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Lurking around the internet looking for a quick read, I come across Hot Road. To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much but I got so much more from this series that I felt compelled to write a review. Hot Road may not seem like much at first glance, but it truly is a very well done manga that I recommend!

Story: (8)
The story is simple. A simple, quiet girl ends up getting involved with a motorcycle gang and ends up getting romantically involved with one of the gang members. The manga is not too dramatic, though, and at times it almost feels like a slice ... of life. There aren't many plot twists or overly dramatic portions, just a beautiful simplicity that allows the characters and their relationships take the main stage, which the mangaka handles very well.

Art: (7)
Like most older manga, the art takes a little time to get used to. With time, though, it really comes to grow on to you and there are a few particular panels where the art is really, really well done. Nonetheless, sometimes the character's expressions were sort of dull and the backgrounds sometimes weren't very clear, so I can't rate it any higher than a 7.

Character: (9)
This is where Hot Road shines. Kazuki, the main heroine of the series, is not your typical shoujo protagonist. She's serious, quiet, and keeps to herself. Every once in a while she does cry, but it feels fully justified and not at all over dramatic. Haruyama, her love interest, starts out as a typical rough gang-type character but in a few chapters comes to grow to so much more. Better yet, the two grow, mature, and develop as the series progresses in a very satisfactory and realistic way. Supporting characters are not given as much backstory and development, so I cannot rate this section a full 10, but they were given a satisfactory amount that they do not feel flat and boring. It may leave pickier readers wishing for more, but I was fully satisfied.

Enjoyment: (10)
I got a lot more than I was expecting from this series. I was just looking for a way to kill time and ended up finding a very well-done, interesting, and enjoyable series. I planned on reading the series over a span of a week and ended up finishing it in two days since I kept wanting more and more.

Overall: (8)
Hot Road shines in its simplicity and captivates you slowly and fully. It's not a masterpiece, but it certainly is a very good and well-done series that is worth looking into.

Have you ever felt you loved a person so much you cried at the thought of her leaving you? Cried of the thought of your feelings not being returned?

Suwa, our dear prince of the one-shot, did. And this is where the one-shot stands out. In just a few pages Suwa managed to show more emotions than most of the shoujo male leads. He openly shows his affection towards his girlfriend.

We've all seen the cool and collected bishounen. I'm ready to see a more emotional one and this one-shot gave me a tiny glimpse of one.

I found Barajou No Kiss while searching for a reverse harem. While it does have some original qualities, this series does not escape from many of the dreadful romance cliches.

Story: (7)
Anis has a choker given to her by her father which she cannot take off. One day, though, she loses it and while searching for it she discovers she's the Dominion of the Rose Knights. The title includes 4 cards and the servitude of 4 boys, all of which go to her school. It's starts out rather basic and drags on a bit to reach its main plot, and even now at chapter 20 the ... plot is not exactly crystal clear. In between Shouto also manages to add idols, cross-dressing, and magic. So in many ways, it's your typical harem.

Art: (8)
The art style is distinctively Shouto's, which is somewhat different from the norm. Its lines are dark, thick and everything is rather pointy. It's not your traditional shoujo art, but a rather different style that after a while comes to appeal to you.

Character: (6)
This is sadly the worst part due to the fact that it's so full of stereotypes. We have the standard pretty boy that's not exactly what you think; the quiet and mysterious guy; the sweet, loyal, and devoted boy; and the stubborn and hot headed guy that's actually somewhat sweet. The heroine is a little interesting, she's not a complete pushover like every other girl out there, but that's about it.

Enjoyment: (7)
Despite all the typical characters and story, it's rather enjoyable. Shouto manages to make it a little interesting, even though most of the material she uses is rather over-used in shoujo and harem series.

Overall: (7)
It's reverse-harem, shoujo, and typical. But manages everything in a way to make it more tolerable and even more enjoyable than many other series.

I picked Kodocha a while back, hearing many great things about this series. I can gladly say it didn't disappoint!

Story: (8)
The story revolves around Sana, a quite successful child actor, and how her relationship develops with fellow classmate, Akito. The beginning is quite typical, Sana immediately hating Akito and arguing endlessly over each other's attitudes. The beginning is the most surrealistic part of the manga. Unless you find an elementary classroom completely ruled by a group of boys to be normal. However, it is much more realistic than most series. As the story progresses, things become more realistic and the relationship between Akito and ... Sana develop. The only real complain I have over the storyline is the last arc, where the problem stems from something which I personally find silly and it just seemed to be the manga-ka's attempt to add one more volume to the series. Overall, though, it is very good.

Art: (7)
The art was so-so. Backgrounds were quite plain and sometimes it felt like the manga-ka just didn't feel like adding details. The character's limbs were all stick-thin and some characters were very similar to one another. However, while the art lacks in overall details, it shines in the expressions of the characters. Obana Miho knows what she's doing when she draws facial expressions.

Character: (8)
While some supporting characters were stereotypical, the main cast is rather nice and stems away from the annoying stereotypes. Sana, our main little gal, is rather out-going and actually has a backbone. Akito is a rather socially awkward guy whom also isn't the ideal romantic hottie. Other characters, such as Sana's mom, Tsuyoshi-kun, Rei, and Kamura had their individual quirks to set them apart from the others. They're given a fair amount of background story and development.

Enjoyment: (9)
The chapters seemed to disappear with how fast I was reading them! Except for the last arc which irked me, every other chapter was a nice and enjoyable ride through Sana's life.

Overall: (8)
Frankly, I think the fact that the main couple were kids made everything more enjoyable. It made things steer away from your typical Teenage romance series to a children's awkward journey into a relationship. Kodocha is a cute story of two kids, but not to the point it's too childish for older people to enjoy :)

"Do You Want To Try?" - The title, for some weird reason, led me to read this manwha... I can pretty much say I'm greatly dissapointed...

Story: (4)
The story is one extremely popular in Korea, including Jjangs and all that. It even has the ever popular "Fake relationship to get some stalker to leave me alone". It's very mediocre, and the author keeps trying to make it interesting by adding random things such as bullying, dark pasts, and betrayals. Trust me, that's all there is to it.

Art: (8)
This is the best part in the series. If that disappoints you, turn away now and just don't read ... it. The art, though, is very good. The only bad thing about it, I would say, is that hairs look stiff in the beginning but that is fixed in the later half of the series.

Characters: (3)
The author just couldn't make up her mind when deciding the character's personalities! The main girl, for example, is independent and bossy one chapter and a cry-baby who's dragged along by some guy the next! The romance between the two mains also didn't develop. All of a sudden, the girl just doesn't find her fake boyfriend annoying at all. Instead, just randomly, she begins to LIKE the guy. For no reason... You know what? I don't even want to go on. To put it simply, all characters are bi-polar! There!

Enjoyment: (5)
It's not an entertaining series at all... I mean, if you like stereotypical romances it's a bulls-eye but if you don't like that stuff... Just don't read it! I can tell you right now, don't expect too much from this series. I did, and I'm disappointed!

Overall: (5)
Other than the art... This series doesn't have many good points... This is a warning: "Do You Want To Try?" isn't the worst manwha out there, but DEFINITELY not the best!

The summary for A Kiss to the Prince sounded mildly interesting, so I decided to give it a try. One thing I can tell you right now: This series has great art!

Story: (6)
One of the low-points of this series is the story. It's rather, well, over-used. The "plot twists" in it are also very over-used and not the most creative. In fact, the whole story itself is extremely predictable. From the beginning of the 1st volume I knew who would end up with whom and guessed fairly well at the ending of the manga.

Art: (8)
What I would like to tell you right now is: KTP ... has beautiful art. It is, in my opinion, the highest point in the series. While in some angles the character's faces looked awkward, everything else about it is rather well done. Dresses are beautiful, hair is gorgeous, and backgrounds are rather well-done!

Character: (6)
Characters were rather irritating... Our main character is accused of stealing various times, yet people still trust her and say she's not that type of person! In fact, her attitude gives us quite the opposite idea, yet the author of this series obviously couldn't have a stealing protagonist! Everyone is, though, quite shallow and aren't given all that much development. I could name numerous other characters that are exactly like the cast of this Manwha, except they have different names and looks.

Enjoyment: (7)
I didn't like the characters or the story all that much, but I loved the art. How the heck did that help my enjoyment? No idea! But I loved seeing each panel some of the covers and such...

Overall: (7)
This is pretty mediocre in everything, but quite exceptional in the art department. I would recommend this series more for those who are looking for good art or maybe to those that are in the mood for a series with mediocre romance and characters. If you're looking for a series with excellent romance and such, my suggestion is don't waste your time and go search for another title.

Long Along Alonging, a short -paged story of a witty little girl that decides to become a vampire's apprentice.

Story: (8)
Amusing, to say the least! LAA manages a unique twist on vampires (Which is the apprenticeship in itself) which I really enjoyed. The ending, as surprising as it is, is one of the funniest endings I've seen in a while. For an 8-paged story to get me to laugh out loud is pretty amazing!

Art: (6)
Not a big fan of Nakamura's art. However, the character's blunt faces really helped with the comical effects at the end.

Character: (5)
Stereotypical, but what do you want? It's only EIGHT pages! ... Even then, we only learn one character's name and that's it.

Enjoyment: (8)
I laughed at the end, enough said. This little story is witty and was definitely worth my time. It handles a surprise ending, one of my favorites, very well and makes it comical!

Overall: (8)
It's short, it'll barely take 10 minutes to read, and will maybe manage to make you laugh at the end. Ask yourself if you don't want to read it!

Setsuna no Rakuen was just recently updated on mangafox. I had a little spare time, so I decided to read since it was so short. It's not anything special, but very short and a very fast read.

Story: (6)
Girl makes an "alliance" with a guy to make her best friend (Whom is also her crush) and his girlfriend to break up. Not very original. The mangaka also tried to fit a lot of story and events into 3 chapters, so it seems a little rushed and has quite a few short time skips. Still, for 3 chapters it was rather decent.

Art: (7)
Faces were sort of awkward, ... mouths were a tad too big (Compared to the norm, that is), and I just wasn't really used to this series' artwork. It is, though, good and nothing that you will cringe over every time you look at a panel.

Character: (5)
Three chapters, that in itself should tell you that character development isn't spectacular. Characters were rather stereotypical and rather annoying for me... The way they reacted to things reminded me too much of Brazilian Novelas (Soap Operas) and irritated me. This, obviously, has a lot of drama for just 3 chapters, I was surprised.

Enjoyment: (5)
I don't think it even took me an hour to read Setsuna No Rakuen. It's rather short, but even then my enjoyment wasn't the best. I'm not a fan of soup operas, and this manga really made me cringe as I read it. I've seen many soap operas (Despite hating them, the irony) and this series was the spitting image of many of them, just much shorter.

Overall: (5)
It's a short series, that things for sure. This can be read in one sitting, and if you're a fan of drama then you'll get plenty from this. I'm not much of a fan, so maybe that's why I couldn't pull as much enjoyment from it.

I'm not the biggest fan of magical girl anime, but have found myself enjoying a few very good series. I watched Mermaid Melody because someone said it was good... It's anything but in my opinion.

Story: (3)
The story is really bad. Other than the small twist with the girls being mermaids and fighting enemies with music, nothing about it was interesting or original. We basically just watch the characters mingle a bit, an enemy appears, then is "destroyed" by the mermaid's singing. That sums most of the episodes that I watched.

Art: (7)
Best part of the series. Even then, the character designs weren't the most original and ... some characters look REALLY similar. The designs are very beautiful, just not much to my taste. Backgrounds were good too, but kept the focus mainly on the characters.

Sound: (7)
Voice acting is a bit over-dramatic in some points, something very annoying. And while I enjoyed the songs a tiny bit the first time, the way this anime over-uses the same songs destroys any enjoyment a person could possibly get from the songs. Since every battle scene has the same song, I just skipped through it after my hope that it would change was crushed.

Character: (2)
This part made me want to rip my eyes out. The characters are so stereotypical and plain it's sad. Hanon is a girl that just wants to have fun and get the guy she wants, Lucia is a love-sick girl that's very ditzy and stupid, the villains are all boring and plain... I don't even want to go on! I think that if some work was put into character, I might have even enjoyed this series even with it's bad story. But no, bad story and bad characters.

Enjoyment: (2)
Unless you're a big fan of the magical girl genre, you probably won't be able to stand this. Every episode seemed to drag on for me.

Overall: (3)
I don't see how people can get through 50-something episodes of this series... They have my respect for having such patience! I don't know whether this series gets better or not later on, but it was such a big disappointment I'm not even willing to try.

Bitter is a rather short yaoi series, with a rather large amount of sex.

Story: (8)
The story isn't all that unusual or special. Two owners of opposing hotel chains are main pairing in this, and love between rivals is anything but new. However, the fact that the uke did not instantly fall in love with the seme was my favorite point. Instead, the uke loves someone else. This was a refreshing point, especially since most yaoi series instantly have the two guys attracted to each other.

Art: (8)
The art was great! Characters were very beautiful! However, this only gets an 8 because of the weird feeling ... I felt during the sex scenes. For me, the art was somewhat awkward in those parts. Other than that, backgrounds and characters are really nice. There are a few characters that seemed very similar (The main character and his brother), the only obvious difference being that one had darker hair. Other than that, the art was very well done!

Character: (8)
This was my favorite part of the series. The uke, Shou, was not the insanely naive boy who instantly fell in love with the seme. Instead, the colder of the two is the uke and the one chasing the other was the seme. This won me over, because it was new to me. So far, all yaoi series I've read had innocent ukes and overly macho semes. Bitter steers away from that and I love it!

Enjoyment: (9)
Read this all in one day since it's pretty short and it was pretty enjoyable. Sex scenes were awkward for me, but the rest of the story was great!

Overall: (8)
Short, yaoi, smutty, and pretty good! If there's anybody tired of typical yaoi stories with cutesy ukes and such, they probably will enjoy Bitter as much as I did! :)