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Howdy folks. Today I'd like to talk about a series I really enjoyed as I have always had a personal interest in the culinary world called Bambino!

Review

Surprisingly there isn't a whole lot to say about this story. It's about Ban's journey through young adult life having to make adult decisions while trying to progress through his choice of career: culinary. It's really just a more serious, realistic (within the world of anime and manga) take on a cooking centric story if you ask me.

There are other characters, chefs, cooks and ... couples including a nemesis for our boy Ban here that I found fairly interesting. A lot of the story focuses on quite a few different character's lives and dreams, and what one has to endure to try to realize them.

Recommendation

What is there to say about Bambino! Well, while it was being translated it would be one of the first series I would check for updates then read before the other twenty or so series I'd be checking out. I am a slice of life cat, but let's talk a little bit about how it's different from other cooking centric stories. Ban is not some genius prodigy, he does not have some hokey special power or trait that benefits him with cooking. Ban's just a normal young man who's got to do things the good old fashioned way and hey, you know what, for me that works a lot better for me than what the majority of other cooking centric stories focus on: some kind of magical taste that snobbish judges are constantly being wowed and articulating in at least what comes off to me in a pretty silly manner. I suppose it's necessary to some extent as it does happen a bit in Bambino!, but Bambino! is thankfully not above a character describing a flavor (or their efforts) simply as "it's good."
The other thing I am rather fond of from this series is naturally as a slice of life story, it is very philosophical. Many facets of Ban's career, from the way different peers of his view him to how much he's thought things through are reflected upon by himself. Even Ban's professional relationship with his arch nemesis becomes rather interesting because the closure to their story arc. Charming ideologies such as "a restaurant is a place of once in a lifetime meetings," are to be found within said story.

Recommended for: Well if you like slice of life stuff, this one ain't so bad. Also if you were more curious about what trying to become a professional waiter, cook or chef might be like, this is a good story to check out. Not completely realistic, but it's a lot stronger on that aspect of the culinary world than any other cooking centric series I've checked out has been. If you've ever worked in a restaurant then Bambino! might be something you'd enjoy.

Recommended against: Well really..if cooking ain't your thing I'm not sure why you've read this far into the review. There isn't really any epic battling, even the cook offs are generally not super high stakes. They become that way once or twice in the series but nothing like say Yakitake!! Japan. There is a little fighting though, which I'd imagine happens in that career field. Lord knows I came close a handful of times in my stint working in a restaurant kitchen.

Fun Trivia

If you find Bambino! to your liking, there is actually a follow up series called Bambino! Secondo which currently has eight volumes. Also if you like live action, there was a live action show of Bambino! which I'm gonna check out soon myself. It apparently aired in Puerto Rico, Canada and surprisingly America. Huh..wonder when that happened. Well anyways, eleven episodes, give it a looksie if you like Bambino! or Asian live action shows.

Before I start my review, let me say I choose to review Love Hina for multiple reasons but ultimately this is sadly much more of a review about its genre mixture, harem-ecchi-romance-comedy or more specifically the harem-ecchi genre. The first is prior to watching another ecchi anime earlier this year, I was very meh about this sort of story, because it has become the norm of what anime and manga is. I hadn't really given it any thought until during a conversation I had with Donwun, I came to the question "what exactly is the Clownshoes rating to me?"

... I admit that Love Hina actually was quite funny and entertaining to me when I read it as it was one of the first manga I ever read. However by the third, definitely the fourth harem/ecchi story modeled to be like Love Hina, I started finding myself really bored with the humor and story telling and becoming unable to completely read through them. On a personal level I feel harem-ecchi-commedy or just ecchi humor isn't something that can't make me laugh if it's incessantly waved in my face. It can still be really funny in the right circumstances, but stories based off it are really a dead horse to me at this point. Manga artists complain about people not buying their shit but honestly, they've brought this upon them selves by blowing up the market with mostly this shit. I can tell you right now if you don't like my ratings, I'm probably not the reviewer to follow because the way I feel about Love Hina isn't exclusive to it but rather the whole harem-ecchi-romance-comedy, hell even just ecchi genre. Even if it is the vast majority of what's out there, I don't view it very favorably or lightly for that matter.

I honestly don't even need to use character names to explain this now tired synopsis. Which is sad because Love Hina itself probably deserves more respect than I'm giving it but I refuse to give a toehold in my stance against what it has come to represent.

Dumbass with no real redeeming qualities under unusual circumstances is forced to co-habitat with all (mostly very weird) girls. Said dumbass shares a romantic memory with...we'll call her dumb bitch A at an age of where those in the memory are way too young to be taken seriously or shouldn't even be able to remember for that matter. Despite constant "accidental perverted situations" and "unintentional gropings," which yes, is fanservice, which yes, is all ecchi humor is, dumbass wins the hearts of all the girls, all of which are mostly very weird but are better matches for him than dumb bitch A. Except dumbass has a problem; dumb bitch A must resist her attraction to dumbass. Though failure to recognize this attraction has become a popular meme for some reason. Anyways! In the end dumbass ends up with dumb bitch A. Yay.

This should sound like an increasing number of series since each year Love Hina made its original run (1998-2001). Because of the boom Love Hina has caused, if someone told me this is what they thought of manga while I'd be irritated and try my best to get them to check out other things I actually like or just things that I think they may enjoy, I can't fault them. I really couldn't. Because this is mostly what manga has become and while there may be other series that contributed to the romance-harem-ecchi explosion, I cite Love Hina as the main culprit because it was one of the first I can remember that was especially successful. Actually Love Hina was very successful. Monstrously successful.

Review

Unsurprisingly, I have little to say. If you've never read this sort of thing, which I'd frankly be amazed at at this point even if manga is not your flavor with how over saturated manga has become with this genre mixture, there just isn't that much to say about it. The artwork is not that spectacular, in fact, sub par by today's standards which is a little surprising considering how lazy a lot of manga looks nowadays. But everyone has one expression which like the whole genre mixture Love Hina belongs to is funny at first, but gets boring really fast. They smile. They smile when they're angry, when they're happy, when they're embarrassed, when they're surprised, scared etc. Maybe even when they're hungry, I can't remember. They aren't drawn to represent movement very well despite there being a surprising amount of it in the story. Strangely however, unlike most series nowadays everyone (I think) has a different outfit that makes them different from each other..guess they get a point for that.

The comedy is the same thing. Lame-o accidentally does perverted things and gets hit/hurt by the mostly very weird girls sometimes doing very weird things. Literally that's it. The entire story is centric to that humor while every mostly very weird girl inexplicably falls for lame-o. Just like most manga out there..what a boring disaster this has become.

The characters are mostly two dimensional. From an outsider or mostly beginner's view to anime or manga, how weird they are can be appealing despite being fairly flat personalities. But the more stuff you read or watch, the more just like most anime and manga characters..they're usually just weird in one or two ways, and that weirdness is usually a set up to a repeating joke. In this case dumbass doing something perverted and getting hit or hurt for it.

Recommendation

What is there to say about this sort of thing? I don't want to recommend it to anyone. Ever. But not through its own fault, just what's happened to manga because of its popularity. It did do something quite different and like I said, it was really funny to me going from American humor to this. But over the years, this is mostly what manga has become, and the clownshoe has to drop. Still, I shall try my best to be impartial.

Recommended for: Well, if you've never read any manga before, and you've never seen any anime before, this may or may not be very funny to you. But more than likely that won't last. It didn't for me, I don't think it does for most people. But then again if it doesn't for most, why do they keep pushing this genre mixture so much? Either way, if you're an anime/manga virgin..might be worth checking out. If you've been watching/reading for a while, chances are the synopsis should've sounded pretty familiar to you and this would only be worth checking out to see what really caused the giant leap into harem-ecchi. Otherwise you've probably read or watched Love Hina by accident through reading or watching something else already.

Recommended Against: You're really gonna know if it's not for you through your stance in regard to my review as it's very polarizing. You either hate me and my review and think I'm very unreasonable or dare I say stupid. Or you agree. If you agree with me, don't bother checking it out. And yes, I'm aware I didn't bother with any pics this time. I already spent too much effort not making this entire post just a rant, probably unsucessfully at that, so no pictures. Fine, here's a fuckin' picture.

Fun Trivia

Despite all the bashing I have done on Love Hina, as I've stated earlier it was both sort of groundbreaking (I can't really recollect anything terribly ecchi based prior) and very successful which is does deserve to be remembered for. Wiki or google it, I don't feel much like talking about it. I will mention though that Tokyopop, whom I hate vehemently (but that's a story for another day), was surprised many times with how well received Love Hina was and had found itself understocked on translated copies many times.

If you are looking for something different, then Ichi The Killer may turn out to be a strange and fascinating journey into the exploration of sadomasochism and brain washing that grips your interest from the first picture. If you're not into heavy psychology or beyond the norm things, then between the waterfalls of viscera, perversion and hordes of low lifes you'll probably find many highly offensive things.

Review

Alright so starting out you know I don't like the vanilla stuff. I like things that stand out, that are strongly different from other manga (and anime

Demographic: Seinen
Genre: Action adventure, Weird West
Length: Nine Volumes

Artwork: 7/10
Characters: 8/10
Storyline: 10/10

Overall Rating: Hall of Fame
...
Synopsis

A revenge story that follows the former priest Ivan Isaacs, a man who made a deal with the devil Belial in order to seek vengeance against the fallen angel Temozarella and his twelve disciples. Ivan's deal has turned him undead (by resurrecting him from the dead), granting him inhuman strength and durability. Unfortunately the deal cost Ivan half of his soul and throughout the story the half he still possesses is slowly eroding until inevitably he will completely lose all grasp on his consciousness. Unfortunately the series is halted at volume 16 (which is probably less than the halfway mark of the story) and has been for a long time with no sign of continuing.

Review

The story's concept even to a guy selling his soul to the devil and becoming undead to seek revenge against a supernatural force at this point is hardly original. However, the artwork is quite unique even from what I've seen of other manwa. Sometimes the artwork can look kinda cartoony within its own style sometimes, but it can also become unnaturally disturbing which is good if it's your thing.
There are more than a handful of main characters in the story, though only Ivan, Belial and Vascar De Guillon (who eventually becomes the avatar of Temozarela) enjoy in depth coloring. The brunt of the story is set in the frontier west, though it has portions involving The Crusades and Inquisitions as well as the present day. Being a western sets it apart from the vast majority of manga and anime out there, which is part of what drew me to it personally. Also different are the strong plot ties to theology, also missing from the majority of series which I found interesting. Finally, being set outside of Japan was a fresh take to me. As stated previously I don't have Japan or anything but it's nice to have a different setting once in a while.
A take on revenge at any cost as well as portraying what damnation really is like, mostly absent in manga and anime. Though I found the story sometimes gruesome and despondant, Priest was very intriguing to me particularly when speaking of its visual style of storytelling.

Recommendation

Originally I recorded my review of Priest for the second episode of D.R.E.A.M.cast with Donwun on the fly, but was unhappy with the result. What I discovered from that recording though is especially after the world was introduced (horrendously) to "Priest" by the flop of the movie that had nothing to do with the manhwa was that regardless, Priest is a hard sell. If you don't mind that the story is stuck partway through with no definite date to continue, then we're past the first major hurdle. The second would be that seriously, that movie had nothing to do with the manhwa other than the looks (marginally). The story is a western, so let's start there with recommendations. If you want to see an eastern artist's take on a western, Priest is one of the few titles that comes to my mind. If you want to see one man's epic struggle against an overwhelming, unholy organization, Priest is that story. If you're not into overly happy go lucky bullshit in your stories, something more gritty and rough; Priest.

Fun Trivia

For some reason in the film they decided to make the main antagonist have the look and feel (minus vampirism) of Ivan Isaacs rather than the protagonist (Paul Bethany's character). In fact, if they had just made that guy the main character with that outfit the movie may have moved up an entire notch just by making the main character look awesome. Why they didn't do that? Got me.

Synopsis

Gun Dream is the sci fi cyberpunk story of an empty shell character Gally (U.S. translation "Alita") coming into a world and evolving into its own person, ultimately seeking a place for them self in life. It is set several hundred years from the present (in the 2500's) in a dystopian Midwestern United States. The story unfolds over the span of fourteen years and owns a diverse and intriguing cast of characters. Many get side tracked by the action in the series but the ultimate point to Gun Dream is Gally's journey of finding herself and her definition of life.

Review

... The author Yukito Kishiro was not only able to create a rich story for its length of nine volumes, but managed two things that really grabbed my attention that most anime and manga are incapable of reaching: one learns early on that there is always a realistic gravity of consequence behind any choices characters make which makes the story arcs never become dull or repetitive. They all unfold very differently and believably offer diverse outcomes until their conclusions. However one of the story's strengths is that characters may come and go permanently just like real life. This could be considered one of its few possible weaknesses; you'll really miss some of those guys. The only other thing I might be able to concede as a flaw to the story is it actually does have a rushed ending. The author has admitted to this but personally I liked the ending to the story very much and was not bothered by the face it came fairly abruptly.

To better explain my positive viewpoints I shall elaborate: Each story arc is very different because of Gally's ultimate goal of defining life and her own being. I loved this because life is diverse and will ultimately take you through many different twists and turns or "phases" that may drastically change who you are, what you believe in or value, how you look and dress, what your main focus and goals are or even simply where you are geographically hanging around. I'm flat out bored when all the change a character has in a story is they "mature" by realizing they have to suck it up or become more responsible. Tired to death tropes in the vast majority of anime and manga. In Gun Dream characters may have drastic personality changes as their role in the story changes. Many even have changes in their prominence in the story change multiple times. I found such things very life like and enchanting as a reader.

Most series lose the intensity or "edge" of whenever their characters are faced with life and death situations or even just failure. Either characters just never die and you can always expect the character to at least get away from whatever is threatening them, or even worse to always succeed at whatever they are doing. Gun Dream establishes to the reader fairly early on that characters both can fail and even die forever, regardless of their importance to the story of Gally. Even the likeable guys aren't immune to this. Big plus to me who's become very jaded with the always-succeed-no-one-dies stories.

Onto more generic and mundane review stuff. I found the artwork mostly intricate and highly detailed, though occasionally it went through rare rough patches of clearly lower quality drawing in comparison to the rest of itself. A pet peeve of mine I generally have to let slide with nearly everything anime/manga I read or watch is that all the characters look the same. They have the same dimensions, they have the same builds, they have the same facial structures etc. Only little things like the color of their eyes or their hair style, or outfits to make them identifiable from each other. I say outfits jokingly as most anime and manga characters' outfits are school uniforms. Yukito Kishiro Hey!..goes the distance and does not only make characters look very different from each other neck and below, people actually have different shaped faces and heads.I'm fairly suspicious this being the first manga series I ever read and collected ended up spoiling me on many things that have later developed into pet peeves, this being one of them.

The characters I've already said were done very well. They had a tendency to be a lot more complex and diverse than in most series I have read even in the Seinen demographic. Though sometimes a character would not be terribly fleshed out because of the lack of importance of their role in the story or Gally's life. However I don't feel to this day that this occurred often enough or became any kind of hindrance so I don't hold this against Gun Dream.

The pacing was generally on the faster side. Hell it starts out pretty fast with a short mystery/thriller plot right out the gate. The pacing does slow sometimes but being it's about Gally's journey through life and finding herself, it's a necessity. You don't want it to be lightning fast the whole way and her development to be glossed over. As a warning though I generally am a lot more patient with a story's pacing than most people as long as the story and characters interest me enough.

Recommendation

This is one of my top five favorite series. I'm not a big sci fi or cyberpunk type of feline but that didn't matter. I felt that Gun Dream was just that good the whole way through. While the science is always present in the setting and even in the story progression, the general focus of the different arcs are the different stages of life Gally travels through as she evolves from blank character into her own person. I really loved it. I own the complete series. It's the first series I've ever completed in my collection and I reread it every one or two years since I completed it back in '03. My love and high regard for Gun Dream may be sentimentality since it's the series my first love used to introduce me to the world of manga, but I'm sure you'll find the reason is more likely that it's just that good even if you don't like science fiction or cyberpunk. I personally had and still have very little interest in either but greatly love the story.

Recommended for: It's not a bad story to get your feet wet with manga or seinen stories. It's not terribly long and has overall superior quality. The lead is not some lucky dumb ass, is not some two-piece lingerie wearing ditz with no sense of modesty, or some big, muscular and unstoppable delinquent. An atypical story for those searching for something different. You want to see a strong female protagonist? Gally's your champion.
Recommended against: While there's plenty of fighting in it I'd recommend against people who want to see mostly fighting (or in other words a "battle" series). Read Last Order for that if you're stuck on a sci fi or cyberpunk battle stories. Reading the original Gun Dream is actually not necessary to pick up Last Order and start reading. Also recommend it against those who yearn for fan service and ecchi humor in their stories, or are squeamish toward visceral imagery as there actually is a decent amount of it the series. Nothing as outrageous as Ichi The Killer but it's there and fairly graphic when it pops up. While especially early on Gally is something like a young girl in her mentality, I would not recommend the series to those who enjoy shoujo exclusively (especially shoujo romance). Josei..I still probably wouldn't, though I could see some josei enthusiasts enjoying it. I mean the protagonist is a woman after all, I'd hope some gals regardless of age would enjoy it.