Beat & Motion

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Another amazing manga ended. I couldn't believe how satisfying this manga is. But first of all, I want to thank MangaPlus for bringing this masterpiece into the app, I couldn't ask for more than this treatment.

Story. Straight, point blank. Both MCs have dreams and they actually achieve them. Not only that, they ended up together very fast unlike a certain series that took up hundreds of chapters to confess and they still haven't gone out together. Even tho, the ending could be a little better, I would say overall the author did a great job of conveying the story straight and didn't take an off-rail ... tangent to try to get as much rage money from their fans with their ridiculous story that took more than 1 year to develop.

Illustration. I saw some people complaining about this actually saying that their appearance doesn't look like their age, which is about twenties. And I would like to say, I kind of agree and disagree. I agree sometimes these authors try too hard to make their OC look so young despite their age but on this occasion, I would have to disagree because I looked into the mirror and felt like I still looked the same as myself at 17 (and I'm in my 24 this year). So, their appearance is valid I would say. Other than appearance, the background illustration looks stunning and I don't have a complaint about it.

Characters. I would love to discuss a lot in this section of the review, but I don't want you all to sit here and read my praises for these characters. So, I'm just going to say read it, and you'll love them. No extended drama, no misunderstanding of more than 2 chapters, and even better, they talked about their problems and solved them like champs by collaborating and finding the solutions. That's insanely rare in these days and ages of manga/webtoon/comic, right?

Proportions of the manga. I wish I could buy the physical version to compare it but I'm just going to talk about the MangaPlus version. Overall I don't have any complaints. I don't even have nitpick. I could see this manga becoming popular if they decide to make an anime out of it and animate it beautifully. I wish the story would stay longer though, like just a little bit more.

Overall, I recommended this manga. It's 9.9/10 for me.

6.9/10


Whenever I review a story, I directly try to find reasons to love or hate the story, but this has left me perplexed — this does absolutely nothing detrimentally wrong, but it doesn’t do any of the later arcs in a fascinating way, rather, everything becomes predictable and drawn-out for the sake of filling out chapters.

Let me be clear: The introduction of the this manga was well done, and it has a rather unique setup of events/backstory for the plot and characters; however, this was also done in a “convenien, too convenient way,” which foreshadows this manga’s storyline.

To be blunt, the storyline/plot is all ... too convenient — it is so convenient that it becomes rather hard to be engaged to the story, since everything is either A) Predictable or B) Underwhelming. Because of this, there’s a lot of disinterest in the manga from the downtime it has between each chapter, since as the chapters go by, I lose the passion and urge I once had to click on the next chapter.

You know, I would love to say the characters are well-explored and meaningful, adding a drastic amount to the story’s intrigue and interest; however, their backstory and introductions to the plot sort of cause an opposite effect. Since the story utilizes so many meaningful characters to drive the plot, the plot has to revolve around them for the story to continue being interesting — now, this is hard to explain but I’ll try to explain it in a direct, forward way to understand: The plot has numerous of arcs, and each arc focuses on a select few of characters, leaving out the other well-developed and interesting characters, which causes a sense of dissatisfaction within the manga’s focus/plot/arc.

Regarding the characters and plot as a whole, there’s a lot of unnecessary details, flashbacks, events, and tropes that this manga employs within them to “buff” up the chapter length and story which does the exact opposite effect, since it’s mostly uninteresting due to its forced nature.

I really wanted to find a reason to continue loving this manga from its setup up to the 11-12 chapter point, but it failed to maintain that pace by introducing random tropes and events that are unnecessary and too convenient to find enjoyable.

You guys know this is just my opinion, right?

Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”

Sorry but this series is just bad. Beat & Motion is something I came into after looking for more manga about artists after finishing and loving Time Paradox Ghost Writer, and the first chapter starts extremely promising, but it soon shows itself to just be nothing but a boring romcom with no identity.

Our MC had an interesting story at the start - he was a kid who always dreamed of directing anime, and was constantly drawing, but eventually phased that out to start a rock band that, no matter the many years he and his friends poured into it, never caught up - but the ... series soon loses all sense of realism when he recovers his passion and makes an extremely short, extremely simple 3 minutes long animation on a random Twitter account... and it goes viral overnight and he has the idol he had a crush on since middle school suddenly wanting him????? Romcoms aren't exactly the pinnacle of writing, but suspension of disbelief is a thing, and when I'm not even done with the first chapter of the series they already break it, there's an issue.

From there the series just becomes about him going out with the idol of his dreams, who clearly appreciates him immensely and loves everything he does, and I'm just bored. This is the millionth romcom about the perfect girl suddenly falling on top of the lap of some loser and acting as his manic pixie dream girl, the interesting themes about lost passion from the first part of chapter 1 gone, all replaced by the most insipid and done to death romcom plot imaginable. I don't even want to know how this series goes going forward, because I've read a lot of romcom, so I know this will just slowly degrade into nothing but waifu pandering and never again try anything interesting with its characters or story.

Thank you for reading.