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Aug 28, 2023
I recently finished a reread of this manga and enjoyed it just as much if not more than the first time around.
Iryuu is a must-read if you like realistic fiction. The story is balanced between plausible events and the touch of suspension of disbelief that makes one more entertaining. The motivations of each character are understandable if not always admirable, and their interactions follow that same winning mix of realistic and fun.
Something that I only realized after reading was that we are very rarely, if ever, shown the internal voice of Asada, despite being the main character and pretty much everyone else
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having their thoughts shown. This is an unconventional choice that shows the authors understood how Asada should be used. Asada as a personality is static and indomitable, having a philosophy that works well for himself that would be a compromise of his character to change. So, the story is about how others are changed through their interactions with him.
Because of this, how 'strong' a character is doesn't factor into much of anything on its own. Really, Asada isn't even a focus but rather a means to showcase other characters; the role is switched from the typical structure using the supporting cast to highlight the main character.
A main example of this is Kihara's story. He resents Asada because of how he looks by comparison, as a surgeon and in his personal life. However, when his mother is rushed in for surgery, he drops all of that to beg Asada to abandon his own surgery and save his mother instead. Asada, featuring here only as a skilled surgeon, highlights the character of Kihara as envious but also shameless. However, the audience is also able to empathize as we have been shown how much his mother means to him. So, an entire story is realized by using Asada passively.
Even characters that seem to be nothing but anti-entertainment, like Ijuuin's attitude at first, are actually central to what gives this manga its appeal. His situation and reaction is perfectly reasonable; he resents Asada for making chaos in the department and potentially screwing his own career prospects. Ijuuin's situation deteriorates further to the point where his unluckiness becomes comical as he is continually dragged deeper into Asada's antics. Of course, the series of coincidences that drag him along follow that same pattern of realistic/suspension of disbelief.
The weakest parts of the manga were definitely portions of the candidacy story, I felt it was getting too drawn out at times. I thought the final large event was also a little contrived but I can understand wanting to have a dramatic finale.
Overall, a great manga that I'll be coming back to in the future.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 20, 2023
This movie had great production quality but that's about the only positive thing that can be said about it.
I disliked how the motivations of the 'bad guys' are not revealed until the final battle, it was just weird and didn't add anything. There was nowhere to direct tension of any sort because the audience was in the dark about what the whole struggle was over in the first place. The 'threat' was also pretty contrived, it doesn't make much sense that he would have to permanently steal everyone's memories; why not just copy them? It's clear that aspect was extremely artificially amped up in
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an attempt to make the stakes higher. This is the same problem with Eiji's treatment; Shigemura had blatantly lied to him and throws Eiji under the bus to make him look more evil or whatever.
And more broadly, I don't think this movie has much justification for existing. In terms of plot it feels entirely tacked on. What does this whole story add at all to the larger sao-verse? It feels like a more fleshed out 'extra' episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 12, 2023
tldr feels too much like a manga for pseuds
It's too bad because it feels like this manga was made for me based on a description of its setting; a post apocalyptic world overgrown by greenery, cybernetic stuff, government task forces, biblical references and a disease that transforms the population... The first major issue was its theological dialogue being crammed down the readers' throat. Layne and Hannah's conversation was the first example but the second one between the two "pro"girls was what pushed it over the line, and I lost patience. It's highly reminiscent of the atrocious writing in The Talos Principle; biblical reference is "philosophical",
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"abstruse", and of course, "highly intellectual". Of course, none of that is bad in of itself, the problem is how it's being hammered into our skulls with zero respect for the readers' intelligence... Or rather more likely and worse, that the authors don't realize how blatant they are being.
I have the same issue with the treatment of "missing information" in the story; too often this device is used to create "intrigue" and makes people go, "wow, this is a story that respects the reader's intelligence and it's very subtle and complex and you have to read between the lines".. Or, vagueness for its own sake. Hannah's absence could have been used to much greater effect if something of what had happened to her was hinted at. In the present scenario, it's just annoyingly opaque.
The art was pretty nice though
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 11, 2023
28 chapters in, there's still nothing to care about. Things are happening, but we haven't been given any reason why we should be invested. Mizutani is training to fight her childhood friend, but given either outcome, what's the point? She doesn't have particularly much to prove, all the boxers are already aware of her ability. This childhood friend hasn't shown himself to be an asshole, or given really much of a reason for wanting to win either. We can infer that he wants to be able to stand up for himself since she used to defend him, but again there's no payoff in that; we
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don't have a reason to sympathize particularly with that goal of his. At some point, he will become stronger by default in any case.
Satoyama suffers from the same issue. In the other Adachi work I've read, Rough, there was an obvious point of conflict that carried the story; the feud between families and the question of whether their children would be able to resolve it. But Katsu has nothing like that. Typically a sports story works by having the main character work to be recognized, but there just aren't challenges that have been put in front of the characters like that here.
It gets a perfect 5 because it's a record of a series of events that happened, like reading a report. Nothing good, nothing bad. Did I remember to mention that the reader has no investment in it?
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 10, 2023
For the first ~40 chapters, I was going to give a 9. I remember thinking at the time though that, "there's over a hundred chapterrs in total, so that could easily change"... Unfortunately that ended up being right. It was a winning setup, Romeo and Juliet and enjoyable characters in Nakanishi and Koyanagi, but the story started to meander, which is not that bad in of itself; pressure from the publisher or just personal incentive tends to prolong a manga - it's almost part of the genre. However, the "filler" didn't really offer much. The Eisen girls ended up with little being said about them,
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which would perhaps have been the obvious direction to go. Hell, we don't even know that much about Keisuke himself. At one point, his friends ask him why he swims and he brushes it off. Something like that could have taken up a number of a chapters while providing potentially valuable context that could be referenced later on. Honestly, I just forget what actually took up all that space even though I read it pretty much in one go last night. It just didn't leave much of an impression.
The ending scenario didn't fit the story well. Given how Nakanishi had been characterized so far as a matured and understanding personality, it felt like a low kick to put holes in his character where Adachi did. Although it was explicitly mentioned by him as a reaction to his swimming being taken away from him, it still doesn't sit right to tear down a character like that without any sort of indications earlier on. In any case, that was only secondary to the competition for Ami, which seemed like a weird choice again. Nakanishi nor Ami seemed like the type of personality to condone that sort of thing. The most reasonable interpretation is it was a last effort by the mangaka to cram more reader investment into the final chapters. That sort of artificial thing tends to not go over well, and I definitely felt it here.
Ultimately, it's a very mixed bag. It definitely has its moments, I know I only really talked about the negative aspects here. But as far as manga go for both romance and sports competition there are better options
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 20, 2023
Has a lot of ups and downs.. It started out strong but thinned out the pacing too much, I would give the first 30 chapters an 8. The focus probably should have been tighter around the club where they could develop the upperclassmen more, given how those characters have been there since the beginning it feels odd not to have learned much about them. There were way too many chapters about "The boys" since it's the same joke every time. Given the frustrating pace I ended up skimming the last third pretty aggressively
That sums up what I thought about the manga but apparently there's a
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soft floor for word count
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 17, 2023
Nihei's works consistently fail to produce any interesting characterisation, or offer much of substance in terms of commentary, or really have any merit past their visuals.
I really did try to like this work, or at least finish it, but it was just not engaging, and there was nothing to suggest hope of it improving.
More specifically to this work, pacing does not seem to be a concept -- it's like the reader has been forced to skip the first ten chapters of context, except all the time. Characters just show up whenever they please.. Why would anyone care about what they say or what happens
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to them when they're unknown to us? Personalities are an afterthought, but that suggests that there is a particular other area where he is focusing his efforts.. Which leads to the broader issue:
Obviously, Nihei is known for being abstruse but this is just too much. Perhaps he should consider making an encyclopedic work instead because he clearly doesn't care or is unable to leverage what narratives as a form have to offer. Having trudged through APOSIMZ, BLAME!, and now some of Knights of Sidonia and Biomega, the "mysterious reason as to why things ended up the way they did and there's probably zombies" has gotten real old - there's no real difference in how it's presented or implication at anything philosophically to chew on, in the absence of character appeal.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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