yodlormak10

Friendship, love, betrayal. First I started watching this in the anime form, I had no idea how enthralled I would be. I have now read fan translations of the manga up to chapter 125, preordered the licensed English translated volume 1, bought the part 1 DVD/blu Ray set, and am currently on my 2nd time rewatching the anime haha >.<. this manga is so poetic, and so much of the story is told simply through the character's eyes and facial expressions. I love the character development, and the way they all interact with one another. Mizuho Kusanagi has created such an interesting fantasy world. I have never* had a manga tickle my funny bone the way Akatsuki no Yona does. While reading this, I'll be balling my eyes out one second and then dying of laughter the next. Absolutely gorgeous artwork! Overall, Akatsuki no Yona is an incredibly wonderful manga filled with emotion and beauty. I reccommend it to any manga fan!

"This isn't solo leveling anymore!"
- Solo Leveling, chapter 46

Ah yes, the highly praised webtoon, Solo Leveling. Now that it started being released physically too, it's finally added to MALs database. Does it live up to expectations? Not really, no.

Note that this review contains slight spoilers.

Solo Leveling is pretty much your typical "zero to hero" story, despite what fans might claim. Protagonist is weak, encounters trouble and is handed down some op abilities out of nowhere. Yes, he technically has to do quest to earn progress, but just the ability to do quests itself is unique to the world and is given to the protagonist with no explanation as to why. (Also the starting quest is ripped straight out of One Punch Man). This "underdog" is now stronger than almost everyone else, yet still has tendency to try to hide his abilities, for no apparent reason. I guess him being shown as strong all the time would hinder self-insertion.

The story is fine, more or less what you would expect from the genre, not great, not terrible. It's still a fun read, don't get me wrong, but it's hardly something I would call great. The greatest weakness is the repetitiveness. All the arcs after the first one go like this: MC enters a dungeon, something "unsusual" and "unexpected" happens, the expected difficulty increases, everything looks dire and unbeatable, MC starts doing stuff, the threat turns to be irrelevant as MC triumps over it relatively easily. More and more easily with each arc.

In fact, there is just no thrill anymore. Which is why the first few chapters were the best. You were worried about the protagonist as there was no telling whether he'll make it out arive. But at the current point of the story, the threath is there no more. It's just a massacre of obstacles.

The MC himself went from likeable underdog that works hard despite being the weakest to help his ill mother to not really giving a heck and having no problem straight out murdering someone. And this substory about ill mother? You would would expect that to get attention right after the protagonist gets strong and loaded, right? Nah, it doesn't get mentioned until much later when the author remembers that they made this substory in attempt to make the MC more likeable.

Edit: With the new chapters, the story does actually go back to the "mother is ill" part of the plot. It is thanks to a bunch of random item drops that conjuret the potion of plotforwarding, sure, but that's still better than nothing. A positive point for you, Solo Leveling.

With this are tied the "edgy spikes". I'm not that fond of using the "edgy" buzzword in a review, but in this case it fits as the description perfectly. Most of the time the manhwa is fine, but from time to time the edginess spikes out of nowhere, probably in an attempt to make the comic more interesting, but the result is exactly opposite.

The best part of Solo Leveling is undoubtly art. It's full colored, atmospheric, and the action is well drawn. On the other hand, it's not that's much different from most of webtoons of similar genres.

Overall, Solo Leveling is a fine read, but certainly nothing revolutionary.

Update: Since the 1st season of the webcomic is now finished, I'd like to comment on its last arc. With it, all the weak aspects of Solo Leveling are even more obvious. Not only the story of the arc is a porr man's cheap knock-off of Chimera Ant arc from HxH, the writing is terrible. The arc can be summed up as presentation of the the strongest characters the Hunter Association has to offer only for all of them to be beaten easily so the protagonist can waltz in and save the day effortlessly like the Gary Stu he is, takes a souvenir corpse to summon another overpowered servant and that's the arc done. This part really cemented Solo Leveling as nothing more than bad power fantasy with good art.

I wanted to write a review for my first time to express the happiness this manga has brought me.

Story - It has a complex story that explains most/all of the important details of why something is possible which helps people that are confused coming from other fantasy genres. (Of course, as far as fantasy goes the manga decides the limits.) 10/10

Art - The art is beautiful yet simple. I am not an artist but I am confident to talk about the art in this story as something good on its own end.
The art shows only what the author wants, therefore, having an effect that matches the story perfectly! It is neither too flashy nor too dry which is an outstanding achievement. 9/10

Character - Every character has its own personality and therefore different development. Everyone acts with respect to their personalities and won't easily change their way of thinking for no reason. 9/10

Enjoyment - The unavoidable 18+ side of the show is the main part of the enjoyment brought to the eyes but. If you follow the story you may find purpose in the completion of the MC's quest. 10/10

Overall - Everything stacks together perfectly like lego blocks. 10/10
The main story is not left behind, the art doesn't vary in quality, the characters don't randomly forget stuff and/or ignore the story for secondary unwanted quests which are useless for the continuation of the show.

This is one of the rare finds which also gets an anime adaptation. I would most definitely recommend it to anyone who already read the manga.
I however don't recommend watching the anime before the manga because some useful information that is only explained in the manga is key for the overall experience.

I recently read the series and caught up to it. Its been on my to do list for a while, because the title and cover seemed interesting. Plus a new shounen is always a potentially great day. After reading it I had wished I did so sooner.

The story and premise is great thus far. Golems aren’t exactly a new thing (what is?), but I’ve never seen a series that focuses so well on them. The treatment of Golems as tool and prospect of a living golem is also extremely interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes in a world where everything from the arts to warfare is shaped by golems.

The characters are somewhat cliche as with any shounen, but endearing enough that you still love them. As always the main character is happy go lucky, hard working, kind, etc. And as always it just works. I also personally love how this one isn’t relaly ambitious. Everything he does is for the sake of others and he truly only wants to help. The same goes for his dream. He doesn’t want to be the very best like some 10 year old with his head stuck in the clouds. He truly wants to help and even his dream reflects that (I’d say more, but knowing me it’d lead into a spoiler. It becomes pretty apparent early on what I’m referring to).

Overall this manga has been very good so far. The arts nothing amazing, but nothing cringe worthy either.

The only problem I have with this series is the rival, which for me is often either a hit or a miss and this one was sadly a miss. Though simple on paper the concept of a rival is pretty difficult to pull off successfully. They aren’t the antagonist or necessarily an ally. It’d be closer to say they are a foil to the main character, but wven thats not necessarily true. Suffice to say the rival and main character have a complicated relationship and I’m disappointed to say that here the rival feels to generic and bland. I get the feeling the author added a rival because every shounen manga just needs one and then he (she? I am now regretting not researching the author first) focused too much on having the rival be a contrast to thhe main character. Yes I get that everyone is worse than you. Yes you’re a child prodigy full of talent because of you not your super powerful relative. Yes, you’re a special little snowflake above all. As of right now the rival feels to me like an annoying emo teen. Also why do all of these “genius” child prodigies seem to know nothing about genetics? Its true that learned traits gained from hard work can’t be passed down, but if its a natural talent then it could be a family trait. Luckily the series is still fairly new. Its entirely possible that the author will improve the rival as the series continues, but as of right now he is the worst part of it for me.

I would like to add that I gave the series a 7 simply because its new. It has a lot of promise and potential and honestly if it continues down this path with improvements I’ll happily give the series a 10.

I actually read the whole book in Japanese unlike 90% of anyone that said anything about the story. I went the extra step and bought all the books from a manga store (PS: I live in Japan) look here--> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bRZFyxL_H_rveOhda3oMotFXSuqbBFdW <--

first of all I would only recommend reading it once it's been translated or just reading it if you know Japanese. I will make only a short review as I plan to make a video review of it.

This is not for the faint of heart by any means. I know most people want to know the story as a popular YouTuber made a video about it. Many taboo things happen that may turn people away but in reality it's not much more gruesome than what you would see in any slasher films. As I did really enjoy the story somethings happen that made me quite confused as to WHY a character did some stupid ass thing, and this happens enough to make me slightly annoyed and any seemed like a reason to have some people fight each other. There is actually another Dokumushi, an indirect squeal, that is ongoing with no section here on MAL however I plan to make an entry about it and read that one as well.

Me and some friends are currently translating the books to English so that everyone can enjoy the story that I was able to enjoy.

Perfect story, perfect art. Grips me from page to page. But I would still say that this story lacks a considerable amount of character development. I personally think that the plot moves faster than the characters. I barely understand the story line during the first few chapters making me have to go back and forth between pages to be able to fully understand each character's links with one another. However, I think that that is the purpose of the manga: making me drop my jaw in shock. I like this story. I came across it while looking for martial arts/action/psychological mangas and not once was I disappointed. For anyone who is looking forward to read this do so because everyone needs a bit of this in their life.

tl;dr: A manga that relies on its characters and comedy but doesn't do well either either.

This is described as a shounen fantasy harem, but it really isn't much of any of those. There is a male protagonist that feels like he's going to be important at first, but as it goes on he loses importance quite a bit to the point he doesn't feel important at all. He's certainly not at the center of some relationship web. That's not to say that the other characters are much better off though, because even though the girls seem to be the focus most of the time, they have really flat characters with no character arcs whatsoever, and furthermore no relationship development really occurs at all. Also, even Fukuyama seems to be a larger focus than Yukinari, as he's often at the center of most of the comedy. The thing though is that he's really annoying from the beginning, so him basically playing the same joke repeatedly gets really old immediately and the comedy quickly becomes not all that amusing. That's a problem because the manga seems to be relying completely on its comedy as the plot doesn't have much worth anything. As mentioned, it's not really much of a fantasy, it has some random tidbits of supernatural elements, but it uses them incredibly rarely outside the beginning and end. Rather, it's just some really simple episodes in a really basic setting, which due to the fact that the comedy got annoying actually made it very dull. The end tried to wrap things up by focusing more on the protagonist, giving it a plot and some relationship development, and while the ending on its own is probably reasonably fine, for the reasons stated the manga didn't really build up to it at all, and hence it didn't really feel like it had much impact. Lastly, the art was good at times, but most of the time it was only decent, and hence not enough to hold up the manga considering the other failings. 

Greatest manga of all time. It has a tsundere and a trap. Need I say any more to convince you to read this work of art. I'm sad now that there isn't any more chapters to read. I've been in a depressed state ever since I finished (if you catch my drift). I would end the review there but It's not "long" enough (hehe) so I'm going to reiterate by saying this is one of the best pieces of fap material I've ever found and I wish there were more mangas like this and not full on doujin material. As of chapter 25 we've got some major plot and character development and I hope to see this manga continually release new chapters, however long that may take. I'll be eagerly waiting with a box of tissues nearby in anticipation.

EDIT: Literally just as I posted this, I went to check if there were any more chapters and sure enough there were. However they're not translated in to english as of yet so you have to work with the raws. At least you can still understand and appreciate the plot (given its nature) so I wouldn't worry.

Popular belief states that Ribbon no Kishi (1954) by Osamu Tezuka was the first shōjo manga in history. The truth is that being strict this statement is flatly erroneous, and proclaiming it leaves in the forgetfulness the work of some artists who worked in the genre during the pre-war, being the best known Katsuji Matsumoto author of The Mysterious Clover (1934) and the very popular Kurukuru Kurumi-chan, which was in circulation from 1938 to 1940 in the magazine Shōjo no Tomo. And without forgetting Shosuke Kurakane, who during the first years of the postwar period published Anmitsu Hime (1949 - 1955).

Ribbon no kishi, born as a result of the influence that the Takarazuka theater exerted in the life of Osamu Tezuka, certainly meant a step forward in the development of the genre both visually and thematically, emulating in certain way to what years before it achieved Shin Takarajima While Ribbon no kishi and the Tezukian style dictated the way for some other pioneers of the genre such as Tetsuya Chiba, Leiji Matsumoto and Shotaro Ishonomori, the facts are clear and the aesthetic that prevails today in the shōjo world did not drain from Tezuka's sources, but rather of those provided by Makoto Takahashi.

Strongly influenced by the art of Kashō Takabatake and Jun'ichi Nakahara, two of the artistic leaders of the girls' culture (Shōjo Bunka) during the first decades of the 20th century, Makoto Takahashi adopted the visual style of the magazines for pre-war girls to use it in the visual construction of its manga. Takahashi is recognized as the inventor of the "shojo aesthetic" that is represented in those pages with wide and open panels aswell as full-body characters which undoubtedly evoked the cover of girls' magazines.

Sakura Namiki was born in that new culture of girls that emerged after the Meiji period (1868-1912) mainly within the hermetic homosocial world of schools for girls, and that had its means of expression in the shōjo magazines of the time. This is not only reflected in the aesthetic aspect of the manga, but at the same time Takahashi uses the argument to explore, and takes as central axis of his narrative one of the most important elements of the girls' culture: strong emotional relationships between schoolgirls Unlike what he did in one of his previous works, Paris-Tokyo, where feelings of love are focused on the parent-child relationship, in Sakura Namiki these feelings are channeled into a relationship between girls (S kankei). These types of relationships (Called S relationships) were not only very common during the time, but were even motivated by teachers and other authority figures as a way to channel and ward off the heterosexual desires of girls. But the love between females was not given in a sexual way at all, but in a totally spiritual form (ren'ai).

In conclusion, Sakura Namiki is not only a manga that experiments with visual narrative and that lays the aesthetic foundations of the genre, but at the same time it is a beautiful and sincere journey through the immaculate world of girls during the first decades of the last century.

Recommended Book: Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl's Culture in Japan

Plenty of sexy ladies, lots of action with blood and gore, along with a interesting story. What more can you ask for?

Story: A roman monk accidentally revives a witch and he's branded a heretic for it. That alone made me interested in this story. Since it's not a typical Japanese plot. However, while this manga was good early on, there is a problem with the pace of the story. At first, it was about hunting down evil witches, but maybe because it's such a short series the "mysteries" was revealed too early. Making it feel very rushed. The excessive nudity and gore might be too much for some people, but I really liked it.

Art: The art is really freaking good. There's a lot of gore, fighting and boobs, but the art is surprisingly clear and well made. It's easy to follow, and the girls are beautiful. The character designs are not the typical style, but that's probably because it's European characters, thus making them a bit different than most manga.

Characters: I really enjoy the characters, since the Main Character was a monk, he's mentally strong and stays true to his own ideals. And the Witches all have really fitting personalities for such a serious story. Frankly, it's much better than the immature shounen manga characters.

Overall, while this manga is too short and fast paced, I really loved the not-so-Japanese story after reading most of the typical mainstream manga. The "main plot" was pretty entertaining, if only it was a few volumes longer...

+ Interesting European witch hunt story
+ Good art and Characters
-+ Fan Service
-+ Gore
- No real romance

To quote Merlin. "Fu*king Spectacular".