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Bleach was a decent show up until the end of the first arc. But after watching more top-tier shonen it is very hard to ignore so many things that this show just couldn't done right. Granted this review is only up to Arrancar: The Hueco Mundo Sneak Entry Arc so things might change later on.

1. The cast is too large to properly spent time on any of the relevant character to the plot. We are introduced to a series of Espadas (the bad guys) and they all seem to have one personality. There are almost a lack of nuance in characterization in this ... show. It's easy to tell who bad guy and good guy are and I don't see that changing in the future soon. Granted this isn't bad in of itself but then there had to be something that made up for it, but sadly the rest of the shows doesn't make up for itself.

2. Orihime. OH GOD. I know people bitch about Sakura but thanks god she wasn't that very present int he show. This girl on the hand, check every box of a useless shonen female character. Every time Orihime is there it ruin this show for me. It's like she is programmed to only have 2 lines, "Kurosaki-kun" and "don't die". She is useless and though the later arc tried to shape her personality more and give her some OP power, it's very hard to care about her as a character. The rest of Ichigo friend is also a bit too generic and doesn't have much personality beyond "train harder" and "support ichigo".

3. THE PLOT HOLES. dear god, the power system in this show is confusing with all the terms throw around and barely a few liners of explanation. Quincy, Hollow, Arrancar, Adjuchas...etc. But I can take that. I don't mind if a power system is bad but what I do mind is very very convenient plot armor. Example: Ichigo is nerfed by the enemy, but then luckily another enemy wanna fight him so they revive him again. It's hard to take the show seriously when you know the main guy gonna be unscathed because of DEUS EX MACHINA rescue him everytime. There are multiple instances when character should die but the author kept trying hard not to kill anyone. It's too SHONEN for me and it hard to keep me as a viewer invested because at the end of the day, I know 100% the good guys gonna survive.

While there are many negatives to the show, I enjoy the sword power system and the visuals, the music is great, and for an old anime the animation was decent. But compared to other shows like One Piece, Naruto, Demon Slayer, or the god-tier HxH, it's hard to care for this show when other shows had done better in term of plot, power system, characterization.

Really enjoy the first 1-2 episodes of this anime. We are dropped into the world of an otome game. Our female lead (Catarina) need to find a way to avoid her doom fate. I enjoy learning about the new characters, their backstory, and how they might cause doom to Catarina.

However, as the series progress when Catarina become an adult, basically the middle episode, the plot seem to get significantly repetitive. EVERYONE LITERALLY FALL FOR Catarina (and she is oblivious about it). It's literally the reverse harem trope with the dense female protagonist, however a big improvement of this anime is people who fall for ... Catarina are both women and men, which I like.

The series can be funny at time, but I think it wasn't enough to save the lackluster plot, absent world-building, (people have magic?? but it never really explained much about it) and the mysterious fact that EVERYONE fall for Catarina and had no personality besides wanting to simp for her.

Great anime to pass time, but not something memorable enough to stick around.

FINALLY!!! Out of all the generic isekais and shonen shows that are mass produced these days, Tatsuki Fujimoto has finally entered the game with Chainsaw Man.

Seriously, on the surface, this manga sounded dumb as shit. As the title suggested, it's about a 16 year old half-human, half-devil boy (Denji) who can turn into a chainsaw (yes you heard that right) and cut people up in his chainsaw devil form. Some government organization recruited him to work for them cuz of his ability to hunt down other "bad guys", and then he got himself a badass mentor, a tsundere girl, and a cold black hair ... boy for a trio. Now where had we seen this before LMAO?

In most shonen shows - we often came across MC with superpower / ability getting recruited by some organization (ninja, soul society, ghouls, hero academies...etc.) to fight for justice, friendship, order. The thing is, Fujimoto managed to twist this trope around by asking the hard question - Isn't it kinda fucked up to expect a 16 year old kid to maul people to death to save the world? And what if the things they are supposed to fight for are just shitty ideologies constructed by even shittier people?

Anyway, the manga will kill its character left and right, so don't get too attached. It's a portrait of people who had seen too much fucked up shit in the world and just trying to find some semblance of peace. There will be no bright eye protagonists, no moe love interest, and no praise here.

But on the bright side, there's a a lot of hot chicks to simp for (I'm a woman and even I would 100% simp for them).

First of all, the art of this manga is incredibly gorgeous!!! I am in love with all the character designs, and it's nice that the manga was pretty short and doesn't have any weird crazy drama.

Given that, while the subject matter was interesting, the story fall into the cliche shoujo traps (quiet cute girl caught the attention of a hot guy, and throw in some childhood friend and you got yourself a potential love triangle). There was barely any character development. The manga is more like a slice of life // romance but if you're looking for something more than the layer of fluffiness, there's ... not much underneath. The experience of reading this manga can be best described at eating whipping cream on a cake. Sweet, but not much substance.

That being said, it's definitely better than a lot of shojo out there with terrible dramatic plot contrivances. For shojo readers who are looking for somethign cute, it's a nice read. But for non-shojo manga reader, this would be a hard pass.

Not a lot of reviews on this one so I guess I'll write something.

Chao Hua Xi Shi was an enjoyable read if you're looking for something lighthearted and cliche to pass the time after reading Chainsaw Man and Tokyo Ghoul and reminds yourself that's there something meaningful in this world. The story is nothing special, but the art is cute (and the male lead is cute too if that helps).

The female lead is your stereotypical hardworking girl with some family problem (Aren't all romance protagonist and their male lead have family problem?). She is a little bit tsundere, which I like, and isn't all ... doki-doki over the male lead (which is a turnoff for me in most shojo-like manga because I like my romance slow and steady, like boiling a frog you know?)

The male lead is handsome, but with a tragic background (come on, what with shojo authors and tragic bad boys). Anyway, basically he had 2 identities, one as a host, and one as a student (as if you can't tell from the synopsis, not that it matters because the female lead conveniently can't tell that he's the same person even though his only disguise was wearing a pair of glasses... but manga logic I guess). He had to hide his identity at school (due to stigma), and basically the female lead found herself falling for both personalities, without realizing it's the same guy (GIRL, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS HE WEAR GLASS AT SCHOOL. HE'S NOT JAMES BOND).

The story itself was enjoyable, not too much drama, but just enough drama to make you click the next page on a sad Tuesday night because you need to pretend you don't have a mountain of homework waiting for you and you're just hoping for some fantasy escapism by looking at chibi characters.

Anyway, the side characters are alright, if not a bit stereotypical. I like the female lead best friend a lot, and also the auntie / sister of the female lead. There's a typical mean girl who is the one of the main villains, and you guess it..... she is the Male Lead's ex-girlfriend! And of course the male lead's family is also the villain too....

But it's alright, this isn't Monster, and we can't demand Johannes here.

Anyway, this might come off as if I am critiquing this manga more than enjoying it, but the truth is, it's enjoyable despite all the stereotypical and lack of depth plot. It's cute. It's a nice short read. It doesn't drag out the melodrama for too long. And with 70 chapters, as compared to something like Cheese In The Trap, which I dropped after season 1, because god, it was just so long, this is decent.

Overall. 7/10 for me.

I'm a little bit surprised by all the raves for the second season of Snow White with the Red Hair, but to me it was such a chore to watch through. A lot of the positives in the first season - Shirayuki being kidnapped and escaped her own home, fought back against her captors, try to enter the castle on her own talent..etc. kinda lost in this season. Instead, Season 2 devolved into exploring the side characters more (not bad in itself) but the role of damsel-in-distress from Shirayuki get worse here.

Where is my capable heroine? All Shiruyaki did this season was drinking ... tea, lecturing Raj, got herself captured by some evil pirate lady, and conveniently rescued by Zen.

The only positive episode that I truly enjoyed was Mitsuhide's loss memory arc, which was hilarious, and his backstory with Kiki. Even Obi shine here in this season. As for Shirayuki, I don't know, if we replace her with a lamp, I feel like the story wouldn't change much. She continued to feel happiness in her relationship with Zen, reunite with her father, and be in good companies of her friends. It's hard to care about her when I'm not exactly sure what's the conflict in the story for her character is anymore, and the lack of portraying a shojo heroine with more negative emotions - anger, hatred, pain, kind of make it less relatable to follow through. I guess maybe I'm a little bit too old and jaded for some feel-good shojo romance. What a shame, beacuse the 1st season of Snow White with the Red Hair was pretty decent.

So to start off, I did somewhat enjoy Cold Game, but still feel slightly conflicted about some parts of the series. Also, given that I only read up till Chapter 12 (the series is still ongoing), this review and rating might change in the future. Compared to a lot of other shojo manga, it definitely leans more on the darker side and I really like that. After all, the protagonist watched someone's head got chop off like around the first five chapters and people being hung by the neck.

Now, the positive part of the series:
1. The art is amazing! I wasn't confused by any ... of the character, and their design are very different from each other. Also, not a lot of stupid chibi moments given the darker fantasy settings.

2. Though the Kingdom name was a little bit hilarious, like Kingdom B and Kingdom E, the settings was intriguing. There's a lot of political drama, people backstabbing each other and clever planning plots. I did enjoy the villain in this series more than I thought.

3. The male lead and main love interest also had a really good tragic backstory. I really enjoy reading his chapters and learning about his childhood.

4. The side character, like the Hughes girl (Forgot her name) and even the fake queen Camille, and Sixth Queen was interesting and definitely had depth to their characters.

5. A lot of the dialogue was hilarious, and I enjoyed the banter between Arthur and Edward, as well as all the snide comments people in the Kingdom made to each other.

Now I wish I could stop here and said that I really love the series, and want to continue, but what throw me off the series quite a bit is the dynamic between Arthur and Aruna, and Aruna - the female lead's personal story so far.

1. Firstly, Aruna sometimes came off as a little bit Mary Sue ish. Her name is unique, she had amazing violet and silver hair. Everyone called her beautiful. Given that she is a female knight (which technically in the Middle Ages are something very unusual), that already draws a lot of attention. However, Aruna draw more attention to herself by loudly insulting people in the castle (cased being Arthur, the King's aide) and called him a peasant. That's a little bit stupid in my opinion, given that her task is to blend in and not draw attention, but she of course insult other nobles, pester Queen Catherine, got herself to become Queen Anne's enemy and even get herself kidnapped. Clearly, Aruna isn't really good of playing the Game of Thrones politics so far.

2. Aruna also managed to draw attention of 2 hot guys in the castle: Arthur and Edward. How convenient. When Aruna is in trouble, they stepped into save her. First time, I temporarily let it slide because technically Aruna was in a position of vulnerability and her fighting skill isn't good yet. The series rightly acknowledged this and push her into a training arc.

3. But in the next scene, when she fought with another enemy, and had to make a critical decision about killing him, she hesitated. Now again, instead of being punished for this mistake, Arthur swooped in to kill the enemy, claimed that all her burden is on him and all that jazz.

4. In the final scene, where she had to confront Edward, and challenged him to a swordfight, Arthur stepped in. Again. Now, the series is only 12 chapters by this point, but I really wish the author had allowed Aruna to play a more active role and being more 'dark'. Forced to leave the shell of being a morally-good character and make painful decisions would have make great character developments.

5. Also, I wish the relationship between Camilla and Aruna should have been developed a little bit more. When Camilla died, which I thought Aruna would feel a lot more pain and suffering, but the chapter conveniently ended with 'romance' and 'lovey dovey' moment between her and Arthur. I also feel that their relationship was rushed. He forcibly kissed her around Chapter 5, be her knight in shining armor around Chapter 8-9, and by Chapter 12 she's head over heels for him. Aruna herself even acknowledged that falling for Arthur is a bad idea because a) she is technically lying by pretending to be a knight. And technically, if this lies is discovered, perhaps this will worsen the political relationship between the 2 kingdoms, but I guess the power of shojo romance commanded this ship to sail.

Anyway, this reminds me of Snow White with the Red Hair (anime). It started out great in Season 1, but by Season 2 all the heroine did was waiting to be saved by the prince and let herself be kidnapped. I really hope the story will never devolve into this. Overall, Cold Game has a lot of brimming potential. Strangely, I was interested in all the other side characters and think they have more depth than Aruna. Perhaps the author will developed Aruna's character as the story went on to make her more jaded and cynical, so these cons part of the novel won't be a problem. But who know. Maybe I'm a little bit biased since I have read similar novel with better strong female lead in historical period (e.g Chang Ge Xing and Apothecary Diaries) where they focus more on playing the political games and survival and fighting than making lovey-dovey eye contact with the male lead. Maybe I'm a cold-hearted person. But it's definitely hard to strike the right balance between making a good historical, dark fantasy novel and trying to make it shojo-like. Usually, in the case of making it too shojo-y (like Snow White with the Red Hair, and Yona of the Dawn), it makes the dark part of the world settings less believable.

Overall this story was a 5/10 for me.

Given there haven't been an exact review on this manga, I guess I'll post something.

I was simply searching up something shojo-y and it had been hard finding a shojo where the character is just fawning over some guy and being all meek and timid and need to be saved.

Luckily Hoshizora no Karasu managed to avoid this. If I could describe this manga, it is a little bit like Chihayafuru, but with the focus on Go instead.

The story is about Karasuma Waka, who is obsessed with Go and planning to go Pro. She met Sagisaka, Souji, who is a 17-year old 7th dan player ... at the beginning of the manga, and quickly became attracted to his playing style. Her goal was to catch up to him, but through her admiration slowly developed into romantic feelings. Luckily, the romance is pretty light, and not much happened, which is good because I rather our heroine focus on developing her own goals first. Souji also falls for Waka but holds himself back due to her age (13) and the fact that he's her mentor and I'm glad he didn't take advantage of her or do anything shady.

As someone who had no knowledge of Go whatsoever, the manga still managed to capture my attention with the moves and the art, and it did explain a bit of things here and there so the reader isn't completely lost. Waka's determination to play Go and never give up is what make it really enjoyable.

Some side characters include Hizuku, who was Waka's childhood friends and plays Go because he was also attracted to Waka's determination and wanted her attention. There's a small hint of rivalry between Hizuku and Souji. There are also other classmates of Waka who also had their own reasons for becoming Pro and getting better. Sadly, the manga isn't translated online past Chapter 30 so I have no clue what happen after that so for me, it ended midway with the introduction of a new character.

Overall, this manga is great, and I'm glad the author decided to focus the majority of themanga on Go and Waka's continual improvement of herself in the game instead of making it too romantic heavy and detracted from the plot. Definitely recommended!

I was super surprised to find that the author who wrote Cat Street was the same one who wrote Boys over Flower, and oh my god, Boys over Flower was so bad (I remember watching the anime adaptation of BoF and there was a sexual assault scene that plays off as romance. It was horrible)

But I'm glad that I went into Cat Street not knowing this fact because Cat Street was completely different from BoF. There is no stereotypical douchebag guy / nice girl melodrama, female rivalry, crazy love-triange, family-intervention, and all that weird stuff in BoF. Instead, what we have is an extremely ... mature, josei-like story of a girl who tried to become a better version of herself, through learning to make friends, fall in love, get hurt, and find a career for herself through the timespan of 3 years.

It read more like a bildungsroman in manga form, focused more on Keito and her desperate attempt to overcome social isolation, emotional immaturity, and trauma, rather than a cliche boy-meet-girl falling-in-love kinda story. I am surprised to find that the side characters, such as Kouichi, Momiji and Rei are very well-developed as well. I can't help but finishing this whole manga within 1 day (it's only 10 volumes). Definitely recommended.