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The Other Side of the Mirror isn’t worth your time.

I will be honest, I'd seen the positive reviews for it, but after I read it I had… no words. If you want a story about love persisting through hardship and an unlikely but beautiful romance, look somewhere else. This isn’t it.

I won’t even deign to rate the art on this one– it’s good, sure, but that is completely irrelevant in the face of the shallow story and oh, how could I forget, the blatant racism. Yeah. Yeah that’s right. But no, that’s not the only reason this manhua isn’t worth your time.
The story ... is bland and trite. “Oh everything sucks and I hate life and we live in squalor but at least I have you and no one else! I’ll die without you now lets kiss and get married!” Sorry, maybe this is a personal opinion, but I need more substance.

This story follows Lou and Sunny, two down on their luck southerners who had moved from their hometowns to try their luck in NYC. Lou sleeps with Sunny, a prostitute who really honestly doesn’t know how to do her job, and blah blah they see each other here and there and Lou gets injured by a black man and then Sunny and Lou run away from NYC together and they get jobs and Sunny gets shot by a black man at her cashier gig– do you. Do you see why I’m displeased? Did you notice?

Not only are they drawn two degrees away from caricature, but the first black man doesn’t even speak a single line. What is he to this manhua? A plot device, a boogeyman of crime to push the story along. What about the black men who injure Sunny later? They get some lines at least, but again! What are they? Crime boogeymen! A slap in the face. I’m truly appalled.

I would say reading this was like listening to Bring Me to Life by Evanescence, but that’s an insult to an emo icon. I would never do that to Evanescence. Maybe it’s just me, but I am utterly exhausted by the co-dependent sob story that this manhua puts forward. Everything sucks but I have you. Could be sweet, if executed well, but The Other Side of the Mirror is not the mahua to do it. Melodramatic and overplayed, every plot beat was at once painfully overdone and boring and lifeless.

Oh, before I forget, this mahua had a few companion pieces: 99 roses was alright, not standout. Peggy was insulting, honestly, and I can’t prove it but it felt homophobic. The Funeral Procession of Stars was a disappointing, unoriginal goth ghost story (not gothic, just a shallow veneer of the goth aesthetic).

Yeah! That’s all. Don’t give this manhua the time of day and do something better with your time.

Picture this: you've just ordered a coffee at this new cafe everyone has been absolutely raving about. You sit down with an absolutely delicious looking latte. You go to take your first sip, but quickly find there is no coffee in the latte. It looks great, it even tastes sorta okay, but the essential ingredient that makes it what it's meant to be is missing.
This is Black Torch.

Black Torch is meant to be a concise and exciting action manga, which meshes the supernatural and rugged modernity together into the charming equivalent of a standalone action flick. Shameless in its joy for the craft, maybe a ... bit unpolished, but obvious in its love and enthusiasm for the medium it utilizes. With a good story at its heart, no matter how simple. And, at some level, Black Torch achieves this, but in many other respects it falls short.

I hate to tear at a manga whose creator so clearly made it out of love and good intentions and nothing else, but in the spirit of honesty I may have to.

To start, from the first chapter Black Torch blatantly draws from Bleach, one of the big-hitters in 2000s shonen manga. The current greats of shonen manga (specifically Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Jigokuraku) also appear to take inspiration from Bleach (and its predecessor Yu Yu Hakusho). While the influence can be seen with a keen and informed eye, it's not overwhelming, and it is very obviously only influence. Black Torch, on the other hand, borders on plagiarism, and somehow did not manage to elevate the source material in the slightest. To go into more detail on this specific point, Black Torch's first chapter is nearly a clone of Bleach's opening strokes. A gruff but well meaning teenager, with the ability to speak with beings no one else can, gets into a street fight with a bunch of thugs who were harming said being(s) in some way. Granted, with Jiro it's animals instead of spirits but-- come on. The setting is also at a generic riverside-overpass, but the framing makes it look identical to another iconic Bleach scene wherein Ichigo rescues Chad from a group of thugs. Jiro is almost Ichigo, if Ichigo had the personality of the most basic, formulaic shonen protagonist. There's a stereotypical borderline-loli ninja girl, a semi-stereotypical glasses wearing know it all rival, a lazy Urahara knockoff, and an acceptably pleasant shapeshifter reminiscent of Yoruichi.

But enough about other manga. Let's talk about Black Torch in earnest.
As for its good features, it does have them. In fact, the art is stunningly beautiful and well made. The art is of high quality, striking, and shows great talent. The fight scenes are generally very fluid and engaging, electric with emotion shown through the art alone. The quality of the art and the fight scenes in contention with a lackluster plot is what drove this series from frustrating to painful. The sheer potential of the art was enough to drive me to madness. The stunning visuals wasted on bland dialogue and redundant cliches was nearly a physical, tangible pain. (And that is saying nothing of the all consuming rage that overtook me when I found the rest of Black Torch's plot reduced to blurbs at the end notes of the last chapter.)

Black Torch's plot is... rudimentary at best. It reads, at best, like a highlight reel from a long running shonen. There is so much emotion that should be there, but simply isn't because the story was not given time to develop. Or, rather, was not properly developed in the time it was given. This mangaka seems to have an overarching issue with telling and not showing, which is rather impressive considering manga is a visual medium. Black Torch lacks any sort of depth or nuance that even the most action-y of action shonen requires to succeed. Its story exists as a medium which allows for exciting fights to occur, nothing more. It is not a story with a point, created by someone with a story to tell. The lack of depth makes even world-ending stakes seem cheap. The plot twists are so glaringly obvious that the only way to catch the reader off guard is to introduce something completely out of left field. The manga tries very hard to seem "cool" with very little substance to work with. The ironic thing is, if it focused more on the story, it actually would be cool. Furthermore, any attempts at depth are completely crippled by the lack of sophisticated storytelling. It is so obvious that Black Torch tries, but in the wrong areas at the wrong times.

To nitpick, I have a bit of a personal issue with the panel layout. There are areas where the panels lack flow, and the layout even takes away from an engaging and dynamic fight by interrupting its flow. And by far the most glaring issue with this is that the characters break panel borders. so. much. It's downright annoying. I don't care if it's stylistic. Breaking a panel's border's draws the reader's attention, and it had better be worth it and relevant to the plot, not just an excuse for the 50th full body pose of the chapter. Once or twice would be good, great even, and there were a few panels where this break was used to maximize the impact of a scene and even looked very cool, but every other page? No.

I would also like to touch on the female cast of Black Torch. Specifically Ichika, our main girl. She makes me sad, in a way. There are shallow attempts at female empowerment through her, but they only further showcase either apathy of a lack of knowledge. The real empowerment would be a good female character. I was so caught up in the euphoria of reading manga that recognized women as complex people and not stereotypes, I forgot that in shonen anime and manga that is not the norm. I suppose I shouldn't feel too offended, seeing as there isn't much character depth to be found anywhere in Black Torch.

To sum up an overly long review: Black Torch could be the poster child for wasted potential, and that may be more painful than if it had none at all.

There is something to be said for aesthetic value, but Kite shows that aesthetic value alone will not make an anime bearable.

To preface this, I am sure the version I was able to get my hands on cut out most of the nudity and sex, if other reviews are to be believed, as I saw no explicit sex scenes, simply small clips of nudity or the implication of sex. If that influences my review in any way, I apologize in advance.

Story- 2

What is Kite about? After watching it I can tell you this: violence. That's it. That's the entire plot, too. It's challenging ... to make a 45 minute movie feel monotonous and repetitive, but here we are. The plot twists were either extremely predictable or so out of nowhere that they fell flat, though the last one did make me laugh. Please note that the plot twist wasn't meant to be humorous.

Art- 7

Art is the only reason I watched kite. It's a simple story, I saw an amv edit of it (*cough* which was honestly better than the anime itself...) and said wow! That's some cool art, I want to see more of it. Kite does have aesthetic value, in fact it can be at times mesmerizing in the way dated anime can become charming.

Sound- 2

Please, for the love of god, enough with the jazz. It would still be jarring if it was played at acceptable moments in time, but it never is. It always distracts the viewer from the anime, and it's not even good. It doesn't fit the theme either- Kite would be much more suited to a soundtrack similar to Akira's, or just... literally anything that's not jazz.

Character- 1

All characters are one dimensional at best, nonexistent silhouettes at worst. Traumatized school girl who always wins a fight, pretty boy who sympathies with her, perverted man, weird looking lackey, dead parents, assorted forgettable background characters. That's it. If Kite was character-driven and not plot-driven, it wouldn't exist.

Enjoyment- 3

I was just watching it for the aesthetic, to be completely honest. Hated the jazz, and the pervert-man was extremely off-putting. I'm aware he was made to be creepy but, ugh. The explosions were satisfying to watch and the backgrounds were interesting, at least, and Sawa's character design was probably the only reason I kept watching. Shiny earring go brr.

Overall- 3

Kite gets points for being not completely terrible, I suppose. I liked the art, and again, Sawa's character design (read: fancy earring) was the only reason I kept watching.

To say that I was thrilled when a fully fledged series came out of the original Fog Hill of Five Elements short I stumbled across years ago would be an understatement. Wu Shan Wu Xing is incredible.

Story- 8

A very strong start to what will, hopefully, become something remarkable. Unfortunately, the only version I could access had subpar subs, and I'm far from fluent in Chinese, but it speaks to the strength of this story's direction through both dialogue and visual direction that the plot was still not only understandable, but engaging. The surface has been scratched to reveal the scope of the story to ... come, so it qualifies as a solid foundation.

Art- 10

I would score it higher if I could. The sheer visual appeal is the main reason I watched Fog Hill, and for good reason! The skilled animation makes every movement mesmerizing, the unique style catches the eye even in small scenes, scenery is absolutely gorgeous, and the fight scenes are, dare I say, God Tier.

Sound- 10

The opening theme is a banger. The voice actors are all obviously skilled. The use of background music is exquisite, building suspense and tension through important battle scenes as it gets gradually louder. I also greatly appreciated that they refrained from using any music at times, something I've seen anime like Naruto do to add a sharper edge to fights.

Character- 9

For a 3 episode miniseries, there are many well rounded characters. Granted, most of the main cast hasn't been introduced yet, but the main, who has been, is outstanding. There are many distinct side characters, and well developed enough that I became emotionally attached. The character design is also absolutely spot on. Everyone with a role to play has a distinct appearance, memorable and pleasing (I'm trying very hard not to outright call them cool, but that's what they are).

Enjoyment- 10

I am such, such a fan of good animation. Not only does it have that, it really does almost everything right, and exceptionally well at that. I watched this all the way through and watched it again in one afternoon. It's just that good, I really can't say much else.

Overall- 10

Like I said before, I would give it 100/10 if I could based on animation alone, but all of it is just *chef's kiss*

Story- 5

In a word the story and overall plot is poor, at best. The individual “case” or “mission” episodes were a great way to hold the attention of the viewer and add variation, but would have been better suited to a series of more length. As it were, 12 episodes is far too short to hold a structure like that, much less to keep that form until the final few episodes. Yes, there were several underlying characteristics which could be argued to point to the end, but only to the untrained eye. Even if the form was flawed, it is refreshing to see an anime ... take an episode-by-episode approach.

Art- 5

The art isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. It is smooth at times, and awkward at others. The lighting is done well to set mood, and so is the use of color schemes, for the most part.

Sound- 5

The music is obviously meant to excite the viewer, but the overuse of intense and somewhat violent rock music in every other scene gets old, fast, and leaves the viewer (or me, at the very least) tired of having their ears shredded every time a main character does something remotely cool. The dub and sub versions have some flaws, such as timing and portrayal of enthusiasm, but overall are average. Both the OP and ED left no lasting impression, falling somewhat flat.

Character- 5

The characters are what they are meant to be: fun, suave, witty, and bad*ss. Other than the several characters which are the focus of the series, the rest feel to be nothing but walking puppets superimposed with stereotypes. There is little development, which is disappointing but fitting for the series at the same time. There is a bit of backstory given for the main character, Dante, but it is laughably cliched and underwhelming, not to mention poorly executed despite the entire episode gven to its development. The other characters? They simply do not have a backstory.

Style- 4

The series is over the top and does not possess much “finesse,” overall. There are some select moments which do not follow that form, but often a witty line or something of the sort which is well used the first time is overused to the point of causing annoyance. (The line “this show is adults only” was excellent the first time around. It referenced Patty’s assumption that Dante was in a band from his guitar case- which actually houses his demon-slaying sword- and tastefully segways the scene away from Dante’s fight, shielding it behind a curtain and forcing the viewer to use their imagination, to great effect, adding greatly to the style. The line was overused at later and seemingly random times)

Enjoyment- 9

Even in the face of all of its flaws, Devil May Cry is an enjoyable watch. It has moments which shine through as memorable, stylish, and well-executed, with excellent sound and structure, moments seemingly plucked from a different series. Other than that, the constant action and poorly written but cool characters are fun to watch in all their demon killing glory.

Cohesion- 5

Poor cohesion between episodes, which is expected of an episode-by-episode styled series, but there is also a sometimes off-putting structure to the episodes themselves.

Overall- 5

Devil May Cry may be trash, but I’ll darned if it isn’t enjoyable trash. For a series which seems to be an odd hybrid of Supernatural, Trigun, and Vampire Hunter D, it does surprisingly well, and surprisingly poorly at the same time.