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Sep 18, 2023
I've been following Dungeon Meshi since about chapter 27, and finally, after all these years, we have reached a conclusion. Dungeon Meshi is not the best manga in terms of writing, but it does tell a pretty great story with some themes about life and death. However, it is one of my favorite manga of all time for the following reasons:
1. One of the greatest isekai world-building I've ever read in a manga. Well, Dungeon Meshi is probably more DnD than isekai, but if you really think about it, most isekais are just DnD clones. While Dungeon Meshi is mostly set in a dungeon, it
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builds its world through character backgrounds, magic, and history. Most importantly, the world-building is done unintentionally. The author never just spills out the world-building in your face. You would naturally realize things through character interaction and story progression.
2. Great characterization. Explaining why Dungeon Meshi's characterization is great can be difficult. First of all, the main characters are well-written, as all great mangas should be. Secondly, secondary characters are not just of the 'pick a stereotypical characteristic and stick with it' type. Each secondary character has their own unique persona. You can feel like they have lived a long time in their world, and we are just seeing a glimpse of their story. Thirdly and most importantly to me, the author has spent a lot of time on the side, doing 'fan art' for each character. With different clothes, different hairstyles, different races, how much they can drink, morning schedules, their relationship with their siblings, etc. There's even makeup tutorials for two side characters. These things don't affect the story, but they are just so interesting to see, especially due to how much the readers are invested in the characters.
3. While Dungeon Meshi does have a very typical "defeat evil monster, save friend" story, it sometimes gets pretty dark. Of course, we know from the first chapter that the nature of the story is indeed quite dark, but it's just hidden behind the silly "eat monster" SoL. That's why every time something truly horrible happens, it hits hard but never feels out of place.
Oh, right, the art is a bit sketchy in the beginning, but the actual art from chapter 20 onwards is actually really good. Like, not just 'solid' good, but really good.
There are some things I didn't like about it, though:
1.The tempo towards the end is too dragged out. I think it's because there is too much to write, and the early SoL just couldn't prepare the story well enough for it.
2. The ending definitely wasn't that great. Surely it's satisfying in the expected way, but I just feel like there is a lot more I want to know that isn't told.
So, if these are what you are looking for in a manga, I would strongly encourage you to read it. Or just watch the anime that's coming out in January 2024. It's going to be great! (Hopefully.)
Fair rating: 8/10
Rating with my own bias: 10/10, duh.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Apr 19, 2023
Seeing Iruma-kun currently has only positive reviews, I feel it's important to provide a critical perspective for those who may be on the fence about it.
The early chapters of Iruma-kun are outstanding, with a good setting, character development, and wholesome, light-hearted comedy. The story focuses on the main trio, and each arc typically lasts for a satisfying 2-3 chapters. Clara is my favorite character in Iruma-kun. Her portrayal is a unique take on the 'happy-go-lucky' archetype, as the author tries to bring out a more human side of her. She frequently attempts to break free from her character stereotype, and these moments of success are
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some of the manga's highlights.
However, the story takes a sharp turn around chapter 100, with longer arcs, new villains, and an influx of secondary characters. While the classmates outside of the main trio are fairly developed, they pale in comparison to the trio's depth.
The idol arc around chapter 160 marks a significant downturn in the manga's quality. The MC, one classmate, and one other side character, along with a bunch of new characters, become the focus, with beloved characters from earlier arcs sidelined. The following arc introduces more new characters, further detracting from the core cast's development. It feels as though the author has written themselves into a corner, unsure of how to continue the story without creating additional characters.
In the end, while Iruma-kun starts off strong, the later arcs feel like a letdown with too many new characters taking away from the core cast's development. The story becomes cluttered, and the author seems to have written themselves into a corner, unsure of how to continue the story without introducing more characters. This is not how a good comedy or shonen manga should be written, and as such, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it.
6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 11, 2023
An Ecchi SoL comedy about a high school student council. While it has a very old premise, the presentation is quite modern. Some comedic scenes feel over the line for an ecchi manga and feel like those comic-relief pages at the end of an adult manga chapter. The ecchi scenes however are quite tame, and the manga is definitely more focused on comedy than ecchi.
The main characters aside from the typical self-insert MC are mostly well-written and realized. One of them is a trap character who is in my opinion the most interesting character and carried the manga. Don’t be worried about spoilers or getting
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fooled cause he does reveal the trap in the first chapter.
The only main character I don’t like is a “what if you have a need-to-protect daughter but she has big tits and is extremely sexualized” girl. The way that character is presented has put some off-taste in my mouth, and I think it’s reasonable to not like the manga because of her.
Outside of Ecchi, the manga has some pretty nice wholesome characterization. However, the back story for some characters does get too dark and doesn’t really suit the tone of the manga. Again, it’s the same “over the line” feeling I have earlier.
7/10 - I don’t think the character writing and comedy are top-tier, but in today’s ecchi manga scene filled with terrible Narou adaptations, it’s just nice to see a good artist creating a decent ecchi comedy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 5, 2022
Isekai Ojisan is a classic gimmick story where the author thought of a good concept, ran with it and got some positive feedback, and decides to do the exact same thing forever. The main idea is that the MC got Isekaied into a typical harem fantasy, but whenever some girl show him affection, he couldn't catch them and just continued to do his own thing.
This is basically the whole manga. There is no development in character, story, or romance (except for a couple who has nothing to do with the isekai plot). The story is just the same said concept repeating, and the characters are
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just like your usual trash isekai characters.
The only gimmick story that I've seen work well is One Punch Man. However, that series was successful because it introduced a relatable cast with parallel themes to the protagonist and decreased the frequency of the gimmick. Isekai Ojisan, unfortunately, fails to achieve this, making it difficult to enjoy beyond the first few chapters.
6/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 22, 2021
Oh man looking at all other reviews made at the early stages of the manga is pretty funny. Just like what the other reviewers mentioned, the manga is a psychological horror with a twist at the beginning, but man it gets weird as fuck as it goes on.
I don't want to spoil too much, but if you caught up to the newest chapters, you'd realize this mangaka really couldn't take the story seriously. Changing genre and theme every 10 chapters or so. I'd even argue that the manga doesn't have a theme at all. One second you have bullying horror, then you have some yandere
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rom-com, and now you have shonen battle manga with fans making tier lists of how op characters are.
But yeah, it's pretty fun. Filled with dark humor, nice action scenes, and pretty solid shonen-style character writing. But whatever it is, it is not what the description suggests.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 7, 2021
Mar 2024 I'm now at 170 chapters and 28 girlfriends. The character writing has, to my surprise, improved a bit? A few poorly designed girlfriends actually got better characterization in later chapters, but I'm gonna say there's at least two more poorly designed ones in girlfriend 25-28 and let's say if they can get better as well. Half of the chapters now has only 1-3 girlfriends, which makes the artists life much easier, and definately extends the life cycle of the manga. Also we get a second season of the anime? We are definately living the good life.
I’m now at 131 chapters and 24 girlfriends.
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The writing gets worse, the characters gets worse. Some newer characters are barely enjoyable. All my points still stand, and it still gets better with each addition of girlfriend, but man I hope the creators can get it together and be at least mediocre in writing.
At the current time of writing, Kimi no Koto ga Daidaidaidaidaisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo, which I will abbreviate to 100-kano, has published 6 volumes and sold over 800k copies in Japan. To the people who have no idea what this number means, Quintessential Quintuplets sold about 900k copies from the first 6 volumes, and Kaguya-same: Love is War sold about 1m copies in 5 volumes.
Does that mean 100-kano has the potential to be adapted to multiple seasons of anime and have a theatrical release? Well, not really, in fact, some other lesser-known titles sold this much as well, but you get the point that it is pretty popular in Japan, and I'll try to explain how this manga, with its cringe-inducing title and horrible premise, got its popularity. But first, I’ll review individual parts of the manga.
Story - 4/10
100-kano doesn't really have a story. The mc goes around, sees one of his destined girlfriends, interacts with her, introduces her to the other girlfriends, and they play some games or go on a date. Rinse and repeat and you get the whole story. Most "longer-arcs" are two to three chapters that depict the girlfriends in different situations such as playing a baseball game, becoming idols for the school festival, saving the world from a science experiment gone wrong. And after that, they return to normal as if nothing happened, occasionally with one more girlfriend. The only exception is an arc starting from ch.15 and lasting 7 chapters. The arc also changed the tone of the story a bit, so I would recommend people who are not sure if they want to drop read through ch.22.
Comedy - 3/10
The comedy is not good.
I do laugh sometimes from character interactions, but the author has no idea how to write jokes. Some bits are pretty cringe-worthy.
Art - 8/10
The artist, Nozawa Yukiko, is pretty good at drawing cute and sexy girls. I think artists who can draw characters that fit in a light-hearted comedy but can also be lewd are not as common as some might believe. However, the art could be considered too old-fashioned. It's not my favorite style but I like it nonetheless.
Character - 7/10
Most girls in 100-kano are typical romance-comedy characters, flat-boob tsundere, cute lolis, smart and determined girls, and they are not written very well. You rarely see reasons why characters become who they are, and to be honest, you rarely get to know the characters outside school, despite them being in relationships with the MC. It gets worse as the story goes on, as there are more characters and thus less time spent on each one.
However, some later characters are designed with more creativity. I think it’s easy for anyone reading to find a few characters they like and focus on them in the story. There are characters who would be considered plain or unattractive by weeb standards, but later make me fall in love with them. Also, there are two hair-changing arcs atm, both showing all characters in new hair. Re-designing character hair is a pretty difficult process, doing it for 10+ characters twice is hardcore.
Enjoyment - 10/10
Wait, so why would a manga with a 5/10 story, 3/10 comedy, and 7/10 character get a 10/10 enjoyment? Because it is enjoyable! 100-kano is not funny, not interesting, but it makes people want to read it, and read it again. I really didn't know how to describe the feeling of reading 100-kano until I saw someone describe the manga as “wholesome”. I guess that’s the best way to characterize it. All characters in the manga seem to like each other, support each other, and resolve conflicts fast. 100-kano does act as a parody for many romance-comedy mangas. I don’t really want to spoil anything, but if you ever feel like the conflicts in rom-coms are usually forced and could be easily solved, you’ll find 100-kano’s take on these conflicts satisfying.
The other reason it is so enjoyable is the number of characters in the manga. When you hear about a harem manga with a huge number of girls, you’d think about The World God Only Knows where most girls are one-off characters or To-Love Ru where only a selection of characters appear in each chapter. 100-Kano does not only have a lot of characters, but each and every single character has appeared, and for the most part, has at least one line in each chapter. You can often see panels focused on one or two characters, while 10 other characters are just at the back doing their own things. It amazes me how much work the artist has to do for each chapter.
As of now, the MC has 14 girlfriends, and each chapter is crowded with characters. We are not even close to the 100 girlfriends promised. The number of characters is increasing, but I know there is no way 100 characters can fit into a single chapter, but how about 20 characters? 30? The authors have created a ride that goes up so high you know at some point it will just break apart and anyone on it will suffer a horrible death, but I’m still excited to see how high it will reach.
Overall - 10/10
So yes, I’m giving it a 10. I don’t care that the jokes are dumb and the characters are bland. I just want to see the wholesome interactions between characters, and I want to see the cast grow in size, and I want to see how high the ride is gonna get. No, I don’t want to see what happens after the ride breaks apart. This is not a ride. It’s a manga. I can just go back to the beginning and read it again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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