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STORY: 6

Meet some people, going on with their own situations and trying to understand each others. Iguana Girl is a collection of five short stories with slices of life and a topping of surrealism. Nothing epic, just some adequate feelings.

ART: 6

A fine 90s style.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 6

... Characters are trying to overcome their problems within the short time of each story. They have some empathy and are not too self-centered, lovely.

FEMINISM: 7

One story focuses on a middle-aged woman with compassion. Another story depicts a painful mother-daughter relation, but the abuser is not just depicted as a villain. A third story has a boy who suffers, and, instead of turning to cynicism and desires of revenge, like so many characters, he learns to express his emotions in order to heal!
There's even the 'young boy and girl alone in the room', and, it's not turning into that manga trope where the boy looses control and assault the girl! 🥳

CONCLUSION: 6

A nice, heart-warming, short read that is deeper than you expect.

STORY: 3

Meet K, a hero who gets his power from rape. This is supposed to be funny. Oh, and suicide is funny too.

ART: 4

Average art from the 90s.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 4

... Void.

FEMINISM: 2

One more author drawing with one hand in his trousers. Not need to waste time analyzing rape culture for this one shot.

CONCLUSION: 3

If one man over ten were to be raped during his life (which is the actual statistic for women), would the author still draw that kind of story, and say "come on it's just silly, take it easy!"?
I don't think so.

STORY: 3

Meet Gordon Goliath, a man driving a food truck around a post-apocalyptic landscape. He encounters the mysterious Arisa, a character defined by constantly being hungry and flashing her naked body. There’s other characters that are, without exception, stereotypes from the most generic mangas that they are not even worthy talking about.
As for the story, it’s a mix from different genres but all the aspects feel so shallow, and sometimes lazy, that there’s also nothing to care about.


ART: 4

Maybe the weakest point of this tittle. All characters are so generic it feels they were designed by an amateur. There’s a few detailed backgrounds, but maybe ... having most of the story taking place in an empty desert is not a coincidence..


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 4

Whoa, we are on grounds that are too superficial to talk about politics here. Let’s mention the many casual murders that occurs, and potentially the extinction of a species for the sake of cooking.


FEMINISM: 3

When you open a manga that draws breasts like soccer balls, you know you are in for a low feminist score. Besides cooking food, the other thing happening in the manga is the constant gaze on Arisa, who 'likes' to be naked. This is made worse by the fact that Arisa is behaving like a child and that Gordon looks like he could be her dad.


CONCLUSION: 4

Everything is so shallow in this title that I first thought it was an amateur work. It was actually serialized in Comic Bunch, a big editor, but apparently got axed, which makes sense considering the low quality.
If you are after a very light slice of life manga with young breasts and food, then you could try Crazy Food Truck. Otherwise, these 3 volumes are way too much of your time.

STORY: 6

Meet Youko Kojiri, a screenwriter on the run from the disaster that was her last broadcast show. As she rides a kitsch cruise boat crossing the lake that leads back to her parents home, her encounter with a gorgeous captain starts the beginning of a lot of boat rides around the lake.
Add a few colorful characters, some over-the-top twists (terrorism, natural disasters..) over the welcome length of just two volumes, and you have an entertaining little manga.


ART: 6

Nothing breathtaking here, but there is a nice variety in styles depending on the mood of the characters. Sometimes, faces give off an unexpected Rei Mikamoto (the ... author of titles involving gore and school girls, such as “Bloody Delinquent Girl Chainsaw”) vibes, which adds some quirkiness to the story.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 6

This light story, within its short run, manages to address the toxicity of social media, with the internet-lynching threatening Kojiri. Interestingly, as a counterpoint to that anonymous, hostile mass in the background, many local characters found around the lake are simply nice, generous or supportive. This is nice to notice since the majority of manga often depict strangers as hostile or selfish.


FEMINISM: 4

Meh. There’s mainly rivalry between Youko and another girl as they both yearn for the hot captain of the boat. They brag and deceive each other, even using the “I’m pregnant from him” trick.
At least there’s also Youko producer and friend: she is overweight but, amazingly, she appears through the manga as a producer and friend first. I am saying first because, too many times in manga, ‘fat’ characters are defined firstly by their appearance and stay limited to some stereotype of either the funny good-hearted (hi “Naruto”!), ridiculously glutton (hi “One Punch Man”!), bullied/shut-in/miserable (hi “Ressentiment”!) character.


CONCLUSION: 6

A light story that can distract you for two volumes.

STORY: 4

Meet Jagasaki, an average manga hero, who gets to lead a fight against humans that turn into monsters because of their overwhelming desires. Here's a series that starts strong.. and then quite suddenly turns mediocre with a plot that becomes boring and predictable.

This is a seinen (for adults) title with horror and sex, but what spoils the manga is that the storyline follows a very cliched shonen progression: hero gets stronger along with the enemies, each battle to the death has the characters have a conversation like if they were sitting having some coffee, and of course power-ups appear when the fight seems over. ... Some enemies are even not far from telling you how their ability functions so that you can beat them, how nice.
Near the end, the story becomes especially bad and we get to the point of caricature with the hero having to go through a ‘dungeon’, and defeat sub-bosses like in a video game before reaching the final boss for a annoyingly long fight.


ART: 7

Very solid at times: backgrounds, objects, characters.. everything is well rendered and digital techniques are abundantly used without getting in the way. But the quality is also wildly fluctuating, it almost feels like the author is leaving assistants do everything in some chapters. Expect an edgy start with details and a cleaner, US-comic influenced, sometimes lazy art in the second half of the saga.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 4

Some questions here and there about desire, the use of violence and justice. And mostly the usual overconfident nihilist antagonists that cannot stop blabbering about their evil projects even in the middle of a fight.


FEMINISM: 2

Despite the story rapidly degrading to kids level with its shonen tropes, the level of sex is clearly for adults. Sadly, we get tons of softcore porn, abuse and rape, wrapped in a sleazy male gaze.
Male characters don’t have a lot of depth, but female characters are clearly being drawn as a body or stereotype first, and not much else. This is clearly evident with Jagasaki love interest, whose personality is totally inconsistent through the manga, just being whatever the scenario needs her to be.
The only female character that does get a bit of story time and development is actually.. a man that has entered the body of a girl. And she mostly has lots of sex. I think that says a lot about the author's interest in women.


CONCLUSION: 4

Many readers thought of titles like “Parasite” or “Gantz” when reading this manga and they are indeed better. You can skip Jagaaaaaan, no woooooorries.

STORY: 8

Meet Hyaku, an angry girl searching for her identity. Follow her crashing with a politically unstable world divided between Humans and Creechs.
Creechs are synthetic creatures whose place in society is uncertain, but no spoilers here. The story is actually Atsushi Kaneko’s modern take on the manga Dororo by Osamu Tezuka.

Swift and nervous with 3 volumes, there is zero feeling of the usual pressures or annoyances of weekly publication. Instead, we are completely taken for a movie-like experience that is perfectly executed. Did you know that the author Atsushi Kaneko actually does have directing experience?


ART: 9

Clean, bold, framed like cinema. The rock aesthetics and ... strong US-comics inspiration of Atsushi Kaneko are mixed here in a soviet futuristic dystopia and it’s gorgeous.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 7

The madness of man, the folly of science, the horror of war, the crimes of the wealthy, are subtly part of the story.
While individual fights at the forefront, we see interesting collaborations within different factions and even an uprising in the background!


FEMINISM: 7

Hyaku is a fantastic female character (while it was a male in the original story), she is powerful but not invulnerable, and she learns and grows along the manga. Bonus points for her being not sexualized even once!


CONCLUSION: 8

Great storytelling and art that shows manga does not need to always repeat the same cliches? Yes it’s here, thank you.

STORY: 4

Meet Eita and Kaoki, a couple in their first relationship at 19 years old. Eita, the boyfriend, is an average bland university student. Kaoki, his girlfriend, has a frail body and she has to live in an hospital, potentially most of her life. She is sadly stuck in a room while people her age enjoy the “peak of youth”. Now, guess who is the story going to focus on and empathize with?
..
Right! Eita!
And guess what is the main problem in that story?
..
The right of Eita’s weewee to access a vagina! Oh my god you must be clairvoyant!


... ART: 4

The only thing noticeable here is that breasts are a bit more realistic than usual. Oh, the author is a woman, that might help. Besides, panels are quite generic and empty.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 3

Just the same masculinist protagonist as usual: feeling sorry about himself and far from being able to do anything collective.


FEMINISM: 3

Here we go: our male hero is a pathological liar, sleeps around, and is a selfish coward. He treats Kaoki terribly and the scenario is totally ok with that.
Have you noticed how many manga have that kind of characters as main protagonist?

As the story progresses, the author even uses some convoluted events to make us more understanding of Eita’s actions, while showing the two main female characters as more and more manipulative. Masculinist manga often use that kind of development, where the male hero starts off as a jerk, but, women characters then act even worse so that, in the end, the reader’s sympathy goes to the male hero.
I wonder how many manga are centered on a girl who sleeps around while her boyfriend is having a hard time at the hospital?

Eita has a lot of sex and, if you are expecting a bit of subversion because the author is female, you will be disappointed. For example, one scene has Eita come in the mouth of his coworker and she teases him “I’m going to kiss you before I wash my mouth”, which makes him look disgusted and saying “I’m not into that stuff”. We are supposed here to adhere to the virilist view that women tasting cum is totally ok (even ‘natural’) whereas real men should not be subjected to that (otherwise they would be gay).

The gold for unfair narration comes when Eita gets beat up by the boyfriend of the kind coworker he was banging for four days. When that happens, the girl already has bruises all over her body and face, which points to a very serious situation, but Eita does not care at all:
He is only feeling disappointed that she is looking away when he gets attacked.
Did Eita call the police after the attack, if not for himself, to protect the girl from further abuse? No, our hero simply erases her number and, in less than two days after the assault, has sex with another girl he had bonded with by pretending he was a virgin like her.


CONCLUSION: 3

Even if you can ignore the masculinism spoiling this average story, just skip it. There’s much better titles out there, and, if you are ok with that kind of story, just read Boys on the Run by Kengo Hanazawa.

STORY: 5

Meet Sanjou Ichiri, a young girl with a lot of questions about her past and the meaning of freedom. Her ordinary existence is suddenly gone as she encounters Capoeira at the local public park, the martial art from the far away Brazil!
Growth, self identity and realistic fights? Not really and not only!
Once you realize that the author is the man behind the hysterical (but not great) manga Usogui, you can imagine Batuque is not going to be just martial arts and you are right. Colorful (or just psychotic) extra characters, ridiculous brawls (sometimes so dumb it's funny) and wtf developments ... are here to spice things up, and Sanjou never gets bored during her rather traumatic youth. Things run over 18 volumes, which is a bit long, but most of you should be able to go through the crazy story that is offered.


ART: 6

The art has a lot of personality, especially during the bits of comedy, but fights can be confusing and faces and haircuts have a weird perspective sometimes. Nevertheless, the quirkiness of some panels makes up for the not so great anatomy in others.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 5

A lot of mafia and some reflection on violence not being an end-goal in itself but not much more. It is also nice to see the importance of the other characters surrounding Sanjou, the hero. Whereas a typical manga hero solves his problems alone (through violence) with some help here and there, the 'friends' (many of them who should be in prison or in an asylum) of Sanjou are an integral part of her development and progress. Of course, you could wonder if the fact that Sanjou is a woman has influenced the author when providing that much support from secondary characters..


FEMINISM: 6

Reading that after the author's previous work, the testosterone-loving manga Usogui, I was expecting the worst. But, there is some effort, and the strong female protagonists stay strong all through the manga instead of becoming damsel in distress halfway through like it happens too often, which is a nice surprise. Good job for someone who started his career drawing a one-shot for the masculinist title Baki!


CONCLUSION: 6

A bit too long, a bit all over the place, but not bad. Batuque still has some boldness and it is obviously a must if you like capoeira. It is also better on most aspects (save crazy enigma) when compared to the more famous title Usogui from the same author, so maybe give it a try?

STORY: 4

Meet Usogui the king of gamblers! He has an agenda and he is willing to bet his life to succeed. Along with his companions, his fate will cross a LOT of very colorful (read mostly psychotic) characters along Kakerou, a mysterious organization of game referees (and at the same time assassins because why not) that operates in the shadows of Japan.

The story is a succession of high-stake 'games' that Usogui takes on to conquer power. Call the right number and immediately 30 guys in black suits show up to insure the game goes as it should. Each game is anything-goes as long as ... it's within the set of rules decided by the Kankerou referee. And then things get boring very rapidly as the same formula is repeated non stop over 49 volumes:

1 The nice guy starts the game with some super smart move.
2 However, the enemy saw that coming with an even smarter strategy that encompass all possibilities and moreover he is cheating using extremely convoluted ways. How evil! All hope seems lost!
3 But wait! The hero had an even more complicated strategy that includes all the possible actions of the enemy and had somehow anticipated for the treachery of the enemy and has used an even more cunning way of cheating.
4 There he wins! Oh but no! The enemy had a last, even more unrealistic and unlikely trick and it's over for the hero, who would have thought!
5 As despairs arrives, in an totally ridiculous twist (and after dragging for a loooong time), the hero ultimately wins because he had planned for basically all events in the universe (with flashbacks to explain how things truly went).. No wait nothing makes sense! Oh whatever, you will get tired of it quickly anyway.

On top of this tedious adventure add (at the same time) a ton of tough characters that pop out from nowhere for testosterone brawls with constant power-ups and you have a boring, over-confident mess of a manga.


ART: 5

As a half enigma and a half manly-fights manga, the focus is clearly on faces and bodies with some influences from titles like Baki or the Jojo saga. Lines are very detailed and show the experience of the author with some flexibility and ranges of emotions but the end-result is not that great. The main problem being that the approximate anatomy (the author is struggling with chins) makes the artwork feel weak.
Everybody looks the same and we need haircuts, accessories or moles to keep track of who is who in the huge mess of characters.
There is some clear skill progress along the many chapters, however, and a few nice panels, but globally the art self-seriousness fails as much as the story.


POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 4

Kankerou, the shadow organization of game-referees has ramification up to the corrupt government or the police and.. that's it.
Each of the too many characters has long tirades about justice, heart, power, but they mostly feel like incoherent babbling given the lack of consistence in the story.


FEMINISM: 3

Here is a manga that loves men so much that the female to male ratio feels like it's around 1:30. On one hand you have men characters who engage in brutal violence just for the kick of it and you can feel that the author enjoys depicting those over-the-top fights where the feeling of manhood is more important than any attempt at realism. That glorified violence in Usogui, similar to the masculinist classic Baki, is so ludicrous that it seems to have been written by a 13 years old.
On the other hand, the only two noticeable female characters are made into the 'femme fatale' trope: they are strong, beautiful and deadly. As often with this trope, they are shown as having a very active sexuality that makes them abnormal (which is a threat for men). And here you go, basically two women over 49 volumes.

There is also one bad allusion to sex through the manga: in one episode, a grateful host wants to reward one of the heroes. He then gives him two girls for sex like if they were objects. That scene is purposed for comedic relief and does not succeed -_-.


CONCLUSION: 4

Usogui is a failure of a cross-over between Detective Conan (for the crazy enigma) and Baki (for the ridiculously-strong manly-men lame fighting). Unconvincing in most of its aspects, sometimes unwillingly funny, it could have been so much better if it were 10 times shorter.

STORY: 4

Kurokawa is an average worker who feels he has not accomplished anything in his life. He is grumpy, awkward, envious and shy. His story is a succession of painful moments as he fails at being respected, attracting women or making friends. And the rest is frustration as he keeps comparing himself to others or his idea a what a great man is.
That is, until the moment he gets to use violence!

The whole story supports the character's new-found use of violence to 'take your fate into your own hands' and celebrates his 'putting your life on the line' to the point of kitsch.
The story ... is a succession of ridiculous scenes where male interactions are conditioned by the perceived violence of Kurosawa: aggression, emotion, fear, respect.. The reactions of the ordinary Japanese men depicted (no care is given to women save for one granny) are so primitive it feels like watching a documentary about the social life of apes.

ART: 5

The art is very old-school and stiff but it's still pleasant. That touch of 80s-90s is serving the story with faces that are easy to remember and a dated flavor that is in line with the 'primitive' feelings exposed in the manga.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 4

A man can get respect though violence and our hero, once he has stepped in this direction, is compared with a Samourai, a warrior, and the manga shows that it is an admirable thing.
For example, a moment of glory comes when Kurokawa announces that he is going to fight school delinquents in the middle of a restaurant. Then, all the patrons are moved (!) by his resolution and follow him the next day to assist to the fight. During the fight, the spectacle of violence fascinates the (vastly male) audience and moves them to tears. Let's stop here to describe the scene: a crowd is moved by a grown-up taking the risk to kill a kid with a steal pipe.
How nice, after his fight the hero gets a confidence boost and becomes appreciated by his coworkers, starting the ‘legend’ of the strong man Kurosawa.

Politically our hero becomes a rebel. Against the system? Not really. In a typical masculinist fashion, Kurosawa only fights because he feels he does not have the place he deserves in society. He cannot, however, think of changing the system neither by himself or collectively (he gets some followers after enough display of violence).

FEMINISM: 4

For a change we have some old-school masculinism here which made me wonder when that title was published (2003 to 2006, surprising!). We have a man who is suffering because he is not doing great things like real men do. We watch him spending a lot of time being frustrated and unable to express his emotions correctly, instead he does his best at acting like a man: not communicating openly (until he's drunk at least), making terrible decisions to save face and engaging in violence.

Poor Kurosawa has never done it for real, 'for real' means that he has never had sex without paying a woman. The empathy is only for him and not for the sex workers. As in too many manga, men participating in the prostitution industry is too natural to even be questioned.

Empathy again for the poor Kurosawa who is a victim of temptation: just going to a swimming pool he gets so excited that he sexually assaults the women in the pool. Zero thought is given to the women who got his head bumping into their vaginas. And fortunately for Kurosawa, the rich delinquent that recognizes him as 'the real deal' helps him avoid being taken to the police. He even lectures his female friends that were rightfully disgusted by Kurosawa's behavior.

CONCLUSION: 4

All the guys are crying in this work, it's the first time I read a manga with that many male tears. That should be a good thing, suggesting that the male characters are more compassionate, empathic or emotional than usual (which are great reasons to cry). Alas, the tears here mostly come from envy ('why am I not successful?'), loneliness ('I want to be recognized and respected!') and fascination for violence ('Seeing you putting your life on the line when fighting with punks moved me to tears bro!').

Kurosawa is a character with the maturity of a baby (he is seen having tantrums on the floor a few times like a kid) who suffers because of toxic masculinity. While the manga is trying to show how tough men have it, this title is mostly (rather involuntarily) showing how patriarchy can make men selfish, dangerous and pathetic.