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Snowtsuku

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Just finished Helck and it was superb.

Spoiler

 

It starts off focusing mostly on humour but it gradually builds up into a tale filled with emotion. The titular character Helck's development is based on his mental and emotional growth, rather that his power, since he starts of at the peak of his strength. His opponents constantly confront him with the intention of breaking his mind and heart, due to all the things he's been through in his past, his failures and mistakes, this tactic often works, Helck needed an ally to help him through that and he found one in Vamirio.

Vamirio served as his pillar of strength, a guiding light as he mentions. She's intelligent, expressive [adorable] and wise, always understanding the intentions of their enemies and one upping them with flair. I like how their friendship gradually grows, and, as they go through their trial in the manga, it becomes one of mutual trust, respect and care. They needed each other to overcome it all, there wasn't any sideline cheer leading, they stood side by side.

Though they become the primary focus past the half way mark, the minor character added value to the read as well. Asudora and his backstory about the humans [also azudora being azudora], the crafty spy and her escaped in the castle, her sister that always freaked out at everything yet remained resolute in the face of despair, badass tsundere hyura and her secret desire to be a princess lol, dogman mangaka. There are others of course, they all added value to the manga, they all served a purpose in this tale. Most of these characters carefully faded into the background when major revelations began emerging towards the end. I did not expect it to go in that direction, honestly. It was a good surprise.

I felt that the pacing was perfect, there wasn't a boring moment, questions were answered by the end [most of them at least, she's making a possible sequel? based Helck. There's another major threat and other key administration members of the empire haven't been revealed], it wasn't rushed. The ending was beautiful and moving, after all the despair and suffering, i loved that it ended that way. That scene where helck meets alicia again, the scene where he bows down to Vamirio clutching her hand and thanking her for being his true savior... so sweet.

 

Really loved reading this story. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I did read Detective School Q (DSQ) in the past, and the art and mystery was more or less almost resembled Kindaichi - which make sense because both of DSQ and Kindaichi written by same people. The difference is that DSQ did have some continuation ongoing between each of the case, while Kindaichi didn't have Myth Arc at all because it was more or less just standalone cases. In regard of detective manga, I will say if you want the plot DSQ is the better one even though it resembled usual shounen story (Make sense considering the genre). For more comparison, actually Conan did have continuation as well although it's be going on and on for almost 25 years and yet they Myth Arc was pretty scarce. Note that I knew it have the anime adaptation as well, but I still recommend that you better read the manga because the anime was ended before revealed the main villain.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Got to the end of Kaze to Ki no uta's translated parts. It made me feel really tired and sad, which is something that I think it was supposed to do. While it is 70s shoujo BL (ie, not at all something I would read normally), it really did sing to me and almost felt similar in tone to the type of utsuge I like, ahaha. A lot of it is really hard hitting and relatable, especially where the main character is concerned. The other cast members, while certainly not generally as likable as people, are similarly interesting. Definitely reading the remainder of this one.

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  • 1 month later...

Finished read Private Actress, and the episodic format is made it easier to read it online through my handphone. The premise is simple enough with our female MC Shino have a part time work as the private actress, and from there experienced the situation of what cause the client to hire the actress like that. As for the actress thing, it's more or less based on this quite unusual business that's also available in Japan, except that Shiho sometimes also act as the body double or a victim of a murder in which her job is getting dangerous.

As for Shiho herself, while her character didn't show much considering that in the manga we got to see more of her clients situation, she was still an interesting one with the acting skill that could be called as highly talented and it was in the blood considering that both of her father and mother was very talented in acting, and yet because of Shiho's parent situation she end up work as private actress in order to sharpen her acting. Also note that she didn't want to use her parents connection because of her current situation, and she probably won't use that because she want to stand alone by herself even without the said circumstances.

Edited by littleshogun
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  • 2 months later...

Currently caught up with Black Butler, which as a whole I'm rather enjoying due to the whole Ciel-Sebastian dynamic. Found some new volumes as of late, and got motivated to pick up the stuff online because stuff was getting real and I couldn't wait. Please tell me there's someone else here reading it who's caught up, I need to know that someone else knows how real stuff is getting right now. The suspense of having to wait is too much.

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  • 1 month later...

I started reading untranslated よつばと!, as an aid for learning Japanese, and it looks really funny. I'm past first few (10 or so) pages, and I already like what I see - it's difficult not to smile, when I see little Yotsuba's enhtusiasm, smile and innocence. Very heartwarming.

wave.png

Say, isn't that smile contagious?

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Currently binge-reading Bokura no Kiseki. I remember starting this series a few years ago, and back then I only read the first two chapters, got the impression that it was some generic action-focused fantasy and dropped it. Recently decided to give this another try, and I can say that I was completely wrong. Basically, this turned out to be a competent psychological mystery with the focus on character development, so it's exactly the type of story that I tend to enjoy the most.

The story takes place when basically the whole high-school class awakens to the memories from their previous lives. All of them were the inhabitants of a certain Medieval-style fantasy world who died on the same day in a castle that was suddenly attacked by forces of a country they considered friendly. Now they decided to unravel the reason the attack happened, while dealing with the whole baggage of past feelings, regrets and outdated beliefs that don't make sense in the modern world. Overall, the story tries to approach a pretty generic shoujo setting it in a more realistic way, and, in my opinion, it excels in that.

The only major problem so far is that the art is not that great, so sometimes it's extremely difficult to distinguish between some characters. And it doesn't help that the cast is huge, so I regularly have to return to the information page at the start of each volume to recall who some minor characters are. Other than that, I feel like there might be some minor plot holes (we'll see after it ends), plus some twists are very obvious (though it's not necessarily a bad point), but overall I don't see anything major enough to make me give anything lower than 9/10.

And this clearly deserves a (good) anime adaptation. :vanilla:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just finished first volume of よつばと!. It's so heartwarming, charming and funny - little Yotsuba enjoys every little thing in life, and pulls the reader along :)

I'm totally loving this manga. It never fails to lift up the gloomy mood, even if for a little while.

 

       - perhaps it's time to order complete set to save on postage fees ;)

Edited by adamstan
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  • 4 weeks later...
1 hour ago, littleshogun said:

My preference were generally the female MC just because we already have too much overpowered isekaii male MC.

Oh, I'm actually the same. For some reason, I feel like isekais with female MCs generally tend to be a lot better and more enjoyable. Like, with a few exceptions, these are pretty much the only type of isekai that I read. Though I generally prefer to read them in the original LN form rather than manga adaptations (though I'd love to see a proper manga adaptation to Shini Yasui :kosame:).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just finished Ciguatera, and I think the ending was quite disappointing.
 

Spoiler

To quote another guy:
"All through the manga, their relationship was what supported Ogino's otherwise bleak existence. And, by the end, Nagumo also expressed how her love for him had become so strong that she couldn't live without him. Not even the transition between school and college life changed their relationship. There was nothing prior to the final two chapters that suggested the two would ever part ways.
Seeing the two with different partners, only a few years after they were madly in love with each other, only highlights how fickle people are, and how pointless life is. And that line of thought is totally at odds with the rom-com lovefest that went before the final two chapters."


This is basically my feeling as well. I suspected early on that Ogino and Nagumo wouldn't really end up together, but I started getting my hopes up after seeing the two of them go through so much together. If anything, their bond only strengthened over time, so it feels extremely unsatisfying to have a "Sorry, they split up. That's life, deal with it." shoved in my face over the course of a few pages, without any explanation as to why any of that happened.
My issue with the ending isn't really the fact that they split up, but rather that it goes completely against the direction the story was taking up until the final chapter.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Recently I finished reading Claymore (yeeees..... The ending is so much more satisfying than the goddamned filler ending the anime had). Raki as a male adult that did not act like youma livestock? Hell yeah.

I also re-read Dragon Quest Dai no Daibouken (for the many brazilians here, it's the source material for the anime "Fly, o pequeno guerreiro", which people older than 25 should know quite well).

The animation itself was the closest thing to the original material I've ever seen in my life, but unfortunately it covers the story only up to volume 10. The manga has 37 volumes, so roughly only a quarter was covered (and they stopped right before one of the most awesome fights in the entire thing, creating a filler ending. Meh).

Edit: Pop is the best side character, ever. His bromance with Dai (Fly) is so well written that you almost feel the dude should be the MC.

Character development ran strong with this one. What a bro.

Edited by AstralSword
typos, as usual
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  • 2 weeks later...

Black Clover. I read it as the volumes come out though. (Which isn't good, because the Anime is very close behind to where I'm up to.) 

I plan to read One Piece hopefully this year or next. I've been up to date with the Anime since 2014 but it's just not the same when you catch up. 

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After taking my time, I finally had the time to read Fullmetal Alchemist and boy!  That manga is incredible!. Probably the best I've ever read so far.

On a side note, I'm reading the promised neverland. I was there when it started and I'll stick with it. 

The Quintessential Quintuplet also has my attention, can't leave the usual RomCom to warm the hearth.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I did read this manga, and somehow I wonder if all of our world leaders are secretly very competent mahjong players (Also mahjong is a very dangerous game so much that it could determined the fate of the country). For serious note here, please don't think much on the manga because it's more or less just a parody of world politic by using mahjong with Japanese PM (Junichiro Koizumi) as the central player (Manga from Japan and all).

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Read this manga, and I'll post it here just because I did find that calling the seven most beautiful girls in the school as Seven Deadly Sins is quite ridiculous to say the least (I know that it sounds cool, but to apply it to the girls is just a bit too much). Granted that the manga give the (Lousy) justification, but it's still a bit too much. Also the author apparently have leotard and bondage fetish, as shown in his first chapters. If anything, at least it's good if you need some visual excitement there.

By the way I also notice that Bokuben decided to apply charage structure system in that the author will write that Nariyuki will ended with each girls (No harem route by the way), so let's see on how it'll going in the future (I wonder if the author took some lesson from Gotoubon and Nisekoi (Bokuben's author did help Nisekoi's mangaka) there in that there's many controversy over the main girl).

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  • 3 months later...

Did read both of QED and CMB, and both manga did have some detective works. While granted that the author here is not the most creative one when it come to the art, at least his cases are more than make up for it seeing that it contain some knowledge. As for what kind of cases that the casts will solve, you better find out by yourself but one thing for sure the trick is far more simple compared to Conan or even Kindaichi. The format is more like that each chapter will contain a standalone cases, which actually make sense for this type of manga as opposed to Conan which is more like have a hidden plot while in reality Gosho did aim Conan to have many standalone cases (Of course it become Conan's weakness in that some of the cases that have plot attached are quite not up to par with usual case, at least to me).

Forgot to mention that actually QED itself is quite popular in Japan, and I think Trails in the Sky character designer really like the design of Sou and Kana from there (Male and female protagonists respectively). Why I said that? Because Joshua and Estelle of Trails in the Sky did resembled Sou and Kana very much, which should be quite obvious for Japanese (I don't know if some overseas people did realize that though, seeing that QED is less popular overseas).

Edited by littleshogun
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