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Mar 22, 2018
Assassination Classroom is one of my favorite manga in recent years, and it caught me completely by surprise as I was reading it. Short, sweet, packed with funny moments and extremely heartfelt moments, I most definitely recommend anyone should read it. My recommendation is to read it to about chapter 40, at which point you can see if it's for you or not.
Story: The story is fantastic. It's got a unique premise, it's got a continuous sense of progression and incredible pacing. It's got some crazy twists, as well as some predictable moments. It's overall quite light hearted despite some of the subject matter, but
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it executes it all almost flawlessly...ALMOST. It does fumble at some moments and cops out a few times, but never hard enough to ruin any crucial moments.
Art: Simplistic, but I think it lends itself well to the comedic nature. The design of Korosensei in particular is definitely A+, and they play around with the art style to really capitalize on the humor. This is probably the weakest part of the series, but nothing major.
Character: Absolutely love the characters. It takes alot of skill to take this class full of students and give them all fairly interesting personalities and quirks, as well as dive really deep into select ones such as Nagisa, Karma, etc. Korosensei himself is one of my favorite characters in Manga as an extremely goofy, caring and potentially dangerous individual.
Enjoyment: Where AssClass really shines. Whether the class is doing something simple and mundane, or the class is taking on a dangerous assassin or dealing with oppressive situations and tests, the series constantly plows through all sorts of interesting scenarios with fantastic execution and pacing. There are moments in the series where everything the class has been working towards culminates into these incredibly hype moments that are very hard to compete with.
Overall : 10/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 22, 2018
This might be a misguided statement, but it feels like Black Clover races with Boku No Hero to take over as the hot new Naruto replacement. Unfortunately, it does not do a very good job at taking over for an already fairly middling series.
I think the thing that most quickly gives you an idea of Black Clover is the phrase 'simple, generic shounen'. Generic shounen is not necessarily a bad thing, most fun series need to draw from generic cliches; they're cliches because they're known to have some sort of effect. The problem with Black Clover is that it does almost nothing at
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all to ever shake up it's cliches, and then executes said cliches to the lowest acceptable level.
Story: Like I said, cliches are fine as long as they're executed well. BC's execution leaves much to be desired. The story is probably the weakest part. The weakest aspect of it is the pacing. It's a constant barrage of meeting strong enemies, battling them in intense show downs, resting half a chapter, and then immediately heading to the next encounter. These encounters carry no weight; bad guys just show up to attack the town or interrupt training and then a huge fight breaks out. That's been every single encounter I can think of. I can't really see a overarching plot forming, I feel like every chapter just goes through the motions.
Art: The art is solid. The character designs are pretty good, the author has taken a fun take on a magical world and these band of wizard knights working to protect the kingdom. Magic attacks often have intricate, elaborate designs. The author can draw kinetic action and hot blooded fights quite well. Muscular boys, cute girls, etc. I take several points away because of the clarity. All these big magic spells aren't always drawn in the most clear, eye pleasing way.
Characters: All cliched, with some real bad eggs in the bunch, but also a lot of fun characters. The side characters are enjoyable. They fit what Black Clover excels at; turning your brain off and speed reading chapters. The problem is there isn't a single stand out character. Asta, the main character, is the big optimistic-refuses-to-back-down protagonist, but he makes it work. He's incredibly 2D, paper thin even, so don't expect anything out of him.
The thing that actually works with the characters is Asta's ability. Like in Boku No Hero, the series has taken an approach to having a main character with no unique abilities that then gain tremendous abilities. In both series the characters work hard for these abilities. Where it sets itself apart from BNH and actually surpasses it is the ability the character obtains as a result of the hard work. Asta is freaking ripped, incredibly strong and durable, and possesses Anti-Magic swords that allow him to cut through magic, reflect magic, and absorb magic. This is kind of atypical for such a generic shounen and is by far the most well executed aspect of the show. Even though Asta's power should theoretically cut through every problem, the manga still makes him have to work for his wins.
For some reason every character is absolutely in love with Asta. It's humorous at times, and it's overused, but he serves as a motivation for the other characters to improve themselves.
The villains are absolute dumpster fire. I don't want to grace them with too many more sentences but they are probably the worst villains I've read in Manga form. So cliche, so 1 dimensional, always blurting out literally the cheesiest most predictable insults at our heroes.
Another thing worth noting is his rivalry with Yuno. By all regards the rivalry is kind of shallow. But I give it some points because at least Yuno doesn't take the often used 'asshole, way better than you, dismissive rival' approach.
In summary, Yami is great, Magic King is great, Noelle is a good tsundere, Luck is fun, etc. Lots of fun characters, puddle deep depth to be found in all of them, though.
Enjoyment: It's a turn off your brain and speed read series. There's some moments that make you think it'll get way better but they're pretty quickly kneecapped. It's kind of offensive to the mind if you start thinking about it too much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 26, 2012
Despite this being the original break out part in both Japan and the west, I really feel like the popularity is misplaced when compared to the rest of Jojos. It's a good part, no doubt, and the inclusion of stands was a fantastic idea since Ripple was a very weak, undefined ability.
The story is solid following the long fued of the Joestars and the Brandos and putting a nice epic ending to it all.
Araki's art style is something that takes a long time to get used to, at least I think, but somewhere around Parts 2 and 3, his muscular style definitely started growing
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on me. There's a lot of weirdly proportioned models throughout this part, and weird goofy, almost cartoonish art direction when it's trying to be funny. These are things that would get defined as Araki's artstyle improves throughout the series. However, in the last few volumes the artwork is definitely stunning and clean.
The characters are all pretty solid asides from one glaring flaw which is Jotaro, one of the weakest protagonists in all of JJBA. He's a quiet badass, which is cool and all but doesnt make for a very interesting lead. His Stand is also extremely bland in comparison to some of the future ones, but you gotta love it either way because it's just so energetic.
The enjoyment is a little less than the average for Jojo parts. The main problem is the setting. Jojo's has a very formulatic villain of the week formula which persists in every part after 3, but the problem with Stardust Crusader's take on the formula is the setting of Egypt and the lack of progress. It never really seems like they're getting closer to Dio which made it a chore to read some of the later fight before they finally reached Cairo. Every single villain is DIO's henchmen without a single break to the formula, which other parts also improve on, so the first half until Egypt really wore me down.
The series in general hits its stride when the crew gets to Egypt, and that's when it starts clicking more. The abilities start being more creative, Araki's genius for interesting combat direction starts to shine, and the moments start becoming punchier and more impactful.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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