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Mar 22, 2024
TL;DR: What if the female protagonist of a horror manhwa just... refused to believe that she was in a horror story because she so desperately thinks she's in a romance fantasy? You'd get this--part horror, part romance, mostly just goof.
L;DR: Look, I've been around the otome-isekai block for years. Here's something a little different for all my other OI elders who are so sick of the same repeated plot lines. This manhwa does an excellent job of tone whiplash. It's ominous while simultaneously being incredibly endearing. Lovecraftian horror meets the female lead's genuine delusion, to a result that actually provokes genuine laughter out
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of me.
Yes, the female lead's total obliviousness does kind of get annoying after a while, but the story deals with her tremendous plot armor in a pretty self-aware way. It's not a life-changing read by any means, but thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing in a deluge of everything else. Give it a shot!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 18, 2023
TL;DR: Supernatural shojo with a solid premise and fun characters that unfortunately just falls flat for me.
L;DR:
Yurara was one of those manga advertised in the back of my old shojo beat volumes. It's honestly pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Girl who can see ghosts is 'possessed' by a spirit, gets mixed up with the two hot guys in class who can also, surprise surprise, see ghosts. Hijinks ensue.
I truly like the main character, Yurara, and I thought the art was fun, especially in Yurara's many faces (lol), but that doesn't help much with the weak character drama and the lackluster story.
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There's nice moments for sure, but just not enough for me to leave the manga with a positive feeling. I also really didn't like the love triangle, nor how it was resolved. The character motivations just didn't really make sense.
Not bad, not great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 18, 2023
TL;DR: MAOMAO SWEEP!!!!!!!! I just know that once the anime for this series comes out, it will be the new darling of the animanga world, and for good reason. The Apothecary Diaries is a fun mystery series with a fantastic main protagonist and intriguing court drama. Don't sleep on the Maomao sweep!!
(MAOMAO SWEEP IS REAL!!!) Okay, I'll really stop now. I have no idea where that came from. I guess the spirit of the Maomao sweep just possessed me for a moment...
L;DR:
Ttrust me, you will be on board after dipping your toes into the Apothecary Diaries. Maomao is genuinely one of the best protagonists
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I've read in a hot minute, and her unique personality mixes so perfectly with the rest of the manga's cast. It's so damn fun to read, and the beautifully done art makes it all that more *chef's kiss.* There's fantastic emotional beats, comedic beats, and even romantic beats. It's overall excellent on pretty much every front you could imagine.
But most of all, the signature mysteries set within the sort of ancient China atmosphere is just plain entertaining. If you've ever wished Detective Conan was actually a historic drama where the protagonist uses medical knowledge to sniff out conspiracies within a palace, gosh do I have the thing for you!
I was truly SWEPT me off my feet.
Also, I ended up with like five wikipedia tabs open after my first time binging the series. If you ever need to know in-depth about eunuchs, foot-binding, ancient brothels, or anything adjacent to those topics... you know who to ask.
MAO MAO SWEEP!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 27, 2022
TL;DR: A funny, intriguing, and addicting series surrounding romantic misadventures of an atypical protagonist. An easy recommendation.
L;DR:
Romantic Killer is the new darling of the Netflix anime scene, and for good reason. There's solid animation, great comedic moments, dynamic voice acting, likable characters, and a story that's "totally fresh and original and never seen before."
(I've seen this setup done so many times, but since it's relatively new in the anime scene, I think many will find it to be unique and fun. Thus the quotes).
Romance and comedy interlap in this zany fun time. It's only downside is, well--I think this series fails in what
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was supposed to be its original intention. See, the show is framed as a parody to the traditional otome game, and makes fun of a lot of different shoujo tropes. Funny stuff, funny stuff, until the show kind of forgets that's what it was trying to do and the end cap of the season is just... not a parody anymore?
It's played straight and has a completely different tone and vibe to the beginning, which was off-putting and dragged down my overall score. That was when it started to feel like the very thing it was intending to parody in the first place.
So yes, it's still a great show, but its ending episodes really miss the mark on what made the show so standout to begin with. Still, a hearty recommendation!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 25, 2022
TL;DR: In this mixed bag of Takahashi stories, some were hits and some were more of a miss. Read at your own discretion.
L;DR:
It's pretty well established that I'm a Rumic World groupie who'd pay to read Takahashi's grocery lists, so I obviously had this preordered and at my door when I heard about the Viz release. It's kind of exactly what it says on the tin--a handful of Takahashi one-shots about various topics.
(side note, for the English releases--Viz, please fire the cover designer. It looks awful.)
(...you can hire me. I'll send you my resume.)
Anyway, let's talk content, in order of what I think the
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best bangers are, so that you can just read the good ones when you're standing in the manga aisle at Barnes & Noble trying to avoid the other sweaty manga readers:
Out of the six presented, my favorite was easily "With Cat." Which makes a lot of sense, it's the oldest, from 1999. Reading it kind of gave me that giddy feeling I had when I read Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 for the first time (I am FOREVER chasing that high...). It's a goofy story about childhood love, cats, and a dash of wtf???? I'll definitely be rereading this one, I just love it.
"My Sweet Sunday" Is a really sweet collaboration piece by Takahashi and fellow Shonen Sunday author Mitsuru Adachi (who you may recognize from Cross Game). If you're a Takahashi mega fan like me then this will definitely stand out. It gives a lot of background on her manga journey and it's overall just a very wholesome story. A lot of respect to these two mangaka.
"Revenge Doll" is something I didn't really expect from Takahashi--a kind of greasy mangaka protagonist cursing people in his life with a cursed doll? It's fine. I had actually already read this one before.
"Lovely Flower"--a flower with a bad smell, and a stalker? This one's odd.
"The Star Has a Thousand Faces" seemed almost, unfinished? It's about an actress about to kill herself because she mistakenly killed someone... I'm not into these kinds of stories. It's not like dark or anything, I just wasn't the biggest fan.
Lastly, the collection's titular piece "Came the Mirror" is weirdly kind of forgettable. It wasn't bad, though. None of these one-shots are bad--some, just better than others.
Overall, I do think the first two stories I mentioned are really worth reading, if you have any interest in Rumiko Takahashi's work. And hey, I'm always the first person to shove Takahashi viscerally down someone's throat. Give it a shot!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 6, 2022
TL;DR: When Edward Cullen told Bella Swan "You're my personal brand of heroin" in 2008, I didn't think I understood what that meant... until I read FIDWTM. This is most certainly a pure, unadulterated drug that’s injected directly into my veins every week. This is my Bella Swan.
This ridiculous, over the top, and sometimes heartbreaking manhwa gets me kicking my feet and rolling around in bed from all the emotions that it elicits. Is it, like, good? Who tf cares? I love it!
L;DR:
Does it actually deserve a 9/10? No, probably (definitely) not. Objectively, this story isn’t new or groundbreaking. But as someone experienced in this
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trashy girl-oriented isekai genre, having followed it from its beginning stages, I can quite safely say that Father, I Don’t Want this Marriage is the only series I’ve been keeping up with consistently. The characters, art, and overall fun that I get from reading this series is unparalleled in the modern apocalypse of trashy otome isekai.
It’s got a bit of a rough start—the story begins pretty bloodily, then transitions to a typical plot that we’ve all seen before. A fan dies… reincarnates… villainess… changes the story… (yawn). But after the first several chapters, the characters really begin to grow on you, even as the misunderstandings (and oh boy, are there misunderstandings) start to pile up. The setup is quite frankly silly, but somehow, it works. It made me want to watch Juvelian develop past the relationship with Mikhail, to know more about the title Father, and I quite desperately awaited each episode to see the eye-candy prince Max.
The romance seems perfectly tailored to my favorite tropes—although this bad boy burns slow, so if you’re not a fan of the long journey (and the friends we make along the way) you can look elsewhere. But there’s a reason Max is a fan favorite in the otome isekai community. Where other male leads are cold, controlling, abusive, and a whole lot of other not-fun buzzwords, Max is a wonderful breath of fresh air. Isn’t it every girl’s dream to see a guy who’s only got eyes for the girl? Tired of the overplayed Cold Duke Of The North (TM), Max is just perfect for my tastes in romance manhwa.
And behind Juvelian and Max’s cat-and-mouse antics, there’s the setup for a deeper, darker story. I don’t wish to spoil anything, but I will say this is the only otome-isekai to get the ninjas in my room to start cutting onions.
If I had to chart this series on my otome-isekai holy trinity of Romance, Drama, and Fun, Father, I Don’t Want this Marriage would be getting full marks. So while yes, it is mindless self-insert fantasy… it’s a damn good one. And I will proudly give it that 9 out of 10 for how well it does its job of servicing to the lonely teenage girl within us all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 5, 2022
TL;DR: A better Harlequin romance manga, even if the art is odd. Still not a recommendation, unless you're really, really, really that desperate (like me).
L;DR: I can't tell if I like these pink one-shots Harlequin pushes out, but as far as the ones I've read go, this is the most likable. 7 is absolutely too high of a score than it deserves, but I'm a sucker for the childhood friends shebang and this was, I hate to say it, kind of,.. cute? Despite its length, I found myself invested in the story.
But yeah, that art... whooo boy, something about the way those mouths are
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drawn is just uncanny valley.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 29, 2022
TL;DR: There is nothing quite as hype as reading dramatic manga panels of guys putting down stones. For a fantastic shonen sport manga doing just that, look no further than Hikaru no Go.
L;DR:
Let me present to you what I’m going to call the “Hikaru NO Go challenge”. The rules are very simple. All you have to do is not buy a Go board. The longer you make it, the stronger you are.
Oh? How many chapters did I last?
Only five.
I know, I’m about twenty years late on the Hikaru no Go train, but I absolutely fell in love with this manga from within the first
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few chapters. Every once in a while comes a manga that I can tell from its first pages will be a good one, and HNG is a perfect example, This is pure shonen “sport” fun. Only three chapters in, I was cheering for this board game I didn’t remotely understand how to play. Watching the Go battles, I was craving the feeling of the stones under my fingers. I could feel the tenseness in the air as different pros faced off. I felt like I was there, I was present. Each match had me holding my breath in anticipation.
It’s just so damn satisfying to see people do what they’re good and passionate at. Hikaru stomping out his competition was an indescribable fun, and this passion translates really easily to the reader.
The art is fantastic; I truly love how Takeshi Obata’s style combines reality and cartoon. Sai is always a pleasure to look at (of course) and his different expressions are great. Plus, he made placing down stones look and feel epic—so major props to that. Also, as time passes in the series, the character very slowly age up. It’s so gradual that you don’t really notice until you blink and suddenly Hikaru’s a teenager and you feel like a proud mother watching her little boy grow up so fast. That’s how wonderful the art is—the aging of the characters is done so delicately and naturally you barely even realize its happening.
Seriously, whatever Obata was being paid is not enough.
But if I had to complain about anything… it would be Akari! C’mon, Akari! I wish she had any sort of role in the story after the first handful of chapters. There’s not a ton of female characters in this series, which is actually fine by me—the male relationships were written naturally enough that I didn’t feel it lacked anything (and let’s be real, Akira and Sai both bring some femininity to the table)—but Akari was set up for like no reason.
Speaking of Akira, I think he's such a great counterpart to Hikaru. His rivalry--and respect--to Hikaru is a pleasure to follow, and Akira is just such a likable character. He would definitely be my favorite character, well, if it wasn't for...
Sai… oh, Sai… I truly think Sai could create world peace. I freaking love that man. His presence perfectly combined the reality and the supernatural. I would like a mural of him. I would like to offer him my hand in marriage. The supernatural elements make HNG really stand out in the sports manga crowd.
The only thing I have left to say is about the ending. Look, I get it. People don’t like it. I wasn’t really expecting it either. But not every story has a "perfect" ending, and to me, HNG’s conclusion is logical. It makes sense.
Please don’t let bad press from this ending stop you from giving this series a shot.
Oh, shoot, looks like I’ll have to cut this review short; the doorbell’s just rung. I have an inkling what might have arrived… the new Go set I ordered five chapters into HNG. If you need me, I guess you know where to find me...
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 29, 2021
TL;DR: Don't even bother.
L;DR:
On one fine morning, I crawled out of my dumpster and went to twitter for a morning's perusal of Kappei Yamaguchi's account. He'd retweeted something from an account called "yume 100," and being as nosy as I am, I realized he had voiced a super-minor character in this mobile otome game I'd never heard of. I love otome games, hitting the genre's peak demographic, and my curiosity dragged me to this MAL page. Well, Mr. Yamaguchi himself doesn't appear in this anime, but hey, I like ikemen, so I thought I'd give this show a shot.
Why am I telling you the story
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of how I wound up watching this anime? Probably because it's a more interesting plot than the one actually presented in Yume 100. Don't ask me to summarize the plot because I don't think I could tell you any of it, despite having finished this show literally minutes ago.
And characters? With a personality about as charming and and intriguing as a plastic water bottle, nameless-protagonist-heroine-princess provides little of substance to this anime. Luckily, her two male (princes, of course) companions are very good looking and also have something resembling a personality, and are probably the only things that kept me watching this thing till the end.
Do you want story?
Yume 100 doesn't have that.
Do you want romance?
Somehow, Avi and Kihel have more tension than Princess-heroine and... anyone. So this is the wrong place to look.
Do you want worldbuilding?
Hey, nothing here makes sense. What is Traumere? Eh. What kind of world is this? Who cares. How does this "dream" thing work, that big plot point about dream-power? Beats me. It's like if someone played a game of telephone and told Yume 100 "hey, remember, when world building, show, don't tell, okay?" and then Yume 100 went, "Okay, don't show, don't tell!"
Do you want animation?
I think if I misclicked my tabs and ended up watching one of my fourth-grade power point presentations with all of the crappy transitions included, I would still be witnessing better animation than Yume 100. It's not terrible(?), but I really could not believe this show came out in the last couple of years, since the quality makes me think of the 2000s. The character designs could be horribly off model at times, and the "fight" scenes reminded me of stickman flipbooks I used to draw in the corner of my math textbook. It's not good, folks.
Do you want... like, anything?
Let me give you a MAL tutorial real quick. You press the "anime" button at the top, then you press "top anime," and there you go--anything from 1 to 4,000 is more worth watching than this white bread of a show.
But, to be fair, my otome-game-loving heart still kind of enjoyed Yume 100. Yeah, it's mindless, trashy, and terrible in every sort of way, but then again, so am I.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 2, 2021
TL;DR: Primitive Boyfriend was... weirdly good. Should you read it? Depends how you feel about monkeys.
L;DR:
I thought I'd seen everything in the shoujo manga world after that one about the girl falling in love with a lizard (Tokage Ouji)... but Primitive Boyfriend just had to strut in and blow that out of the water. The concept? Bizarre. Wild. Weird. The execution? Cringe-inducing. But... damn, it kind of works?
Protagonist Mito returns to monkey, quite literally, as she is sent a few million years in the past by a delusional goddess to a time where humans were big buff monkey-dudes. And one of them is her soulmate,
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apparently. Of course Miss-Not-Like-Other-Girls falls head over heels for him. It's quite frankly weird, but hell, this monkey is a lot nicer than her other options, so maybe I don't blame her.
What follows is a series of weirdly educational isekai-ing back and forth through time periods. There were some sweet parts, some cute parts, and some what-the-actual-hell-am-I-reading parts. For only 13 chapters, it crams a LOT of substance in that made me honestly enjoy my time. And the ending... yeah, that was pretty cute.
Art is nice enough and the manga becomes weirdly atmospheric at times. The characters aren't really fleshed out that much, but I didn't expect too much from a 3-volume manga. I also thought that the explored theme of soulmates was interesting. And that's probably the most I can say about it.
Should you read it? That's a tough question. I honestly think you should just dive in blind. Laugh at it, don't take it too seriously, and enjoy it brainlessly.
And if you end up seeing the physical volumes on my manga shelf, mind ya own business.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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