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Jan 12, 2021
Earlier work of Akasaka Aka, now author of the famous Kaguya-Sama, more than anything Ib: Instant Bullet made me wish he got back to writing serious stuff but with his current experience.
Because this manga is *crazy*. It's a wonderful expression of all the negative emotions of humanity, and a lament for all those who suffer because they're so different from society to be completely incompatible with it even at its most basic level.
And these characters, so deeply broken that they'd rather see the world burn, are chosen as the ones who will save it.
This is everything but the start of a redemption story,
...
because the author takes whatever narrative structure he can and throws it out of the window. It's a manga so chaotic, unfocused, so full with content and themes and just as fast in reaching its conclusion it feels like one long cry of sorrow.
To the very end Instant Bullet keeps defying both common sense and common writing standards just as much as its protagonists defy society.
On some level it reminded me of Kinoko Nasu's Kara no Kyoukai, as they both present characters who are beyond common sense but still playing around its threshold, at times seemingly unsure of which side they want to be on; but it also gave me similar vibes to NisiOisin's Shoujo Fujuubun, with the way the characters were confronting their fate.
This manga is probably too specific in its strengths to ever garner much attention from the majority, especially because of its lack of focus or even direction which could be a huge turn off for most people, but if you liked any of the above stories I'd say give Instant Bullet a try.
But if these things aren't a problem for you, and especially if you are into the whole sheer chaotic madness thing, oh boy you're in for an extremely cool experience.
TLDR: if Akasaka Aka ever makes a longer battle manga similar to Instant Bullet but with added quality from his work with Kaguya it's going to get on my favorites instantly.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 12, 2021
Most dystopian or apocalyptic settings focus on whatever great disaster could bring our civilization to its downfall. After all, it's not like we have shortage of dangers to be wary of even now, from the climate to the economic crisis to the ever-present fear of wars or of the rise of dictatorial governments.
What makes Tsuki no Sango so peculiar, however, is that it's a world in which humanity actually surpassed all these perils, reaching a point where civilization is at its peak - and lost its purpose. It's diametrically opposed to Nasu's first published novel, Notes, which instead figured a dead Earth with an unrecognizable
...
humanity which had to deal with the invasion of superior beings; and yet, the "humans" of Notes had a power of will and a desire to live so strong that they survived the death of their own planet, facing creatures well beyond their understanding with great courage.
It's like in Tsuki no Sango humanity as a whole became some kind of old veteran, hurt too deeply by their past, who won the war but lost sight of why they fought it in the first place, or why anything mattered that much. Their vision is distorted, everything feels pointless, and they're now locked in endless monotony, alone with their thoughts and with no drive to keep living. With nothing to look forward to, they became more miserable than the new humans from Notes, who retained hope even while living through hell.
It's no wonder everyone is so interested in the Princess and her small island, as with its beautiful coral reef it's the only place which shines with life in such a mechanical world.
At its core, this is a story about love - or, more specifically, about learning how to love even when all love seems lost; it's particularly symbolic how the two protagonists are a disillusioned man who gave up on Earth and lacks emotional sensitivity and an inhuman being who had no one to learn it from in the first place.
With Tsuki no Sango, Nasu took a cynic and arid future, with two lonely and detached characters, and turned it all into poetry: the nostalgic kind, the one which makes you feel warm and hopeful and make you want to look forward to what's to come.
The bright coral reef, but a small point on a much vaster world, is not only significative of Tsuki no Sango's inner themes, but of the entirety of Nasu's works. Finding worth in a life of tragedy, the small light in the darkness, hope in the horror, will to live even in front of the blankest of futures are prevalent themes behind many of his stories and characters, and what ultimately make his dramatic scenes so powerful.
Especially in the current times, with 2020 just finished at the time of writing this review, in a world which keeps getting crazier and when observing people and events might make everything seem pointless, the concepts expressed in Nasu's works hold all the more power.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 10, 2021
(Ultra compressed version at the end of the review).
Nanatsu no Taizai's greatest strength is, I think, in the way it sincerely expresses emotion. It doesn't matter how messed up a character arc, the power levels or the greater narrative are - a look, a few words, a short backstory are all it really needs to make you resonate with the character at a deeper level than before.
Actually, for all its structural and narrative weaknesses, to me this manga makes more sense than most mainstream shounen. It's just that the author himself held it back by insisting on making everything seem like the biggest deal ever
...
and you only realize it wasn't nonsensical shounen crap by the later arcs, thus everything looks way dumber and more inconsistent than it would have been if the author had taken any writing classes.
Had it possessed a more proper structure on top of its natural ability at creating hype and sentiment it might have been able to stand among some of the better battle manga - and even like this there's plenty of things in which it puts other mainstream series to shame.
Surprisingly enough, what makes Nanatsu no Taizai shine the most in comparison to its peers is the notorious "power of friendship" which is usually seen as a plague.
Most of it has to do with how natural the character interactions are. The Sins feel similar to groups such as the Straw Hats from One Piece, but with the advantage of their friendship being on the forefront: being a character-centric story, the progression of its protagonist is central rather than being diluted due to the overwhelming presence of a major all-important plot, which in 7ds is the one forced to take a backseat.
As someone who cares much more about characters and feelings and much less about the greater plot, and as someone who would've still been a huge fan of the series if it was just them journeying mindlessly, 7ds works wonderfully when it comes to sheer enjoyment - and the bonds between the main group feel especially heartwarming. Each of their character arcs puts an huge emphasis on emotion, but it rarely felt fabricated precisely because of how honest each of them was and because the author made it look like he cared about them instead of throwing them away in the later arcs to give more space to new, bigger things; even the final saga, the great big total war, was nothing more than a succession of character arcs, even if tainted by the derailing of the power levels.
One battle shounen which I feel tried to do something similar was, obviously, Fairy Tail. A lot of it has its heroes mostly looking like a bunch of shitposters, bringing chaos and adventuring and giving so much space to their "family" narrative, and I even felt like it worked for quite some time. I also feel like they ended up mostly targeting the same fanbase (and the same haters).
One thing that made FT fail for me, however, was how much they just beat you over the head with it. After hundreds of chapter with the same rycicled scenes and big friendship speeches it starts feeling fake, especially because of how absurdly possessive and unreasonable they were and because, even with all that, the cast was simply way too big and it was inevitable to throw away so many of them.
While Nanatsu had its fair share of "shounen moments", they rarely passed the line and managed to stay hype as fuck until the very end - with Escanor's big moment especially shining.
It's also worth noting how they usually don't gain random protection from evil or further boosts in strength because they want it so much, or because their friends believe in them even more than how they were believing in them before.
The only such case is King, who is a non factor because of how much thought went into him: first, it's established very early on that his strength is dependant on his emotions, and growing from immature forms to more mature forms in desperate situations is a characteristic of his whole species; second, there are only two cases in the whole manga where he solves an hopeless situation with such a power-up, making them way more meaningful; and finally, it complements incredibly well what his Sin is and how it affects his character arc. As the Sin of Sloth, King's whole deal is that he needs to become more proactive and stop holding back both himself and the others with his attitude; it goes without saying that he can only unleash his true potential when he puts all of himself into accomplishing something, and in his case the only trigger which can make him surpass his limits is not wanting to lose any more people because of his weakness.
This ties in with the overall point I wanted to make: the friendship and comradery between the Seven Sins isn't so powerful because it gives them the strength to fight tremendous enemies, but because it gives them the strength to face themselves and overcome their own weaknesses - which is why they're then able to stand against such enemies with renewed pride and courage. They're all "sinners", broken people who managed to find comfort in each other, and it didn't happen in a cheesy way nor did it require lengthy flashbacks to justify their friendship. They just met each other and started hanging out, like in some kind of safe space, having fun while never judging the others for their past, slowly forming their bonds. The "friends" in Seven Deadly Sins act as some kind of anchor, a comfort zone which gives them the support they need to overcome themselves.
The only reason this worked so well is because of how much the author himself seemed to care about their relationship. It's an old story in this genre: "friends" are the most important, the protagonists care so much about friends they would sacrifice everything for them, they're the most precious thing in the world... and yet it's rare to have all that much space dedicated to them just being themselves and acting as actual friends. This is mostly because battle shounen tend to favour advancing the plot of the arc, or reaching the fights as fast as possible; the slice-of-life scenes are easily forgotten and left behind as soon as the author really gets into telling his story, and all those so precious friends really only matter for dramatic moments or for their usual gags, at times not even seeming to care about each other by saying things like "it's him, I'm sure he's all right" or "let him do whatever the fuck he wants I don't care about him", no matter if they're facing God itself.
This approach is definitely what I prefer too see in such shounens, and combined with the sheer hype of the fights made me enjoy this manga way more than I should have.
TL;DR: Nanatsu no Taizai is a mess, but its strengths such as the natural way it shows emotion and friendship make it stand out compared to other battle manga which are more dedicated to the narrative.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 28, 2019
Claymore is a breathtaking experience. Literally.
The story is heavily event-driven, with very little space for slower, calmer moments to let the reader rest and assimilate everything, as they mostly disappear after the first few arcs.
Even worse, all of those fast, major events are pretty much just action and exposition walls, not talking about the exposition during the action.
Claymore certainly isn't the manga for you if you're looking for complex morals, great development and wonderful character interactions. Don't be fooled by the fact that many call it a "female Berserk": that statement is only accurate as far as the superficial elements of the
...
story are concerned.
What really make this manga special is its unique stile, imaginative world-building and the badass-looking monsters and fights.
There is value to be found in the vast cast of characters present in the series and the feelings of comradeship that grow between them, but that's not what makes Claymore stand out compared to other battle shonen - altough you could say that at least it flows way more naturally than usual and is not really all on your face. This aspect is also worsened by the event-driven nature of the manga, which in most cases lets you see such relationships develop only on the battefield.
The two main relationships in the story, for example (Clare & Raki and Clare & Teresa) are fondamental both for the main characters and for the plot, but very few chapters are given to their development.
The pay-offs of those relationships, however, are top notch: Teresa and Clare's in particular is so emotional and well done that it makes me wonder how much I would have loved it if it was built upon a more solid structure.
Story: 7
The plot of Claymore, even with its fair number of twists, is pretty simple. The general execution is a bit lacking, again because of the sheer speed of the plot, which results in a lot of wasted character arcs and anticlimatic endings for some hyped up villains (like the Abyssal Beings).
That said, it has very neat concepts, and the story of the world is great and, as it's slowly revealed as the manga goes on and gives a nice context to the narrative.
The greatest point of the manga is, in my opinion, the ending, which is naturally built upon all the concepts and details presented during the whole manga and on all the previous fight, giving a wonderful emotional climax to the whole story. I'm not going to lie, that ending is so good that I almost gave Claymore an 8 just because of that.
There is also a lot of good old shonen powercreep, but it's very well done, properly explained and the supporting characters never become useless because of this. It's also well contextualized, since the author goes to great lenghts to show why these characters are so strong.
There are however a few inconsistencies because of the huge amount of characters that need to stay relevant, in particular Miria who because of her convenient Phantom technique is always able to somehow react and fight against opponents so fast that she couldn't even see them move.
Art: 8
I have mixed feelings about the art. I find both the human characters and the background to be pretty simple and umaginative, and the fact that all the Claymores are by definition very similar to each other and that the fights almost always take pace in uninteresting wastelands doesn't really help - altough I suppose it's a good point that I was still able to recognize the various Claymores fairly easily despite that.
What made me give an 8 to the art, however, are the great designs of most of the Awakened Beings: they're some of the coolest, creepiest and most unique monsters I've ever seen in manga, and it's always a joy to see their transformations. They're a hughe part of what makes Claymore so stylish and they really give life to its aesthetic.
Characters: 6
The characters are mostly very simple and straightforward and relies on archetypes. Well executed archetypes though, and they adapt very well to the plot-driven style of the story.
Clare is a nice protagonist, with a good evolution and a fair amount of depth, but she lacks in personality and charisma. Ophelia and Priscilla are also good villains, and both are great examples of an aspect of Claymore I really like: the way the author rapresents madness.
Way too often in manga and anime, especially in action series and battle shonen, crazy villains tend to be a bit cartoonish and predictable, which makes them quite boring or just impossible to take seriously; Claymore, however, treats them like actual characters and really makes them feel like scary, unpredictable psychos. The way Priscilla's instability is treated is very cool and makes both her acts as an emotionless villain and her more human side feel natural and not in contrast with each other. Unfortunately we see way too little of her complexities as she only becomes prominent in the last part of the story.
The one I consider the best character is Teresa, to the point that I almost think she is wasted for this manga. She has so much charisma and sheer badassery that I've rarely seen characters on her level, and while her character arc is also pretty standard it flows so damn well and feels so natural that, in my opinion, her presence and evolution end up feeling way stronger than those of the rest of the cast.
Despite those characters having great potential most of them still feels very basic, which is why I only gave this section a 6.
Enjoyment: 7
The long expositions during fights and the fast pacing were annoying, but I still liked the manga a lot overall and it had a lasting effect on me. Its highest moments, lore and general style make it memorable, and the climax is pretty much perfect.
Overall - 7
If you like badass shonen fights, a dark fantasy feel, cool female characters and creepy monsters, and if exposition during battles and fast pacing don't ruin the experience for you, then you're most likely going to appreciate this a lot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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