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Sep 16, 2024
CKG is a very concise, but well told story.
It wastes no time on details that are not directly relevant to the immediate plot.
Vampires are overrunning the world; humanity's last weapon is a reincarnated warrior with an attitude problem, but the martial skill to destroy these otherwise immortal monsters.
Gunther's lack of faith in humans is a pervasive theme, and he accepts the role of saviour only to ensure his own survival.
He is contrasted by Arien, his human power source who has survived to this point relying on people's benevolence and believes they are worth the sacrifice.
The art is very stylised, but wonderfully consistent. The gore is
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prevalent (many vampires have bodies made literally of blood, and Gunther himself frequently loses and replaces bodyparts during battle.) but somehow apt and not that excessive. More of a red backdrop to the proceedings.
Major characters are broadly lumped into noble & heroic, or selfish & manipulative. They're relatively shallow overall, with only Gunther himself being the focus of and character growth.
Everyone has fairly clear goals and motivations and stick to their principles generally.
The ending is somewhat unoriginal (one might say lifted scene for scene if you've seen Terminator 2), but not entirely out of place.
It's a well told, simple story. No major twists, or any deeper message than "greed leads to destruction".
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 16, 2024
A mediocre, trope filled plot with nothing unique or very interesting.
Briefly: Girl, Aoi, ends up homeless. Boy, Akira, sees her alone in the park and invites her to live in his house, trying to help her become a more regular girl while hiding the situation from his parents, etc.
Shenanigans ensue? Well, not really. Practically nothing's happened after this, so far...
The girl has dyed blonde hair at the start and is mistakenly identified as outgoing and rebellious; the reality turns out to simply be a difficult home life and difficulty socialising.
Rather than propose the message that "You can dress how you like and still deserve to
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be treated with respect if you do the same", the story instead goes with "You should conform to be viewed as 'normal', then people will like you more".
The MC is bizarre and frankly stupid; he knew the girl from years before and despite MANY clues, he only ever works it out after she tells him directly. He overthinks everything he does and says, and this is supposed to show him as "kind" but really comes across as somewhat calculating, borderline sociopathic. Since he always tries to take the path of least resistance, he almost never seems to do anything for himself, and just seems a hollow, uninteresting person generally.
The story occasionally drops in the notions that Aoi is somehow burdened by people's generosity.
It somewhat paints her character with an inability to take any kindness genuinely, as they repeatedly tell her they don't mind helping her, yet she insists that it's bad that she can't offer them anyhting. I can't work out if it's the story's message, suggesting to never trust altrruism, or if the character is just jaded from past experiences.
None of the characters display particular depth or growth. Aoi becomes less isolated and socially inept, but this is sort of forced by the other characters and indicative of "do this to be like us", regardless of her own preferred lifestyle.
All in all, not particularly well written, no interesting characters or story beats, but mercifully few chapters available at least.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Aug 2, 2024
I tried to watch this show and it's not very good.
I wanted to review the manga instead, as that's actually fantastic and doesn't get enough recognition. Why it was butchered when the anime was made, I don't know, but it was hugely unfair to make it into such bland, forgettable shonen crap.
Radiant (the french manga) starts out as nothing that special; boy with powers fighting against monsters in a fantasy world. Meets allies and enemies along the way as he seeks the source of the monster incursion, the titular Radiant, and the origins of his own powers.
The action is typical; the fights play out largely
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as you may expect.
What sets this apart is the character development and they way they behave. Characters make mistakes and regret them. Their friends point out their flaws and the relationships are strained and awkward. When misunderstandings occur, they stop and discuss what's actually going on, explaining why they acted as they did and all come to understand one another. Grimm comes to mind here.
The "heroes" act in the way they believe is right individually and the otherse will tell them just how arrogant they are for this.
The way Seth lingers on Hameline's death is really good; it seems obvious he carries it as his greatest failure, and even conjures the image of her in his magic world when he's alone.
The realistic and well written interactions really made this great for me, as well as some of the clever abilities the characters use. Really think this is worth a read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 2, 2024
This sucks, and it's a shame because the initial premise seemed reasonable.
I will include spoilers in my synopsis.
Sorry for the length, but I really had to rant about this.
In brief, to me this is the worst female MC I've ever encountered. That includes Midou Saki (Ijousha No Ai) as well; even she was more tolerable than this damn girl. She is short tempered, entitled, prickly and yet also boring, weak willed and suffers crippling shyness when it's convenient. These latter two traits only appearing later on in the story when it seems like the MC might notice how obnoxious she really is; very convenient indeed...
Anyway,
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plot:
Boy lives delusional life of a "popular main character", but one day he doesn't after LITERALLY NOTHING HAPPENS to him. If he had actually been hit by something or nearly been a serious accident, sure I'd get it. But he is nearly hit by a football. A minor inconvenience and a slight injury at worst, but whatever.
Anyway, after this he suddenly has the epiphany that reality is far more bland than he used to think and starts behaving like a normal person. All good so far.
Then comes "the problem", also known to some as "Aika". You see, dear readers, our main lad has spent his school youth to this point pursuing his dream girl for years, and she has blunty rejected him every time. Does she dislike him? Well clearly not, she hangs out with him almost every day without issue. The rationale we're given is the old, cop out excuse: "She doesn't have time for relationships". What does this mean? Your guess is as good as mine as we get pretty much no elaboration.
So, moving on, our main character is now mending his ways and realising he dislikes being called a "creep" and a "stalker", but "the problem" continues to call him names and trash him throughout the length of the story. Lovely.
There was a moment, that, for me, was a deciding point in this manga; the class changes seats and the boy is situated next to the girl who is the best friend of "the problem", and a friend of his by proxy. They get along incredibly well, evdiently, and he states that he is happy to be seated near her as he doesn't really have many friends. She is visibly pleased by this and here is where we could have a good and meaningful story; this boy who has wasted years on an unachievable ideal, now comes to terms with reality and can form a real and normal relationship with a different girl, who demonstrates concern for him and is obviously not repulsed by his affections.
But no, instead we get a cheap gag, boy insults this girl, and the story refocuses on "the problem" as goal.
I wish I'd dropped it here.
So "the problem" continues to berate and insult the MC, even when he is not doing anything deserving of this, and has the absolute gall to be upset when he honestly admits that yes, he was acting strange and creepy before, and backs away from her. He shows interest in other girls and she has the absolute gall to be jealous, and, in typical tsundere fashion, she blames him for her own shortcoming.
When the last tsundere is extinct, it will be a joyous day.
Naturally neither character ever tells the other what they are thinking or feeling, since the manga would finish in 5 chapters and the readers are never so fortunate.
The boy realises his own lack of value and displays sincere effort to make himself productive to others; it's kinda low key, but decent enough story to show him applying himself this way.
His awful sister notices his early change and realises that she has treated him like trash for most of his life and tries to apologise, only to realise it's actually too late and he can never see her anything but an aggressive bully, but he still cares for her. Also a decent bit of plot, and quite poignant about the lack of awareness of the effect of her callous actions.
The rest of the class and a few other school students notice the boy's change and start to treat him differently and hold him in higher regard. Pretty ridiculous and unrealistic, but seems to happen in these mangas for some reason.
"The Problem" is the only person who dislikes this change as he is no longer directing all attention to her. She only ever cares about how she misses his attention and not once does she wonder why he has changed his behaviour or try to find out if anything's bothering him.
She is too shy and awkward to talk to him directly, but she is outgoing enough to invite half the rest of the class to her house to meet her little sister. She tells MC he can't come and his response is "Okay, fair enough", which she then decides is the wrong answer, and it makes her upset and angry and it's HIS FAULT. Rather than immediately tell him "Sorry, I didn't mean it. You can come" she just, carries on without him, regrets it and later obnoxiously demands he comes to her place too. The absurd rationale for all of this is "she can't tell that she likes him"; WTF? You serious? How can you not be aware that you like someone? I never have, and never will, be able to understand what this means, other than a writer admitting they didn't know how to drive the story where they wanted and used this excuse to slow the pacing.
Aika is a selfish, arrogant, self absorbed, harpy who is undeservingly held up as some sort of ideal. She is only interested in MC when he is not acting as she likes, then resolves this by shouting and blaming him for unclear things, leaving him only confused and hurt. She never apologises for any of this and somehow THEY END UP TOGETHER. The injustice is mindblowing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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