Time Paradox Ghost Writer

Time Paradox Ghost Writer — a wonderful idea that could not satisfy many.

Story [6/10]

I loved the new concept that was introduced in this manga. It's perhaps the very first time I'm reading something like this, so I was very keen to learn more about it. As you have probably read the Synopsis, this story starts with a Weekly Shounen Jump from 10 years in the future and revolves around the mega-hit series, The White Knight.

While the protagonist is shown adapting to his new life, it isn't much enjoyable. He's deliberately made as a paranoid person and always wonders on how to continue the story further. I believe it could have been handled a bit better. And if it did, then we would likely be blessed with 5-6 more volumes.

Art [10/10]

The best part of this manga is the artwork, which is superb. One of the reasons why I continued reading this manga is mainly because of it. It is simply mesmerizing and if this manga had continued, then it would have surely become a favorite in many user's lists.

Character [5/10]

The main characters are Itsuki Aino and Sasaki Teppei. While Aino has been written has a wonderful character with a lot of smile and motivation, Sasaki on the other hand is always paranoid and is full of anxiety. The main issue that leads to the downfall of this manga is Sasaki. If only the authors took their time to develop Sasaki in a way that the audience likes, then it might have been successful.

Enjoyment [4/10]

The main thing to enjoy is the curiosity to know what will happen next. Aside from that, I don't think there is enough to enjoy since it is a short series.

Overall [6/10]

4 points for the incredible art and 2 points for the original idea. Though the story has references to other manga, the overall plot is amazing. I will probably recommend this manga to others since I like it, and might also buy its volume whenever it comes out.

Microwave time machine, what does it remind you of? Yes that's right, the blindly praised anime "steins;fate" another anime I'm not particularly fond of, but I won't get into that.



- SPOILERS AHEAD -
The main character wants to be a mangaka, but it seems he is not able to create something original that would get him an SJ serialisation, so with the time machine ass pull- or should I say, a thunder completely randomly hits his house, completely randomly accurately hits his microwave, which completely randomly seemed to have a robot toy next to it, now the microwave is not a microwave anymore but it's a time machine, to our surprise, there was banana jelly no excuse me, a shounen jump issue from 10 years into the future, featuring "white Knight" on the cover, which sounds like a shit isekai and they are treating it like peak fiction, but this is not a review of a manga in another manga.

Wait though, it sounds like a plot twist right? A crazy plot twist, the one who is responsible for the time machine will actually prove to be himself from the future (not happened but it's basically what it's building up from what we saw in the latest chapter). Now back to the main character, he wants to create a manga for all humanity to enjoy, not very shounen MC of him, so he rips off the manga from the future that he read and found amazing. He gets himself a good start with a one shot, and gets high places several times in the actual serialisation, but the mangaka he ripped off happened to be a dumb cute highschool girl who noticed that the white Knight our mc (don't remember his name) was writing was similar to hers, but of course it could hardly be that they happened to have the same idea so she quit school and moved to tokyo to meet him, you know basic real everyday life things, she became his assistant and like the good guy our mc is felt like he either had to tell her the truth, which would probably shatter her dreams, or rip off her future manga till the end and influence her from his timeline to become an even better mangaka in the future. Well, the shounen jump issues in the microwave stop arriving and it is revealed that the itsuki aino the original mangaka of white Knight actually died and now the mc had to stop her from dying, not like makise kurisu at all, I know.




Well you can catch up in half an hour so I guess as long as you can keep up with this garbage weekly, you should read it

I'm heartbroken this manga didn't make it past two volumes.

This, hands down, has to be one of the most unique and interesting plots I've ever seen. And normally, I'd be the critical guy, here... because what makes a manga good (or any story, for that matter), isn't its ideas, but how it presents them. It's clear in the very fabric of Time Paradox Ghostwriter that the series got axed right out the door, but even so, the mangaka were able to wrap it up in a way that I still found worthwhile.

It's no surprise that people took offense to the plagiarism element of this manga, because people can find a reason to be offended by anything. In my opinion (and I'm stating this for the sake of the review, here) everyone should be able to understand that stories have always explored topics that cross social taboos, and finding ideas "offensive" or "insensitive" are not meaningful ways of interacting with media. Ever. Period. Doesn't matter where you come from or what topics you balk at. Boundaries are superficial, cultural, and very fluid. Everyone has different lines, and they will always be crossed somewhere.

With that out of the way, I think Time Paradox Ghostwriter was a fantastic story with wonderful art, and an intricate, unique setup that uses this element of social taboo in its very premise. We get to see a protagonist who does something quite pathetic out of some tangible desperation, in a workplace setting and sci-fi time travel story that I would never have been able to conceive myself. The genius of this is that the main character is constantly drilled with the idea of making a manga that isn't "hollow," a manga that only HE could make, something unique, original, personal. With a message, too. That's exactly the manga itself! It's wholly unique, original, and personal -- but unfortunately, it had to bumrush its message.

If given enough time, the weight of his plagiarism, the passion he feels for his work, and the lives of he and the heroine could have been explored in quite a beautiful way. For what we got, though, I'd say the managaka did very well.

When I read the first chapters I had the following thoughts: "This is a unique and interesting story, however can this be 100+ chapters long? Or at least 50?" And as you see, with a total number of 14 chapters, it couldn't. But why was it determined to be short, and still be felt complete? To answer this question let's start with this review.

Story 6/10
As I mentioned, the story starts very interesting and unique. It is a kinda sci-fi Bakuman, and I like bakuman a lot. But right at the start you also get the feeling of emptiness or not well thought out story. Maybe It was never mean to be a long manga, but that would be strange if you want to serialized your work. But what was the problem? The main plot was interesting, of course, but when I read a chapter at the end I had this feeling of "was that all?", and not in a good way. While Bakuman was relatively fast paced, it still felt full of comedy, drama, romance and what else, and kept the readers hooked. In this work, you had this "timetravel manga writing" plot, but mostly the story was just filled with amazing art, and not a deep story. The timetravel was just for shine, all the manga work process was mostly just skipped, and character developments wasn't even there. So for example, you got maybe 2-4 (cheap) lines of plot, but the rest was just art. And yes, you can tell a good story with just art... for a battle/action manga, but not for a complex sci-fi drama, what it has supposed to be.
So at the end, I gave the most points for the exciting idea. In addition, it rushed it's own main story. So yeah, the story writer completed his story (in 14 chapters), but he sacrificed a lot of potential and side stories.

Art 8/10
The only outstanding thing in this manga was probably the art. It was really detailrich and the character designed envolved paralel to the story. However, there was just 2 real characters and was just running for 3 month, so he didn't have to come up with new designs, attacks or places. For example (again) in Bakuman, the artist had to draw a pair of manga styles within his own art style. So sometimes it was a clash of styles which was really exciting. While here you get this one style, for this manga, and the 2-3 mangas within the story. So even it was amazing and detailrich, and maybe it was due to its shortness, it had just this one style for all.

Character 4/10
The biggest problem for a short manga is everytime the character development and/or the variaty of characters. In this work, you get 2 and a half character (the half was the "timetravel"... which you will understand if you read it). Their development was also so damn fast, one of the two just got its full story in just one chapter... While the main character was a kinda a workaholic masochist with almost no reason. We got a bit of explanation, but like the whole story, it felt empty and not well thought out...

Enjoyment 5/10
I really enjoyed the art and the base plot. But as I told you before, at the same time it was too fast paced, it lacked of character and it really felt empty. If the mangaka did not start with this speed story telling, he may could put more story and character development in it. Than it may catched or hooked more readers and would be more enjoyable.

Overall 6/10
Overall you get a fast paced, but complete story. However, it was supposed to be a complex sci-fi drama about manga creating, but failed completely. The art is definitely the strongest point in this work and I hope for more artwork from the drawer. The storywriter had a excellent idea, but he maybe need more experiance for a story like that.
I would recommend this manga, if you want a short unique timetravel manga story with nice art. However, if you really want a story about the manga working process Bakuman is a way better option. Also you will find a way better timetravel sci-fi stories than this. (I never read one... I just heard a lot about Steins:Gate, so I can't recommend any like that. For Anime, I just know a few like 'Island' or 'Punch Line' where the main plot is time travel, but none of them are truly sci-fi)

Back when I was reading chapter 7 I was excited with the direction of where the story could go. The direction really hyped up the rivalry between Sasaki and Aino which was refreshing especially in the male dominated manga industry.

But really this ended to abruptly and the pace was too fast so I was disappointed by the ending. Too many timeskips and definitely not enough time for the characters to be built so there was no actual rivalry, and the story really skips over a lot of manga writing process, which I suppose was never the focus, but jam packing the theme of the story at the very end was rather disappointing. Aino was simply thrown in as a damsel in distress for our hero to save and that was all it really was to it.

"Has potential" means "has not yet lived up to it". That's the lesson I hope people that were all over hyping Time Paradox Ghostwriter get out of this because that's certainly how I ended up feeling. I can't blame people for getting excited over a series like this as it seemed like this series would be Bakuman minus the stock romance + Stein;s Gate, a cool seeming idea that had some interesting questions to ask about creative writing, particularly whether or not it's truly possible for a different writer to take up someone else's beloved intellectual property without losing the intrinsic value that made the work so special in the first place. It's a question that the protagonist, the failing wannabe mangaka Teppei, finds himself having to answer with his own belabored effort when he receives a piece of the future from his microwave in the form of an issue of Weekly Shounen Jump featuring the debut of White Knight, a series set to make waves when it debuts in 10 years, but does not exist in the present. Teppei takes it upon himself to steal the manga wholesale and uses the weekly magazines he would receive henceforth as drafts for his own redrawn version to pass off to the public as an original work. Add into the equation the real creator of White Knight, a teenage girl named Itsuki Aino, has already conceptualized the story and is herself currently trying to break into the manga scene as an assistant, and you've got one spicy set up full of potentially rich and fulfilling avenues. There will be spoilers, but given how this series is set to be axed with next issues as of the time of writing, it shouldn't matter.

Of which the series takes absolutely none. It's kind of hard to say why. How much of it has to do with incompetence on the part of the writer and how much with how poorly Japan's reader base took to the idea of following the exploits of a shameless plagiarist (to the point to which all mentions of words "plagiarism, or plagiarist had to be replaced with synonyms for the first poorly-selling volume release), I can't say. But what I can tell you is that what we got as a result is confused, poorly paced mess that bulldozes all of it's oppurtunities for sudden time skips or just lazy storytelling. Did you want to see how Teppei would force himself to evolve as a writer to match the higher bar set by the Future Aino? Sorry. Were you wondering how Present Aino would approach the man profiting off of ideas so similar to hers they far exceed being called uncanny similarity? Well she befriends him immediately and shows, showing not even a hint of suspicion and even starts another smash hit manga soon after (a feat her future counterpart wouldn't accomplish until nearly a decade later).

The problem with this accelerated approach to storytelling is that it doesn't give any of the questions raised in the first chapter answers with any room to breath. What is it that makes White Knight so good to begin with? It just is. How does Teppei fill such big shoes when the issues from the future stop appearing? He just does. I brought up my positive comparison to the series Bakuman, a work that showed far more interest in showing what it truly meant to be a manga artist. The specific writing techniques Muto Ashirogi had to adopt when tackling different genres in there struggle to find something that would stick as a multi media franchise, the weekly grind to hit the top survey rankings and the resulting rivalries. It's because of our witnessing of the grueling routine of these starting artists that each of their victories and failures feel all the more uplifting and devastating respectively. TGPW beyond the first few chapters likes to tell you that all that struggle really did happen, for real just trust us, but taking shortcuts just makes everything about the story ring as empty and what's this all in service of?

Well I also did compare this series to Stein;s Gate, and while that comparison is a bit more tenuous, both works undergo a sudden shift into a "save the girl" type narrative via time travel. The shift really did feel like the manga equivalent of a "rating trap" but at this point the manga's fate was likely already sealed, and I already had checked out. Too many narrative opportunities and I could smell the axe coming a month ahead of people who are only now surprised to know this series didn't do too hot. These past few chapters feel as though they might have worked better for a final volume for a much longer series in which the relationship between Teppei and Aino would have felt far better realized, but that level of investment was left behind in one of the timeskips. So what we're left with is nothing more than the skeleton of what seemed to be a great story that died too soon and was picked to the bone before it had the chance to be told.

the time paradox ghost writer is a manga that heavily copies 2 shows; steins;gate and bakuman
a combination between the goat and a great show/manga will result in a great manga right?

WRONG!

the problems with it are the exact same problem the editor tells mr.maincharacter in the first chapter, nothing is bad, but nothing is good either there is nothing to be found in it, it's worthless, empty.

what would you like to see in a manga? the answer is most likely not in the time paradox ghost writer.

the characters are as plain as it gets, what even drives the main character to do whatever he does? we never know, he just does it, there is hardly any conflict and thus hardly any story
until the "main plot" starts.

the characters are also like the characters in his manga, they are just energetic without any substances, it really does feel like the manga is criticizing itself.

someone might say that s;g was like that too, but the difference is that s;g was building up the world, the plot and the characters.

the time paradox ghost writer doesn't build up anything, nothing at all, and thus when the BIG PLOT TWIST (that they totally didn't copy from s;g) kicks in, i simply have no reason to care.

the characters are the same characters you will see everywhere else, if you watch anime you have seen them many times before

the story goes exactly where you think it will go, a battle manga between the mangakas, but we already saw that in bakuman, the fact that there is a life on the line doesn't add any tension, tension is created by being attached to the characters, not by having something big on the line.

but to be fair to the show, the art is pretty solid, it is probably the only good thing you will see in this manga.

overall rating: 2/10 (but i guess you already know)

This isnt the best story I have ever read but I really liked it I havent read to much manga so I have little to compare to. I might not be the best manga ever but I think everyone enjoy it. It has a great mesage and its a short read with only 2 volumes so it wont waste your time I really liked the characters the art and even tho the story falls a bit apart at the end It was a enjoyble read

Good work Time Kenji Ichima hope you make more cool manga in the future
I have totototottotoototototoototototototootototototototot

Weekly Shounen Jump is the most famous manga magazine in the world, with series like Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Yugi-Oh, Bleach and Yaiba, just to name very few. It’s a magazine that always seems to have a hit title on their sleeves, and this can give people the idea that Jump spends a lot of time curating their manga, making sure that only the best of the best are published, but this is actually far from what really happens.
On the contrary, Weekly Shounen Jump has a new batch of manga every three or so months, and each batch comes with two to four brand new manga. And every time a new manga starts, another ends. This creates a magazine where most manga that debut ends at around four or five months after they start. Only the manga that managed to create a core audience and have decent sales in their first volumes survive. It’s important for a manga to have an initial buzz.

And Time Paradox Ghostwriter had that buzz. It had the luck of starting the exact same issue that Kimetsu no Yaiba ended, so people point at it as if it was the manga that came to take the place of one of the best selling manga of recent times. And while, yes, it was the manga that came to take Yaiba’s literal spot in the magazine, it was just another one of a batch that happened to start when Yaiba ended. But that didn’t matter, people were reading the first chapter and talking about it.

The first chapter is about Teppei Sasaki, a mangaka that is trying his best to get published in Shounen Jump, but keeps getting rejected, because, despite writing decent manga, they always feel generic. The editor asked him to write a manga that only he could write, but he fails every time.
After many tries, Sasaki is ready to give up, but during that night a lightning strikes his house, burning his microwave and this somehow puts an issue of Shounen Jump inside it. Not any issue, but an issue from 2030, ten years into the future. The magazine has a lot of manga that Sasaki does not recognize, but most importantly, it features the very first chapter of White Knight, a manga that according to him is literally the best thing to ever exist ever and your favourite manga is dumb and stupid when compared to it, and you if you don’t rate it the objective 10 out a 10, I’m blocking you. When Sasaki wakes up the next day he realizes that the issue is gone, so he concludes what any sane person would, he was dreaming. But in that dream he read a fantastic manga, one that he could now put into paper. He adapts it to a one-shot and everyone in Jump loves and publishes it. But when he comes back home he has the issue of Chapter 2 of White Knight waiting in his microwave. He was not dreaming, and worse, he just stole someone’s work.

This is the premise, and it wasn’t too long for people to point out similarities to Bakuman and Steins;Gate, which I think helped getting more buzz, but the manga is incredibly unique as is. Sure there are elements, being a manga about mangaka in Jump, it would of course have some similarities with Bakuman, which talks about the exact same thing, but the story itself is very fresh. This, together with the fact that the art is incredibly solid, clean and gorgeous, making it one of the best in the magazine, made people be sure that this wasn’t just another manga to be axed soon. Time Paradox Ghostwriter had potential and it could be one of the next pillars of Shounen Jump. And as the next couple of chapters came out more people seemed to get into it. Looking at Anilist and Myanimelist rankings, TPGW was easily one of the highest ranking debuts in the magazine this year. It seemed like TPGW was set to be a success with a solid fanbase…

OR WAS IT?

Sorry… I… I like Vsauce, I wanted to do that.
But this was just the reality of the western audiences, the reality in Japan couldn’t be further apart. See, remember when I said that Sasaki just stole a work? Turns out that Japanese audiences didn’t particularly enjoy a shounen main character doing that, and they let it know.
And I understand, but I think the way the manga tackled it was interesting, the mangaka showed remorse when he realized he stole a work and, yes, he continued to do so, even after meeting the original writer of White Knight on his timeline (who eventually becomes his assistant), but he did had his reasons. The main one being that by having the one-shot be published he destroyed any chances of Itsuki Aino (the original mangaka) to write it in the future. So only he could do it in his timeline.
It doesn’t completely excuse him, but he never seems to be doing it out of spite, and the story never really tries to pretend that plagiarism is good. Over the course of the story you can catch glimpses of Sasaki slowly making White Knight his own work.

It didn’t matter though, the Japanese people, you know, the ones that actually buy the magazine and the volumes, didn’t like the premise and they made sure to let it know, especially on the internet. To the point that the first volume tried to remove any mention of plagiarism. Which… I haven’t read the volume version, just the mangaplus weekly translations, but I don’t see how you can do that on a manga where it’s part of the core premise…
Either way, even with this, the volume got bad reviews and bad sales, although, surprisingly, not the worse Jump volume of that month, because thank God that Guardian of the Witch exists, and thank God more that it’s axed already.

This pressure to appease the audiences and gain some fanbase wasn’t present just on the volume version of the manga. The chapters started suffering too. You could tell that the mangaka was trying very hard to go through the plagiarism “arc” of the story as fast as he could, so he could potentially deliver something that the audiences could relate more to, but the result was an atrocious pacing. Each chapter started to spawn months of the story’s timeline and things just happened, and then moved onto the next thing that should happen.
In one example, we are finally introduced to a chapter that Sasaki will have to write completely on his own, a chapter that he has 7 weeks left to write. It is a big deal and we spend about a chapter and a half exploring the fact that he’s going to that, just for the manga to then skip months ahead and not mention this INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT POINT TO THE STORY ever again. It seems that almost every plot point that is introduced in the middle part of the story lacked a proper build-up and a proper conclusion.

It didn’t save it, of course. The manga was scheduled to be cancelled on it’s 14th chapter, which is incredibly early, even for early cancelations and the earliest I personally remember seeing.
When a manga gets axed, I’m not expecting a perfect ending. The mangaka was not able to tell the story he wanted to tell and they probably set up plot point that will not be resolved. They can either go for an open ending or a rushed one… but TPGW’s ending… it was good. It was really fucking good.

Maybe because the manga was rushed in the middle, when the fourth to last chapter starts to wrap-up the things, it doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere, and maybe because the mangaka has nothing else to lose, the pacing goes back to normal, and you feel like the story can breathe again. The following chapter is probably my favourite and the mangaka even manages to throw a small remark at the fact that he didn’t had the time to tell the story he wanted to. It was probably the best ending he could go for, it was a fantastic read, it was emotional and it was more than I could ask for.

I did want to give this manga a better rating. Or rather, I’d like this manga to have had the time it needed to tell the story it wanted the way it wanted. There’s a lot of axed manga in Jump that are cancelled because they are too generic, or have too many flaws, and sometimes because they are too niche. But Time Paradox Ghostwriter was rejected because people didn’t want to accept it’s slightly morally grey character, even though they will openly accept Light’s murdering ways in Death Note. It was never that TPGW couldn’t tell a good story, Hell, I think the last four chapters show a capability to do just that, but it never was given that chance, and that is sad. The start and the ending are solid, but sadly the middle has too many problems for me to raise the score higher than the one I’m giving it.

Wait, that's it? After just over a dozen chapters it's over? We had such a good thing going! I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but chapter 14 had "Final Chapter" printed at the beginning and "The End" printed on the last page. So, here's a review of what we got.

"Time Paradox Ghost Writer" got off to a great start following our MC as he struggled to create great art with his limited talent and various sci-fi shenanigans kept interfering, but it seems almost pointless to grade the 'STORY' section since the last few chapters rush through so much to force some kind of proper ending. This situation has "early cancellation" written all over it. It's a shame, I thought there was great potential here, but it must not have caught on with other readers.

The art is nice and polished, but aesthetically it's exactly what I'd expect from such a mainstream publication- it looks like a Shonen Jump manga through and through. The characters didn't have any time to develop beyond their initial 'hook', which is a shame because while I'd say they didn't look like they were ever going to make it to my All Time Favorites list even if the series had a full run, there was potential and they were more than serviceable.

As for 'Enjoyment', I was hooked on this one. "Ghostwriter" set itself up as a cross between "Steins;Gate" and "Bakuman"- two series I enjoy. The mystery started out strong and I was eagerly awaiting every new chapter. Then Chapter 13 felt off somehow, and then BAM! Chapter 14 ends it.

It's hard to recommend this series due to the abrupt ending, if you get hooked you'll just be disappointed by the finale that comes as suddenly and gracefully as a car crash. Oh, what might have been.

Time Paradox Ghostwriter is one of the shortest Jump Manga i've read, only managing to have 14 chapters before getting axed. Today is the official release of the final chapter, and i feel like I have to give it a review.

This will contain spoilers and is also something i'm deeply, personally attached to!

Story: 9/10
From beginning to end I feel like TPG has had a fairly solid story, focusing on a struggling rookie mangaka: Teppei Sasaki, putting a lot of emphasis on his passion for making manga and wanting to make a manga everyone would be able to enjoy. Met with the extreme ruthlessness of the industry he's a part of he almost breaks, in a scene i found incredibly relatable as a creative. Just as this happens he receives a copy of Weekly Shounen Jump from the future, thinking it was all a dream he unintentionally plagiarizes a manga named "White Knight" and the story truly begins from there. This set up serves to create an intriguing mystery as we uncover more about our secondary protagonist Itsuki Aino, but also brings up a lot of moral questioning on if what he's doing is right, he clearly feels guilt for his actions, but feels indebted to his fans and to Aino to an extent that he must continue, and theres this richness to the story where it's complicated and nuanced, and its a shame because seeing these topics being explored would have been really interesting.

I won't lie, due to it's axe i feel like more could have been done for sure, it's rushed but the ending chapters still were incredible for me, both characters feel decently fleshed out, and the mystery plot kept me on edge too. It clearly presented it's themes and told what it wanted to with no extra bits and delivered emotionally. It's short and sweet even if it'c cut a little short.

Art: 9 /10
Usually i prefer art with a lot more flair, which feels unique ... this charm is somewhat lacking here, but the quality for a weekly manga is amazing especially in the characters, and also the setting, where i noticed a lot of really well drawn backgrounds and items. The panelling is a bit basic and sometimes theres a little too much text ... which i think might've been a factor in why it got axed.

Character: 8/10
I wish we got more time with Teppei Sasaki and Itsuki Aino, I felt like i could relate to them a lot, Teppeis frustration about not being good enough, his creative struggles as well as his absurd passion for manga are something i feel deeply connected to. With Aino, her loneliness and how manga essentially became her everything also resonates with me, and for a manga and it's characters to captures such a specific feeling is amazing. I wish we got to explore their chemistry a bit more, but i liked what i did see, with them both in the end coming to a realization together on what they want from manga and life.


Conclusion:
I love this manga, i think i was brought to tears almost every chapter from how relatable it was, feelings i thought were very specific to myself i found in this manga, and it made me feel validated. It's given me an extremely personal connection to this manga and the authors, In a way it feels like a personal message from the authors about manga, about being a creative, the frustrations, the joy of making something, and in the end just enjoying the process might be the best thing, you don't have to make a manga that everyone will enjoy, but if one person understands you and your manga, isn't that amazing?

I feel like I was that person, this manga felt made for me, and even though it got axed I'm so happy it exists, I'm so happy i got to read it every week for the 4 months it was serialized, thank you.


Why it Failed:
From what I gathered some parts didn't go very well with the Japanese audience such as the whole plagiarizing business, which i thought was very well done. Other things such as it having a lot of text at times may have also contributed to people not liking it as much or not being bothered to really read it thoroughly. Perhaps it was too niche and just doesn't have the the draw other series have like the action in a battle manga or comedic value of a gag manga, maybe people feel like it isn't necessary since Bakuman exists ... sales are also a big factor and TPG didn't have the best sales. I'm sure like other Jump manga theres multiple reasons, I hope the authors can keep going and make more manga in the future since this one really captivated me (and that guy who bought 100 volumes).


FINAL SCORE: 9/10 - Great

From the moment I read the description I was hooked. I loved the idea from the start it felt unique and meta af with it's setting. Each chapter kept getting better but then I started to feel like it was being rushed. Time-skip after time-skip I started to lose the interest I had in the manga. I felt like I could see then end of the series being chapters away but just as I thought the manga had reached a dead end it proved me wrong. Now the manga was heading down a path that I could not see until it showed it to me, my interest is piqued again and I was left with the same feelings I had after chapter 1 sheer curiosity and excitement.

After all that I would have given the manga a solid 8/10 but then this cycle repeated, this time I thought to myself "Theres no way the author can pull it off again" but here I am hours after reading Chapter 12 still thinking about how wrong I was again.

I still have doubts about the longevity of this manga. However for a manga about striving to make a manga so enjoyable its flaws dont matter, I am happy to say that the actual manga achieves that for me.

I'm not used to writing reviews, but this manga left quite an impression on me and I feel I should explain why. Also, it may contain light spoilers, though nothig that reveals the whole plot.

Story 7/10

The story has a fascinating premise. If executed well, it could have become an amazing work. Unfortunately, it wasn't given enough time to show off. At least, that's what I believe happened...There is a lot of pressure on manga authors whose series stay at the bottom of the rankings and I'm guessing that might have had a negative effect on how the story went.
Either way, this seems like a slice of life, but with a little supernatural element: the microwave which delivers future Jump issues. It's intriguing to see how the protagonist decides to use that, how he feels about it and the consequences. I only wish we got to now the reason for that. Well, we kinda find out, but it doesn't go into detail why that is important, except for a tiny hint. Unfortunately, with the abrupt end, it will never get explored.

Art 10/10

The artstyle definitely stands out. I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, so it's based on personal preferrance. I believe it looks stunning and the character designs are well thought out.

Characters 5/10

Unfortunately, the characters suffered the most because of the sudden end. Sasaki and Aino are fine, but the rest start fading into the background. It's a shame, because their designs are great and seemed interesting enough upon their introduction. They had their own ambitions and motivations and I would have loved to know more about them. As well as see them bond more. There might not have been enough time for that, but, at least when the main conflict arrieved, I would have loved to see their perspective on it.
Also, I said Aino was fine, but a little mopre details on her past would have made her an even better character. Maybe it was planned to reveal more, along with the tiny hint I mentioned in the story section, but who knows...

Enjoyment 9/10

This section seems to be the most subjective one. To be honest, I enjoyed every single chapter. It was one of the series I was looking forward to the most each week (along with One Piece and Fire Force). The mystery of the time-crossing microwave was intriguing to me. Sasaki's inner thoughts made a lot of sense, given the circumstances and made me understand him better as a character.
I have to menion a certain moment, which pretty much made me mark this manga as a favorite on the Manga Plus app. At one point, someone says this:
"Some people say that manga is just nonsense and lies...But there are others out there who need these nonsensical stories...I know that I was one."
When I read this line, I started tearing up. I can't describe enough how much it resonated with me. I used to be bullied in school and took refuge in anime/manga. Also, in order to forget about the daily stress at school. Of course, when others found out, it just was another reason to make fun of me...Not even those who were on my side understood it. When in reality, it's similar to those who read a lot of novels, or watch movies. I think a lot of people from my generation can relate to this.
But enough with my personal experiences. There's more to this line. It's also reflecting the motivations of our main characters and I love it. This manga has a lot of heart put into it and it shows.

Overall 8/10

Well, the average of the scores is 7.75, which I round up to 8. Maybe it's a bit too generous, but with the potential it had, I think it deserves it. I'm really sad it didn't reach the Japanese audience the way it reached me...
I wish all the best to Date-sensei and Ichima-sensei and thank you for creating this manga. It might have been short and incomplete, but it still meant a lot to me.

The fact that this series is being obviously rushed due to a bunch of butthurt Japanese Jump readers getting angry over the very concept that plagiarism is being seen from a much more complex perspective than any other manga would ever touch and that Jump is complicit in pushing this series to be canned as quickly as possible to prevent from some sort of huge backlash shows the very worst of the Jump system, where even if a work is one of the most refreshing, impactful, and instantly gripping ones we've seen in the magazine since The Promised Neverland started 4 years ago, if you write anything off the grid of what's accepted of traditional values, then you're silenced and debased by ravenous children and 2channers who'd be much more content with reading 60 more chapters of Black Clover sludge.

Our main character Sasaki makes a difficult and deliberated decision to copy the material of a Jump series ten years into the future. He recognizes how morally obtuse the mere concept is, by taking away the brilliance of the future in order to survive in the present. When the original author Aino finds out that some storyboards she made in her room were improved on and released by another author, she searches for him to become proper rivals with him.

The conflict eats Sasaki from the inside, forcing him to put in effort to live up to the manga's future run, and when certain events unfold, he is forced to take on the stead of the series in order to still bring to this world the pure brilliance of this genius manga, even if it's not his own, not because he wants the credit to own the series (as he even denies taking any of the profits of the manga himself), but because he sees how it affects those who read it. It is the truest expression of why we read manga; to give us comfort, to give us something to look forward to every week even when our lives are monotonous or lonely.

The entire manga makes it clear, multiple times, that Sasaki is not a selfish person, and even if he makes a mistake by plagiarizing the future work, he still puts in his 100% just to hopefully live up to the real thing. He struggles and forces himself to become better and to help Aino in any way he can, to sacrifice his own energy to make things right. And he does it for the same goal as the original author Aino, to make a manga that everybody can love, something perfect and beautiful and hard-hitting, and ultimately it seems to show that these desires can become carnal and unhealthy, like Icarus flying too close to the sun.

Manga has the potential to make you think, and although plenty of Jump readers have probably never had the experience of having to think very hard to consider the actions of Goku or Naruto or Luffy, Time Paradox Ghostwriter is provocative, quite possibly ahead of its time, and forces readers to postulate the actual harm of plagiarism and the difference between intent and action-- the whole thing is grey.

Please give it a read (the whole manga is bound to end up only 2 volumes long anyways), and don't let history forget about this series.

Time Paradox, one of the new manga coming from the new wave of Shounen Jump, being probably the most promising among them

Telling the story of Teppei Sasaki, who ends up receiving a Shounen Jump from the future ... This is strange, isn't it? This is bizarrely innovative, the people at Jump must have had the same reaction as the people who read the White Knight of the work itself, maybe it was inspired by that, right? hahah

The most positive point of the work I believe is the approach he takes on what makes a manga really good to be read by readers, which is not an easy task for the authors as the manga itself shows since it deals with everything they usually go through like: Blocking creativity, the fear of not making a work original enough to be appreciated or just constantly wondering if he did a really good work to the point of being in the magazine. It shouldn't be easy ...
Art does not have much to say, it is very standard but captivating enough for what the work proposes
The main characters are connected with the Time Travel factor, which is also what makes the work go. It can be a little worrisome for some people, as it is for me, since the level of works that have the theme Time Travel that are little explained and explored is quite large.
Overall, it is a good manga that will probably win anime in the future, as it is already making a big hit. At least for me, this success is deserved.

There's a saying in the writing world: "ideas are cheap, execution is everything". No matter how unique or original you think a concept is, it's worthless without good writing to back it up, and Time Paradox Ghostwriter is proof of that.

The series aims to be some sort of fusion of Bakuman and Steins;Gate. The problem is, what made those series work is absent from this one. Bakuman was made by the creators of Death Note, who had a full understanding of the manga industry and how it works. TPGW was made by a relative newcomer. Steins;Gate explored the full implications of time travel and the butterfly effect. TPGW just uses time travel as a plot device. Any potential this premise might have had was wasted from the beginning, due largely to the writer's inexperience. It's one thing to have a really cool idea for a story, it's quite another to actually tell that story, especially for someone just starting out. The more complex the idea is, the easier it will be to screw up.

Most of the series' problems come from its main character, Teppei Sasaki. In a nutshell, he's a selfish whiner with a martyr complex determined to avoid character development at any cost. He couldn't find success with his own work, so he stole someone else's. Sure, he felt guilty about it, but it didn't mean a thing because he always had an excuse to keep going. "I'm the only one who can draw it!" was his mantra in the first half of the series, and the more times he repeated it, the more unsympathetic he became. It isn't just his guilt, either – ANY time he has an opportunity to grow as a person, he's able to get out of it with ease. Any consequences for his actions end up evaporating, and any internal conflict he has never amounts to anything. Now, one might think that maybe this is all intentional, and Teppei isn't actually meant to be the hero of the story. Sorry to disappoint you, but Chapter 7 long put those theories to bed. From then on, Teppei's actions within the story were completely justified, and he was absolved of all wrongdoing. You see, this story isn't about Teppei becoming a better person, this story is about Teppei feeling better about himself.

As for the supporting cast... what supporting cast? Well, there's Itsuki Aino, the original author of White Knight. She's cute, easy to root for, and has an alright backstory. As for the other characters, well, there aren't any. Oh, there are other people who appear in the story besides Teppei and Aino, but they're not characters by any means. Teppei has three assistants who each have one character trait, and don't do anything except tell Teppei what a great mangaka he is. There's a couple members of Jump staff who... also mostly just tell Teppei what a great mangaka he is. There's an old man in Aino's backstory, who... also exists. If any of the "supporting characters" were replaced by cardboard cutouts, nothing about the story would change.

The success of White Knight within the story makes no sense. I know, "it's just a plot device", but there's such a thing as a bad plot device, and this is it. White Knight is successful in the way a little kid might imagine success is like, instant and unanimous. Everyone who glances at it just knows it's a modern classic in the making. Not a single person in the entire world has anything negative to say about it. It's a hit with the readers as early as its first chapter, nay, it's one-shot. In real life, time travel may not exist, but manga does, and no series ever becomes that popular that quickly. Not even the likes of Dragon Ball or One Piece were just massive hits right out of the gate, they needed to take the time to build momentum. Instead, White Knight is just immediately successful because "it's a masterpiece", and we're expected to accept it just because. Its exact role within the story makes it even worse – where most stories have the protagonist work to earn success, TPGW hands Teppei success for free, and then makes him work to keep it.

The exact moment when I knew I wasn't going to like this series was this line: “At one point in their life, everyone dreams of reaching for the sky… and actually seizing the star they’ve had their eye on.” This series was, from the looks of it, aiming to be some profound masterpiece that would inspire generations to come, with a very important message that would echo throughout history! Instead, it ended up being pretentious and amateurish, with a really simple and obvious message any idiot could guess. This made much of the story comes off as self-indulgent, reminding me a lot of the M. Night Shyamalan movie 'Lady in the Water' in various ways.

But, above all else, the biggest sin this story commits is that it is boring. It is so, so very BORING. Every other problem with it comes back to boredom. Teppei easily escapes conflict and never grows as a character, making him boring. The supporting cast is barely utilized or fleshed out, making them boring. White Knight is instantly successful, so Teppei doesn't have to work for it, making that boring. The theme that's supposed to be really meaningful is trite and predictable, so that's boring too. This series is so boring, I swear the writer got bored with his own story, and that's why there are four or five time skips peppered throughout the series. Boring is one of the worst things a story could be. If you can't become invested in a story, then what is it for?

The one thing I can't find any fault in is the art. The art is nice, very detailed, conveys tone pretty well. It was the one thing that got me to almost care about these characters. I genuinely hope Tsunehiro Date can eventually work on a series with staying power.

EDIT: After thinking about it, I'll have to retract what I said about the art. Yes, on a purely technical level, it is very well done. However, and bear with me, it's TOO good. It has this empty, soulless feel to it, like it was made by a machine.

Yes, this series had potential, but potential alone doesn't mean a thing unless it can be tapped. Chock it up to a lack of skill on the writer's part, but considering everything I covered in this review, it's entirely possible that the writer just wasn't interested in tapping this series' potential because that fell outside his artistic vision.

~

EPILOGUE UPDATE (finally):

I actually have to give the epilogue credit for one thing: it's the ONLY TIME in the series when Teppei's actions have consequences. After ending White Knight, he tries three times to create another hit series, and all three of them end up axed. And of course they do. Teppei wasn't that great of a mangaka to begin with, and only got to be a success at all by plagiarizing someone else's work. He was basically playing with cheat codes the whole series, and never actually gained the skills needed to succeed on his own merit. Meanwhile Aino, the actual creator of White Knight, is doing better than ever with a new series topping the rankings.

That being said, this is still Time Paradox Ghostwriter. The supporting characters still only exist to boost Teppei's self-esteem, Teppei himself still doesn't need to grow as a person beyond those self-esteem boosts, and all major obstacles in Teppei's path still magically evaporate. But where there would normally be an aura of smug self-importance, there's only the thick stench of cope. There is no doubt in my mind that Teppei is a self-insert for the series' writer, and the epilogue is his way of dealing with his masterpiece being a flop.

As bad as it was, though, I'm adding just one point to my score. Kenji Ichima has shown some slight signs of improvement, and as long as he continues to learn from this, I hope to see his work again one day.

Do you ever feel like you've already read every good manga series? You search and search for something fresh and exciting, yet you seem to run into the same overused isekai, harem or shounen manga.

Well look no further because your new favorite shounen is here! I don’t mean to quote Josuke Higashikata but after reading the oneshot I felt like it was “new year's morning after I just put on a fresh pair of underwear.”

Time Paradox Ghost Writer is a manga which focuses on an up and coming mangaka named Teppei Sasaki who has failed numerous attempts at making his pro debut in the shounen jump magazine. He is both a very likeable and relatable character who is not without flaws. Which make him far more interesting and lifelike, helping to both endear him to the reader and provide a means for character growth as the series progresses.

The art style is also of near impeccable quality, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Bakuman. It has been digitally made so the lines are both crisp and clear, along with vividly shaded colour pages which grab the reader's attention and help to pull them into the story. In terms of character designs they are nothing exceptional yet are extremely pleasant to look at. The main character has a generic harem protagonist look with black hair and a face which reminds me of a Raku Ichijou from Nisekoi. Whilst the female lead looks like a thicker version of the main girl from 118282. She is drawn to be exceedingly cute with the airs of a shy genius around her. The background art is also quite well drawn blending seamlessly with the characters and creating a great ambiance to the series.

Moving onto the story, it can be said the concept is a mishmash between the time travel and slice of life genres. Creating a truly unique concept which instantly draws the reader in and leaves many questions yet to be answered making you wait with anticipation for the next chapter. Currently this story is also one which is hard to predict and one which could go in several possible directions. Either focusing more on the mangaka aspect or time travel aspect of the series though I hope it is the latter.


Time travel can be a difficult topic for many authors to tackle but if the mangaka continues this manga with its stream of consistent quality I see no reason as to why it wouldn’t go down as another sensational shounen jump manga.

Solid 9/10

Spoilerfree:

When I first started reading Time Paradox Ghost Writer I couldn't stop. My face was glued to my screen and I was so excited to see where this show would be headed. Well, it tackles a topic many Japanese people - at least so I've heard from people - aren't too keen about.

It stops after 15 chapters and everything really goes downhill those last few chapters. You can tell the writers tried to wrap things up as fast as they could and the story greatly suffered from it.

Now I did still give it 8 stars and that's because I when I started and thought what this show would become I was thrilled. This mix of Bakuman and Steins;Gate was exciting, I was expecting some great twists and reveals.
So even though this series fails to deliver that, the first 9 or so chapters felt amazing and 15 chapters don't take too much of your time so I can only recommend reading it, just to get a glimpse of what could've become a fantastic new serialisation.

Without really knowing much about Bakuman, which is of course the more popular series, I think it has some similarities setting-wise with Time Paradox Ghost Writer that it tells a story about how the manga industry works and how to become a mangaka in the first place. So in that it sets itself up from most of the other Shounen publications that it features no superpowers or actionopacked fights which is a nice variation from fighting mangas that could feel repetitive in the long run. Its interesting to see how metaphysical the series is in talking what makes a manga worth reading while being a good manga itself so the author maybe could self reflect in this moments and learn even more about himself how to make his series even better. The science-fiction element is quite unusual with the time travel depicted but creates mystery about the origin of this incident and could give some room for funny predictions of Shonen Jumps future that could partially come true.
The art is not much to write home about but sufficient enough and compensated by the orginal idea.
The both main characters are linked in an uncommon way to drive the story forward but thats what I like, so the development seems unpredictive. Sasaki, the guy, is written relatable with his past and especially inner recent conflicting struggles. The girl is rounding up the main protagonist to say the least. And the editors deciding which manga is going to be realeased are portraied in different facades, what I found good, so not all are the same grumpy logical thinkers.
Overall it is a good manga series about manga and is approved by me for publication(if I were a Jump editor of course) but that already happened before. So read it if you like to learn more about the manga business.

If you want to read this series, it’s best you stop right there. Let me give you some advice, don’t read axed series.

If you end up finishing it without particularly liking it, good on you. But if you end up enjoying it, it will only hurt you. You’ll ponder about what could’ve happened if it wasn’t axed. The potential it had. The story you wanted to experience.

This is what I experienced with Time Paradox. Honestly, I saw this coming. Although it had an interesting premise, it was quite questionable. Plagiarism isn’t exactly a good thing, especially in the manga industry. While this manga definitely doesn’t outright encourage it, it’s not like it’s particularly discouraging it either. This turned off many readers, especially in Japan.

Well, on the bright side, it wasn’t axed as brutally as another certain series earlier this year. It had a conclusion to the story, which is always better than nothing. I expect good things from this author, and I hope they can get another series out in the future.