Category Archives: dakazu’s reading

Various manga dakazu’s read with some commentary

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Posted on by

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

An isekai manga about a high school girl who’s resurrected as the evil rival in her favorite otome game.

This was pretty alright overall. The series still suffers from a lot of typical isekai troupes, like the endless self conversations held by the main character to give exposition about the situation they’re in.

I did like how they set up that Catarina must focus on these things because otherwise she will end up being exiled or killed. It adds a sense of urgency to her mission to try and change her relationship with all the handsome male heroes and her eventual meeting with the true heroine of the game. But of course her actions are slowly changing from the original narrative of the game and making her the object of affection to all so I guess the troupe of over-powered reincarnator still stands.

An English version will be available from Seven Seas Entertainment this summer and an anime adaptation has been announced.

~dakazu

Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu

Posted on by

Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu

A manga about a school bully who is secretly being tortured by his victim to keep bullying her.

Not a fan of this kind of shit.

The twist that creator Nan Nakamura is trying to put on the subject of bullying comes off as trite and makes light of real life bullying. This series is trying to make a big mystery about why the victim forces the protagonist to bully her but I doubt any explanation will make sense.

Currently running on Pocket Magazine as a web manga.

~dakazu

Hitman

Posted on by

Hitman

A manga about a young new manga editor who promises to make a rookie manga artist successful.

This is the new manga by Kouji Seo who famous for romance series such as Fuuka and Suzuka. His previous works were never in a genre that interested me but I’m quite enjoying this one because it’s about making manga.

I really like how Seo uses an easy to understand game-like stats as characters are introduced. The editors are ranked by how many issues they’ve helped sell and the artist have a parameter the shows their strengths. I’m slightly concerned about how it’s beginning to turn into a harem for the male protagonist as the female characters are starting to blur the lines between professional and personal relationships with him. In any case, I’ll have to read more to see if that’s what this series is truly about.

~dakazu

M-san.

Posted on by

M-san.

An autobiographical comedy about a true masochist.

Really enjoyed this one. The comedy is akin to Prison School where the protagonist and characters are being totally serious about their fetish but to the comes off as absurd to the reader.

I liked how the episodic stories were split between a former SM domanatrix who’s past keeps messing up her career as an adult porn actress, the weird happenings between M and his go to escort, and a flashbacks where young M begins to manifest his masochistic nature after being bullied by a cute sadistic classmate.

~dakazu

Egawa to Nishimoto

Posted on by

Egawa to Nishimoto

A manga covering the real life baseball rivalry of Suguru Egawa and Takashi Nishimoto.

I’m a fan of Yasushi Hoshino’s Tetsuya – Jansei to Yobareta Otoko so I decided to check out his current series. Hoshino’s unique character faces work well to convey the drama between Egawa and Nishimoto as the manga begins with their high school careers and works it’s way to their eventual rivalry to be the ace pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants.

The author Yuji Moritaka is also the writer of the excellent Gurazeni: Money Pitch and I really like how intricately he covers everything from pitching technique to the public hype surrounding these two players.

I’ll definitely be reading more of this.

~dakazu

Change!

Posted on by

Change!

A manga about a high school girl who gets draw into the world of freestyle rap battles.

While it actually isn’t that unique as a subject for manga, I’m pretty impressed with how rap battles are treated seriously here. I like how Change! follows the growth of the protagonist Shiori as she starts from the bottom and it motivates her to grow and builds her own rapping style.

Masahito Soda has done a lot of different manga and I was a big fan of his racing series Capeta. His artwork works well to capture the kinetic energy of a crowd at a rap battle.

It’s currently running in Monthly Shonen Magazine.

~dakazu

The Seven Deadly Sins

Posted on by

The Seven Deadly Sins

 

This series will be ending soon and while I’m a bit sad I think it’s a good time to wrap up this epic story. I was personally a little disappointed at how the final battle played out. While it had some problematic things like Meliodas’ casual perverted side, I still think this was a great manga.

~dakazu

Soft Metal Vampire

Posted on by

Soft Metal Vampire

A manga about a girl who becomes targeted by the government and a squad of element manipulating dhampir squad that protects her.

I’m a fan of Hiroki Endo and while it’s nice to see him get back to his sci-fi roots, this series suffers from being pretty generic. The concept of these dhampirs manipulating different elements like Carbon or Nitrogen is something a child would come up with. Even the dhampirs’ mouths open up like a parasitic maw like the vampires from the movie Blade 2.

I will say Endo’s utilizing what he learned from All Rounder Meguru in all the action scene. Unfortunately everything from his monster to armor designs are just super rote and uninteresting.

It’s currently serialized in Afternoon Magazine.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with this one myself.

~dakazu

TIEMPO

Posted on by

TIEMPO

A soccer manga about a timid player who is bullied by his talented senior but it leads to him to display an untapped potential of observation.

A decent sports manga by newcomer Daisuke Iino. It’s always interesting to see how sports manga are done a little differently when they run in a seinen magazine but this one seems like it’s closer to a typical shonen sports book. The best parts so far is seeing the growth of the main character as he unlocks his potential for soccer.

Currently running in Young Jump.

~dakazu