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Story 7/10
The premise to series is as follows: The is an evil Magician named Animus who is trying to destroy the world with an object called the Biscuit Hammer. To stop this, a girl is given the title of princess and is given 12 knights to combat Animus and his golems. The twist is that the princess only wants to stop Animus so she can destroy the earth herself.

The premise is both simplistic and interesting at the same time. My issue with the story as a whole, is that while it is interesting, a good chunk of the story feels like fluff, or padding if ... you will. This is a series that would have been better off as 40 chapters, not 65. A lot of the chapters tend to be "defeat the golem, now here is some filler for you". Mind you, this issue really doesn't come up until chapter 25 or so, but it is still an issue none the less, and takes away from the story, as there are times you will forget the princess even wants to destroy the world, or that she is even a character.

Characters 7/10

Speaking of characters, another issue the series goes through is giving us an interesting start to each characters plot, but not concluding it. You get this interesting character backstory for most of the characters, and the series goes nowhere with it. It just "gets resolved" in an anticlimactic matter.

Yuuhi, which in this reviewers opinion, can be called the only main character, is our protagonist He does not want to fight, and sees no reason to risk his life to save a world that he hates. Upon meeting the princess and learning of her goals, he decides to help her destroy the earth. Yuuhi is the only character I felt had a complete character development. Every other character had an issue, and had it resolved in 10 pages. To me, this made Yuuhi pretty much carry the manga on his own. If it wasn't for him, I probably would have dropped this manga towards the halfway point, as the padding became more and more apparent.


Art 7/10

The art is very simplistic. The characters themselves look fine, however the backgrounds and attacks look very bland. It gets to a point where entire pages look the same as previous pages, as everyone does the same attacks over and over, and the backgrounds are similar for pretty much every fight scene.

Enjoyment 8/10

I enjoyed the series a lot. The opening 20-25 chapters really caught my interest and made me want to keep reading, as did some of the later chapters. My enjoyment of the series was only hampered by the obvious padding towards the middle, along with the aforementioned issues with character development.

Overall 7/10
Overall I would recommend the series to anyone looking for a more comedy based shounen series. If you don't mind the battles not being the focus of a series, or want a interesting protagonist.

Cavalier of the Abyss is the sequel to the Manhwa Immortal Regis. That being said it is HIGHLY recommended you read Immortal Regis first.


Story - 5/10

I am not going to lie , the first ~4 chapters or so really made me want to drop this Manhaw. The story starts with a completely unrelated plot to Immortal Regis, and introduces a "new" protagonist ( I will touch on this in the character section ). This may sound all fine and good but I found the transition really hard to get into , and that knocked the story score down a bit for me. What also knocked ... the story score down was the fact that it felt like filler. At the end of Immortal Regis you were left with all these questions that were not answered , and it really felt like nothing was accomplished over the 44 chapters of that series, you would expect Cavalier of the Abyss to try to answer these questions , which it does try to do , but it doesn't start to answer these questions until chapter 25 + , a major draw back for me.

Characters - 5/10

The new main character was really hard to support , as he just felt like a total rip off of Regis's main character.Infact I would go so far as to say all the new characters introduced were horribly executed , bland , and very boring. I believe readers in Korea also agree with this assessment because these characters essentially don't effect the plot at all.Eventually all these new characters get sidelined , at chapter 25 , are still sidelined now ( as of 6/29/2011 ) for a flash back arc about the original cast. This flash back arc is the only thing keeping me from giving the series a horrible score in story and characters.

Art - 7/10

A lot of the characters look a lot alike so that drags the score down. That is not to say they do not look good , and I like the enviroments a lot.

Enjoyment -3/10

I really felt like it was a chore to read this Manhwa, the series felt like filler , and honestly I felt bored reading it.

Overall -5/10

The series felt like nothing got accomplished, the plot was confusing at times , the new characters sucked so bad they were written out for a flash back arc ( 20+ chapters so far , monthly release means ~2 years of flash backs so far ). Art was good but a lot of characters looked the same , and the series felt like a chore to read. I do not recommend this series at all.

Updated ( 10/6/2013)

A lot has changed since my previous review of New Waves. Let's get started.


Story 8/10
The story of New Waves is that Shioon, after the events of The Breaker, has to cope with life without martial arts. However he is still be targeted for being NAD's ( Nine Arts Dragon) disciple. During one of these encounters Shioon meets the fiery red head Jenee, who is ordered to protect him by the people of the Sunwoo clan. Later it is revealed that the Sunwoo clan wants Shioon to be their new leader, and thus begins the story of New Waves.

The overarcing plot of New Waves ... if that of Shioon trying to cope with being in a world of martial arts, without the ability to do martial arts anymore. For those that have read The Breaker ( all of you reading this review I hope ), this seems like things have gone full circle, to how things were in the beginning of the The Breaker. This can make the plot seem like it is moving slowly, and that "nothing" has happened over the course of 10 chapters, but let me tell you, the slow build up has MAJOR pay offs ( especially around chapter 50+ ). Overall I would say, while the story is very " basic" it does well with building up, and keeps you wanting to know what is going to happen in the next chapter.


Characters 7/10
While the plot may have its moments, outside of a few characters, the cast of New Waves, is very sterotypical, with many characters not given time to flesh out their personalities, or not having very redeeming personalities to begin with. Most of the villains are just " I want to take over xxxx, I am right you are wrong " sort of thing, while there are a few exceptions to this rule, for the most part it holds true.

The main characters all develop nicely, and get plenty of time to build up their characters, making the main cast very likeable, and makes you really get into events that revolve around them.

Overall I would say the characters, while generic, are redeemed by the main cast of characters being unique and their character development.

Art 10/10
One of the best drawn action series ever. The fights are easy to follow, the characters look amazing, and the backgrounds are really well done. The art conveys moments of action so well it makes your blood pump, moments of sadness so well it makes you cry, and moments of the funny so well it makes you laugh, just off the art alone.

Enjoyment 9/10
While I will admit the start of New Waves is very slow, and it takes a while for the payoff to come, the series, once it picks up, makes you not want to put it down. Be it from simple fights, to clan wars , the series has it all, and never makes you want to put it down. I am currently up to chapter 131.

Overall 9/10
I would recommend New Waves to anyone who wants a well drawn out action series, with a great main group of characters, and edge of your seat action making you wish the next release would hurry up.

While reading some of the reviews about this series it seems like people only read the first 10 chapters then decided to write a review of this.

Medaka Box starts out as a gag mange following the life of Zenkichi Hitoyoshi and the President of the Student Council Medaka Kurokami. However the series soon becomes a fight manga ( around chapter 20ish ).

Story 7/10

As I stated the beginning 20 chapters are typical slice of life/gag manga antics. You have the pool chapters , the help someone in trouble chapters , you even have the "rival" chapters. The story then shifts to the student council taking ... on this evil organization ( and this is the turn into a fight manga ). While cliche , the story gets above average marks because of how it puts twists into the story. I won't spoil anything , but you will see what I mean if you take the time to read ~ 30 chapters.

Art 9/10

Solid character designs , Zenkichi has a different look than most protagonists but it works well for him. The fight scenes are also very well done , unlike other fight mangas where it can be hard to tell what is going on sometimes. The only thing keeping me from giving this a 10/10 are the backgrounds , or lack of , I should say. This becomes painfully obvious during some scenes where you see very basic backgrounds.

Characters 8/10

I was debating between a 6/10 and an 8/10 for this , considering only 2 major arcs have happened ( of the time of writing this review ) I decided to be considerate and give this an 8/10. The main hero Zenkichi goes through some decent character development , as does the heroine Medaka. There is also the rich cast of side characters ( though only Kouki and Akane have shown any sort of character progression ). I would write a basic character analysis for these characters but it would spoil major plot points.

Enjoyment 9/10

Series had my on the edge of my seat for most of the major fights , there was never a time where I thought a fight was bad. The slice of life/gag early chapters also were enjoyable.

Overall 8/10 ( 7+9+8+9/4 = 8.25 )

I recommend this to anyone who likes a light fight manga ( think Reborn or the first 100~ chapters of HSD Kenichi ). For people looking for a gag / comedy manga I suggest looking elsewhere as the comedy aspects of this are really toned down after chapter 20ish.

Hitohira is an often over looked school anime.

Story 7/10

The story starts out with the main character getting accepted into a school and yelling loudly , for the "2nd " drama club to hear her and want her to join. The twist is she is a naturally shy person who breaks down around other people. I found this to be an interesting yet cliche premise to the story. Nothing really stands out plot wise after this event at all , but that is not to say the plot is bad , just that it lacks originally. One key point people should be aware of when ... looking into this anime is the fact the pacing is HORRIBLE past episode 8. While the last episode does conclude things nicely the series drew out the plot from episodes 1-8 too much, they literally turned a 4 episode arc into an 8 episode one ( nicely done though , but it left them no material for the remainder of the series ) and it is like they realized this and tried to throw a plot together for the remaining episodes only to fail horribly ( again minus the final episode ).

Characters 7/10

Much like the story it is like the creators had no idea what to do after episode 8. They built up the two main characters only to put them into "filler" with their development. Had this been a 24 episode series this would have been fine , but on episode 9 of 12 to basically cut off all character development is a total joke. Aside from this I personally hated how they only developed one other character , and that would be the " antagonist " of the series.

Art 7/10

The characters looked decent , and I did not notice any animination issues. My only complaint with this series art wise would be the coloring. The coloring was very bland for the series.

Sound 7/10

Again , everything was decent. My only complaint was the crying of the main character. Sounded VERY forced.

Enjoyment 7/10

Aside from pacing issues this series had a good story with decent characters that made me enjoy the series. The reason this is an average rating for enjoyment is due to lack of drama , lack of comedy , and the pacing

Overall 7/10

I suggest this series to anyone who wants a layed back school anime , with a decent plot and characters and does not expect too much development of the plot or characters.

MM! is about your typical wimp of a main character who is abused physically and mentally by the girls around him. The twist is he is a machoist , basically he loves getting abused as it turns him on.

STORY 4/10

While the story does start off original it falls into the typical " boy trying to help girls with their problems while no progression on his own problems is done ". Of the 10 currently aired episodes only 2 have any focus on his "MM " problem , while the other 8 are basically character arcs.

CHARACTERS 8/10

Each character is basically a stereo type but they pull ... of their personalities well. For example you have the shy/timid girl but the reason she is shy/timid is what really makes her an unique character. You have the girl who acts like she hates the main even though she doesn't. You also have plenty of other characters who have their own little twists.

ART 8/10

The art is very well done. Most anime give you really plain school settings and colors. MM! makes everything bright and stands out , even the uniforms are a bright color. The characters look great as well , without any noticeable drops in quality.

SOUND 6/10

The sound in MM! is not good but it is not bad. No songs stand out , though they do tend to repeat the same songs over and over. The OP and ED are good.

ENJOYMENT 6.5/10

The series started out great. It then tried to make too much out of the main character's problem without actually progressing with solving it. This turns into the enjoyment factor going down a lot for me.

OVERALL 7/10

Overall this is a decent series with good characters , good art , and that is about it. The rest of the series is decent at best.