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May 20, 2010
Since no one has written a review yet, i'll do a basic one.
Story revolves around a karateka, meguru, and him doing shooto/mma and his trials and tribulations. It's pretty realistic in it's depiction of training and real world physics.
Art is very crisp, clean and easy to follow and character designs are very sharp and defined too. If you've read Hiroki Endo's other masterpiece, Eden, you should be familiar with the art style. Since this is all about the fights, i'll go into extra detail concerning this. You can tell Endo knows what he's writing/drawing about. I was really impressed with his depiction of fights in
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Eden(Kenji's battles were some of the best i've ever seen in manga.. he's like the sammo hung/yuen wo ping of manga), and Endo's imagination and ability to convey it on paper are just as good here. As someone who follows MMA and does martial arts myself, i was impressed with just how accurate his art is. From armbars to hip throws to roundhouse kicks to sweeps, everything is portrayed realistically.
However, he doesn't babysit the reader, like some other fight manga would with paragraphs of theory explaining each move, so i don't know how easy it would be for those with no background of martial arts to get into, but i think the artwork is clean enough to enjoy it anyway, and the rest should be common sense since it's realistic.
Endo has covered boxing, JJ/BJJ, wrestling, kickboxing/MT, Judo, Karate, but i wonder if he will touch kung fu? I hope he does, since he has covered some traditional karate..
The most realistic hand to hand martial arts manga i've read to date. Forget Kenichi, forget Shamo and also forget Holyland(ok, holyland is decent), but this is just more realistic and all round more class.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 26, 2010
May contain slight spoilers. So be warned.
Story: 4
Well, there is hardly any plot at all. It basically follows a generic formula(of the most generic kind i've ever read) of meet some new bad guys every chapter or two, give some basic generic cliche background, and then fight. It would not matter that much, however, the fights are just as generic and boring as the story, and so are their powers. Even the fights formula is generic, and they always start and end the same way(you'll know when you read it). Rinse and repeat. There is no suspense whatsoever, except for perhaps one arc which concerns
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Tsukune, but even that goes nowhere. Hopefully the second season picks up where that left off, and the whole series starts to explain some things and there is a story happening, and is not just filler after filler. However, i'm not going to hold my breath.
Art: 8
This is the best thing about the series. It has a pretty good clean style, and plenty of fan service. The monsters are pretty nice to look at, and what fighting there is is clean and easy to understand what's going on. But that doesn't say much, because the main characters always do the same move, so you're basically just left looking at the new bad guy of the week.
Character: 5
There is hardly any character development. They all have their basic background stories, and that's about it. And that is only given so that there is an excuse to set up the fights, and to give some panty shots or to pull Tsukunes head into their chest etc. The main character is the most boring and useless guy you will ever have the displeasure of meeting. All his harem girls are also one dimensional caricatures, and serve no purpose except fanservice, and each chapter they all act the same way and this gets repetitive fast. If it was enjoyable, and they were like cameo's, it wouldn't have been so bad. However, they are main characters, and there isn't even one character who i actually really liked(which isn't normally the case, because even if i hate the main characters, there's usually one support character i really like, but that's not the case here). No redeeming features at all.
Enjoyment: 5
I was not really excited about any chapters at all, it's mostly just from looking at fanservice/art that garners the most 'enjoyment'.
Overall: 6
I was very disappointed by the reviews that this series got, and was totally surprised with the relative high ratings.. i picked this up because it was a recommendation from Mx0(which i hold in high regard, even though it's an unfinished series), but in my opinion, Mx0 totally blows this out of the water in terms of plot, characters, and enjoyment(and even art, so in every way heh). While it may share similar settings, the quality and enjoyment could not be further apart. Do not be tricked like i was(both had 8+ ratings). Do not expect anything close to Mx0. If Mx0 was an 8, this is more like a 5-6, and that's only because the artwork was decent. Story and characters/enjoyment really sucks hard in this. There's no suspense or awkward situations at all, like how in Mx0 he had no magic power, and in this one he's meant to be human and no magic either, it does not explore those themes at all, so i feel kind of tricked by the recommendation.
I did finish this however, so i guess it's not THAT bad(well, to be fair, the first volume or two was kind of interesting, but after that, you will just get disappointed as you realize that it's not going to go anywhere, and that's too bad because i think the setting had potential, but the mangaka did not take it down that road at all, ie could of made it darker/more serious and less 'kiddy'). However, it's also not good at all(and with just slightly above average art, but for an ecchi series, it's just average since it's to be expected), and i would not recommend it to anyone except the most bored manga readers with very low standards when it comes to characters, plot, and enjoyment, and who is a hardcore ecchi vampire fanboi, and who have not read very many manga series, because that way you can read this with a low standard and move onto better stuff, since if you've already read other better stuff and then read this(as i have), you will be utterly disappointed and bored, and even slightly offended with how cliche and generic the story is. It's like the mangaka treats it's readers with disdain and even knows his story is crap/nonexistant, yet he still doesn't care and knows it's readers will keep buying the manga regardless.. kind of reminds me of Haruhi and the endless 8 arc.. lol
Yes, i'm going to check out the second season/series, so i guess it's readable and will pass the time, but it's the most generic harem/ecchi/vampire/monster story you'll ever read, so don't expect anything except the most averageharem/ecchi/vampire/monster 'story'(or rather, decent artwork with some filler story thrown in as an excuse to show said artwork), but with above average artwork(which is to be expected from a ecchi title). I would recommend Mx0 a hundred times over, and then recommending another 100 harem/ecchi/supernatural titles before even mentioning this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 25, 2009
Story:
Based off Luo Guanzhong's 14th century Romance of the 3 kingdom novel, which is considered one of the 'Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature', it's one of the most well known and most adapted stories in China.
If you've seen John Woo's Red Cliff, played Dynasty Warriors, or any of Koei's ROTK games and enjoyed them, i'm sure you'll be familiar with the character names in the description, but just in case you missed it, well, now you know. This is ROTK, and you will most likely also be interested in this. Not much more else to say really, it's one of the most
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well loved and known stories of all time. I'm not too sure how far they will go with the story, but i really don't think they will do the whole thing in 26 episodes, seeing as i'm 9 episodes in and it's not even a quarter of the story told, and it is already moving quite fast. Time will tell i guess.
Art:
Overall high quality and unique style. I was kind of put off the first few episodes and i thought it didn't look realistic enough for such a historical title, but i got used to it soon enough and now i think that it lends itself quite well and fits the tone of the series, considering that some of the battles and scenes are especially over done to be epic and grand.
As of episode 9, fight scenes have been relatively realistic, especially when showing epic war battles with thousands of soldiers. Formations, tactics, strategies from Sun Tzu's Art Of War are all discussed and shown. Catapults, castle sieges, are all done well, with no ridiculous super powered individuals like in Sengoku Basara. If that's what you are looking for mainly, i suggest you go somewhere else. One major gripe i have is with the way they depicted Liu Bei, but i might be biased since i already have a pre-conception of how i think he should look. Also, one character in episode 9(where i'm up to) has shown signs of static electricity circling his body when he made an entrance, and i hope that that is the most 'shounen' it's going to get. I don't mind that so much because that character is meant to be powerful, and i guess that it's just artistic license since no one else so far is like that, but if it does change into a shounen wankfest, i will update this review to reflect it. Also, on the MAL page, it says R rated - Mild Nudity, but be warned. There is also quite graphic violence and plenty of blood flowing, as is to be expected.
Sound:
OP: Screamo rock/metal, which i think is ok even if that is not my cup of tea, it suits the animation well.
ED: Some feel good pop song played over floating clouds, otherwise nothing memorable.
VA is fine, and music/score suits the battles and tense moments well.
Character: Based on real life figures, they are all heroes and based on larger than life figures. In fact, one of them is actually defied and worshipped as a god/deity in Chinese folk 'religion'(the main 'religion'), even in this day and age. Every chinese person would know this character. However, as of episode 9, it seems to focus more on one character, while it neglects the other two(or at least, for the moment). Also, i do not like how they portrayed Liu Bei, so purists be warned. Otherwise there is a huge diverse range of characters who all contribute in some important way or other to the story.
Enjoyment: What else can i say? If you can't tell by now, i'm a ROTK fan, and i'm also a historical swordfighting/samurai buff, and i also love fantasy. This combines them all into one neat package.
Overall: I would like to give it a 10 based on enjoyment alone, but i do have some minor gripes with it, and that is that it moves quite fast and is kind of hard to understand the story even knowing the story prior to watching since they gloss over some relatively important characters, and that the first few episodes were kind of slow, which might put some viewers off and make them not want to give this awesome series a chance. I think it really starts to pick up after episode 5/6 after it has done the basic character development, it moves into fast pace action epic mode.. If you enjoyed Legend of Galactic heroes like someone said in the recommendations, you would probably also enjoy this. This has more fights and is more violent, but both use quite a bit of narration and voiceover to keep you up to date with the current happenings, which is quite understandable to tell a story of this magnitude in just 26 measly episodes compared to 100+ for LOGH.
Considering how cliche and unoriginal Sengoku Basara is, i'm really disappointed that not more people are following this anime, and that is has such a low rating. I guess it's the same way for LOGH however, which is a damn shame since this is one of the best series currently running.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 6, 2009
One of the classics OVA's that were released to the west under the infamous MANGA Entertainment brand(remember them?), up there with Ninja scroll, Akira and Fist of the North Star, and of course the controversial Urotsukidōji.
Ultra Violence, Gore, Mecha-ish body suit(not huge ass robot), Fantasy/Monsters-Alien things, and superish kind of power(the suit). What more do you want? It would be considered cheesy and cliche these days, but back in the day, this was the shit. If you liked Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Fist of the North Star, Akira, Urotsukidōji etc, then i'm pretty sure you would like this too. I don't remember any nudity or
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sex scenes though.
I watched this years ago, so i'm rating everything based on current day expectations. However, i'm rating the enjoyment factor on what i remember. It was great then, and i'm guessing it's still great now since i don't mind watching older 'b-grade' stuff, and i really like my R rated manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 6, 2009
Like most other reviewers, this anime is very hard to categorize, so i'll just simply say its a slice of life anime which is episodic in nature, and based on the travels of a mushishi called Ginko who is kind of like a traditional shaman/herbalist. The atmosphere is very surreal/melancholic and realistic at the same time, and the stories told capture that childlike imagination we all have/had at one stage of our lives. Highly recommended if you're looking for something unique and spellbinding, although the animes deeper levels would probably be wasted on the kiddies.
The only real beef i have with it is the character
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animations. A lot of the supporting cast looks exactly like other people in the previous episodes, but if you can look past that and accept that they did it intentionally and it's not that important for the story since the characters are all in different situations and have a different personality, you will like this.
Also, i suggest you do not marathon this one, and rather enjoy it slowly and in the right state of mind, otherwise you will waste it, because it does move quite slowly and it could turn some viewers off initially. It did for me and i dropped it the first time round, but then later on, it became one of the top 10 for me(same thing for OP, first 30 eps put me off, but for other reasons).
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Nov 15, 2008
This is going to be a very short review, and it's going to be directed at the people who have seen the first episode or two and wondering whether they should continue. If you were like me, and were totally blown away by the first episode or two and the awesome matrix type fighting style/action(you'll know what i'm talking about when you see it), well.. here's some advice(or rather, a warning) for you.
Don't expect to see anything like that ever happening in the whole series.
I was waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and... nothing. It's like getting cock teased so bad by a
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really beautiful woman, and then waiting to orgasm, and it never finishes you off and then your excitement turns into frustration and you get a bad taste in your mouth and resentment starts to kick in. Such a letdown/disappointment, and that is why i rated it a 6 overall. If it had more action like in the first episode, i would of easily given it 8/9's, especially with the funky quantum physics and multi dimensional world theme/setting, which i'm usually a sucker for.
You have been warned.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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