comedy ↘↖
Manga Review: Magi
Magic comes in the form of magoi and blesses only a select few. These people blessed by magoi have the capacity to not only successfully traverse through one of the mysterious dungeons and reach the riches within, which is called capturing a dungeon, but also to be deemed worthy by the dungeon’s djinn. Upon being deemed worthy, the djinn lends his or her power to the one who captured the dungeon by possessing an object, called djinn containers. Djinn containers grants the wielder the immense powers of the djinn held within. As such, many try to capture dungeons but few survive and even few succeed. These few often have the mysterious capacity to be kings. A candidate is chosen by a magi, a being who can interact with rukh, collections of souls that guide the living in the form of fate, and produce infinite magoi, and is led on the path of the King. But a king of what?
Manhwa Review: Ciel: The Last Autumn Story
In the world of Ciel: The Last Autumn Story Arc Dragons are linked to the forces of nature. They are, in essence, nature personified. The Fire Dragon gave humans language and magic. Now some of the dragons regret this decision as they now fear for the planet’s future. Upon his birth, the Sky Dragon, who can predict the future, predicted that the world would become a barren waste land. The dragons can’t help but think that this will be due to humans. With the turmoil between dragons and the political turbulence linked with having magic power Yvienne, her partner Lariatte, and their friends Daughter and January must do more than just study in the Lockwood Institute, a school for wizards and witches. They must battle demons, monsters, and other fowl creatures while being socially and politically active.
Manga Review: Karakuri Odette
Odette Yoshizawa can be best described by her classmate’s reaction, “She looks like a doll.” In one sense of the meaning Odette is very beautiful. However, in the other sense of the meaning she looks like a doll, this is because she is an android. Created by the renown Professor Yoshizawa, Odette is the closest thing machines have ever become to humans. She can express all human behaviors and movements, is intelligent, and has great physical prowess. To an untrained eye she is the perfect human. But there is something that Odette is missing. To find out what is different between her and human girls she convinces the Professor to let her go to school. In school she makes friends, develops a sense of right and wrong, learns about human society, and slowly becomes more like a human.
Manga Review: Kamisama Hajimemashita
I have a weakness for Japanese superstition and religion. Kamisama Hajimemashita fills my need for this and my need for romance. This fantastic romance, pun very much intended, follows Nanami Momozono as she grows into her job as a Land God and as a God of Marriage. A mortal god is rare but not unheard of, they are rarely acknowledged by immortal gods and often fall pray to yokai. Luckily, Nanami has Tomoe, her familiar and ex-yokai, to protect her and teacher her. This manga follows the adventures of Nanami as she tries to prove herself to other gods, does her duties as Land God, and gets involved with the affairs of yokai. The taboo relationship between yokai and human is also explored, even by just reading this paragraph it is quite obvious who the yokai and human in question are. If you still don’t know who the character in question are I will give you a hint: I only introduced two characters so far.
Manga Review: Tomehane!
Returnee Yukari Oe has been in school for a week now, he has no friends but isn’t bullied either. He yearns for something more. Fate answers his call, in a way Oe would never expect, by getting him threatened to join the calligraphy club. Still needing one more member, the club tricks Yuki Mochizuki into joining by playing the responsibility card as she accidentally broke Oe’s dominant hand. The addition of these two eager first years drives the tepid calligraphy club to new heights. This manga explores the many different types of Japanese calligraphy, how to draw it, its modern applications, and its history.
Manga Review: Hajime no Ippo
Ippo is sixteen years old and most people think he is a wimp. Which isn’t really true. He works at his family’s fishing charter business and has a sailor’s build but he is simply too nice to fight back against bullies. But one day when he was being pick on by a group of bullies, Takamura, a professional boxer, saved him. This was the turning point in Ippo’s life. He now aspires to be a professional boxer and surprisingly, he has the talent for it.
Manga Review: Detroit Metal City
Soichi Negishi is a well-mannered and shy musician who left the countryside for Tokyo to pursue his dream to be a pop musician. However, things don’t go according to plan. He is a horrendous pop musician but as it turns out he is an amazing death metal musician. Now Negishi is the lead musician in the death metal band Detroit Metal City. Even though he hates it, Negishi dresses up and becomes Johannes Krauser II, a demon terrorist from hell who killed then raped his parents; often kills police officers; can and is willing to rape everything; and is basically the demonic version of Chuck Norris from hell as he can do impossible acts of vulgarity and evil simply because he is Krauser II. However, Krauser II is far more than an act. No, it is a part of Negishi. When he gets angry out comes Krauser II. Krauser II is basically Negishi’s alter ego. Does Krauser II actually do all these horrible acts that urban legends claim that he did? No, all of his fans simply misunderstand what Krauser II does and blow it up to outrageous proportions and since his fans worship him as a god, they are willing to believe their own lies. After every misunderstanding he becomes more popular, after every time he escapes to Krauser II in his personal life he relies on Krauser II more, and every time he returns to being Negishi he hates himself more. When Negishi tries to run away from this cycle something always brings him back, thus the story continues.
Manga Review: Kamen no Maid Guy
Being the last two heirs to the Fujiwara Conglomerate the commoners, Naeka and Kōsuke Fujiwara, are bestowed two maids by their doting grandfather and head of the Fukiwara family, Zenjurō Fujiwara. However, these maids do not just have the ordinary duty of doing chores and serving their masters, no, these maids must also protect their masters from harm until they are old enough to receive their grandfather’s inheritance. Mysterious accidents has killed the rest of the Fukiwara family thus Zenjurō hired two highly skilled maids, each to the tastes of his grandchildren. But it seems he misunderstood Naeka’s taste in action moves as a need to hire a macho male maid. Thus Kogarashi, the Maid Guy, was hired. If being a male maid wasn’t weird enough he also has maid superpowers and no sense of personal space.
Manga Review: Sangatsu No Lion
It is a hard life for a professional shogi player. Winning a match means everything. Dropping down a rank is extremely challenging to rectify. But what if that proffesional shogi player is only a teenager? Kiriyama Rei is that shogi player. His father was a shogi player, and the only way Rei got his father to play with him was to challenge him with shogi. Now he is all alone and has a past that is too much for him to bare. All he has is shogi and the Kawamoto family. Fortunately, the Kawamoto family is really all Rei needs.
Manhwa Review: Id
Some times we stumble across stories of fantastic lands, mystical creatures, and epic battles. Other times we come across stories like Id. Id has everything I mentioned, fantastic lands, mystical creatures, epic battles but it has a few things that make it different from the rest of the crowd. This manga has amazing art, a great story, and an even better entertainment value.
