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Oct 17, 2019
Interviews with Monster Girls is like a cuter version of Assassination Classroom.
The plot is focused around a teacher and his interactions with his three demi students and demi coworker. Demi's are a term used to describe human-like creatures like vampires, succubi and dullahans. It's fairly slice of life, with fairly regular high school events happening, with a bit of deeper thought on the demis sprinkled in here and there. If you look at it thematically, it's really just a story talking about fitting in to society even if you're different and about embracing what makes you similar yet unique from others. It's nothing ever too
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heavy, but it's a good lesson to teach. The series gives off a very light hearted vibe to it, with a bit of wholesome harem mixed in. It's comedy is alright, but the cuteness factor is what will really get you.
The characters are honestly nothing new, just a good guy teacher MC who cares for his students, outgoing girl, shy girl, single woman and the like. There is a little bit of development as each of them starts to think of what they want to do with their future, but nothing major. Overall they fit the style of the story well enough.
Overall, Interviews with Monster Girls is not something you would read to get some deep message or to see great character growth, but it does well as a light hearted read in between. No stakes attached, nothing serious, just a fun and fluffy read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 16, 2019
I'm not sure exactly what I expected when I decided to read Kids on the Slope. My only experiences with music in manga were Your Lie in April, which is a beautiful story about expressing oneself in music partnered alongside a story of redemption and hope, and Kono Oto Tomare, a more sports-like manga about appreciating music and playing in competitions. But Kids on the Slope was like neither of these two: it is a tumultuous character drama about friendship and love, with emotions swaying erratically back and forth like the jazz the characters love so much.
If I were to find a comparison to another
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piece of work, I'd say the closest thing I've read to this is Honey & Clover, which you could see as being either good or bad. Honestly, the sheer amount of drama and misunderstandings in this manga were really frustrating at times, and the speed at which problems would be solved only for new ones to appear was confusing. I found big parts of the story to be a bit tropey within the genre of drama, especially the characters, and I felt like there were a decent amount of things that didn't really need to be there for the story to work, kinda like how I felt about Honey & Clover. It just sounds like I'm bashing on Kids on the Slope a lot, but I find that a lot of my complaints with it are pretty prevalent in the genre as a whole. And even though there is a lot to complain about, I still found myself enjoying the manga a lot.
The reason why I still enjoyed the series even though there were so many things I disliked was because it felt so real and lifelike. I know that I'm prone to misunderstanding people, trying to take things into my own hands when I don't know the full story, and constantly thinking about little things that don't really amount to much. These are all issues the main character Kaoru has to deal with. The struggles of having to fight with your only good friends, missing them, making up, all of it is so human. In a medium where either idealized or self-insert characters are abundant, it's so refreshing to see such flawed characters. But they don't stay rooted in those flaws. They learn, grow, mess up, and stand back up again. Do you know what it feels like to have to give up on your dreams to pursue something you never wanted to do? I can relate. Ever put aside your own feelings so you could see your friends be happier? I know I have. I have trouble relating to people who have to use their special hidden power to go save the world or have their family killed so now they have to go get revenge on the ones who did it. But what I can relate to is getting together with a good friend just to do something we enjoy, and forget about all the problems I've been facing up to that point. What Kids on the Slope gets so right is that very human feeling of wanting relationships, seeing them break and grow, caring about others, getting mad and messing things up, running away only to be found again.
Kids on the Slope was by no means the most enjoyable story I've ever read. I really don't like crazy love polygons or drama filled events. But what it does give me is something I appreciate a lot: a reminder of how good it is to be with the ones I love. Because after all, "Friendship is forever".
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 12, 2019
Can you honestly ever make a strong argument for a harem manga? Nisekoi is one of my favorite harem manga both objectively and subjectively, but how can you tell it apart from every other harem out there?
Nisekoi is a romcom harem manga with the catch that the MC Raku, the son of the yakuza boss, has to pretend to date the daughter of the mafia in order to keep the two groups from fighting. Along the way, other girls pop into the circle and all end up falling in love with Raku. The manga is generally very slice of life, with many chapters just representing
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a single day in the lives of these high schoolers, but each character does end up getting one or two arcs dedicated to them. This is where Nisekoi does so much better than a lot of other harem manga. A lot of the harem manga I've read are largely plot-less or are littered with incoherent plot points that serve no purpose to the overall story or characters. Most of the major plot points in Nisekoi help to expand upon characters and their relationships while also building up good chemistry between each girl and Raku.
Another thing to mention here is that Nisekoi doesn't rely on using naked women or ecchi situations to keep its reader's attention. Rather, it relies more on making the reader understand each character and their motivations, and couples that with a lot of comedy to boot. So in this way, it moves out of the rankings of just harem manga and can be considered a decent story in a more general sense.
When you talk about characters in a harem manga, a lot of it comes down to preference. Some people really enjoy certain tropes while others hate them, and I happen to be the type of person to like the characters in Nisekoi. I actually enjoy almost every character introduced in terms of personality or story. Even the side characters have flavor and their own arcs dedicated to them. Yes it is true that they are not the most rounded or deep characters, and that they don't change a ton throughout the story, but I'd argue that its excusable since the harem genre really doesn't need them to be. They're just so much better than all the characters in other harems though, since they do have history and a bit of depth to them. If you don't like tsunderes though, I would suggest you not read this.
Art-wise I actually quite like the style. A lot of the character designs are fairly memorable and the quality of the drawing is pretty consistently good throughout. Personally, I also really like the style of comedy where characters' faces are drawn more in detail or are really over-exaggerated, so seeing that in this manga is a plus.
That being said, there are still a few downsides to Nisekoi. The first is that there are a decent amount of fluff chapters that don't add too much to the story, but rather are there to just pad the time. Also, the sheer amount of people getting interrupted when they are about to confess is also something that gets annoying at times, but it's a necessarily evil for harem manga honestly. There is also a lot of missed opportunities to use the character's relations to the mafia, yakuza, police force, etc to make more interesting situations for the characters to experience. Sometimes, the switch between slice of life and progressing the plot was a bit forced too, but it's honestly not too bad of a problem.
Overall, Nisekoi was a really enjoyable read. Though it's not one of those 'analytical' reads that you can break down and say what's good about it and whatnot, the amount of fun you can have while reading it more than makes up for that. You're given reasons to care about the characters, the chemistry between them is shown well, and the story doesn't rely on naked girls to gather a following. Just when I was beginning to believe there was no good harem manga out there, I found Nisekoi and it gave me hope for a dying genre. Of course, a lot of your opinions on a harem are gonna be based off of who you like and dislike, but I think Nisekoi shows its worth as a competent story above all of that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 10, 2019
To Love-Ru Darkness improves upon a lot of the things that were wrong in the original series, though that isn't too hard to do honestly.
Assuming you have already read the prequel, this manga is a continuation of the story, but it features something new and exciting: a plot. The first 2/3rds of it is focused more on the history behind Golden Darkness and her managing to change who she was fated to be. It was a great breath of fresh air for those coming off of the original series because it made it into a series you could kind of take seriously. The later third
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is then spent on the MC trying to figure out his feelings and deal with responding to each girl individually. You could say that it's more of the same, but this time I was actually slightly more invested because of the new stakes introduced.
Character-wise the story improved a lot too. One of the biggest reasons I didn't like the main series is because it failed to make me see any chemistry between a lot of the girls and the MC to the point where it just felt like things were happening but leading nowhere. However, this sequel gave more light onto why each girl might be attracted to the MC and made the MC more appealing as well. The focus also shifted off of the two main girls onto the side characters a lot more, which I liked since the main girls were rather boring. That being said, the girl that shows up the most in this sequel ended up becoming a little annoying just because she was always there, which I found to be unnecessary. But overall the improvement to characterization gave this series as well needed boost that made me interested in a lot more of the characters than the original.
There's still a bunch of problems with the series of course, with the overuse of nudity being the worst still, but I'm happy to see it improve so much. The one other really big thing I wish the author changed would be to finally pick a girl the MC wants to be with, but once again we are left with a cliffhanger where no one is chosen. It's honestly just frustrating at this point when we are given no payoff after reading for so long, but I guess complaining won't change anything about it.
Overall, To Love-Ru Darkness is a much better manga than the original series in terms of plot and characters, and it made me genuinely interested in most of the characters' development. It's still not amazing, but for a harem manga I do give it props. I'd definitely suggest it if you read the original and were unsatisfied with how it went.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 10, 2019
A wise man once said of this manga, "How is this so popular? Is it the nipples?" and he was completely right.
After going through like 6 different harem series to get a full idea of what the genre has in store I finally ended up on To Love-Ru. The plot is as simple as it it gets: alien comes from outer space and says she is going to marry the MC, but the MC already has a childhood crush and every girl they meet ends up falling in love with him. From there it's just random series of events where the MC ends up fondling
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or seeing every girl naked pretty much. It's super generic and is about what you'd see in every other harem manga.
So then are the characters any good? Well, everyone is super generic also. We got the classic airhead, shy girl, kuudere, tsundere, younger sister, younger twin sisters of the main girl, straight laced girl, and the list continues. Honestly, trying to fault a harem manga on it's characters just seems unfair, but the main thing To Love-Ru lacks is that it doesn't really build up nearly enough chemistry between the MC and most of the cast. We only see things building between like the two main girls but everyone else is just thrown in, so it's hard to see anyone winning in the end besides the two mains.
And that brings me to one of my biggest gripes with the manga: that there is no ending. It was so disappointing that I spent 160 chapters seeing who the MC will end up with in the end only to have him end up with no one. There is a sequel to this that I will check out, but as a standalone series it ends up cheating all its readers. Maybe this is what it's like to be one of the side characters in a harem manga...
The other thing I disliked was how much fanservice there was. Now, I'm not one to say that harem manga shouldn't have it at all, since that's one of the main appeals of it. But when it seems like every chapter had to have at least 3 pages worth of fondling or naked girls, it gets to be really tiring. There's such thing as overexposure, and this manga brings it to the max. And honestly how can you even find a way to add 5 separate slimy tentacle scenes in one manga? I wish there was a little more actual plot to hold this thing up, but it's just not there.
So overall this was one of the most disappointing harem manga I've ever read, and the harem genre doesn't have the best rep for begin good to begin with. It just doesn't do anything right for a regular story and messes up what makes a harem manga good too, besides the fanservice. So honestly the only way for me to recommend this is if you're really only here for those uncovered nipples.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 10, 2019
I'm really not sure whether to be happy or sad reading this manga...
Living with My Brother's Wife is a story about two women who live together after the death of their brother/husband. It's a slice of life manga where the two just go about their normal lives at school/work, and come together at night at their home. The manga has a sort of stilted mood to it, acting happy on the outside but having an air of sadness behind it. The mood mirrors the characters and how they feel, and it makes for an uncomfortable, yet refreshing feel.
The two main characters and their struggles are
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the driving point of the story. As we get further along in the manga, we see bits and pieces of their lives with the brother/husband before, and feel the impact of his death in their lives now. Both of them desperately want to move on, yet cannot help but cling to the happy past they once had. In the beginning, they both feel drawn to each other because they can see bits and pieces of their loved one in one another, but this brings out the very real feeling of trying to use someone else to cope with one's own feelings. The manga feels very realistic in the way it portrays people getting over loss of a loved one: it's not something that you get over quickly, but rather the sadness comes in like waves. Sometimes you feel like everything is fine and you can make it through, and other times you're reminded of the overwhelming weight of it all.
That all being said, it is not only a sad manga. You start to see the two girls relying on each other and becoming closer, despite the loss that they face. They support each other, learn to help one another, and try to understand what it means to be a family. They learn to put away their embarrassment and ask for help to become stronger. So this manga is able to show the good and the bad of dealing with familial death.
Overall this manga was a real treat to read, though it usually made me really sad by the end of each chapter. It's interesting to see what it's like to deal with death and the trials that come after it, and it's encouraging to see how death isn't the end of everything. It's a subtle manga that I would definitely recommend if you're looking for a light yet deep read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 8, 2019
Vagabond is a story that really wants to be deep and interesting, but doesn't do nearly enough to earn it.
The plot follows some wandering samurai trying to be the strongest in the land, fighting harder and harder opponents, winning, losing, learning what the way of the sword means... until it isn't. Then it switches to another guy who does the same things, and then over to another guy who is a failure at everything that he does... and like all of this happens without any real indication so you don't have a good idea of when things are going on since it'll go from past
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to present in an instant. What I'm trying to say is that the plot is, while very simple at it's core, made very messy by time and perspective skips that can be easy to miss if you don't pay attention. You'll end up getting it all by the time everything connects though, if you're willing to get that far.
The characters in this manga are one of the biggest things I don't understand/don't like about it. Our main MC is a hothead that only wants to be the strongest, but as he goes on his journey he learns time and time again how much he has to learn. So you would expect him to grow from that right? Well 200 chapters later he's pretty much the same person, only stronger. It's always frustrating to see characters who need to change and grow stay stagnant for so long, especially when the story calls for them to grow too. All the other characters are also just as flat, with no one making any real appreciable changes in a whole 200 chapters. The worst part about all of it is that no character has made me want to root for them. Nothing about them really draws you in or has some great ideal you can sympathize with. Because of that, it's really hard to get engaged in the story to listen to what it has to say.
In terms of character design, a lot of them blend together, which I guess is intended because the author was going for a realistic feel, but it makes things confusing. Character motivations are pretty much always the same for like every single character, which is pretty annoying also.
Even in terms of theme the story feels very inconsistent. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to believe about the whole 'way of the sword' since no one ever practices any of the ideals that are brought up. I suppose the author could be saying that it's up to each individual reader to make that choice, but when you take no stance for something this long, I don't think you deserve to be considered deep or meaningful. Like, a father doesn't want his son to be a swordsman because it brings nothing but death and sadness at the end, which is what the first arc seems to be telling us, but then after he finds out his son likes fighting, he says that he loves the way of the sword because it made his son strong? What is the audience supposed to take away from that?
I guess the only thing that I can really give Vagabond praise for is its art, which is pretty nice most of the time. You can tell a lot of time was spent making it look really nice with all the detail there is, but that's the only real thing I like about this manga.
Overall, Vagabond is a lackluster story hiding behind its art. Characters are flat, the plot is all over the place and it's thematically unsure of where it wants to go. No characters really pull you in, nor anything in the plot, so it's kinda just feels like you're casually watching a movie on the side when you're focusing on something else. It still has it's amazing art, so if you're into that I might recommend this manga, but other than that, it's not too worth it to read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 3, 2019
GTO is a manga where the story matches the main character to a tee: it's not the most pretty or sophisticated, it's crass and not always the most well put together, but it has a heart of gold.
GTO follows the story of Onizuka, an ex-biker gang member that wants to become a teacher solely for the sake of snagging some high school girl. Yet as he goes along in his career, he ends up becoming a role model and teacher who really looks out for his student's well-beings, not just their grades. He represents a radical shift from most of the other teachers we see
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in the story, opting to see his students as people and to help them as such. He is assigned to the worst class possible at his new school and is tasked with bringing them onto the right path again. The plot is essentially just a series of short arcs where we see Onizuka helping his students with their troubles or trying to keep his job, and all along the way we see his ideals touch the hearts of his students and those around him. It is not an uncommon plot, as there are other stories that are similar, like Assassination Classroom and We Shall Now Begin Ethics, but GTO approaches it in a much more comedic way while still keeping the weight of the struggles the students go through.
The characters in GTO are the main plot drivers and are probably the most important part of the story in general. Besides Onizuka, the main characters are one of his fellow teachers and his students. Each student pretty much has some tragic backstory that has made them who they are now, which Onizuka takes time to undo in his own unique way, whether it be through beating them up for having them almost die. After he wins each student over to his side, you are able to see changes in their behavior, yet also the person that they are at their core. In that way, the characters seem more realistic than they actually are.
Okay, now that all that general stuff is out of the way, we can talk about the heart and themes of the manga, which is where it really shines. The core message of it is pretty much what Onizuka tells each of his students: life may suck at times, but that doesn't mean you can't move forward. Each student he interacts with has been traumatized by something and is unable to let it go. Some lash out violently, some cut class, some play pranks, etc. But Onizuka demonstrates with his own life that these kids are not alone in their hurt and pain, and shows them how to look around at the friends and family they have around them to receive healing. It's a hard message to swallow for people in the midst of their storms, but it is one that they need to hear.
Other core messages in GTO are to not judge a book by its cover, mainly seen through contrasting Onizuka and the other teachers, that it only takes one person or event to ruin someone's life, yet it could take only one person or event to redeem it, that teachers and authority figures have a lot more weight in people's lives than they might think at first, and that above all else, people are people, no matter the circumstance and should be treated as such.
Now, this is all fine and dandy, but there are definitely flaws to be found here. It definitely minimizes the weight of sexual harassment throughout the entirety of the story, it tends to solve problems fairly quickly even though they wouldn't realistically be quick fixes, it spends a bunch of chapters on characters that I could honestly care less about (like the cop, principal or actress), and you could make an argument that the second half is too dramatic and follows too strict a formula. And, while those are valid arguments, I would say that they don't really take away from the core themes nor humor of the story, so I don't really mind them.
Overall, GTO is a funny story about a man changing the lives of his students. It doesn't try to hold back punches when talking about how broken some of these kids are, but somewhere in that darkness a light shines through that pulls them out. It's a story that is funny when it tries to be, serious when it needs to be and tense when it has to be. Like the Great Teacher Onizuka, GTO is not perfect, but its an amazing ride to see unfold.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 24, 2019
March Comes In Like a Lion has skyrocketed into my top 10 list of anime and manga at blinding speeds. There is so much about it to talk about because it is a story that encompasses so much.
I have a hard time trying to explain to people what the plot is about. Yes, it is a story of a young shogi player that lives off of the earnings of his matches, but it is so much more. On one hand it is about the lives of professional shogi players everywhere and all the mentality, personality and back story that has built up each of them
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to the person they are today. On the other hand its a story about family, with the healing of the main character's and the Kawamoto family's past familial trauma through the experiences they share. You could also say that it's about a lonely kid way in over his head trying to deal with the stress of living by himself and his battles with loneliness, depression, and purpose. It's all of these in one. The story is told in small arcs that span the length of a few chapters at a time, usually dealing with a shogi match, the MC's history, or his time with the Kawamoto family, all of which connect to major themes and character growth throughout the story.
A large part of the appeal of this series to me is the way that Chica Umino, the author, writes and panels. It's filled to the brim with metaphors and inner thoughts to the point where you start to not just understand the characters, but start to deeply empathize with them as well. You can feel the weight that each match brings to every professional shogi player because you get the chance to see into their past and see what they are thinking in the present. Very rarely do I get to see characterization as good as this. Umino gives side characters more motivation and depth than many main characters get in more popular series, and it just makes for a wholly refreshing experience.
The characters are the absolute highlight of the story. Every emotional beat and lesson learned is always tied to a character undergoing growth. Maybe it's the MC seeing how far his self-proclaimed rival push himself just because he loves the game so much, or maybe its one of the Kawamoto sisters learning the evils of bullying first hand, but each character interaction leaves the reader with a very real sense of what the characters themselves are feeling. It's hard to describe just how poignant it is without actually reading the story oneself. Every character is cute, charming or funny in their own rights, and all have distinct personalities for the reader to get to learn.
The art is different that what most people would be used to, but it really rubs of on you as you read more.
Overall I can't say how much I enjoy this manga enough. For someone who loves to see character growth and to understand what it's like to be in the shoes of each character, I absolutely adored this manga. I will say that it is not for everyone, especially if you're looking for something light to read, but it is an absolute masterclass of characterization and strong storytelling in general
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 24, 2019
Seikotai Yakuindomo (SYD) is almost a one trick pony by all standards of the phrase. By that I mean that if you enjoy what you see in the first two or three chapters then you'll probably like the entire thing, and if you don't then you won't. It's hard to find a manga that stays so static for so long, but SYD does it somehow. And yet, I actually found myself enjoying it more and more as it went on, especially past chapter like 200 or 300.
There is almost no plot to be talked about whatsoever. It's a slice of life 4-koma gag manga about
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dirty jokes, which already explains like 90% of it. More specifically though, it follows the 'boke tsukkomi' format which is kinda just one person says something funny or outrageous and the other person reacts like how a normal person would. The way this translates is that 80% of the characters will say something dirty and the MC will say something like, "Wait you can't say that". It's a simple formula that works well for this manga.
That being said, the characters in the manga are the obvious selling point, though they come off as pretty tropey. Out of the entire story so far, there are about 14ish characters besides the main character that span various levels of dirtiness and thirstiness that make SYD a treat to read. Seeing each character interact with other characters in a group is always interesting, and they tend to all play off of each other in slightly different ways depending on who is there.
Though most of the time is spent on making dirty jokes, there are also some slight romantic subplots that come up here and there that I actually probably enjoy more than the main focus of the manga. It comes at a slow pace and there's never really any development, but it really breathes new life into the manga when it gets stale. That being said though, it only really comes into play at mid to later chapters.
In terms of the art, it's honestly not that great. A lot of sharp likes make characters look kinda funny, and there's never too much expression in their detailed faces. However, I do like a lot of ways the artist uses different levels of complexity to aid in the humor, so I'll give it that.
Overall, SYD is something you'll instantly like or hate, so if you're not a fan of dirty jokes then give this a pass. If you are though, it's a fun ride with no real stakes attached, so hop on board and enjoy your time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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