martial arts ↘↖
Manga Review: Ranma 1/2
In a time when martial arts manga were becoming popular, Rumiko Takahashi-sensei (future creator of Inuyasha) enters the fry with a martial arts manga of her own, with a twist. After falling into a cursed spring while training in China, Ranma is cursed with a body that when exposed to cold water becomes female and when exposed to hot water reverts back to male. Now in Japan, he is told marry Akane to ensure the passing of their father’s martial arts and dojo. But is Ranma male or female? As the plot progresses many more quirky characters, many also cursed by springs while training in China.
Manga Review: Crying Freeman
Crying Freedman is the code name for the best assassin in the Chinese Mafia, otherwise known as the 108 Dragons. Originally an genius potter, Yō Hinomura got involved with the 108 Dragons during an exhibition of his work. The organization noticed his talents and bent him to their will. As an assassin, Hinomura dons the alias of Freedman, however, he hates killing. After every kill he sheds tears thus earning him the name of Crying Freedman. He is the perfect assassin and successor to the leadership of the 108 Dragons.
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.
Manga Review: Tenjo Tenge
Available here
“In one unusual Tokyo high school, education takes a backseat to brawling as warring clubs wreak havoc in the hallways and chaos in the classrooms, all vying to be the baddest team around! Although they often contribute their fair share, only a handful of students serve to stem the tide of violence in this untamed outpost. These are the few, the proud, the powerful: the members of the Juken Club!” - Magafox.com
Manga Review: Kongou Banchou
Available here
“Akira Kongou is looking to take down the “23 district project” which involves “banchou” from 23 districts of Tokyo fighting for the right to control Japan. Without meaning to, he becomes a participant with the alias Kongou Banchou and must take down other banchou while searching for the leaders of the project.” - Mangafox.com
Manga Review: Tail of the Moon aka Tsuki no Shippo
Available here
“Sometimes it seems like Usagi is hopeless. Sure, she’s good with healing herbs, but she’s the granddaughter of the leader of a prestigious ninja village and she’s such a klutz that she’s never made it out of the kiddie class. Finally frustrated with Usagi’s lack of progress, her grandfather sends her to marry a local lord and have lots of ninja babies. But the lord has no interest in her or her child bearing potential! After years of goofing around, Usagi is finally determined to reach her goals - she’s going to become a ninja and capture her true love’s heart!” - Mangafox.com
Manhwa Review: King of Hell
Available here
“In life, Majeh was a gifted swordsman. In death he acts as a reaper for the King of Hell, collecting souls of the dead to bring them to the netherworld. All this changes when a rift opens up between Hell and Earth and evil spirits begin escaping to the mortal realm. Now Majeh must hunt down and destroy these demons before the rift is permanently opened.
There’s a rift between Hell and the mortal world, and lost souls have been escaping to torment the living. To deal with the problem, the King of Hell released Majeh, the greatest swordsman of the underworld, to stop the wayward souls. [TokyoPop]” - Mangafox.com
Manga Review: Mahou Sensei Negima!
“From Baka-Updates
Ten-year-old prodigy Negi Springfield, has just graduated from magic academy, and in order to become a master mage he is sent to Japan to teach English at an all-girls middle school. But Negi has a bigger dream than just becoming a master mage. He wants to find his missing father, “The Thousand Master”, the strongest mage that has ever lived. And he soon finds that searching for his father wont be as easy as he first hoped. In fact, it pushes him and his students into life-or-death battles that decides the fate of millions.
And throughout all this, Negi finds out some of the secrets hidden in Mahora Acedemy Class 3-A. Are these girls, truly, what they seem?” - Mangafox.com
Available here
This is a great example of a manga that looked like it was leaning in one direction at first, than changed directions completely*. At first I thought this would be an ecchi, harem, comedy, romance, school life type manga. But a couple of volumes in and I see an ecchi, harem, comedy, romance, action, fantasy, supernatural, martial arts, sci-fi, adventure type deal. Basically, as the story progressed we stopped having a school life manga and we get an action, adventure, fantasy manga. The ecchi, harem, comedy, and romance stayed mostly constant, although some went under minor changes. I will now address these changes while loosely explaining the manga as a whole (as to not give too much away).
The ecchi switched from being panty shots in the beginning to a representation of damage. Instead of being KO’ed in one shot the (female) characters lose their clothing… It sounds stupid but it actually works nicely once you get over how unrealistic it is. But then again this is a manga about a ten-year-old professor/magi who is trying to save the world with his students who, coincidentally, are all female. The last time I checked that was not very realistic.
As far as the harem genre goes I think the mangaka wanted a to have a harem manga but then changed his mind and slowly converted it into an action manga. Fortunately or unfortunately, he was now stuck with a lot of female characters. I think this explains why we now have two male characters in the party rather than just Negi. This also explain why instead of having a harem we have more of a romance manga with relationships going in many different directions. But since Negi has more than one girl with feelings for him this is still technically a harem manga.
I have hinted at a lot in this review, some of which I will now clarify. We start off with a manga of the school life, harem, romance variety. In this segment we see little hard core action. No all out battles, no huge onslaughts of raw magical power and no tournaments with crazy trump cards, those come later. Once things start picking up you are in for a treat. That’s the catch for this manga. If you are reading this for the action you have to wait for a while, that is until the setting changes. Personally, I think this manga is good without the action but that’s just me. In case you need a reason to read until the pace picks up know that Negi’s students all develop fantasy, supernatural, martial arts, and sci-fi esque powers. Think about that for a second.
*As such this review will be twice as long as usual.
Sources: Mangafox.com animethemes.net minitokyo.net
Lone Wolf And Cub
Available here
I must say, this is one amazing manga. I just reread the first chapter of this manga to get some inspiration to start writing this review and I had to tear my self away from it. One chapter and I was already captivated. When you read this manga, and trust me you want to read it, you have to keep a few things in mind. You have to keep in mind this will most likely be the oldest manga you will ever read and probably the most influential too. This manga is the source of all the romantizations of rōnin. What does this mean? It means that all the mangas that have ronin portrayed in any other way than the traditional view has been influenced by this manga. You have to realize that being a ronin was shameful, to be ronin it to be discriminated against by the samurai and the daiymo (the feudal land owners the samurai served). This is huge. Even western culture has been influenced by this epic story. The reason why I want you to keep in mind how old this manga is when you read it is because of two reasons. One, the drawing. Two, the story. This story was created far before computers were used to draw manga. Every line was created by hand. Every panel was measured by human hands. Every stroke of the brush is an artwork by itself. This is a true window to the past. The drawing style is the drawing style of one present in Japan during the 1970’s. The story is one that mirrors Japanese culture before Western Culture invaded. You see exactly how the class system worked in Japan, you see the food they eat, and you see how they interacted. Reading this manga is more than just reading another manga, it is an experience.
The Breaker
Available here
“The new HR teacher, Chun-woo, is not your ordinary teacher.
After unexpectedly witnessing his great power, Shin-woo, a weak pushover, begs him to let him become his disciple so he can become stronger. Chun-woo claims he can only teach Shin-woo if he is truly determined, and to prove that, he must throw his body into a deep river from a bridge to prove his will. However, it turns out Shin-woo wasn’t aware of the power his master possessed. Shin-woo is about to enter a world of martial artists hidden from public eye, and he is to be taught by the best there is!” - Mangaupdates.com
With out giving out too much I can start off by saying that Shin-woo does end up jumping off of a bridge in order to get Chun-woo to teach him martial arts. From that point on the manga starts to pick up and everything get focused around martial arts. A good or bad point, depends on the reader, is that there are very few chapters dedicated to training. Most growth is experienced in battle. I mentioned before that this is a manhwa, if that did not give it away you can look at the names; Chun-woo and Shin-woo. Noticed the -woo at the end? It is a Korean suffix. Now, lets move back our focus back to the story. The action is fast paced and sucks you in very quickly. The art is drawn wonderfully which is one of the reasons why I put four pictures here instead of the usual two. I collect panels from manga to use in backgrounds I make, and I have collected more than a few panels from here. The plot is wonderfully woven. Certain points that you may dismiss when they first show became increasingly more important as the manhwa moves on, some points may not me mentioned for a while only to pop up here and there with more and more importance and a large effect on the plot. The characters are also wonderful. Shin-woo is easy to relate to. And Chun-woo is not your ordinary “sensei character”. He also encounters trials he has to overcome and has his own share of problems and weaknesses, not to mention a dark past of his own. I mean, someone has to have a dark past. If Shin-woo doesn’t then some other main character has to. Sure not every story needs a dark past but this one does, it fits the style and mood of the manhwa overall. I recommend this manhwa to anyone looking for a fast paced action story, it will not disappoint.
P.S. MangaFox categorized The Breaker as the following: Action, Comedy, Drama, Martial Arts, Romance, School Life, Seinen, Supernatural.* I never include mention Seinen and other tags that tell say to which gender and age group the manga/manhwa is aimed at. I don’t do this because I believe any gender or age group (with in reason) can enjoy any manga/manhwa. I removed School Life because school is only a setting in the first few chapters. And I see little Comedy and Drama. Lastly I disagree with Supernatural, most likely the reason why this tag was added is because the martial arts move breaks laws of physics. Is this supernatural? Not in the generic sense, there are no ghosts or superpowers, per se. Also there is very very little romance, sure four main characters fall in love, but there is no kissing or anything more intimate than that.
*The reason why I am saying this now is that I have never had such a discrepancy between MangaFox’s tags and mine before, so there was no need for me to say this.
