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I enjoyed the manga and want to like this, but it's an awful adaptation due to Shaft being a bad fit. The only reason I'm writing this review is because I'm genuinely impressed at how many poor decisions Shaft managed to make.

Soremachi is supposed to be cartooney. Goofy yet endearing. It's not LOL funny, but the gag punchlines in the source material are pleasantly fast-paced and sketch-like. While it is fairly dialogue-heavy, the author's paneling and compact retorts squeezed into small boxes make it clear it's supposed to go by pretty quickly. For some reason, Shaft decided to stretch that dialogue. It doesn't matter if ... it's a character thinking to themselves, a funny reaction, or banter: every line comes out at the speed of an audiobook. Add in all the cuts and unnecessary shots that Shaft likes to do, along with bits of dialogue they inserted, and the comedic timing and mood is thrown off completely. The manga is fairly long, so this tedious approach is even more puzzling, and might explain why the anime never got a second season.

For the background music, it sounds like they borrowed samples from Shaft's more famous works: short bursts of instrumentals that don't match Soremachi's aesthetic. All it does is distract. Then there's the voice casting, which is the biggest question mark. Not a single person sounded as I expected, which is a first. Even the narrator(s?) they decided to add sounds monotone, which leads me to believe that the weirdness must have been at least partially intentional. Why did they do this? The characters are supposed to be likable dorks, but instead, they just sound annoying. That said, apparently, the VA for Hotori was specifically requested by the author himself, so who knows?

For scene changes that would have been separated by chapters in the manga, Shaft decided to use commercial break bumpers featuring Hotori's dog Josephine spouting random factoids. In the manga, the dog is featured in omake and a few chapters, where it has thought bubbles and communicates in dog language. But in the anime, it never gets introduced, yet suddenly pops up to talk for a few seconds in the middle of every episode in a rather weird voice. It's not a big deal, but it extends the list of dissonant things that keep taking me out of it.

Altogether, it feels like Shaft's main interpretation of the manga was that it was a group of eccentric high school girls doing eccentric things. Something like "High School Girls Are Funky" from Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, but in Monogatari's style. Just the thought of that makes me figuratively throw up in my mouth a little bit. On the other hand, if the team that made Danshi Koukousei had worked on Soremachi, I trust the anime would have landed closer to the original vibe. For now, I guess I'll just stick to the manga.

A serious, cool-looking woman wishes to dress in Lolita fashion. "Kitai Fuku ga Aru" is a deeply personal manga about self-discovery and acceptance, written by mangaka Tsuneki Netarou, who draws from lived experience, despite being male. It’s about how one person’s courage can inspire another, setting off an incestuous cascade of self-actualization. Some of it does feel like the perfect storm, but there’s a clear emphasis on writing everyday scenarios of stepping out of the comfort zone and celebrating small wins along the way. This keeps the “be yourself” story grounded, making it feel like an honest push to try something new in your own ... life.

"Kitai Fuku ga Aru" reminds me of Mochizuki Minetaro’s "Tokyo Kaido," which is about a hot-shot rare disease specialist who decides to abandon his job, his patients, his wife, and his newborn to become a crossdresser. Having read both, I find Tsuneki’s approach more memorable and impactful than the absurdist tone in "Tokyo Kaido." The inclusion of apparently real Lolita brands and thoughtful references, like a humiliated character comparing himself to Don Quixote suddenly realizing his enemies were only windmills, creates a tangible bridge, layering in an authenticity that brings the story closer to our own.

By resolving some conflicts in unexpectedly mundane ways and allowing characters to deliver highly specific, detailed monologues, Tsuneki perhaps exposes some of his own history and vulnerabilities. This willingness to get personal is admirable and gives the story’s internal conflicts a quiet power, even if he may not have been dressing in Lolita himself.

The first 20 chapters are a lot funnier than they have any business being, and are worth reading for just the comedy. There are quite a number of laugh-out-loud moments from unexpectedly deadpan punchlines, such as when the young protagonist puts up bare-chested posters of Tom Holland and Chris Evans in his room to remind himself of who he’s competing against, after the heroine casually remarks about finding them muscular. However, as the relationship develops, the comedic moments become muted and farther between, and the rom side of the rom-com is uninteresting. Considering her other work is also a school romance, Fujichika Koume should try ... writing something different for her next series. It seems like a waste of her talents, as she appears to be one of the funnier mangaka around, with a distinct style for set up and delivery.

Guilt-ridden man rehabilitates his father's image after his death. I would be a lot more impressed if not every negative memory the main character had of his father was reversed, revealing that his father was always secretly a great guy, each time.

I'm certain this trope wasn't new when this manga was released. Asking the reader to believe parents are better people than their kids believe is reasonable. Expecting us to believe there exists such a magnanimous yet uncommunicative and misunderstood father is pushing it, even for Japanese standards. But making out the father to be this real superhero, a melancholic yet perfect samurai soul ... who never erred like a normal human, is asking for too much. It's too cheap, reductive, and predictable. Parents are people too. Instead of chasing after poetic tragedy, confirming some of the father's flaws would have made for a better tale.

The first [The Fable] manga went on far longer than it should have; this sequel should have never materialized. The author, Katsuhisa, was already prone to using his characters as mouthpieces to rant about his political opinions. Giving him a sequel as a platform to rant about COVID-19, and Japan's response to it, made him insufferable. So many of the early chapters revolve around COVID's impact, and people opining about it, that he even lampshades it by making one of his characters tell another to shut up about COVID. It didn't even matter, because once he got it out of his system, COVID was forgotten ... in-universe.

The longer the original prequel went, the more of a one-man-army Akira became, the more Youko jobbed, and the more fantastical the plot became. Second Contract fixes none of these issues and gives you whiplash by suddenly accelerating in this same direction after making a big deal of having the characters retire for good at the end of part one. So it's a one last job angle, for realsies this time. Promise. Problem is, there's only so many ways you can draw Akira going super saiyan with a flurry of strikes, while maintaining a veil of realism. If you're going to drag Akira out of retirement, give him a challenge he can't solve with his fists. But nope, it's nothing you haven't seen before. Youko's treatment is worse. Not only does her character get used as hostage fodder once again, while still insisting she's high up on the power ranking, she also bares it all in a gratuitous full page nude spread to show the man she falls for how serious she is. Like come on, it was so out of place. And lastly, by the end of Second Contract, mind control was literally fair game (which isn't a spoiler btw). Enough said.

What made the early chapters of the first Fable stand out, was how grounded it was. It could be interesting without action, with just some low level yakuza intrigues and creeps. Action that did occur was limited and small-scale enough for the little mind games to be appreciated. It was low-stakes, funny, and different. The realistic facial shading was unique (even more so in the first few chapters) and paired well with the plot.

Somewhere around the wheelchair girl arc though, things changed. Higher level conflict became normalized. It went from mano a mano, to team versus team, and eventually entire clan versus clan, fighting small wars. The point of a retired assassin premise is that it's more interesting than a regular assassin story, so rule one should be: don't escalate it back into one! But a sequel will as a sequel does, and turned it into something fantastical and formulaic like Die Hard, just begging for more live action adaptations.

Second Contract's 80 chapters is one giant conflict between Akira's group and a rival assassin org. The extended arcs of Part One were bad enough, but a whole sequel spent on build up and hyping up one villain when you can guess who's going to come out on top takes the cake. It's just not worth sidelining the prequel characters and giving up the more episodic nature, if you're not going to change things up for the better. Even the gags get recycled and predictable. For authors with limited repetoires, less is more. In an ideal world, The Fable ends before 100 chapters.

What happens when you put a fearsome delinquent who actually wants to become a model citizen and a saintly club president together in the Tea Ceremony Club? Apparently you get Nishimori at his best and most lucid. Ocha Nigosu's basic setup provides the structure he needs to stay focused, intelligible, and, most importantly, relatable, as he explores the universal question of what it means to be a good person.

The magic ingredient that makes this story work is the delinquent MC's genuine effort to avoid senseless violence because of how much he respects the president and aspires to be like her. By not glorifying violence, action ... scenes require careful justification, and are contextualized into either progress or relapse. Consequently, we get a balanced mix of storytelling, like a quality tea, that allows for delicate flavors like light drama and slice-of-life to emerge. Instead of only alternating between gag comedy and beating up thugs to move the plot like in his other works, Nishimori demonstrates he can actually write and be subtle when he has to. Scenarios as mundane as characters going home together, telling childhood stories, or helping a bug stuck on its back, end up being the best chapters in Ocha Nigosu because of how effectively they establish chemistry.

While the narrative qualities are strong, the manga is difficult to read. The scan quality is low, and the panels are filled with jokes and puns that make little sense in English. Some of it is awkward translation, but the rest of it, judging by his other works, is Nishimori's weird sense of humor.

Considerable effort is spent on developing the cast, giving them convincing weight and their own journeys. It's also, strange as it may sound, one of the few manga that does a good job with organic male friendships. All character growth by the end of the manga, feels earned and well paced at 100 chapters. What's more, the conclusion to the kindness question does not simply retread previous chapters but offers an elegant twist that wraps up multiple characters at once. This is a rare case of a known quantity mangaka managing to really punch above his weight, and it deserves some acknowledgement.

Ergo Proxy shouldn't be considered as merely another anime because it can’t be watched like other anime. It’s more of a proof of concept, an exploration of what's possible with the animation medium. It’s a mystery that pushes the genre forward by leveraging rapid camerawork and POV cuts to show and reveal, techniques that are much more suited for animation than literary or live action mysteries.

The story can’t be enjoyed on the first watch, and I would even recommend reading the spoilers and a plot explanation to get the most out of it. That's because even once you know the spoilers, the clues fly ... by so quickly that you also need to be willing to pause and replay parts repeatedly, take notes, cross reference previous episodes, and think slowly about what the show revealed.

It’s definitely not for most people. You need to be appreciative enough of the creative genius behind Ergo Proxy to jump through those hoops. Because it's not just fancy camerawork, the writing is also incredibly efficient. AI alignment, a dream within a dream, generational trauma, sneaky otaku-therapy… Ergo Proxy assembles a smorgasbord of interesting topics on top of delivering a solid and highly original sci-fi story.

The puzzle aspect is entirely fair and solvable but is too fast-paced to work out in real time. That’s why it’s only after rewatching, you appreciate how much is revealed by every seemingly casual remark, every flash of imagery. Even the facial expressions are often pregnant with meaning. As if that weren’t enough, the script is so tight, that, the episode writers have the bandwidth to show off, pushing the story forward in ways so original they’ll knock your socks off. These include a hilarious, full slice of life episode, and also a gameshow parody episode that manages to make perfect sense to the plot. Victory laps, essentially.

I don’t know which stars had to align to make it happen, but Ergo Proxy is effortlessly the most impressively devised anime I’ve seen. It’s like they just casually wrote a better Evangelion, inspired Inception, AND gave an animation masterclass, before refusing to elaborate and disappearing into the sunset... way back in 2006! I rarely review anime, because 9/10 times a manga will utilize its medium better, but Ergo Proxy is the rare exception that could only be pulled off as an animation.

A middle-aged loser experiencing a midlife crisis finds escape by donning the mask of a hero from a cancelled TV show he loved as a kid. The hero, Zebraman, has no special ability or support, but fights with his own power against invading aliens who afflict apathy among earth's inhabitants and encourage vulnerable people to lose to their inner demons. When a series of crimes begins, mirroring what happened in the cancelled show, and his own family falls victim, the cosplaying oji-san is forced to put on the mask and take on the "grey" epidemic with his own hands.

This manga is clumsy, takes itself seriously, ... is not edgy, but comes from the heart. So it's hard to hate on. It's also another one of those "ally of justice saves people by inspiring them" stories, but manages to feel more mature and grounded. According to an omake, the themes were influenced by the author's own experience of living in limbo while in between jobs. The "grey existence" criticisms are not only directed at apathetic individuals, but are also aimed toward Japanese society as a whole, for living pathetically with a damaged psyche after the war and economic bubble.

Unfortunately, the elements that make it interesting are compromised or overshadowed after the first two villains. Probably after inspiration from lived experience ran out. The realism starts getting stretched, the action sequencing, which was always weak, becomes downright confusing, and the storytelling gets lazier, edgy, and incomprehensible. There's still a few signs of life, but it stops feeling like an allegory and becomes a tacky action-drama story.

Ping Pong is a philosophical exploration of what motivates people to undertake, well, anything. Some do it to kill time, some for the camaraderie, some chase after an aesthetic ideal, and some do it because they cannot bear failure, and so on. It starts off brilliantly, laying out the characters that exemplify this or that facet of competition, what they look like if mapped onto a motivational spider chart, how they interact with each other, reconcile contradictions, and mature.

However, as competitors drop out of the race and we approach the final reckoning, the manga also gradually becomes a slide show of flashbacks, action shots, symbolism, ... romantic one-liners, repeated mantras, and uh, believing in the heart of the cards. It does a better job than the animated version of build up and establishing the training timeline- a year's worth of blood, sweat and yada yada, but the payoff still feels unconvincing. After all, there's only so much resolution and meaning that can be packed into a one-day regional qualifier tournament. The manga ends immediately afterwards. The mise en place is painstakingly prepared, but then gets all tossed together and submerged in shounen spirit dressing.

Even with multiple reads and me trying to be charitable, I can't see the art in such an ending. The entire time we are left wondering what the protagonist, Smile, is chasing after, and what it will take to resolve his adolescent angst, and the reveal, or lack thereof, makes you wonder if his story was really worth telling. If done better, Ping Pong would have been a far more iconic sports manga classic.

A josei slice of life. My first encounter with Kouno Fumiyo's work, and best I think, because it's more subtle and playful than her war themed manga. It's been years, but I find Nagai Michi unforgettable because the dynamic between Michi and her incorrigible husband Sosuke is one of a kind, and from another era. Supposedly based off Kouno and her real husband, Michi the heroine initially comes across as a clumsy, hapless young woman, but later reveals she can be quite shrewd when she wants to. Her arranged husband is a ne'er-do-well who knows what he is, yet shows his "kindness" to Michi by ... not demanding anything from her either. Together they make an oddly stable and mutually understanding pair. Michi pulls all the domestic weight, on top of being the breadwinner, but she accepts this arrangement because she was the one who brought the marriage form to Sosuke, to chase after love lost- another man who happened to live in the same area as Sosuke. And Sosuke is aware of this.

The chapters cycle between surreal daydreams, comedic tales of Sosuke's scumminess, poverty, Michi's (mis)adventures, moments where she shows her mettle, and a few genuinely sweet memories. Some chapters are completely sans text, change the drawing style, and have a poetic quality, showing off Kouno's creativity and visual storytelling strengths. The variety is a treat and highly appropriate as Michi and Sosuke grow inseparable against even their own expectations.