-school student who goes through a mental rewiring once he basically attained absolute power. Each is essentially the polar opposite of the other, as Light is clean, presentable and neat, while L is a "mad-genius". The cat-and-mouse games between the two geniuses were so cleverly done that in order to outclass the other, you would have to secretly kill people while eating potato chips. Yes, potato chips.

Basically what I got from L and Light was that if wants to be so intelligent, then that person must border on insanity. This was exemplified through the actions of both individuals.

Near and Mello were very poorly handled, and I think it's an unfortunate result of Shueisha insisted on continuing the story of Death Note; Tsugumi Ohba possibly felt that the series was coming to a close after the death of a certain character. Either way, I personally didn't like the characters or the subsequent second halves as much as I did with the first half.

Art:
Obata does an amazing job with his crisp drawings of all of the buildings and character designs. With his great understanding of human proportions, you have great scale drawings of humans and the shinigami.

Overall, Death Note is a great series with amazing art, an amazing first half, an OK cast of main characters, and one hell of ride. The pacing can get sporadic at times during the second half, but the aforementioned cat-and-mouse games and great use of literary techniques and themes makes up for it.

*Congratulations if you got through my incoherent review!
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Fullmetal Alchemist
Akira
Akira
Akira
Akira review
Akira
Apr 14, 2021
Akira review
Akira is a classic.
I can only imagine how revolutionary it was for its time.
My biggest complains I have with the manga are that while it may had been breathtaking with its storytellling and characters on the 80/90's, and I did enjoyed the characters and apocalyptic scenario, both these just dont felt that amazing anymore in the current days.
The theme of Akira's was well explored, the whole death/life sci fi stuff was awesome, but the characters... with time I came to enjoy them more, but if I had to point Akira's main weakness, it would be those.
I can connect with Kaneda and the others, even Tetsuo (later on), but overall they werent that appealing.
And again, the story had some very interesting plotwists and events, but it also had some more boring arcs, so expect it, but it is interesting, and when it goes out of proportions, IT BLOWS IT SKY HIGH!

The best damm thing about Akira is the art! For its time, it is outstading, detailed, massive, clean, sharp and the action scenes are quite great.
I cant praise the manga enough in this category, it is that artisticly good.
From the gore, the pumping detailed action(great set pieces of action, some very massive and epic in scale, at least for its time), to the beautiful landscapes, ugly decaying city, full of dirt, rubble and dust...
Otomo Katsuhiro's hands are godlike with pencil, the guy is that good.
Still at this day and age, the art is just stunning beautifull, it still feels classic, but has that charm and detail to it.
I would reccomend reading the Epic version, which comes in full colours, 37 chapters, 70 pages per chapter, FULL COLOUR!
Its quality is quite good.
There will be some that will prefer to go with the classic black and white, for those... I do understand, but just think of the colour has some great extra, that you will enjoy to check out, after you have readed with original.
Seeing it drawned with the rich pallete of colours epic used, it feels like you are watching an artbook.

The manga itself (it or without colours, is already) a giant artbook! Add it
a solid and mature plot, interesting character development, amazing action scenes, and a great setting.
The Sci Fi aspect is great, I was pleasently surprised with all the phylosophy and other themes that the mangaka was bold to keep and keep exploring, again, and again, while keeping it real and interesting.

When you hear people talking about the classic manga Akira, all the praise, fear not, it is really a masterpiece that aged very well with the times.
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VAMPIRE GIRL
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU review
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU
Apr 13, 2021
KYOUSEI HAREM KEIYAKU review
*This Review may contain Spoilers*

This was a classic case of good idea, terrible execution. It is a pseudo harem with 5 girls and the main character as the guy, but it doesn't get much into romance or ecchi.

Story (4/10): The story was spastic. It starts off with a fun harem promise of 1 guy trying to date 5 girls to stop their deaths and the death of his sister, and a interesting story gimmick of precognitive dreams. The MC is motivated and skilled, and rapidly gains the attention of the first girl, and they hint romantic interest. Similar case with the second and third one.

Then they rapidly drop 90% of the romantic part of the harem. Then the story proceeds to off the deep end, with murderous mascots with freddy powers to kill in dreams, mysterious dream doctors, robot suits, and magic dream powers. In the end, it is a happy ending, but a rushed ending, and feels like tying up loose ends by soaking them in superglue and bundling them together.

It loses all coherence and just goes for action, and characters and plot are just thrown aside. The third girl's plot arc is thrown aside for contrived intrigue, and has little romantic harem interest, and the 4th and fifth girl barely get a plot arc, and their characters are left undeveloped and shallow. The villains feel like they don't know what the f*** they want to do, either. Overall, after the second girl, the plot kicks in, and the story collapses.



Art (4/10): I mean, it was OK most of the time, but occasionally head sizes, body proportions, and facial quality were so inconsistent that sometimes I felt like the main character had a gag face during the normal parts of the story. This was especially true towards the end.



Character (4/10): Don't judge the initial characters as the standard, this manga is exemplary at the art of going downhill. The MC started off strong. He had a strong sense of justice, an interesting power to see the future, and didn't lack any confidence. The first girl was a rich girl, but spirited and fun (and decidedly not a tsundere, unlike the norm for rich girls), with a fun bad cooking gimmick to add more character to her, and she likes to help the MC. The second girl was fun, with a interesting transformation from a simple looking but hard to read girl to an energetic idol, and she could gather animals to her like a disney princess.

Now remember all those things I just told you? Get rid of half of them. The main character loses confidence, becomes less passionate, and his dream powers become less useful. The first girl rarely ever uses her money for anything from the end of her arc onward. She never cooks ever since the first time. She loses her energy and becomes a background character for the MC. The second girl only uses her disney gimmick like twice, and she never transforms into the idol version after her arc.

On top of that, all characters introduced after the second arc are shallow and undeveloped. You have a cut and paste yakuza daughter who can call for backup, and little to no personality, and she rarely uses her backup. You have a feisty mech using girl, whose powers are largely unexplained, and feisty is about all the personality she has to her name. And the fifth girl... WAIT THERE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE 5 GIRLS! WE'RE MISSING ONE! Yeah, the fifth girl never shows up in the story at all, which was very mysterious to me.

As for the other characters, we have the sister, who is pretty boring until she gets a twist... whereupon she's boring and unlikeable. Then we have a mysterious doctor, who can access dreams... and they reveal... she's a doctor who can intervene in dreams! Yeah, that's pretty much the plot twist. And then you have a girl who gives the MC things that intervene in dreams... and it's revealed... she made things to intervene in dreams! Yep. Advanced plot twists.

As for enjoyment... 4/10. It would be 5/10 for most of the story, but it would be 2/10 for the end. I'll compromise.

Overall, I bet you can't guess... I give it... 4/10, because that seemed to be the number of the day. Can't recommend, because it feels like watching dreams get crushed, almost the same feeling... as if your childhood idols died in a car crash.
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DIRTY WORK
Dokumushi
Minasama no Omocha desu
Parallel Paradise
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