The God of High School Review

The God of High School webtoon which begins with a mysterious organisation, which seems to hold a great, supernatural powers, as in destroying an entire island remotely in the beginning of the story. This organisation sends out invitations for the most promising fighters around the world to participate in tournament and the prize for winning is pretty alluring: They promise to fulfill any wish the winner wants.

Art: This a bit hard one to measure, since the art quality of God of High School varies a lot. There are lots of simplified scenes which are of course providing some comedic value, but at the same time in my opinion they lower a little bit the artistic value of the series. While I was reading the webtoon I though that they were done either for laziness or so that the author could focus on the scenes that really require a lot of time and attention. That being said, if something about this webtoon sticks to the mind it's without a doubt it's amazing fighting scenes. They are drawn and colored so beautifully that they may in fact be the best scenes and work of art that I have seen in any manga/manhwa/webtoon. So in the end I'm pretty much obligated on giving the art of The God of High School a good score. The drawing reminds me a lot of The Tower of God and I'd say that it's without a doubt of higher quality, though I think that Tower of God is exceeding in the imaginative side of the story.

Characters: In this series I really liked the characters. The God of High School mostly focuses on three main characters, of which Jin Mo-Ri is the one focused on the most. The other two are Han Dae-Wi and Yu Mi-Ra. All of them are getting their share of focus and pretty good backgrounds, even though some of them are a bit of a cliche, but I didn't feel any bothered by it. Jin Mo-Ri being seemingly the main-main character, is an excellent example of a character which I like to follow: basically very carefree. It looks as though the author has gotten some influence through a certain main character from a certain mainstream manga.
Funny sidenote: there's a very minor side character at some point of the tournament whose fighting is based on japanese mainstream mangas.

Story: So the Art and the character side of The God of High School are the best side of the webcomic, but story doesn't fall too much short even though it's nothing to gloat about. The whole series is pretty much focused on the tournament aspect, which is the heart of the story and it works pretty well. The tournament is fun to watch as there's lots of different, pretty interesting characters and the power progression is working pretty well and is somewhat similar to Tower of God in my opinion. If you have read the Tower of God you can't help but to notice the similarities between the two. There is however an aspect to the webtoon outside the tournament and that is where the 'big things' concerning the story are pretty much happening. At this point I really can't say anything else than I've enjoyed pretty much every side of the story except for small minor details, but not too much. I consider The God of High School as good or very good enjoyment, not a masterpiece and it doesn't reach up to where Tower of God is, but it's still enjoyable enough.

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Terra Formars Review

Terra Formars is a story about people of earth trying to make Mars into a fertile planet. They came up with the plan of sending cockroaches and mold so that they would make the planet eligible for people to live there. After couple of hundreds of years the first expedition lands on Mars and soon they find out that the cockroaches have mutated into huge and strong insects which pose a serious danger to the people on the ship..

Art: Terra Formars art is perhaps the best part of the series and it can be considered as excellent. Even if I'd look with a magnifying glass I most likely wouldn't find anything worth mentioning which would lower the score on its art. The battles of the series, though they are often very quickly over are drawn in a very good manner which I found very pleasing. There are a lot of brutality in the series and at first sight it does look like a yet another series which presents us more imaginative ways for people to die. 5/5

Characters: The characters of this series are at the same time a good and also the bad side. There really isn't any main protagonist who we are following, but rather the whole series looks more like a showcase for the author to show us as much imaginative characters which unique skills. This combined with great art makes up most of the enjoyability of the series. So the human characters, which have been imbued in the most imaginative ways with various insect abilities in this series are usually very short lived, which for those who like to follow some main protagonist who is covered with plot armor it's a definite minus. So the main point of the characters of Terra Formars could be both the human and the cockroaches as entirety. I found it pretty funny how the conversation on internet of this series always turns into pointing out the similarities between the cockroaches and black men. 3/5

Story: Needless to say, the story of Terra Formars really isn't anything to gloat about. As I previously mentioned the point of whole series seems to be a showcase for the author to show pieces of his imagination in the form of drawings and I'm not saying that it's necessarily a bad thing. In fact this way the series presented me something relatively new which I enjoyed to some extent. This doesn't mean that there isn't a story line at all, in fact it's quite opposite. People are trying to make the planet more fertile and they themselves created the menace that is posing a threat for the whole humanity. Along the way Terra Formars also presents us some mysteries regarding Mars itself as it seemed that someone else had previously habited the place, also there seems to be some sort of conspiracies in the background of the actual happenings. 3,5/5

Conclusion: Terra Formars is a brutal, imaginative, excellently drawn, shrouded in slight mystery manga which presented something new at least to me. I'd say that it's definitely worth a try if you aren't afraid of some brutal content which doesn't pale in comparison with Gantz. Actually I could say that if one likes Gantz, then Terra Formars is most likely something to seriously consider for enjoyment. For people who like science, Terra Formars also presents very well researched material used in the designs of the characters, which without doubt will please some, if not most of the readers. 3,5/5

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Trigun Maximum Review

Trigun Maximum continues from where the original Trigun manga ended. Two years after the events of blowing the crater on the moon, Vash finally continues his journey in which dangers are always present..

Art of Trigun Maximum isn't very good. The author manages to make most of the scenes with a good flow, but too often the action and the drawing starts getting so packed and it did distract me more often than I would have liked. I basically mean that when the action gets too rough, the author doesn't manage to pull through bringing the readers along with him, making them wonder what was going on again? There are some signs of improvements along the way as the manga was published for pretty long, over 7 years if I recall correctly?.

Characters of Trigun are understandably very likeable. Vash himself has a place in my heart as one of the first anime characters who I had pleasure of encountering (in form of anime, but anyways) when I was an early teenager. So the main character is a carefree man, with somewhat unknown history who can also get serious displaying unbelievable gunman skills. What's there not to like? As for the side characters most of the people who journey alongside Vash are those kind who I consider good. They don't do anything excessively and most of the time make their appearances worthwhile not counting a few exceptions. As for the villains I think that the author pretty much succeeded there very well. Triguns villain -scheme pretty much follow a traditional one where there are lots of minor villains, but I didn't think that there was anyone who would have disappointed me in any way. Villains were imaginative, most of them had reasonable motives and backstories, they were in general entertaining to read of.

Story of Trigun definitely deserves a lot of praise. Most of the characters and especially the main characters (including main villain) have such backstories which are very well designed and thought out. Story of Trigun can be summed up as a tragic story, which doesn't leave readers cold: characters aren't spared, Vash's ideals are constantly challenged while they are being revealed to the readers in bits and pieces. In the end of Trigun Maximum I could say that it was indeed more complex story than I would have thought at first and that raised the depth and the enjoyability of the series to the new heights.

In conclusion, I'd say that even if you had watched the anime, you should definitely read the manga also. They are somewhat similar in terms of characters and plot, but the manga version can be considered as many times more deep and satisfying as it opens up so much more stuff about the world, history and the characters than the anime could have done in it's shortness.

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A Short Summary: Beelzebub Review

This is only a short summary
Read my complete review of Beelzebub here

-Interesting main character
-Decent-good side characters
-Decent-good villains
-Relies a lot on humour, which is funny occasionally
-Has some plot continuity, but relies a lot on individual episodes / chapters
-Is half battle shonen and half gag manga similar to Gintama
-Generally a bit oddball
-I personally don't like, but it's popular
-Art is good

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A Short Summary: Gintama Review

This is only a short summary
Read my complete review of Gintama here

-Decent characters overall
-Relies on humor
-In my opinion isn't that funny, but I know lots of people like it
-Doesn't have any plot continuity
-Parodies a lot of other anime / manga
-Art / Animation is decent / good
-Relies on individual episodes

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A Short Summary: Akagi Review

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Read my complete review of Akagi here

-Main character is decent / good
-Side characters are decent
-Rely on the individual mind "games" that are played
-Art is bad-decent
-I don't like the character desing of the author
-Similar to Kaiji and a little bit of Liar Game
-Gambling manga

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A Short Summary: Detective Conan Review

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Read my complete review of Detective Conan here

-Relies on individual mysteries
-Has little bit of plot continuity
-Characters are overall decent
-The mysteries are interesting sometimes, but may get dull
-The idea is good - I like Sherlock Holmes
-The art is good
-There's too much speaking for my taste

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Shin Angyo Onshi / Blade Of The Phantom Master Review

Shin Angyo Onshi (Or "Blade Of The Phantom Master) starts off with Munsu, being one of the rare if not the only Angyo Onshi in the world. Angyo Onshis are people who exist mostly to punish corrupt government officials and lords. However the country of Jushin, from which these Angyo Onshis originate from has been destroyed and it's all somehow linked to Munsu...

Art of Shin Angyo Onshi is excellent to be short. At the beginning of the manhwa I wasn't too impressed, it seemed to me that the author was somewhat looking for his style, but after like a dozen of chapters I was completely sold. Shin Angyo Onshis art definitely has everything that I enjoy in a series: well designed characters, battles and especially the sceneries. In the span of the series we'll get to see almost every kind of sceneries which include snowy mountais, forests and even caves and they all look absolutely astoundishing. Characters all look good, easily memorable and have pretty much great art designs.

Characters of the series are also worth praising. Munsu, the main character of the series is a bit complex and at the same time very interesting character. People often describe him as an antagonistic hero and I have to say that they aren't wrong. I loved the way how he was designed not to beat the enemies with sheer power but by being very cunning, deceiving and like that surprising both the "bad guys" and the readers as well! What I also found very pleasing was that throughout the series there really wasn't any clear definition of who's bad and who's good so the characters had to really flow with the story and change accordingly: this absolutely brought more depth to the story and especially to the characters. In the whole series I basically loved every character except one, but he fortunately didn't get too much screen time and in the end didn't really bother me too much.

Story at first when I started reading seemed very shallow to me. The first chapter is indeed designed very well and gives some sort of hint what's about to come in terms of deceiving the opponents and the readers, but it can also be deceiving in a sense of looking a bit too shallow to the reader. I really though that Munsu would of course be using his Mahai to basically destroy everyone, but thankfully the author really had a good sense of quality in terms of designing the fights to come. I wasn't too pleased at first, but when I read several more chapters the story every time managed to surprise me with it's depth and incredibly good story designs which didn't leave me cold.
As the series progresses it's easy to see that it has very much depth and it offers immensely huge value to the readers in terms of story flow and story telling. What really did please me was that the author really took his time explaining all the things and didn't really leave any or much to the interpretation for the reader. In some cases this could be considered as a flaw, but the story of Shin Angyo Onshi was complex enough that in my opinion it didn't really need such thing: the twists that it presented to me were certainly enough to keep me amused.

Conclusion: Shin Angyo Onshi is nothing short of a masterpiece. I was pretty much stunned how I had missed it until this point and how people aren't really talking about it, because it was a lot better than some of the series which get somewhat weirdly much attention. I'd have to say that I really does very well in every possible way, but even though I recognize a masterpiece when I see one, I didn't really get that overwheling feeling as I finished the series. This may have nothing to do with the series itself, but the timing in which I read it, so I'm going to hold on and reread this some other time and then maybe upgrade it to the five star rating - if some series deserves it it would be this one. Meanwhile I'm going to leave it at 4.5, I'd give 4 and a 3/4 stars if I could though.

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A Short Summary: Zetsuen No Tempest Review

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Read my full review of Zetsuen no Tempest

-Doesn't captivate
-Decent characters overall
-Art is decent-good sometimes
-Doesn't leave you wanting for more
-Generic shonen
-Not recommended

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A Short Summary: Fullmetal Alchemist Review

This is only a short summary
Read my full review of Fullmetal Alchemist here

-Mainstream
-Main characters are decent
-Side characters are also decent
-Villains vary from decent to good
-Story is somewhat original
-Animation / Art is good
-Story pacing is decent
-Overall decent shonen

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A Short Summary: Assassination Classroom Review

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Read my complete review of Assassination Classroom

-Main character (villain) is original and interesting
-Relies a lot on the characters and the "villain" of the series
-Story is original, semi-interesting idea
-Only a little plot continuity at this point
-Relies on individual chapters
-Art is good
-Slight humour
-It's decent read, but nothing particularly interesting
-Not really recommended, though some people may like it

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A Short Summary: PlanetES Review

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Read my full review of PlanetES here

-Story has some originality
-Relaxing
-Didn't captivate me
-Relies on characters rather than story
-Character chemistry is decent
-Characters overall are decent
-Animation / Art  is good / excellent
-Not recommended by me

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A Short Summary: Gantz Review

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Read my full review of Gantz

-Brutal
-Mature
-Good main character
-Decent side characters
-Interesting villains / monsters
-Interesting and original idea
-Art is very very good
-Monthly release of chapters which is a minus
-Recommended for brutal manga fans

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A Short Summary: Mushishi Review

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Read my full review of Mushishi

-Relaxing
-Relies on the general good flow of the story
-Main character is semi-interesting
-Side characters are well designed
-The "Mushi" are interesting, intriguing.
-No Plot continuity
-Beautiful art / animation
-Relies on individual episodes

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Trigun Review: It's Still Good

Post apocalyptic, desert-like world: Trigun is about Vash, who has a bounty of 60,000,000,000$. Understandably people are constantly coming after him, but when they meet him they see that the man who has a nickname of "humanoid typhoon" happens to be someone who loves peace and mostly kids around. Even though he proves to be a very proficient gunman, there still must be a reason why he earned such a high bounty...

Animation: As of the time I'm writing this Trigun anime is about 15 years old. Understandably it has its flaws as it's been made so long time ago. However as I've recently watched it again I realized that as the quality of the anime may not live up to nowadays animation, it still manages to do some things better and seem more lively than some of more recent titles.  I can't call the animation of Trigun bad, but it the quality does vary a lot. At times the animation is bad, but at best it's nothing short of excellent. Keeping this in mind the final score of animation will be a 2.5.

Characters: In short Trigun has decent main character, varying side characters and good villains (some of the villains are bad, but even out with hugely excellent villains). I believe that Trigun was one of the trendsetter for later series to come in terms on showing of what good villains have been made of. Main character, Vash The Stampede himself is mostly a two dimensional character who at times can be very carefree and funny, but when things get serious there won't be unnecessary tryhard humor scenes when they are not called for.

Story of Trigun is absolutely the best part of the series. The whole anime begins with a bunch of filler-like episodes which are mostly designed to make the watchers get familiar with the main character and couple of side characters of the series. Nothing really special happens on those episodes, but they are enjoyable nonetheless. I'd say that the general atmosphere that this series has is a great combination of milieu design and excellently suitable music which is really worth praising in Trigun.
After the series goes on the track of it's long plot line which lasts for the most of the series then the watchers who have kept watching until that are up for a treat: The whole series transforms from semi-lighthearted to more dark anime which doesn't leave anyone cold.

Trigun is one of the first animes that I've ever watched and it was over a decade ago. Needless to say that I was very impressed by it and it has left me a nostalgic feeling which I most likely can't ever shake off. And I wouldn't even want to, it's still that good story.

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A Short Summary: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Review

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Read my complete review of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

-Uninteresting characters overall
-Bad-decent plot
-Animation / Art is decent
-Mechas which is a minus from my point of view
-Idea is original at least
-Goes overboard
-Mainstream, but I don't understand why

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A Short Summary: Deadman Wonderland Review

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Read my complete review of Deadman Wonderland here

-Original idea
-Bad main character
-Decent side characters
-Decent-good plot
-Art is good or even very good
-A bit brutal
-Couple of good plot twists

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Pandora Hearts Review: A Bit Too Confusing

Pandora Hearts starts with our main character, Oz Vessalius who gets attacked during his coming-of-age ceremony by a group of mysterious people wearing cloaks. They say that Oz's whole existence is a sin and he gets sent into an abyss, prison full of darkness. There he meets a "Chain" B-Rabbit Alice, who agrees to make a contract with Oz resulting in both of them getting back to real world.

Art: I have to say that the art is the worst part of the series. The whole point of art in mangas is to control the flow and show readers what's going on depending on how mangaka decides to do it. In Pandora Hearts case it reminds me a lot of D. Gray-man, which too had a lot of potential but in my opinion fell short because the art left a bit too much for imagination. So is the case in Pandora Hearts also, I believe that a bit too much is left on the imagination of the reader about what is going on and even that isn't always enough. The series feels way too confusing way too often, which in my case lowers the enjoyability immensely. I however have to praise the character design art to some extent, they look pretty good, but the backgrounds and un-smooth flow doesn't compliment the characters enough. That's the way that the mangaka decided to do it and the art of this series just doesn't suit me.

Characters: Are better than decent, I found most of the characters having great personalities and their designs work very well. I also believe that the depth that the characters have absolutely deserve some praise. Once again I found myself liking the main character who happened to be carefree and seemingly living in the moment and not stressing over every little thing.

Story: What makes Pandora Hearts so popular I belive is the story. The story is a lot more deep than you would be guessing at the first sight, there are loads good twists and overall it simply delivers. However even though the story can be considered very good, it can also easily be described as confusing and hard to follow. Even though there are a lot of things that get somewhat clarified to the reader it still leaves too much up to the interpretation of the reader which could be a good thing if it could have been done in such a manner that it could be speculated with the feeling of clarity, not confusion.

When I first started reading the first chapter of Pandora Hearts I couldn't follow what was happening. Everything felt so confusing, things happened very fast without explanation so I practically had to force myself to read through the couple of first chapters. After that the story did get some clarity and it was relatively easy to follow, but the style of the mangaka seems to be that kind which doesn't suit me in any way. Throughout the chapters I realized that the manga had very much potential and it truly delivered in terms of story value, but the art was a terrible bottleneck in terms of enjoyability. I've read a lot of hype of Pandora Hearts and some people even praise the art work, but I have to be honest and say that it didn't just suit me: if it suits you then you are really up for a treat.

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