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The aesthetics of emptiness are immaculate.

The rainy town. Not many remaining, probably nobody if you look carefully. It's easier to pretend it is, at least. There are robots, maybe, at least one sits by the bench. Perhaps it was a flood, potentially a catastrophe. The world might've drastically changed, for humans are now by the hills. However, the robot sits there, waiting for the girl who couldn't do anything but leave him there.

The paint-like animation fills the space with melancholy, with an abandoned beauty which can't be replicated anywhere else. As a university project, this is incredible. Ultra short, with great world building, ... designs, environments.

I loved the world, and the story does come to an end, it isn't just a tech demo about a little world with no meaning, it's a small-scale story that heartwarmingly ends. Neat thing, lovely thing.

8/10. It was great, and a nice short film.

Finally, I can give this marvel another look.

Started it way before I had any media literacy. The fights were incomprehensible, the plot didn't make sense, I didn't understand some characters and their actions, and this is in Nihei's safer works. As of now, this is a gem of an anime.

Deep Sci-fi, something I've been craving for a while. Concepts of immortality being commonplace, the morality of space warfare, the pettiness STILL present in those times. How the context builds each person living in this world. Things like third genders, biological advancements. Even photosynthesizing, having a stigma around doing it with other people. It's ... in the details, and there are so many greats sparred around this story.

That's not the plot, though. Gaunas. Old Nihei concept. The same name has been passed around from manga to manga, and the concept changes each time it arrives in place, at least it's different for now. Beings that mainly target humans for reasons unknown. It could be the Evangelion thing, where the creatures are attempting a religious decomposition into one being. It could be the Attack on Titan, where there's something hidden away inside the Gaunas that challenges all notions previously set in stone. I wouldn't know.

The first season establishes the world, the robots, how it comes to dealing with these cosmic monstrosities, and the day to day in a space colony. The characters have so many great personalities, all likeable, with their own little romances, and chapters in their lives. The changes in their dynamics, and how they just hang out. It actually feels like a lived-in world, where even if everything might crumble after each battle, all they can do is try to live their lives the best they can.

The message on appreciating the little things is never stated by the story, but you can feel it in each conversation the pilots have. They go on little trips, outdoor activities, visit the ocean, as they slowly, and I MEAN SLOWLY, uncover the mysteries of the spacecraft. The reveals, whatever happened to Hoshijiro, the insane things about the protagonist, what his grandfather was. They don't change EVERYTHING, but it changes enough to truly make one question the surroundings.

All in all, 12 episodes for the beginning of a mystery leaves me excited. The season works really, really well, the characters are solid, I like the MC and his evolution. The romances actually work, and make me angry when something bad happens to them. The animation, even if choppy, works extremely well, even with new technology. I just want to see where it goes, even if everybody tells me the second season and final movie change everything. Will experience both for sure.

8/10. Extremely happy to want to see this through.

Taizan-5 really is the underrated master I'm happy is getting an adaptation of a previous work.

Kotaro and Subaru are two friends who by pushing each other's buttons try to reach for the stars as football players. Stepping away from his usual themes, Taizan-5 really touches into what makes a friendship thrive. What is it that drives us into stardom? Is it family, ourselves, objectives, simple things that make us human? Sometimes, no. It's a friend who pushes you.

It's someone you'd hate winning against you, that one goal they scored, the time they beat you on something you've done way more than them. We're ... driven by egotistical things, but then, by nothing short of being a good person, the selfish things we fought for, let us turn back and appreciate that which pushed us.

This story will remind you of that person some will think you hated. The person who didn't bully you, but truly knew how to anger you by sheer virtue of knowing so much about you. They know your faults, they know what you may be going through, and they will never give you a break for the things you can do better. It's a friendship you don't appreciate, until it's far from you.

The one-shot simply explores that kind of brutal friendship that will always push you to a greater tomorrow, with good and bad times. Will one take the shot, and become better than ever? Or wallow in the despair of being unable to catch-up?

It felt like the combo between “Hero Complex”, and a more shonen formula that could make for an INCREDIBLE manga.

I've felt the evolution of this author, and this is a great step in the right direction for a more cohesive, safer story that can still hold the greatness of his complex character writing.

The art is still great, the expressions on the characters are unmatched. There's something about Taizan-5, he can make a character seem utterly lost in their element. Defeat, the road to rise up, to make something of themselves. Loved this work.

8/10. Very solid. I love this author, and you should give them a chance too.

(I feel like I'm the official Taizan-5 glazer)

There's something special about this kind of uncomfortable story.

Yes, I got into it because the premise was disturbing. It seems like such an interesting plot description, and something not many could even DARE to touch upon. Not in the “this is a disturbing manga” category, I've read a fair share of those. This one feels much rawer.

It's a situation loads have thought about. “What if somebody was the cause of a family member's death?”, to which many would answer, “I'd kill them” without much of a second thought. What about afterward? What comes after the crime, after harming that which ruined your life? Well, the ... manga starts there. The MC decided to kill his sister's rapist in front of his little daughter. Twisted to no end, questioning everything about the event, and questioning if authorities should've put their hand there. It questions killing for vengeance, and the things that happen after are EVEN more interesting.

These people are linked forever, whether they like it or not. We go from such a tragic event, and such a challenge to the readers, to how both the MC and the little daughter develop something you can't just describe easily. Both need each other to live, to exist within the face of the earth. An objective, they cling to the idea that they can survive if they have each other, even if each of them believes they took everything from each other.

I loved this manga, not just for how it tackles its events, but how people unpredictably, but logically react to the surrounding situations. The feelings of guilt, suicidal tendencies, symbiosis, purpose, forgiveness, SELF forgiveness. It's a small manga, which could be made into an incredible animated film. While writing this, I felt the manga might've been a little overdramatic with some scenes, but man… you can't just assume these people can be that rational. This event marked their lives, and they're willing to die at any point if something changes in a single day. Living day to day, wishing for an answer to live or die in that day. How could I even begin to comprehend the implications of that? Well, I remembered well-lost memories. Memories I thought were gone.

Every character was perfect, and each event they lived through makes sense at every point. It got a little too shocking at times, reminding me that even after I've read so much disturbing stuff, there's still whiplash for an implication that goes far from what I expected.

Little mention on the art. Reminded me of Chainsaw-Man in its kind of… sketchiness? With so much beauty at the rawest points of emotion. The portraits of people suffering from the aftermath of an action. Their face, the perspective around them warping as they realize, it's always about realizing. There's so much meat in this small story.

This manga truly brings out emotions I couldn't describe. As I was seeing the characters evolutions, I felt something beyond the scope of the manga. Something I felt with “A Silent Voice”, and “Three Days of Happiness”. The willingness to change, and the power to look at yourself and agree, for once, that you wish to see the sun rise tomorrow, even if you didn't feel that a day before.

Watching characters bounce around their will to live was very upsetting, and a reminder to allow ourselves to be happy, even if we blame ourselves for other's unhappiness.

9.4/10. What a ride, and so quick too.

It's so beautiful to see my beloved weird manga come to animation as an acclaimed gem.

We all know its fame. The bombastic, strange, the first episode filter story, unusual, but at the same time, romantic, fun, brutal, disturbing, saddening, epic, awe-inspiring. One moment, a fun fight scene against an incredibly designed ghost, minutes later, one of the most soul-crushing, and artistic depiction of a mother's love, and tragedy akin to One Piece's backstories with NO DIALOGUE. It's all those things, it's all of what the people say, and its creation is as interesting as is the series itself.

An author, wishing to tell a ... tragic story, is given shoujo manga by the bulk, and as a changed man, and after doing work for Fujimoto himself, he comes up with this banger of a shonen. Conventional? Only in structure. Innovative? Not particularly. It does what it wants well, and it does it with power, character designs, dialogue, slice-of-life scenes that ground each scene. Teenagers being awkward without it being annoying. It's a lovey-dovey show that can make its craziness all the more meaningful because you care so much about the characters.

The lack of normalcy makes the fight scenes an actual danger, and the normal life segments so much more desirable. We enjoy both due to the incredible animation, and whenever there isn't a banger scene that challenges people's lives, we get misunderstandings solved with communication.

Every character introduced is shown to have so many layers, and the walking clichés aren't just that. The bully isn't just that, they have a reason to put people down, they evolve once shown the value in other people. They can be great people, they can be hateful too. We're introduced to a flamboyant guy who could EASILY be the cliché of hidden bad intent, but NO, he's the bro-est bro out there, and he sticks with the attitude for what we've seen.

The show miraculously works in everything it tries to do. You trust the writer, the confidence, with each scene. There aren't many stories that can trust on the audience this much, not because it's complicated, but because with a slight mistake, everything goes off the rails and becomes incoherent. Not here.

Writing, characters, animation, scenes, dialogue, situations, comedy. It all just works. However, the ending of this season is such a terrible cliffhanger. It isn't even like a “the stakes are set, now we have to see what happens next”, no it's like they cancelled the season altogether.

9/10. We need more. Dandadan needs more.

Cool sci-fi idea, but that's about it.

Read it if you like Japanese horror a lot, or if this is one of your first horror manga to ever read. I've read too many good ones to like this.

Small TLDR; The beginning is the only great part, the rest falls apart by going too big, trying emotions, without building any sort of empathy for any character. Things happen, things happen, empty body horror, rushed ending that doesn't matter.

Review:

I was allured by the sketchy art style. I'm a complete sucker for non-perfect art styles which heighten the emotional aspects in the character's. The expressions, the ... way horror is conveyed with the shadows on a panel, or the body-horror. How a scene depicts the slithering of something inside you. It was all prime horror at the beginning, but then the story just speed-ran itself into oblivion.

Every bit of those initial chapters had a great mystery attached to it. What is this thing? How to beat it? How strong is it? That could've translated to gold if that bit, and the shotgun moment, had a LOT of space in between. It's a manga, not a movie, you can get away with expanding on the character, how the MC could slowly lose his mind. The conflict between what the girl causes to his brain, how she hides her identity, how he tries to reveal it, while being conflicted. You have infinite angles to make that part stand out in a sort of disturbing slice-of-life story to let it breathe. Then, you do the shotgun bit.

It's a story that needed so much more time to establish itself. It requires space, it requires more chapters, since everything is always on high gear to the point where “oh, cool, everything went wrong for the second time this chapter”. There are manga that CAN make it frantic, while making it work, but this wasn't it. I didn't care about anything, since OUT OF NOWHERE, it all goes to hell, again, but even worse now. Then it becomes a world-wide problem, then it becomes personal, THEN IT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL.

I could not care about anything by the end, since the story tries to make you care so fast, but it's such a frantic situation. For that, as stated before, you can attempt to set all the characters at the very beginning, which the author just… skipped.

Then, there's the “these people are related for no reason at all”. That just sealed it for me.

4/10. Incredibly solid at the beginning, but I was falling asleep at the end.

Interesting, no reviewer here has actually finished the manga (at least as of me writing this).

As a small TLDR; it's a great idea for a manga to touch the mature side of a relationship built on a disparity, but the execution is boring, with a pretty, and weirdly stupid final arc. Read it if you still find the synopsis interesting.

“Meguro-san wa Hajimete ja Nai” is one more in the many “manga about a normal guy and a girl with a twist”. You have the Komi-san, and her communication problem, Uzaki and her massive plots, Nagatoro and her bullying, and many others which I started ... all those years ago. All of those ending, or close to ending at this point, but all of them understanding how to make a plot slightly more exciting than this one.

Meguro-san, to be honest, is the definition of mediocre in the whole genre. The story itself sounds pretty great on paper. A girl who's got loads of experience meets a meek guy, and both have to understand how to deal with this kind of relationship. It felt adult, like a more interesting exploration on the wish fulfillment manga that are those I mentioned. I was excited to read about a good angle in that situation, but it was just… boring.

The story explores the relationship, yes, and many others. Kinds of relationships, and how their dynamics may be too disfunctional to work, how some can be saved, or how many are utterly ruined by the difference in both sides. These outside problems ideologically test the relationship from our protagonists, but it repeats that throughout the manga. The main couple has little to no disruption that's too palpable, but the way they solve their problems makes the issues feel empty, meaningless. In that sense, it doesn't feel like a story worth telling, and that sounds like “I wanted more spice”. Not really. In fact, there are many manga with adult couples where there's not really ANY difficulty.

How could it have been done well? It's the amount of testing the relationship gets here. They get tested so many times, and every time it felt like the author telling you how easy it is. Instead of focusing on the couple, we focus on their meaningless issues, which don't change the relationship. How about their chemistry? How about their dates? There's too little of that. It wouldn't be bad as a small guide in how to deal with strange relationships, but then it came the last arc.

Out of nowhere, the author tries to throw a hammer in the relationship. Not from an outside force, but from the main guy himself. For no apparent reason, HE is the one testing the relationship in the most nonsensical way ever. No moment before set this up, he just decides:

SPOILER

“Hell yeah, let's make my girlfriend SPEND DAILY TIME WITH HER EX, WHICH IS A TEACHER I KNOW”.

END OF SPOILER

It didn't even lead to anything. They met again, and it just… ended. Empty, like an author not knowing how to end it. A series, not abandoned, but ended like that. I expected it to move on from that, but acknowledging the issues the main guy's got. Some sort of self reflection, or something to give us an idea as to the why. He explained himself with empty words, but I guess he was just, not romantically responsible, and maybe that's the point.

The story itself isn't that interesting anyway. I didn't care about them. Their chemistry was slightly there, but never to an appealing degree. This is a middle of the road story, with middle of the road characters, and mediocre progression which I finished simply due to obligation. People won't like it because they might think “NTR”, but there's never an instance of that. Those problems are unfounded, but again, there's no outrage here, just a boring story, with side characters that have a much better arc than the main couple.

4.5/10. Not the “hate it and love it kind”, but the “Meh” kind.

So much to love, but Christ, I can't deny how much I hate other stuff SO MUCH.

I won't be the first guy to tell you that. The story is a simple, straight to the point battle royale. Our boy, Mirai, MC, has suffered extreme misery. His family died, his existence is reduced to being abused at a home with his uncles, for a while at school. For a while, you can only imagine “yeah, he'll become a power fantasy, and get corrupted”, but NO, hold the horse this gets interesting.

The story then presents him with a power. He can either make people forcefully ... love him, or kill them. Wings to fly, and an Angel that tries to make him happy, all for the price of fighting to become god. He must fight a certain number of people, or decide who will be god. Right, awesome, battle royale shenanigans ensue.

The MC is AWESOME here. He doesn't use the power to his benefit, or smartly, or ingeniously, no he's a dude who wants to be happy. He never wanted any of this, so he fights for a proper normality. A job, an education, finding love, he's great. Even if his motivations come from a monologue his parents have him that keeps changing, and adding stuff, depending on how the story moves and changes, I like him.

I hate how EVERYBODY screams at the heavens how he's a beta, or a weak-ass protagonist. Nah, I love him, and his development throughout the story is what made me keep going.

The battle royale shenanigans go, villain introduced, and it got really annoying at the start of the whole Super Sentai shebang. The full superhero's thing, it was just insufferable. The end of that arc was pretty great still, even if it was touching that edgy, over-the-top elements. Killing a child in public, mental control rape, “killing all the uglies”, a murdering lesbian, a super deranged girl with an over-the-top costume in yandere style threatening the protagonist with a WORLD VIRUS. It gets insane at points, where it takes you out like a stuntman on wires for the explosion. Yanked right out of the narrative to utter to myself “ha, ha, okay dude, sure”.

That's the first arc, and the BIG SHIFT. It, then, becomes something entirely different. A story about the philosophy of god himself, and his reason to exist. A scholar got this power too. Man with a novel price, outstanding in every field imaginable, holding a certain, cold, and cynical view of the world. Incredible villain, or not even villain, just a character that challenges this notion, whatever the story set up at the beginning changes right here. It becomes a matter of dialogue, and the effects the plot has over the entire world. The public opinion, the government, how they intrude in the situation, their involvement.

It was at this point we're reaching the ending. It got pretty good, while still having glaring issues, which I could forgive if the story was resolved greatly.

I won't spoil much anymore, but I'll be honest. At this point, we have to talk about the bad. The female characters, in all of this story, are written like dog water. Imagine the flattest, most simple depiction of a woman you can imagine, put them in a sexy, catsuit, and call it a day. All of their motivations are love for the guy, gold-digging, or, if by ANY chance they're interesting, wow, homophobic, mentally manipulated, or emotionally stunted to the point of being called “eternally, and terminally stupid”.

Four female characters, all written terribly. One is a mistake, two is a pattern, three is intentional, and four is just rubbing salt in the wound. Right, so, terrible female characters.

I'm still in for the ending, but with high problems. It won't have a great rating, but the ending could argue for a better level. Oh my God, it's time to talk about the abhorrent ending. No spoilers, if you still want to read it.

Think of this. The main character's philosophy, his whole reason to fight, stops existing just for him, and every other character to have a useless monologue about how “well, this sucks, but it was cool while it lasted”. The ending does change what one expects, it does subvert expectations, and the answer to everything is so interesting, but then, it all becomes pointless. The rug is pulled without any meaning, and it invalidates the WHOLE struggle the characters went through. I wanted it to be GOOD BRO, BUT WHY?

First big arc, battle shonen, with insufferable moments, but a great ending. Second arc, a great philosophical debate about the nature of religion, and the world around these characters. The ending, AN ABSOLUTE ASSPULL WHICH INVALIDATES THE WHOLE MANGA. It made the good there was, the reason I stayed, completely irrelevant. This is officially one of the worst endings I've ever seen in a manga.

4/10. Not less, because the rest was pretty great. The MC was so good, and the second half was my cup of tea. That ending will remain in my mind as one of the MOST terrible I've read.

I gave it such a big chance, but man, I'll start dropping things a little more early on.

I spent 20 chapters of this story wishing for that depth in a perfect ending, for a lesson that truly takes its time to brew, to deliver that gut punch of reality. It, then, took me 121 chapters to realize the author wasn't doing a sike. There wasn't a gut punch at the end of the story, no proper lesson against the constant cycle of violence the main character was inflicting, nothing learned. It was a bunch of violence, with so many innocents hurt, good people done ... badly, and then the MC unironically calls this “Justice”.

Think if edgy media agreed with its main character. I didn't expect Vigilante to be just another story, since it seemed like a proper critique at so many things. The dialogue was so over-the-top, the characters so mentally insane, and the violent acts so intense. The story convinced me I was watching how the creator critiqued its characters, but then they all get away with their insane acts, except the villains, which I guess is good, but it just wasn't good as a story.

This felt like it was written by a well-informed, edgy teenager who wishes to tell you “these deranged guys are right”. From a deconstruction, to just a perpetuation of the problem. Take the message from “Attack on Titan”, or “I Saw the Devil”, where every character who enacted revenge, justice, as they called it, they still were taken as horrible people who messed it all up, in AOT because the main character “is stupid” said by himself. In ISTD the main character laments its actions because he lost everything while doing horrible acts. Vigilante lost NOTHING.

The main character was just a “Light”-esque character from Death Note who actually gets away with everything, and is hailed as a hero by those who know him. Somebody sacrifices someone very close to him, and he couldn't be happier. No comeuppance, but a sequel, where those who know his horrible actions, still support him as a necessary evil. Cool.

You can tell me I shouldn't have any expectations about the story, but alright, let's take it as that. As a story on its own, without any expectations. The dialogue is terrible, the art is pretty ugly, but the methods that are used to cause violence are creative, and pretty well-informed. How some characters are trained with specific weapons, due to its easiness to kill. I believe they could exist in real life, and that's about as much praise as I can give this train wreck.

I hated every character except three, which are side characters, not even that high in the story. Anybody else was just an insane rambler, with petty justification for how to fix the world. The main character is insufferable, and since the ending exists as it is, it feels like the author agrees with him, or is just telling you “these people can get away with it” which makes the story a little pointless.

Pointless or bad, no matter the situation, a bad webtoon.

4/10. I wish I hadn't invested so much time on it.

From perfect to good.

I won't deny, and I don't think anybody can deny, this sequel wasn't entirely necessary. The original was a work of art, a true look into the beginning of redemption, and it did change my outlook into “do killers deserve a happy ending?”. Some other stories constantly contradict the happy idea the original “The Fable” discussed, and I expected this one to challenge that notion. Instead, it's just… more Fable. While the first one works great on its own, you can easily remove this one from the timeline, and there's not much of a change.

Does that make this one bad? ... Not particularly. On its own, Second Contact is about how there's new trouble, stemming from old demons left untouched. There's the action, the comedy, the writing, the atmosphere, all while in the middle of… COVID-19? Wow, yeah, that's legitimately unexpected. It affects the narrative heavily, and explores how the Yakuza is affected by a pandemic, and the killers live in this environment, not only with the narrative happening, but as a background element.

There's something about this mangaka, and his way of delivering lines, and the world around the character's that's so ALIVE. So dumb, yet, so human and relatable. We're talking about a story about super assassins finding a purpose in small-time jobs. Somehow, the comedy bits feel like a warm hug by those friendships you love. More of the same from before, without too many stakes to speak about, at least for the MC, Akira.

The story shifts from the big, and powerful Akira, into challenging the other assassins, and showing if people with a little less skill, can actually follow up the lesson from the first installment.

“Do Not Kill For Any Reason”. However, for as much of a challenge as there was for them, only the last chapters really showed that. It was rushed, no other way to put it. The original had so much time to develop each character to their utmost mentality. Every philosophy, displayed to us the audience, the look into a demented bastard who can't feel fear, or the ex-con who's trying to make it big, or the rapist creep. Each villain had enough time to exist, but these villains are just a gang of demented rapists, all of them. The story did feel like shock for shock's sake at some points, with them CONSTANTLY wanting to rape a certain character. I wish that wasn't the only way to make somebody hateable, since it just becomes “oh, got it, another rapist”, and you kinda shut your brain off whenever they're on-screen.

No depth to the villains, except one or two, too short to justify these villains being there. The writing isn't as sharp and interesting. The lesson isn't challenged and reinforced properly, just reinforced. Rape isn't the only way to add stakes to a situation, Jesus Christ.

7/10. More of Fable, and while it's pretty good, the failures from the ending, and the villains, and the theme, do put it lower on ratings. You should still experience it, since more Fable, is always great.