| Read all | Rating | Comment |
| Blame! (manga) | Excellent | |
| Blood: The Last Vampire, 2002 (manga) | Bad | Blood the movie was great. This is not great. This is not good or even poor. This is a piece of crap. Let me take you through the reasons. It's not great like the movie because really, why would it be? What made the movie great was the presentation and that's not something that carries over just because it's the same characters or story. It's not good because there is very little actual action and when there is it's poor. The fights are quick and simplistic and offer no real excitement. It's not even just poor though. It is pushed into the category of downright crap due to the fact that it's about as well written as your average porno. This is actually not surprising as upon further research I discovered that this was done by one Benkyo Tamaoki who if you're wondering is famous for such gems as a bunch of porn. (Not even a lot of porn, just a couple titles. You know you have no talent when you're not even especially successful at writing for porn.) Lord knows how he got the job of writing an entry in what I would consider a fairly popular franchise. Regardless of how though the end result is borrderline unreadable due to dull, uninteresting writing, incessant fanservice, nudity and sex and a story that seems to pioritize the aforementioned over anything actually of interest. |
| Ghost in the Shell (manga) | Not really good | |
| Japan (manga by K. Miura) | Weak | This is a really strange manga. It's very preoccupied with getting it's message across but unfortunately it really kind of fails in this regard. Maybe it's because I'm not Japanese, but then, I do have at least a reasonable understanding of Japan's culture and history and still this made very little sense to me. It starts with a couple tough guys and 4 extremely apathetic Japanese teens (3 guys and 1 girl). This is one point that actually makes sense. From there though they begin drawing rather absurd comparisons between Japan and ancient Carthage and suggest that Japan's economic strength will lead the rest of the world to hate them and destroy them. This really makes no sense whatsoever to me but okay, it's the premise they're working on. Then through a thoroughly absurd plot device they are suddenly cast into the post-apocalyptic future. The cause of this is quickly listed to be a variety of the usual over exaggerated doomsday scenarios. Japan of course has been decimated and it's population are now refugees due to it's inability to sustain itself without trade (message!) It gets even stranger from here though as the tough guy main character refuses to help the three guys because they're selfish and only care about themselves. Then though the other tough guy immediately helps the girl who is by far the worst of the bunch. I don't know if this is just sexism or what but it totally disrupts what they seem to be trying to get across. Furthermore though, there is the oddly nationalistic sentiment presented here. There is a lot of talk of 'Japanese pride' and the main character is shocked by Japanese bandits and their willingness to kill other Japanese (he can't bring himself to kill these bandits). He talks about how they're all still human beings. Oddly though, he doesn't seem especially surprised by the Europeans cruelty or willingness to kill people and is happy to kill a bunch of them. There is also some talk of strength in numbers. The story ends with the characters resolving to create a new country there in Europe. This raises some difficult questions though as it is ultimately the Europeans country and while that doesn't justify their treatment of the Japanese, no matter the circumstances I hardly see how it gives the Japanese the right to forcibly take over. If I were to categorize this I would say it reads like a rather transparent straw man critique of modern Japan and an avocation of a return to Japan's isolationist, nationalist past. Not surprisingly this means it is often a bit hypocritical, nonsensical and sexist. Unfortunately as well, this is really all there is to this. Aside from presenting it's message there isn't much here. The story is never really developed or resolved and while Miura's art is brilliant as ever, the action scenes are brief and rare. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Astray (manga) | Not really good | Not really bad but then not really good either. I guess I should have expected this but its just a sort of disjointed spin off. It's just a rather pointless mecha adventure which is passably entertaining but doesn't really offer any sort of depth or development of the main series. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Astray R (manga) | Not really good | See Astray. It's basically a continuation. |
| Mobile Suit Gundam Seed X Astray (manga) | | Same. |
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