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Dec 26, 2024
The White Snake franchise has always been a visual spectacle, but the first installment has left audiences wondering how much good visual could compensate for a mediocre plot, while the second film felt like a spinoff that nobody asked for (slept through most of it). Bai She 3: Fusheng serves as a direct followup to the first movie story, with all of its usual visual strengths but also suffers from lots of missteps.
The story is noticeably more solid, with a clearer narrative than its predecessor. However, the 2-hour runtime struggles to balance limited content with meaningful progression. The first half of the film suffers from
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excessive exposition, the pacing is as slow as a snail trying to set up the stage. The second half eventually finds its footing, which thank god this movie didn’t turn out another pointless filler like the second movie. That’s quite a different writing approach from the first film where fast-paced, action-packed sequences saved these script issues.
That being said, the film retains its signature visual charm. The animation and art direction remain top-notch, though there are noticeably less jaw-dropping sakuga moments.
Ultimately, Bai She 3: Fusheng is a mixed bag. It corrects the franchise’s narrative flaws from the first film but does so at the expense of pacing with very little story to tell. While I still found it enjoyable, the heavy reliance on exposition and conventional style of storytelling could dampen the experience for others.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 26, 2020
Karadasagashi, also known as Body search, written by Welzard and drawn by Murase, is quite an unpopular manga in the vast amount of horror works. Since its fan scanlation has completed, I might as well write a review about it, since not that many people learn about its concept being good enough to invest.
While the story starts off in a rather easy way into a typical introduction to the main character and main story, unlike most horror movies and books where a sequence of very cheap jumpscares happens, choosing to build up the rumors and closed up the beginning ASAP. Yet, as the story progressed,
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the mystery is uncovered bit by bit, leaving behind a simple but satisfactory truth underneath.
STORY
Asuka faced a girl named Haruka, who is her friend asking to search for her body which happened to many of her other friends. While trying to solve the game, they’ll have to avoid getting killed by a blood-covered girl, otherwise everything repeats. Now, let’s stop your re:zero meme and ask yourself a question: how will things turn out if you use this continuous revivals as a plot device in horror genre? Surely it can’t get to the exact same point as of isekai/fantasy one, or deaths aside, just redoing to progressing like many other stories eg Erased.
If anything, it isn’t. But again, for a horror manga, this kind of plot device although will undermine the significance of deaths which resulted in very stale storyline later on, it actually doesn’t care about it. Instead, the manga chose to continuing onto discovering and developing as much as possible, while wasting way too many panels for the same deaths and their buildup, but making it dramatic in the worst way: MONOLOGUES. So to speak, monologue should work in any manga format that requires characters’ big brains. Even so, the repetition in their thought process just to make sure the readers don’t forget anything that they just uncovered is seriously infuriating. Not to mention even after continuously dying over and over again, even after accepting the fate that they have encountered, their mind still dramatized the deaths every single second. This might seem not to be the worst case, but for a very slow-pacing manga, this is quite problematic. Sincerely suggest binging reading, even though that might ruin the weight of the plot.
***SPOILER: However, as the story goes on and how nice the story wrapped up in the end, their sacrifices go without saying to be, frankly, forgetful. Because of the pacing problem, this led to very underhyped conclusion. Still, with the focus mainly on the characters chemistry rather than themselves, the development really did end on a good note, even though the end in general still lingers some anticlimactic scent.
ART
Fair enough like many where else. The shaders at least make clear of what happened, not too distracting or anything related to blatant fan service like many other horror manga. Characters are nicely drawn and put effort into their figures to strengthen their horrific death scene.
CHARACTER
Asuka Morisaki is our typical good girl, cliche but not as lame as you think at the start of the manga. And yes, this isn’t the type of story where you want the characters to have some kind of development to become incredibly edgy and thoughtful (well, many side characters sure are) but then its focus on the relationship is what really shines here. What isn’t shit will surely be good, or at least decent. Romance is really a surprising great element in this manga, representing in such a common and nice way.
Half the story through, where a lot happened, or rather, repeated itself before discovering anything important to the plot behind, the main role is switched to another character, who is pretty much has the exact same personality as the first. You would think: uninteresting, for sure. Not exactly, as I mentioned above, that the story shone the most in chemistry, so whoever carried the plot, it hardly matters anything.
Problems? First is the side characters, who even though do contribute to the storytelling, have very outrageous personalities. “Edgy” and “cliche” are true words to describe. Despite so, their performance finally after dragging out their development is worthwhile, so it won’t affect much to the readers feels towards the ending. Second being the very mistakes that have been made in many horror products in the media:Illogical obviousness in the action and dialogue. However, differently, instead of seeing something supernatural and ghostly just to go: “Hey, I’m scared, but still let me check it out instead of running away”; it’s a sillier way around: *digging a grave* “There’s something, I wonder what is down there?”
ENJOYMENT
Surely great and much better speed reading because of insignificant plot point along the slow progress of the story. Some downsides need to be addressed but quite a good read nonetheless.
7.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 9, 2019
I've read all of Junji Itou collection, and for those who don't know: this is one part of the whole compilation of short horror stories from the author. And people who read this already know, that these stories aren't even that "scary", but more of a shock factor or just an obvious twist which is repeated over and over in this collection.
Before jumping into the main point, let me clarify that I really admire how unique and creative Junji is in making these manga. That's also the reason why I keep reading this, even if it means having to deal with hard-to-read parts like Souichi,
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just to find out a potential hidden gem undersea. And right now, I'm writing a review just to show you this hidden gem.
Now, let's dive into this and see why this is very different from his other work.
STORY: 9/10
For a sin that caused by you from the time when you were just a kid, or a love that such pair willingly died together, it's only here, in this Collection 15. We have enough media products for those, yet the manga will still surprise people by how far it took to make such a deep development into it.
The only thing that keeps this from 10/10, is that its end isn't, well, fulfilling. Let's take this open end as example, the story doesn't made up any sense nor proper playout of the characters, yet it just turns out to be something theoretically legend with unreal existence, which, obviously, from the humans itself. Tbh, the conclusion isn't executed well by any means.
ART: 6/10
You already know his art, such nothing to be spectacular or horrible, just seems fair and matchable to horror style. Once you read many of these, his horrific corpses, ghosts, demons or whatever won't be any matter mentally.
CHARACTER: 8/10
For such a short story, the inevitable weakness here is that even though the plot as a whole is deep, the characters development is a bit rushed to a point where the plot breaks apart and it doesn't even proceed to contribute to the story. For example, the researchers came to the village chapter doesn't bring out any point for the story, but rather just to be there to fill the chapter with unsatisfactory ending.
ENJOYMENT: 7/10
Enough to enjoy, compared to his other work.
Overall:7/10 unarguably
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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