Havos4414

Oh, MONSTER does many, many things right. An American creator would surely be jealous of things that Urasawa succeeds at seemingly effortlessly. The cast is large but each character’s motivation is clearly defined. Many of the secondary characters steal their scenes (none moreso than the icy “computer-brained” police investigator chasing the lead character). Urasawa seamlessly integrates effective single-episode stories into his larger arcs, adding extra depth to the proceedings. While my initial impression was that the characterization was still far too thin, by the end Urasawa had convinced me (at least with the main character) that he’d pulled off a satisfying character arc over the book’s plot. There seem to be themes of self-destruction throughout the work (the story is a sort of journey through hell in order to reaffirm the value of life kind of thing, I think), but it rarely wallows in any self-glorifying “darkness” (or at least rarely gratingly so).

Action scenes are superb and perfectly paced, and the cliffhangers are as ever relentless and exciting – I am just plain enthralled by Urasawa’s skills as an entertainer. In these days of hearing fans complain about “decompression,” a reading of MONSTER makes it clear how few of them really are aware of what a considerable pleasure it can be in the right hands: in MONSTER, Urasawa can spend chapters allowing an atmosphere of evil to slowly accumulate. Nail-biting cliffhangers can arise from the suggestion of evil instead of evil leaping out frothing onto the page screaming naked. Tension can accumulate. A page can be spent with a character outside of a murder scene, a page spent on nothing more than slowly regarding the doorknob that leads to some horrifying scene or another. I appreciate the “decompression” backlash – MONSTER came out over seven years, probably twice a month (if my math is right), while American comics come out more rarely – once a month if you’re LUCKY—and are far more expensive. American comics do not have either the business model or, perhaps, dedicated enough creators to allow for the pleasures that I feel “decompression” has to offer. And American style pacing of the kind fans long for has its own pleasure which can be considerable. But let’s at least acknowledge the loss.

After those thousands of well-timed pages, I’d like to say MONSTER was a success. But, I’m sorry, no: a mess. The book chases after a bad guy so miraculously evil, so much in the shadows that we hardly ever get to know him on-page. Urasawa’s early attempts at writing for an ensemble are occasionally exciting, as the book zig-zags into unexpected character introductions and disappearances, but the end result is that the lead characters all go missing for significant chunks of time without adequate cause. And ultimately by the end, I wasn’t sure if it all added up to anything worth the pages – the ending is exciting but after the thousands of pages building to it, hopelessly anti-climactic (Urasawa seems to realize this and intercuts a ridiculously sentimental lottery subplot that I can’t imagine any reader could possibly caring about with his grande’ finale).

Page-turners are fun, but after a few thousand pages of comics, its simply too hard not to expect more. And I must admit, after those thousands of pages, I felt lost as to what I had read, in seeing the big picture of what had happened. MONSTER is crazy pleasurable in the moment, action-packed, constantly engaging and bringing all the energy comics can bring into a slick piece of entertainment… but for me, I found it ultimately empty – not an experience I regret, in that I imagine I’d feel that way about any suspense thriller. Suspense thrillers are not really my genre.

Shisei is the first collection of short stories of Shizuka Nakano, a female artist with only sparse contributions to the medium who first became known thanks to the story called "Waon Apartment" which allowed her to win the Seiichi Ayashi Award as a newcomer in the AX magazine.

If there is one thing that is clear when opening this anthology, it's that she is heavily inspired by children's picture books, presenting themselves like modernized fairy tales confronting adults or teenagers to the inner child residing inside of them.

Although they could be called simplistic or sometimes rather naïve toward their subject matter but it fits the overall aesthetic of Shizuka Nakano that tries mainly to render them lively and vibrant and definitely succeeds at that. While keeping a constant basis for her art, characterized by being very round and cartoony but mostly by her constant use of half-screen tones in every and each pannel that serves to replace the lack of colors of the manga format – the stories will completely change form depending on her layouts and on the theme of her stories, her narrative flow is really something to be admired. She also doesn't use many dialogue to tell the story, the situation is rather explained through the use of a 3rd person narrator to make it closer to a picture book.

Worth mentioning in detail is the first story drawn especially for this collection, Catcher in the Chocolate, about a dentist depressed about terrorizing every children who visits him who becomes in his dreams a Messiah allowing children to eat chocolate all day long without any repercussion. As if raining from the sky, the chocolate seems like it was made to fall directly right into the mouths of these kids, this dream will end when one of them hits the dentist on the head. Slight hints of red and brown scattered in it serves to reinforce the ethereal feel and make it quite memorable. There's also Waon Apartment which is probably the most skillfully made of this collection as it brilliantly uses music sheets and musical notes to link her panels as well as musical notes to symbolize the progressing and deteriorating relationships between the characters.

I could also talk about the story of a scientist trying to collect the stars emanating from people he strikes with his hammer, the one narrating the legend of a man marrying a nine-tailed fox or even the encounter between a highschool girl and a cinnamon smelling spirit contained in a stained-glass window…
What is sure is that every story shine as bright as a star and contribute to instantly make of Shizuka Nakano an artist to be remembered.

First of all,this is not for those sensitive guys who can't stand NTR.If you even read this and reach the NTR part,you will feel like tearing your skin off...

Now to the plot...
This starts off as a typical doujin would.Married couple,living happily,no child,trying their best to have a child and yada,yada,yada...Then the husbands parents force him to have a child but it seems like he can't.Because it looks like he only gets off when he sees his wife getting banged by other guys.And from here read it yourself and figure out what happens next.This was sum epic shit!

Overall an NTR masterpiece!!!

(P.S-I'm sayin' it again,this is not for sensitive people.Only those who love NTR and Rape tags should read this.)

Cheers...

story 10/10 : a treasure among treasures, the amazing. before I started i have to say story is not isekai this story more into the fantasy than isekai where main character is born in fantasy world so far only I read 10 chapters have to say story is amazing .

Art 10/10 : the beauty of this manga is out of this world, art work is amazing specially Mary one of the female character art work was amazing.

characters 10/10: Best character development I have seen . main character is 30 year old and was a living a normal life he was an adventure didn't earn much in his life and suddenly he found a sword that can help him to become stronger . character development of first 3 chapters was amazing specially Mary one the character of the manga


enjoyment 10/10: Masterpiece . I binge read 10 chapters and also try to read the raw version .

overall 10/10: this manga is true masterpiece I wish there will be an anime but since chapters are few I will have to wait another 1 or 2 years

Pretty much as soon as they made their debut, CLAMP launched an extensive shared manga universe revolving around an elite city-sized school campus shaped like a pentagram. Their Clamp School works don't seem to be fondly remembered these days, but I suppose they paved the way for the future Tsubasa/xxxHOLIC/Cardcaptor shared universe, which miraculously took off.

My opinion on Clamp School Detectives is that it sucks ass, so I went into Defenders with the minimum of expectations. It's still not *good*, but it's miles better. School Detectives is ostensibly a comedy, but it has a hard time landing even ten percent of its jokes. School Defenders succeeds in being a little funnier by sheer virtue of being a gag manga. The tokusatsu bits run dry pretty quickly, but what emerges is an unfathomable romance followed by a bizarre third-act twist straight out of Rocky Horror. It's weird, it's stupid, and if I had bought a Toykopop volume of this as a kid I would have eaten it right up.

Let's be real here, I'm giving this manga a lot of pity points because one of the main characters repeatedly mentions how he's in love with his superhero partner and just wants to be his tradwife. Sometimes a transsexual from thirty years ago successfully reaches through the pages and makes me feel something, anything, from reading a mediocre CLAMP manga.

I really like thsi series, is still short, the art is no good and the traductions are still confusing.

Premice: Homura-sensei is a highschool biology teacher that can't be healped, between his slow old age actittude, his small body, young age for a teacher, strange shirts, weird gimmics, Yoshino emergency plan and lack of social skills seems like the perfect candidate for being an easy pick for students bullied.
He is very diferent for the norm and he knows it, but strangelly enough a student becomes interested in him and strats becoming his friend and hellping out in different scenarios.

The story is well written, shown in short 4 panel chapters it shows Homura way of being in different school related situations.
The artstyle is cute and simple but the mangaka stills needs to develope its drawing to be more consistent and comprehensive.
Untill Now there are 3 main characters and 3 ocational (or have been mentioned), they have a good set of characteristics, interests, and way of doing things, which brings interesting funny scenarios.

You shoud give it a chance since is fast to read it, i really hope to gets more momentum and the mangaka to continue the series

This was a great Manga. I thought it was gonna be a longer one, but I liked it anyway. I like how they left a HUGE cliff hanger on one of the characters. It almost felt like a One-shot. 45 chapters felt so short. I wanted to see more characters from different schools. A fight and maybe some crazy stuff between the love bugs haha. Definitely a manga I'd recommend. Give it a go!

This was a great Manga. I thought it was gonna be a longer one, but I liked it anyway. I like how they left a HUGE cliff hanger on one of the characters. It almost felt like a One-shot. 45 chapters felt so short. I wanted to see more characters from different schools. A fight and maybe some crazy stuff between the love bugs haha. Definitely a manga I'd recommend. Give it a go!

I watched Mermaid Melody anime and I think the manga is better because is better explained and there isn't so many attacks and demons >o<
There is more romance between Kaito and Luchia and that is good!

As far as I could gather, this manga is an adaptation of a Chinese novelette. And this fact of trivia is surprisingly relevant – you’d need to adjust your expectations accordingly to get the maximum enjoyment from this manga. What do I mean? Well:

A novelette is limited in volume, its story won’t and can’t explain everything, and the story in this manga is highly schematic as well. But thankfully its length is proportionate to the adapted content, 15 chapters, a read for one night, so you’ll hardly have time to ponder over background details. Anyways - mind it, you’re reading more of a poem than a saga.

A short literary work usually explores one idea and this manga is one-trick too, or, if we look at it positively, very focused. It is centered, as another reviewer aptly said, on misdirection – it changes the way we see the events in a series of well-calculated plot twists. Perception games are, probably, what you should read this manga for.

It’s very literary. The flow of the narrative is non-linear, as most of the modern prose is (so keeping track of things can be difficult at times). But the payoff is that the quality of the text is on a very decent, non-amateurish level. The manga starts with a poetic love talk, and I expected it to devolve in the usual stifling swamp of pretentiousness, but the haughty confessions were balanced into something palatable with lifelike mundane interactions and gory medical topics.

As far as for the art, the mangaka uses the interplay of semi-realistic detailed backgrounds and idealized main characters, especially the titular Du Ming, who is all fine chisel, white porcelain, huge black eyes and silky eyelashes (of course there’re gothic motives, see that Louis XIV sofa on the cover?). I also liked the less polished drawings on the covers of some of the chapters. The art may be not to everyone’s liking, but I find that it suits the story well.

The story is dark, one of the darkest manga I’ve read, and I am not new to disturbing comics. It’s subtly uncomfortable, and while it has some artificial, forced bits it compensates for it by finding a psychological angle rarely explored. The most unnerving thing is that it doesn’t bother with morals at all, even in the form of the jolly teenage denial – it just paints a dark picture as an artistic exercise.

Oh, and I have to disagree that this work has something inherently Chinese in it, I think the topics are universal.

All in all, on its own merit I’d rate this manga with a 7 – it’s good, but the plot is not entirely clear (there’re at least two explanations among the readers), it’s short and not groundbreaking in any way. But I also can’t help but feel that it is a manga I will remember and reference for a long time, simply because there’re few works like it, and it understands the strengths and limitations of its format well. So – an 8.

Ready for some bloody scenes and epic fights? Interested to find out what dark conspiracies are yet to be uncovered? Tired of works that ends with numerous loose ends and leaves plotholes? Want to experience the thriller ride that will not end until you finish the entire 46 chapters? La Mosca is the perfect choice!

This is not to say that La Mosca is a flawless piece of work by any means. To start with, the character development in this work is weak. In fact, not much sentiment other than the will to survive and to protect is shown from the protagonist, of whom we spend the most time with. Furthermore, critics may say that the protagnist is shrouded by hero’s halo, which is definitely true in this case. During the course of this manhwa, audiences have seen numerous cases where the protagonist would definitely die were he a normal person. Evidently, the protagonist survived them all, sometimes with a lack of convincing explanation other than “invincible protagonist effect”.

Aside from some several minor drawbacks, this manhwa is a masterpiece. Notibly, the motives of all related characters (which are a lot) are outlined in the form of flashbacks at the appropriate times. This is the recipe of good mystery-solving and story-telling technique. Personally, I liked the art. The characters are drawn with distinctive features that make them memorable.

For people who are already accustomed of reading manhwa, this is definitely a great choice. For people who haven’t yet tried any manhwa or are hesitant to try one, this could be a starting point.

Story: 8/10
Art: 9/10
Character: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

originally posted at my blog:
http://bunny1ov3r.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/no-30-la-mosca/