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This is... a difficult story to rate.

If you love stories, if you are a reader, I am sure the narrative themes will resonate with you. It is after all, a story about stories, reading, writing, creating, and how they all come together in one big circle. But that doesn't mean it is objectively well-written as a story itself.

Story setting and themes: 9/10
I will be honest that before starting ORV, I thought I would be reading another one of those KR-isekai S*lo L*veling-esque stories, but no, it was far more ambitious than I thought it would be. The story and setting started in a subway carriage ... of 20? 30ish people, expanded to Seoul as a stage, then moving on to other planets, other dimensions, and the universe. I never once thought that the writers failed to rein in the vastness of the stage they set up the story in. There was a good control on the scale of things - of course some details or characters would be sacrificed in view of the larger scale but that was inevitable.
and the epilogue chapters brought it to a full close, which I very much appreciated.

Story pacing and writing: 6/10
So yes, when ORV gets good, it gets REALLY good. However, 550+ chapters is also pretty long. A quick search tells me that the English-translated version of ORV is around 1.3 million words - to put that into perspective, all seven books of Harry Potter is around 1.1 million words. Whew.

And that brings me to the argument that the pacing and writing in ORV is... not great. Yes there are some really good parts (can't get over the epilogues) but there are also a lot of unnecessary descriptions and side plots that the word count is simply wasted on. I don't need to read a paragraph on how the same kids ride on the same creature and how the same JK commands the same army in every single fight they engage in. I don't need to read about how someone brandishes a sword and another takes a stance and so on and how the gang all line up together in every single damn fight. Those just end up making reading a chore and a lot of things between the 73rd Demon King selection arc until the you-know-who kidnap arc are a blur to me because I just couldn't be bothered with some of the details. And not to mention the amount of mini-arcs and fights that happened in between that really kind of just muddled the real focus and climaxes. Even though they are less-important arcs in view of the whole story, the writers expanded on all the details and fights using similar descriptions, making it feel repetitive at times. Which is a huge shame, because, as I said, when it gets going, it GETS GOING. In my opinion some of these can and should get cut out to emphasize the real climaxes. I could be feeling this way partly because I binge read it in Korean and was eager to reach the Epilogue. Since it's not my first language, I read slower, but I do honestly think the pacing can be better.

Character: 8/10
The difficulty in dealing with ORV's cast is that, not only do the human characters vary widely in age, nationality, ethnicity, personality, and skills, the cast also includes other worldly beings, mythical creatures, inanimate objects, among others. In the grand scale of things, I thought that ORV had a pretty good hold on its large cast. But I wanted to highlight the three main pillars of ORV, and three of the most well-written in it.

A reader, a protagonist, and a writer. Three beings that need to gather in one place to make a story. Undoubtedly they dominated the screen time, and rightly so, and were the most interesting among the bunch. The writing and characterization were consistent, and subtle enough that it allows some room for interpretation. I shouldn't be putting the names to each role since that'll be major spoilers, but I also appreciated the care that was put into building the relationship and history between them, and that really tied in well with the theme and ending parts of the story.

Enjoyment: 7.5/10
A bit conflicted on this. I genuinely loved the themes and story setting. The characters were also very endearing. But this simply dragged out for too long, and that really affected my reading enjoyment. But overall, I really loved the premise, and I would love to find the time to reread this again.

Story: 8
Art: 7
Character: 9
Enjoyment: 10

Overall: 8.5

Now this...This is an underrated and underhyped piece of work. It's difficult to review this without giving away significant spoilers that would ruin the fun for everything. I can't even begin to describe the mix of genres within this story because I really had no idea what was going on sometimes (in a good way). There's suspense, comedy, slice-of-life, borderline horror, a bit of gore and even a few sprinkles of romance. It's a tale of two boys while they try to come of age, adapt to life with their new adoptive parents, overcome difficulties in their new school, all ... the while trying to uncover a secret big enough to involve most of the town they live in, and most of all, living as one person instead of two. There's so much packed in the story, there is not one wasted chapter yet it's not overwhelming or stressful to read and somehow everything fits well to come together as a whole story. It's weirdly amazing.

The beautiful writing of course extends to the characters and their development. Dari and Migi, our main protagonists, start out as two lonely children who had no one else to depend on apart from each other. The writing shows how witty but delicate it can be as we follow their funny, warm but sometimes heartbreaking journey to find trust, support and warmth from people around them, and to reconcile with their memories and their past selves. The supporting cast is also a joy to read about. Everyone pulls their own weight in the story to create a mysterious, suspenseful, sometimes even creepy, vibe as we learn more about the twins' past and what they are trying to uncover. But there are also plenty of light-hearted interactions between the characters that are integrated into the story and we see how interactions with different people gradually shape the two boys. It's really just so endearing to see them grow and accept themselves at the end of the story. While I started this for the mystery and humour, I was won over in the end by how genuine the character development for the boys was.

Least commendable is the art but I do think it's good enough for the story and the expressions can get really exquisite sometimes and adds just enough to create the right atmosphere.

There are cases where the premise starts out original and interesting but the follow up is weak, predictable or starts to mellow out what was originally interesting about it. Not this though. Migi to Dari had an engaging premise to start out with and the follow up packed more than a punch. Recommended for anyone looking for a manga packed with suspense, dark humour, character growth and don't mind light portrayals of boys' love or crossdressing that has no real implications and absolutely goes nowhere.

Tag column is not enough to contain my feelings and I have to let it out somewhere so here goes:

Nana is not a piece of work filled with sunshine and rainbows. If you're having a bad day, reading this will likely make it worse so stay away from it until you feel strong enough to face reality (what's worse is that the story isn't even over...).

It's that type of work that hits without you realizing, seeps over your whole body and leaves lingering, aching impact. Just like reality. And just like reality, you might feel angry, frustrated and want to yell at some of the ... characters at first, but in the end it gets so tiring you just stop struggling and resign to whatever it brings you. In that sense, it's a really great portrayal of reality. Objectively, it's a great piece of work. But subjectively, it's such a tiring and depressing piece of work to read. I watched most of the characters stumble down a pithole and felt so helpless that of course, I would not be able to scream at them that they are making the wrong decisions. But that's life. We are all bystanders to other people living their lives, and most of us, make mistakes again and again, even knowingly. That's just how life is. Few of us experience the glamour in this story but it's the raw emotions that we all share with each and every one of the characters. The writing is quite stunning really. Stunning enough to make it feel so much like reality that I'm not sure if I like it. Because it hits way too close to home.

I won't lie, the Love Polygon tag on MAL was so deterring - I've learned not to trust MAL tags but still - I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into this but it's really not as simple or as clear cut as a love polygon, as ironic as that sounds. Every character is so heartbreakingly human and it's perfectly captured in the story how selfish, demanding, suffocating humans can be. But we are also capable of bringing so much warmth, love and comfort to each other. All of the characters have such conflicting natures and it makes them all the more endearing that way, and I really appreciate how much fine writing skill was put into this.

Art is fine, I think Kagen no Tsuki was the peak for Yazawa Ai's art but I've always enjoyed how she draws her characters.

Overall, it's objectively great so I'm rating it an 8.5 but not quite sure how to rate this subjectively and I don't think I will want to reread this again unless I'm in a great mood and having great, amazing, nothing-but-happiness days in my life because I do not enjoy emotional torture.

But is it good, is it worth a read, does it live up to the hype? The answer is yes. And I don't regret reading it while it's still on hiatus.

Story: 7
Character: 4 (with Naruto and Sasuke) / 8 (without Naruto and Sasuke)
Art: 7
Enjoyment: 7

Overall: 6.25 / 7.25

I don't think there's anymore left to be said about Naruto that hasn't been said in other reviews, but here goes:

*spoilers ahead!*
...
The first 80-85% of the story had its moments - some parts were cute, some interesting, some fun, some were fanservice and many moments heartfelt. It was engaging, had creative parts and made me feel for the characters. Despite turning into a Sasuke-obsession story after the timeskip, the villains were cool, the protagonists made me want to cheer them on, the lore was interesting. I could care less about Naruto and Sakura being obsessed with Sasuke because he wasn't constantly in the story and so it didn't ruin my reading experience. I genuinely loved the world-building too - there were many parts left to be explored, and many aspects with potential that were unfortunately set aside for more eye-catching and extravagant powerups; but the landscape of the countries, the shinobi system, the mix of daily life gimmicks, D-rank missions with over-the-top battles and dramatic moments came together well to engage me in the series.

Resurrection of strong characters for whatever other reason apart from fanservice? Sure, why not, I like them too.
Wasting a character like copy ninja Kakashi, said to have mastered over 1000 jutsu only to end up using 3? It's okay, he's still the coolest.
Sakura literally doing nothing apart from 'loving' Sasuke and thinking of helping Naruto but in fact made the situation worse in 70% of the story? Let's not be too harsh on her, she does have her merits.
You thought Kabuto died once, twice and thrice but turns out he didn't? It's okay, he's just a cockroach.
Konohamaru mastering Rasengan in just one single offscreen lesson with Naruto? Questionable but I don't care about him.
Fast forward decades later, Hinata and Sakura somehow managed to get their men? Um, okay, let's just say love blossoms through hard work.

There were so many questionable writing decisions that I could point out but I could stomach all of those because I still enjoyed the overarching story, and most of the characters. Even when we got to the final war, I was excited to see where it would go (the only things I remember, vaguely, from watching the Shippuden anime were Obito vs Kakashi and Kakashi's Susano'o). The gokage standing together, Gaara coming into his own, the demonstration of battle tactics; it all felt like there was consideration in the writing. And then we reach the last 100 chapters or so in the series, and the underlying issue of the series finally comes tumbling down.

I'll start with the conclusion. Although Naruto is named after the main character, it's a series I read for any character, and I mean any character, other than Uzumaki Naruto at any point of the series. I rather share the sentiments of many other reviewers that the main character's dominance was far too strong in the series, so if a reader, like me, just doesn't really care about Naruto, it gets frustrating pretty quickly. Look, it's fine to have a main character standing at the top of the power hierarchy and saving the day every time. We've seen plenty of great examples of those. But he has to be more than just 'I'm angry at this villain now grrrr' 'He hurt my friends but I'll T.A.L.K. to him' 'I won't give up because I won't give up!' 'Sasuke, why, Sasuke, talk to me, sAsUKkEEEE', which literally are all Uzumaki Naruto is.

He's just... uninteresting.

The series starts out well because it benefits from the large, and mostly loveable supporting characters surrounding Naruto, but they were all cast aside and belittled in the end because they had to make way for Naruto to showcase his greatness. It's been an underlying issue since the beginning, because all of their problems, their bitterness, their tragedies, were resolved after they encountered Naruto and were saved by him. It's not so much a problem at the start, when Naruto wasn't this overpowered yet, as it is near the end, when every single character sings automated praises of Naruto like he's Jesus. It is utterly disappointing that Kishimoto was perfectly capable of creating good, likeable characters with depth, but all of that was thrown aside for a one-dimensional main character who is only there to show off his extravagant power ups and naive, unrelatable, unwavering obsession with 'saving' his 'friend'. In the last 100 chapters, it's basically just Naruto coming absolutely out of nowhere to save the day, 'I knew Naruto was the hero, the saviour, the light of our lives!', supporting character had a power up, 'it's all thanks to Naruto!', random character survived a wound, 'I made it because of Naruto!', powerful, resurrected character attacked villain successfully, 'Naruto's assist made it possible, he will become the strongest hokage!'. PLEASE. Can we just shut up about Naruto and stop this Jesus-ification of him for a minute?

I could write a whole dissertation on why Naruto ruined Naruto but let's just conclude on this section by saying that apart from Naruto, there were many good, solid characters who deserved so much more spotlight than what they were robbed off of.

But of course, that's not to say Naruto was the single problem in this 700-chapter manga. His 'best friend' Sasuke, the moody edge lord who has problems thinking logically, is another huge problem. He wanted vengeance, first on his brother, then on his birthplace. I think these are understandable from the point of view of a character who was deprived of familial love and warm relationships. The problem is that I don't think Sasuke grew up at all from chapter 1 to chapter 698. He simply went from wishing vengeance on his brother for slaughtering his clan to wishing vengeance on anyone who might harm 'his village'. What was the point of wasting so many panels on him when his character stayed stagnant? And thus I'm not sure what else to comment about his character. What does one say about a character who simply spun in circles on the same spot, in the span of almost 700 chapters? Together, Naruto and Sasuke get the greatest panel time, and also dominate the plethora of writing flaws in Naruto.

But this wouldn't have been a huge problem if the plot had decent progression. It was still enjoyable and engaging up until, say, chapter 600. That's a solid achievement for a long-running weekly manga. But the last 100 chapters were filled with unnecessarily long and dragged out fights, ultimate final attacks after final attacks after last attacks, ninja war turning into DBZ war, dialogues and characters going around in circles. It felt like such a chore to read, and added to my stress at seeing the amount of 'Naruto is here!' 'Naruto is our inspiration' narutonarutonarutonaruto in every chapter. The only good thing in those 100 chapters was Guy's measly paneltime, Sakura FINALLY getting a couple of punches in, Obito vs Kakashi and Kakashi's Susano'o aka Kakashi finally getting to do something.

I really wanted to love it, and I did initially, but my enjoyment was largely diminished by the ending, and it left me feeling unsatisfied. I love shounen manga, so completing the 'Big Three' is kind of a personal milestone for me. But I would still recommend this, especially to shounen manga lovers, as I do want to give credit to the many good parts of the series, particularly the other loveable characters, whom I will be sure to remember fondly.

Story: 5
Art: 7
Character: 5
Enjoyment: 5

Overall: 5.5

Though this isn't meant to be a comprehensive review - the first, say, 250 chapters or so were pretty decent. The Soul Society arc in particular, was really cool and kept me curious and excited about what would happen next. But most of what followed was just dry and repetitive - the two major arcs (Arrancar/Fake Karakura & TYBW arcs) were just horizontally expanding and adding more boring characters and cool-sounding-but-really-just-weird-and-unmemorable-final-attack-names into the pile to make the story seem grander. It's saddening that there were so many throwaway characters but only a handful of good ones because the story chose ... to introduce unnecessary and uninteresting characters and have everyone non-stop fighting instead of actually developing the characters and world-building. There's a bit of lore thrown in here and there but somewhere around chapter 500 I lost interest in the story. Sure, there were some developments and character growths but it all feels very repetitive.

That's not to say it's without strengths: the character designs are lovely - characters are very expressive, making it easier to immerse in the story and relate to them. I read the coloured version and would wholly recommend it since its visually pleasing and easier to trudge through the dragging story. There is still that shounen, Bleach charm that comes through because of the characters who were established during the first 200 chapters or so (after which it just became dragfest) and they are why I could keep on reading.

All in all, still glad I read this. It dragged on for way damn long and could've told the exact same story in 400 chapters instead of 700, but there are some cool and iconic characters I find myself rather attached to (ahem, Rukia, ahem, Gin, ahem).

If you have time to spare and like shounen, there's no harm in giving Bleach a try.

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The tag column isnt enough to keep my thoughts in so here are my top 12 thoughts after finishing Bleach:
1. Everyone and their mother has a hidden power


2. Literally 85% of the fights go like this:
"You won't be able to defeat me, watch my ultimate attack!!
...
Blast you wounded me... but this is nothing, I shall use this final attack!!
...
Think you killed me? Ignorant! Arrogant! Insolent! Of course I won't die! I have a final ultimate attack!
...
Shit. I didn't want to use this but I have to.. here comes my final final ultimate attack!!"
...
And so on.


3. No one dies


4. Rukia is awwwwesome


5. Everything from the Arrancar arc onwards is just... random bros and random fights 101


6. You're (maybe) lying if you say you remember the names of Aaroniero Arrurerie, Szayelaporro Granz, Asguiaro Ebern, Zommari Rureaux, Abirama Wernarr, Tier Harribelom and other random bros, hence why they're just random bros to me


7. Soul Society Arc >>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else


8. I KNEW GIN WAS A GOOD GUY SINCE CHAPTER 65 - it took so long I was beginning to worry that I would never get to say this


9. Rukia is awesome!


10. You want an orange hair heroine showdown? Nami>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Orihime


11. Favourite quote: "arrogance isn't the reason you'll lose. You're simply... outclassed."
BRUHHHHHHHHHH BYAKUYAAAAAAA damn man chill a little (love it though


12. When is that Gin Gaiden coming. You can't make an awesome Itachi-level character and not give him a spin-off??

Update 17 November 2022:

Do I think it's recommendable?
- No. It was never exceptional in the first place, but got worse and worse as the story went on. The writing was quite disastrous. The ending was exceptional in a bad way, erasing all of the buildup and plot progression that made the story what it was.
Did I ever regret reading it?
- Well, yes, at one point it felt like so much time was wasted.
But do I regret finishing the last 60 chapters when I had previously dropped the series?
- I guess not. I'm glad I got to witness the ending.

Now that this is ... completed, surprisingly I feel at peace. I had a list of things I wanted to rant about before chapter 276 but once I read chapter 277, all of a sudden it felt like I was able to reconcile with the story. Maybe it's because I simply do not care enough about it to even muster the energy to complain about things, maybe because it's so plainly disastrous that I know all of my feelings and rants will be reflected by other readers anyway, or maybe it's because real life is already so hard that it doesn't feel too bad to see fictional characters get a happy ending. If I were a fan I would be feeling so many different emotions, but I never was in the first place. Either way for me, with an ending comes closure and with closure comes peace. I'm just glad it ended relatively soon and did not drag out the torture any longer. I maintain my conclusion that if you didn't like it 50 chapters in you'll find that it gets worse, far worse in the latter parts. But if you're fine with not bringing your brain cells while reading it, then why not? I certainly had to force my brain cells to shut down at multiple points. In a way, this is going to be an extremely memorable piece of work. But not necessarily for the good things.

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Before update:
Disclaimer: If you're a fan of Tokyo Revengers, please don't read this. It'll probably just offend you.

TL;DR
1. 4.5 out of 10
2, This is going on for way too long. Like 100 chapters too long.
3. If you, like me 150 chapters ago, are not liking this but thinking if you should give this another chance because of all the raving reviews on MAL, heed my advice and just drop it. If you didn't like it 50 chapters in, you'll find that it gets worse.
4. Baji deserved better.

All the while reading this I kept asking myself why am I still reading it. The only reason why I kept going was, well, there has got to be a reason why people are giving out 9s and 10s right?

Admittedly my reason for starting the manga was shallow - I started the anime, felt meh about it, saw some fanart for Chifuyu and decided to give the manga a chance. Well. I won't say it's a complete waste of time, at least for the first 50 chapters or so, but it's definitely not for anyone who is looking for an intelligent piece of work about time-travelling. Or even about gangs.

Story: 3

The story is likely the weakest aspect of the manga. It's not all bad, but there are major flaws. I don't even like wracking my brains that much when I watch/read things but this entire set-up of time travelling with zero consequences or consideration for parallel timelines just screams HEAVEN FOR PLOT-HOLES if one starts to think about it for just a minute. Every single plot line is developed based on just one thing - the death of Tachibana Hina. Meaning that when she is rescued, there is literally nothing left for the story unless the mangaka decides to go the Boruto route (and this was what happened). This is one of the fatal points of the story - the mangaka has no choice but to expand on that single, thin premise of rescuing a girl because it all comes down to that. The plot is ultimately driven by this objective. Not very exciting. And after achieving that objective, the mangaka came up with a really brilliant idea - just add more people for Takemichi to save! Using the same formula!

I'm not even going to talk about the power-scaling or how realistic this manga is (in case you're wondering, it's not), I can disregard how unrealistic it is for 12-year-olds to start a gang that becomes a contender for the ruler gang of Tokyo, or how middle schoolers can take on 50 people at a time, or how they have enough strength to kill people left and right if they wanted to. It's a fictional story. The biggest problem with it isn't how many plot holes there are, or how unrealistic it is, it's how the story development is stretched thin over the same objective and so weak that it ends up boring and repetitive. The same pattern is executed repeatedly, camouflaged by the addition of more characters coming out of nowhere with zero buildup but apparently all really strong and have some beef with each other to make it seem like there was a huge, complicated plot behind it all along, right from the beginning. Not exactly the most intelligent way of story-telling.

Art: 7

I like the style. Nothing outstanding but it's good enough.

Characters: 5

This is where I fumble a little trying to rate it. Subjectively speaking, I do think there are some characters who are charming and deserve appreciation, but the MC kind of ruins it for me. I will say though, he's much more bearable than in the anime where I have to listen to him wailing. At least I can just skim over the panels in the manga. By no means is any of the character genius, but MC just takes the cake for being useless and pathetic. I do think I'm being very harsh on him, he's not ALL bad, but objectively speaking, this is all he is. The characters around him wouldn't be treating him the way they are/were if he weren't the MC and has the plot-armour. But he is the MC. So he gets brownie points from the cast for standing up against a big guy even though all he did is say something cool-ish and glare at the opponent for two seconds and then go cower in the corner, then realises he's the only one who can change the future but does none of the actual work and goes through the same thing all over again. He doesn't learn, he doesn't try to learn or plan, he goes with the flow and tries to think on the spot of what to do even though obviously he hasn't got the smarts for that. You'd think that he'd learn about the importance of planning ahead and collecting information 100 chapters in and after dozens of times of time-leaping but no.

A few others I do like, Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu, Mitsuya, Baji, Inui are all fan-favourites for a reason. They are not exceptionally-written, but solid enough amidst a rather big cast, and tick many right boxes to appeal to readers. Kisaki is probably the smartest guy in this manga. He's not bad as an antagonist, and a character who's written for people to hate on. Nothing much to say against him. On the other hand, I feel like there just isn't enough time for readers to really know the characters and witness their development. New characters, with zero buildup, keep getting introduced while I'm still trying to match the names to the faces of those who just got introduced 20 chapters ago. Just as you think they're not really important (because they get taken out by Mikey and conveniently disappear at the end of the arc anyway) and you can probably disregard them, they turn out to be recurring characters and one of them randomly gets a backstory reveal in the middle of the arc to make you like them, while there still hasn't been much time to connect/be attached to some in the main cast. Not as big of a problem as the storytelling, but it's still part of the weaker aspects of the manga.

Enjoyment: 3

I do want to know what happens in the end but I'm getting very, very impatient with the same pattern occurring over, over, over and all over again. There is manga where I am completely content with being there for the ride and the journey, and there is manga where I just want it to end. NOW. Tokyo Revengers is clearly the latter of the two.

Story: 8 (highest highs were way higher than lowest lows imo)
Art: 8 (fighting scenes can be hard to understand sometimes but it's still so beautiful)
Character: 9 (-1 because of the way some character arcs ended)
Enjoyment: 9 (-1 'cause final arc..)

Overall: 8.5 (bumped to 9 because of extreme character attachment)

I’m not really good at writing reviews but I thought I’d write one for Tokyo Ghoul:re, a manga that has always been one of my top favourites since I started reading manga.

If you can't be bothered to read through this review, my conclusion is that despite its flaws, TG:re more than deserves a try if you're up ... for some well-written moral ambiguity and character development.

It’s quite clear to me that writing-wise, TG:re has been going downhill for quite a while now (imo since about Chapter 150 it became quite obvious and went up and down for the rest of the series), so I can’t say that I was at all surprised to see that the final arc was quite rushed and lacked some of the things that made Tokyo Ghoul Tokyo Ghoul. To keep it short, I didn’t mind that Ishida took the story to a bigger, national, almost global scale, but the fact that he didn’t manage to follow up on the big premise makes it disappointing. The ‘final’ villains all went out in underwhelming ways. I wasn’t expecting shounen-esque fights but it doesn’t work logically when a super hyped up character gets taken out in a single slash. This is honestly the least of my complaints though. Poorly executed redemptions and revivals add to the flaws. One of the best things about TG has always been, for me, the attachment I feel for the cast, and the emotions that swell up in me as I read each chapter. Redemptions when done right can move the reader to the deepest but the way some of the character arcs wrapped up left a bad taste in my mouth despite me loving the characters in the first place. And no comment on what he did with Eto.

The fact that I acknowledge that :re was far from being perfect or the best doesn’t mean that I love it any less, nor does it mean that it carries less meaning for me than it did in the first place. In fact, I’ve never thought that TG, both the original and :re was bad or terrible, even during chapters that invited quite an amount of criticism from the community, or during the final arc of :re (which was my personal worst arc of :re). But I do think that the story could’ve had so much better build up and portrayal by the end. Mostly I think it could’ve done the story a lot better with just more build-up, more details and more chapters. If Ishida could do that all this time, why not do the same when the story is at its final, most important stage? Then again I have no knowledge of the stress and exhaustion a mangaka and his editing and publishing team goes through when working on a series, so I guess I can’t really complain.

Nevertheless…

I hope this doesn’t deter anyone from reading Tokyo Ghoul:re. For me it was definitely one of the best manga at least 80% into the series. The well-developed cast, intriguing moral ambiguity, intense story build-up, beautiful art and well-rounded world-building are all reasons that you should give :re a try. Being a character-driven manga, I think that Ishida was more than successful in leaving a wonderful cast of characters behind. I might have had love-hate relationships with some of them, but it’s undeniable that they were very unique, distinct and well-written.

It’s still so sad when I realize that TG:re is now coming to an end. Though the manga itself was far from perfect, I feel so attached to the characters that it’s probably impossible to let them go. I love the TG cast so much :re is going to stay on my favourites list for a long time to come, maybe forever. Honestly up until chapter 150 I was still loving :re to bits and crying over every chapter and feeling blessed whenever one comes out. In the end, I still think that I was so very blessed to have read this series, to have gotten to know Ken and Haise all his personas, and the rest of the cast. It was an emotional and inspiring ride until the very end.

'This world is full of absurdities as a matter of course, if you have the time to be resentful and resign to that, have fun fighting those absurdities instead.'

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu... I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into when I started watching it. Thanks to Koro sensei, I found myself learning together with 3E, bit by bit.

I've always regarded myself as a 'good' student, good grades, rule-abiding, close relationships with classmates, not getting into any trouble. And even though I was vaguely aware of how those typically labelled as 'bad' students or delinquents had their own troubles, I've never actually made myself to consciously ... think about it. Upon entering university recently I started becoming a volunteer tutor for children not doing that well, and that's kind of where I started to really want to understand them and their backgrounds. There are just things that we are vaguely conscious of, but never being aware enough to act upon, and taking lessons with Koro sensei gave me insight into what I could do, not only as a tutor, but also as a person constantly learning through life. This is one of the things I loved about watching this anime (along with the magnificent ending episodes, and Koro sensei himself). Three terms with Koro sensei and 3E felt like a fruitful journey by the end, with so many of his ideals and beliefs that I can revisit upon.

The story and the beliefs, those are the two main things that I think were done really well in this series. With other aspects however I wasn't really that impressed, one of them being the characters. While Koro sensei was a fantastic character through and through, loved Karma (though this is probably mostly because he's so sassy), Nagisa was mediocre as the MC and fell flat for me, and plenty of other character developments and introductions felt forced and didn't seem to be well thought out. It felt like things just happened (unnaturally) because of plot necessity, to add a bit of spice, to try and bring things to a full circle, to try and connect all the characters in one big picture. Character-wise, this season was relatively weak, and this affected my level of enjoyment as well, especially from around episode 15, with the exceptions of the last couple of episodes, which were brilliant of course. Art and sound, nothing outstanding, but sufficient.

That said, I definitely like this series, and I gained a lot from it. It had a great premise, but could use better execution.

Overall rating: 8.5

I thought long and hard about how I should rate the third season of Haikyuu!! but just couldn't settle for a whole number so 8.5 it is.

On one hand the plot is very simple, just one match covering all of the 10 episodes so story-wise I do feel like there is a limit to how good it can get. On the other hand it was quite well-executed, even though the flashbacks/backstories didn't delve deep enough to get me, they did provide solid foundation for character developments.

I wasn't an avid fan of Haikyuu!! to start with even after finishing the first two seasons in ... less than three days, but I enjoyed season 3 the most, and felt most connected to the characters after 50 episodes of getting to know them. What I really like about Haikyuu!! is that it doesn't emphasize too heavily on Hinata but gives the spotlight to almost all of the cast across the episodes. This season's MVP is most definitely Kei but the others had their fair share of moments too, and character interactions were brought out well. But with Shiratorizawa I was constantly underwhelmed by Ushijima's character, there were other moments that could be cut out to add more development for Ushijima, since he was so hyped up to be the 'last boss' Karasuno had to defeat before making it to the Nationals. Nothing too eye-catching about him to me, not very relatable. The same goes for the rest of Shiratorizawa, actually, with the exception of Tendo.

Overall though, there were awesome small moments between the cast, I enjoyed the plays so much that I didn't want the match to end, so enjoyment 9.8/10. Solid season, can't wait to pick up the manga and see what happens with them.

At first glance I thought it'd be somewhat a NYC version of Gintama (which is my favourite anime by the way) what with that big hoard of Gintama VAs (I heard seven lol: Toushi, Zura, Kagura, Pattsuan, Zenzou, Sa-chan, Kondou), and the somewhat episodic, random, comedic setup. I mean, Leo even has the goggles that early Gin used to have (kidding). But Kekkai Sensen was refreshing and delightful in its own way. Upon finishing I felt like it was a rough gem that use more polishing.

Story: 7

Started off really well for me, and throughout the series it was filled with good-natured and on-point humour, which ... I thoroughly enjoyed. I liked the randomness, it didn't feel forced, and the overarching plot was introduced with some foreshadowing and good transition. The setting (dystopian NYC? Kinda) and subtle world-building were both really fun and I felt comfortable with how each episode combined bits of information that slowly built up the background.

However, I thought it was over-ambitious to try and cover an overarching story yet having a partly episodic theme, all in 12 episodes. From my point of view it was like this anime reached about 75% of its potential, it could've been so much more with more episodes to do certain scenes in more details. The fighting scenes were somewhat too quick and confusing with the big letters screaming at you for attention even though the animation was great. Another problem mostly existed towards the last quarter of the anime - some scene transitions were just too jumpy, and having to try and understand what just happened on screen, is not enjoyable. It's not even that I was trying to understand the underlying concept or guess at the background story, the presented scenes themselves were hard to understand.

Art: 9

Very good, and the character designs are pretty awesome. Impressed with how they did the bigger action scenes, and not much distortions with the art as well. The colours and shadings on the characters are especially nice. Overall just really pleasant and pretty to look at.

Sound: 9

LOVED. I think this is one of the few times an anime's OSTs really struck me (others being Tokyo Ghoul and Gintama). The jazz OSTs and ED gave off a West End vibe, and fits very well with the setting of NYC. Background music eases the audience into the atmosphere and the rhythm fits well with plot pace.

Again, the ED is stunning.

Character: 8

Leo is so freaking precious. Can we show more love for this boy please? He's a bit awkward, very funny, good-natured, determined, not so unlike your typical shounen MC but there's something subtly different about him that I really like. He's not a try-hard, not quite ambitious, very down-to-earth, NOT naive, and very relatable. Not to mention his personality pulled off the relatively plain character design very well. Other Libra members were also really interesting to watch (but there just weren't enough episodes to get to know the majority of them, sadly), and Zapp is fa-bu-lous. His VA is one of my favourites but this character himself is just so entertaining to watch.

Enjoyment: 7

Started off well and ended with a bang. But the progress towards that last bang was underwhelming for me. One of those rare cases where I actually enjoyed the first 75% of the anime more than the last few episodes. This anime is refreshing and entertaining in many ways, but requires much more background to make it rich, so I'll be on the lookout for the second season this year! Anyone reading this, please do give Kekkai Sensen a try!