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May 1, 2024
This comic is an atrociously bad and frustrating story told competently. I highly recommend against reading it.
For context, I have not reader the other parts of "the breaker," and wasn't even aware their were other parts until after reading the 33 chapters I have.
It starts with a protagonist that rapidly gets relegated to a side character... except the characters that get all the focus become increasingly insufferable as they take up larger parts of the narrative. These characters make bad decisions, learn nothing, repeat them, appear to learn something, revert to having learned nothing, and make the same bad decisions again. Other characters do a
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whole bunch of things, but we never actually learn anything about their motivations, and are left, even after a dozen appearances, with no greater understanding of them than we started with. None of the characters seem to have any meaningful bonds. What we're lead to think are meaningful bonds just get ignored and undeveloped. Half the series up to this point has been vague talking and circling around conflicts that aren't shown and you're told basically nothing about and about which there's no meaningful progress or sense of moving towards anything. Meanwhile, it's hard to even care because the link you were given into the broader narrative hasn't been on-screen for the last five chapters, and that appearance was basically a waste of time anyway and amounted to nothing.
This is a story about martial arts and we've barely had any fights, and they were badly executed. We have no sense of how powerful any characters are, how their techniques work, or anything similar.
The world building is also incredibly poor. I have to guess it's a modern world that murim types live in, but we don't actually see much of the world aside from a bit of the MC in a school at the beginning. There's fantasy-ish murim stuff, but that doesn't get developed. There's clans, but we're not really introduced to them, and they have no meaningful identity to set them apart. The story also randomly introduces full-blown sci-fi stuff, but then just pretends it never happened, with nothing else in the story hinting at such technology being available.
It is honestly incredibly odd to see a story where the what (plot, characters, world building, etc.) is utter garbage, but the how is reasonably competent. Like, it feels like the people making the comic actually know how to make comics. That honestly only makes it worse. There is not a single thing about this series I can praise. Don't read it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 31, 2023
While the premise of this comic is a very generic "protag gets tossed out of party, gf cheats on him, he gets cheat powers" story, it's surprisingly well executed for the genre.
The protag has trauma from the betrayal, and it takes time for him to work through it. His motives are kind of unusual. His cheat power is strong, but where other comics in the genre would focus on his power, which ends up feeling cheap, in this one, the story focuses more on the bonds he forms. There's also mostly funny segments where it cuts back to his old party who are inadvertently following
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in the protag's footsteps, and not measuring up, or arriving too late for something he's already conquered.
The art is competent, the protag and his allies are fairly likable, the villain is detestable, and the pacing is mostly quick and to the point, which makes it an easy read.
It's definitely nothing special, but the genre has a very low standard of quality to begin with. If you want to read a story like this, I can definitely recommend this as one of the better examples.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 20, 2023
Crybaby Next Door is a comic with a strong premise with a very disappointing execution.
Ochiai is an insecure divorcee, and the alleged subject of this comic is her growth into a more confident happy woman alongside our ML Sawatari, but while she does change, there is no actual growth on display. The changes in her character are almost never caused by anything we see in the comic, aside from the first few chapters where her expectations of how Sawatari will feel and react to her contrast with his actual feelings and reactions. Another way you might put it is the growth is never worked for,
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and it feels as if it's happening "off-camera" between chapters more than anything. This makes it feel out of nowhere, cheap, and makes their developing relationship hold no weight emotionally. Their relationship grows not by changes in their behaviour and closeness, but as if going down a list and checking things off, without appropriate build up, or flow.
This is especially problematic for Crybaby Next Door, as it undermines the key differentiator of this comic from similar comics.
There's also lots of interjected lewd scenes that have nothing to do with the story and break up it's flow, taking you out of emotionally impactful situations. This is extremely common in the genre, and I might forgive it in a better work, but here it adds insult to injury. And while I'm picking nits, an uncomfortable amount of this comic is fixated on the FL's perception of her own hygiene.
If you're just looking for any old comfy slice-of-life romance (with a strong dash of lewd desires), give it a shot, but if you're after something actually worth reading, look elsewhere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 9, 2021
Aside from the basic AV quality, everything about this is terrible.
The characters are one dimensional stereotypes with no personality or real growth. They lack any real charm, and are given almost zero driving motive for anything they do. This especially applies to the main characters, who consistently thinks he's weak despite it being clear he isn't, and whose only driving motive is "I want to be a hero," which for some reason means he's decided to be a soldier, which is already weird enough, because the series never really bothers giving us any emotionally gratifying reason why a soldier is the way to be a
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hero. If anything, soldiers are shown, in the series, as being tools of political and military conflict far more than anything positive, though they don't go down the path of exploring that either. They have a ton of characters that could be good in a well-written series, but this isn't that. They set up a whole bunch of cliche situations, but without the characters having any soul, they don't pay off. I've watched ten episodes so far, and I only found one moment even slightly funny.
The plot is just a series of events and coincidences that make no sense, are never justified, and don't build to any pay off.
Even the fights, like everything else, feels soulless. I never once felt compelled by any of the combat in the series, and struggled not to skip through it.
Even the world is inconsistent, unimaginative, and painfully underdeveloped. For example, the MC is portrayed as being super-weak for his village, so it makes sense he would struggle with the monsters in that area, but all the monsters we see when he moves to other areas overwhelm the native residents there even more than the ones we saw him struggling with near his village. That doesn't make sense. If that were the case, they'd have all been wiped out already.
There's just nothing worthwhile here. It's not even funnily bad; it's just bad.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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May 17, 2013
Betterman is a show that crosses sci-fi tech, supernatural elements, and at times, straight up magic. I'll be reviewing Betterman with my personal rating system consisting of rating five categories out of 100 points, and then multiplying them out by a weighting factor to get a score between 0, and 100. The categories are Acting/Characters, Plot, Enjoyment, Atmosphere/Theme/Setting, and Visuals/Audio/Effects.
Acting/Characters
The show consists almost entirely of a central cast of characters you'll be seeing a lot of. Most secondary characters that don't become major later in the plot aren't shown in detail. While the characters are not particularly complex, none of them are played up
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for a single trait. Each has several traits, and are, within reason, believable. The characters are also used well, and in balance, with some acting as comedic relief, but also being serious as the situation requires. While some of the characters can seem annoying or flat, you learn more and more about them as time goes on, and they become far more likable.
The characters were solid, and enjoyable, but nothing special, and that's why I gave this category 75 points.
Plot
The plot of Betterman is perhaps one of the best, and one of the worst traits of the series. Betterman will leave you constantly guessing as it does not try to explain the majority of what's going on. While the series does bring everything back to a solid conclusion which ties together all the confusing elements throughout the show, and resolves the central conflict, it can be a deal-breaker if you're not the type of person who is willing to wait 26 episodes to get a firm grip on what's going on. At the same time, the entire show has a multitude of themes running through it, about genetics, evolution, spirituality, and so on, that are enjoyable, and occasionally make you stop and think. Another complaint about the series is that while everything ties in at the end, there's still a huge variety of threats, and elements to the plot that are largely disparate logically, if not thematically. One might, perhaps, see this as someone having a lot of ideas, and just tossing them all in and trying to make them fit together after. Whichever it is, they are linked together competently, and so it's not a major concern. Be advised, however, that some things may not be explained satisfyingly, such as the Animus flowers.
While the plot itself seems like a tangled mess as you go through it, it wraps up and clarifies in a way that makes sense when you look back on it. Still, this leads to a less enjoyable experience, as well as there being other weak points. I gave this category 70 points.
Enjoyment
While this wraps up enjoyably, though, perhaps, to a slightly unsatisfying conclusion, Betterman's seemingly tangled plot lead me to not enjoying a fair amount of the series, especially early on, as much as I would have liked. Characters are solid, and pleasant. Comedy is sufficient to not make the series dry. At the same time, it stays serious when it needs to.
While Betterman had the potential to be far more enjoyable, the plot issues definitely brought down the enjoyment. 65 points.
Atmosphere/Theme/Setting
The setting is... well, it's all over the damn place, and doesn't really result in any cohesion. At the same time, I had nothing bad to say about most of the locations. The theme of the show, however, was a solid and enjoyable look at Humanity's goals, and the role of evolution and, to an extent, spirituality. The atmosphere of the show was very creepy. The show plays a lot on things happening in the mind, and raises creepy concerns that are never really resolved. The way they portray a lot of characters is disturbing, and is used to creepy effect both when it is something, and when it isn't. A lot of the locations are dark and creepy, as are a lot of the events, and plot elements. Perhaps the most creepy part of the series is a flashback that occurs later on in the series that takes the hiding of faces to a whole new level.
The atmosphere and themes were pretty solid, while the setting could have used more work. Overall an 80.
Visuals/Audio/Effects
These are lumped because they're things I don't generally care as much about unless they're extremely good, or extremely bad, and they all run along the same vein. The visuals and effects were enjoyable. The animation was at no point disturbing, and the visuals and audio really played into the creepy atmosphere. At the same time, a lot of the attacks and the like in the show seemed very same-y and could have benefited from a little more variety. The voice acting seemed decent, though at times the analytic monotone of Miyako became somewhat annoying.
Where the visuals fall short, the audio backs it up making this a solid 75 points.
Overall a solid show. It's not great, but it's very good, and unlike pretty much any other series I've seen. Definitely worth a watch if any of the themes running throughout the show interest you. Betterman is a solid 73/100 or 7/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 18, 2012
I saw this movie expecting it to be great. It's often considered the second best One Piece movie, and that left expectations of greatness. What I found was a disappointing mess.
Art - The different style of this movie was refreshing, and interesting, but at points felt static, rather than dynamic. At many points, rather than looking like a world with depth, the scenes felt like cut outs, the characters were only pretending to interact with. Still, this was a decent, and interesting play around, and it certainly wasn't bad.
Sound - Decent. Not my area.
Character - The characters are, more or less, those we've come
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to love. They were slightly misused in the film, but were same old good. The new characters were also, in some regards powerful, particularly Sir mustache.
Story - Oh, the story. This film was basically an attempt at character-expression. The story was mostly just a framework to give a message of friendship, but it was so terrible done. Most of the movie felt pointless at the end. I had no idea why certain things were going on, as they lacked any reasoning, or explanation in the narrative. Overall, it felt like they were banking on the characters, but they were misused to hammer home a message that doesn't fit, and doesn't even work that well with the story given. A lot of characters are essentially scenery given too much detail.
So, if you want to watch 'em all, see it. If you're more interested in whether it's a good film, I'd give it a miss.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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