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At the start, Old Boy really makes the most out of its incredibly interesting premise: the first 15 chaps (roughly) are a gripping, tightly-paced thriller with the protagonist cleverly strategizing against captivatingly obscure antagonistic forces, trying to follow the thin trail of clues he remembers from his imprisonment, navigating a dark gritty Tokyo beautifully presented by some excellent paneling. Locations' ambience and scenes' mood are conveyed wonderfully by slow establishing shots while characters' emotions, powerfully framed by Nobuaki's beautifully expressive characters, are heightened by a rich (but never excessive) dramatic use of shadows and close-ups, also used to focus on a room's details to add ... to the atmosphere but also amplify the feeling of danger and paranoia permeating the story. Nobuaki's talent with visuals never falters throughout all 80 chapters, but the same definitely cannot be said for the writing. After those initial chapters, Old Boy quickly loses its edge: whatever the protagonist does is futile as the main antagonist is impossibly all-knowing and powerful, but also reveals himself of his own volition and begins slowly (painfully, EXCRUCIATINGLY slowly) personally handing the protagonist the clues necessary to solve the big mystery.
The remaining 60 chapters are exactly that: the antagonist slowly, dramatically feeding the utterly passive protagonist (and thus the reader) hints about the main mystery, one minuscule crumb at a time, as the story advances at a snail's pace with any real sense of danger or strategy gone out the window. Not the most exciting read on the planet, to say the least, and it certainly doesn't help that characters aren't very engaging or deep either. Female characters left a bad taste in my mouth especially: most exist to lust over the protagonist, but the rest end up sexualized in some way or another anyway.
After so much stalling and dawdling, what would've been a perfectly serviceable finale 40 chapters earlier turns into an awkwardly anticlimatic, almost offensive affair, with only a small spark of captivating ingenuity to be seen (I believe Eri wasn't told to do anything in those 5 minutes of extra hypnosis. That's the point. Kakinuma's final revenge is cursing Goto to forever live in fear of not knowing what Eri was hypnotized to do, and have the unknown drive him crazy in a way that the 10 years of imprisonment couldnt. I think that's a beautifully ambiguous, haunting note to end the story with).

"Magical book that kills people whose names are written in it" is a premise so incredibly fascinating and intriguing in its simplicity (so much so that multiple adaptations and the authors themselves went back to explore new avenues of this premise many times), but what's truly impressive about the original Death Note story is how Tsugumi Ohba weaves around the book an intricate cerebral drama that is concerned very little with emotions or morality (a theme that is only superficially tackled but never truly) and is instead focused on turning everything into a mind game: a complex system of informations to obtain - rules to ... understand - variables to consider. Its characters players of this mind game, planning and strategizing to win the intelligence warfare.
Ohba's skillfull storytelling invites the audience to partake in this game, and knows how to make it engaging: when to reveal information, how much of it to reveal and how much of it to keep hidden in order to keep the audience wondering, anxiously awaiting for the next development. It's not very fun or satisfying to follow this game when it is heavily altered by mere chance and luck (the second Kira "just so happens" to be someone that will do Light's bidding, Misa "just so happens" to have a Shinigami that will kill anyone to protect her, etcetera) or by previously unknown variables (Ryuk being able to add fake rules to the Note when it was never established beforehand), but despite these hiccups the story rarely loses its tactical edge, its skill to make the game interesting by adding new players, new informations, new variables and the new dynamics they bring to consider.
All of this makes for an incredibly fun thriller that remains consistenly entertaining as each gambit, each carefully planned ploy leads right into the next seamlessly (for the most part) with a steady, energetic pacing that slows down only occassionally, but especially during the second part of the story. It is precisely in those moments, when the mind games drag or fail to be interesting, that you're only left with character drama to keep you engaged and thus Death Note's main flaw becomes apparent: its characters are very boring. Even ignoring the writing's horrible handling of female characters, all of them are disappointingly static, one-dimensional or hastily characterized (it's extremely funny once you realize that Ohba's desperate attempt to give its characters more personality is through ridiculously exaggerated visual quirks: Near always has to be playing with some fuckass toys, Mello always has to be munchin on some fucking chocolate, etcetera), with L being the sole exception (not a masterpiece of a character or anything but at least has some real depth).

Blood on the Tracks skillfully captures the quietly terrifying, poisonous dynamics of psychological manipulation with haunting effectiveness. Chilling portrayals of grounded emotional abuse and its consequences evolve into visceral nightmares or blissful ecstasy as reality often warps in powerful dreamlike sequences through the protagonist's scarred mind, exploring the tragic ways in which trauma and abuse ripple and morph from one generation to the next. This great atmosphere progressively loses most of its impact, however: author Oshimi Shuzo is seemingly scared of losing the reader's attention as the plot quickly moves from one disturbing thrill to the next, rarely letting characters breathe or taking the time ... to build the climactic moments slowly and organically for a better payoff. Tension is overplayed and as a result the anxiety and emotion that the story beats try to incite get increasingly weaker, until the plot enters its final act and slowly drags, sluggishly moving towards a finale that ultimately fails to add anything new or substantial to the story told.

The pacifist message at the heart of Vinland Saga is one I personally admire deeply but it is definitely too pervasive and in-your-face overall throughout the entire narrative, making it a bit thematically redundant and didascalic. Still, it never loses its powerful emotional impact and dramatic flare thanks to some really amazing storytelling prowess from Makoto Yukimura. The author ingeniously uses the setting of 11th century Europe with its warmongering civilizations, all-encompassing conflicts, diverse cultures and obscure episodes shrouded in mystery to weave a powerfully grounded tale where the neverending tide of unbridled violence and brutal injustice, fully depicted with uncompromising but never gratuitous precision ... and detail by Yukimura, spares no character: they either thrive in it, succumb to it, die by it or choose to reject it to find a truth of their own. Their psychological developments are almost always fully earned through slow, organic growth, and all of their different stories compose a beautifully diverse, sprawling web of journeys where idealized, dazzling hope finds its way through the cracks of this harrowing, brutal world, but still needs to compromise with it. The grounded realism of it all is only occasionally compromised by some exaggerated comedic elements and a few over-the-top characters that more often than not feel awkwardly out of place in a story otherwise so effectively anchored in serious authenticity.

Takopii's Original Sin is a delightfully crude yet endearingly hopeful study on human empathy, and lack thereof. It cleverly blends whimsical, lighthearted fantastical elements typically seen in children manga with brutally mature themes and scenarios: it sometimes does feel like the most violent, darker elements are taken a little too far for the sake of shock value and spectacle, but for the most part the two halves manage to coexist harmoniously and complement each thanks to the story's emotional earnestness working as a strong connective tissue. The clashing of opposing themes also reflects the story's message: the clashing of people and their conflicts. Takopii's Original ... Sin isn't a story with the presumption of having the solution to all social conflicts and understands their complexity, but advocates the importance of human comunication and mutual understanding with raw, heartwarming emotion. It is a beautiful message that didn't hit nearly as hard as it could have due to a plot that, as much as it starts extremely strong with engaging twists, gets progressively more and more sloppy with a confusing pacing and plotlines resolved hastily as the author rushes towards the finale. A finale that, because of it, loses much of its weight Even so, Takopii's Original Sin remains a pretty good experience worth checking out, thanks to a plesantly peculiar mood, an overall good plot and a sincerely conveyed wholesome message at its core.

Kaiju n.8 starts off with an interesting premise and some fascinatingly peculiar elements, but quickly plunges into a pit of extreme mediocrity due to its inability of taking those original concepts in meaningful, interesting directions. Character designs are pretty charming and variegated, but everything else about them is tremendously unoriginal: a cast of Shonen archetypes that we've already seen thousand of times interacting with each other in unimaginative and repetitive ways, without a glimpse of originality. The setting and worldbuilding are pretty shallow as well, with a couple of cool ideas scattered here and there but nothing deep or used in ways that are imaginative ... enough to be truly memorable. The story follows suit with a plot that doesn't explore any uncharted paths and remains on safe, typical Shonen territory, being functionally entertaining but not much else. So far, the only thing that holds some significant value are fights, as they got a faint but defined layer of strategy to them that makes their development a little more engaging. Still, as of 2022, everything about Kaiju n.8 is serviceable and entertaining enough, but that's about it. Just a decent, average, run-of-the-mill Shonen manga.

Solanin is a little window overlooking the uncertainty of life. A gentle whisper of that bitter sense of aimlessness that silently permeates everyday life, an ennui shared by all humans as they enjoy the tiny precious moments that link memories together.
The characters of Solanin quietly struggle to find their footing, a sense of purpose to keep them occupied as they timidly enter adulthood, with an honest realism that gives the story enough dramatic weight without being overhwelmingly negative, balanced by the uplifting solace offered by the genuine, believable moments of joy scattered throughout. It is a powerfully touching mood that gets significantly ruined by some ... characters being rather flat (in a character-focused story such as this one that is a huge shortcoming), the bond between two characters not being nearly as fleshed out as it should've been and the narrative abruptly changing direction past the midpoint, suddenly becoming a much more clichéd and uninspired type of story.
Solanin is still a charming, pleasurable little journey despite its many flaws thanks to a very strong emotional core that shines through its panels, its characters and its story. A soul full of melancholy but also peace. An optimistic pessimism.

Shingeki no Kyojin, when it first started, was a fairly simple and yet extremely entertaining action story with somewhat bland characters, but an exceptionally interesting setting and engaging action scenes packed with pathos and great tension. It was good, but nothing incredible. And yet, from the very start author Hajime Isayama seemed to have a much bigger picture in mind, slowly placing clues and hints to later revelations, foreshadowing an inevitable evolution of the story.
And after Shingeki no Kyojin evolves, it is a sight to behold. It is not only a narrative evolution, but also a thematical one: the whole story matures and grows up ... tackling deeper, heavy themes. The first half of the story merely laids the groundwork for the oustanding, superb second half, where all the pieces of the puzzles that had been methodically placed now act as the well-established stage for a thrilling compelling drama, without losing its beautifully layered action elements, a ruthless critique of prejudice, war and nationalism where the characters finally express their full potential to shape the story in an organic way towards its poignat finale.
A finale that is, alas, the only real weakness of this story due to the quite anticlimactic conclusion of an important subplot, a sudden drop in action quality and a once-realistic mortality that now becomes much more forgiving as the cast survives the unthinkable.

Kiseiju is my favourite manga of all time, but I can't let my personal taste cloud my judgment when trying to be as objective as possible: Kiseiju is a story about empathy. About how the inherent selfishness of every living animal, as it fights for its own survival in a cruel world where the strongest prevails, surprisingly coexists with the warmth of altruism, and the seemingly nonsensical act of putting another life before our own. About justice and morality's places in the natural world.
Izumi Shinichi, a young man walking on the bridge between childhood and maturity, will face these philosophical questions as he struggles to ... discover who he is and what he wants out of life in this poignant, endearing but most of all beautifully intimate story of morality that uses a creative, layered supernatural element as a pretext to talk about something painfully real and human. It is far from a perfect story: a couple of storylines were not developed as thoroughly as they needed to be to properly justify their magnitude within the plot, and one key character, despite their importance and potential, is only used as a plot device.
Nonetheless, Kiseiju is a compelling emotional drama that efficiently blends the sentimental with the adrenaline, the drama with the thrilling, and fully expresses the beautiful potential of its original narrative ideas without ever losing the focus on its core underlying themes, instead making both elements of the story complement each other.

The Drifting Classroom makes the purest and most innocent of creatures, children, face otherwordly threats that would drive most adults insane, struggling to mantain a unite front and not panic, creating a really special unsettling horror that blends fear with pity. Although towards the end the fantastical nature of the threats becomes so bizarre and wacky that it gets almost comical and the mood suffers greatly because of it, just as the tension is significantly diminished due to the fact that the kids dying are more often than not nameless kids, whereas the main ones are almost all protected by a very thick plot armor. ... Still, Kazuo Umezu takes the time to fully commit to the setting, depicting in exquisitely dreadful detail how such a nightmarish situation would take a toll on the children's mental state, pushing many of them to commit heinous and deranged acts, with a story pacing that would be optimal if it wasn't for a couple of tedious, unnecessary sequences. The psychological realism of the kids' struggles and conflicts is mixed with the extremely unrealistic and fantastical nature of the threats that the children will have to face and their moving, unwavering hope to make it out alive despite it all to create a unique, mesmerizing disturbing mood that is truly something special. All of this exceptionally elevated by Umezu's iconic otherwordly artstyle, giving this odyssey the feel of a distant nightmare.