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Kirifuda Win, childish yet mysterious main character of a manga and anime about a childrens card game. This is his new story, but there is not Paparin, no Maihama School and no elite four. It is a relatable world, seemingly normal, but an unknown abyss luring at the next street corner. And so Kirifuda Win lives a normal life between the bothers of daily work and the fun of spending time with his friends. But its still Kirifuda Win, so what happened to his former life? What became of Jashin-kun? And what is it, that is so suspicious about his best friend Niika?!

After having finished ... his work on Ninjala, Kanebayashi You combines his own great talent with inspiration from the astonishing works of his predecessor and co-author, Matsumoto Shigenobu (The guy who invented Duel Masters in the first place). All drawings show great dynamic. The main characters are well designed, while some side characters and backgrounds where apparently not the main focus of attention. And please be aware that side characters can actually die now.

The story keeps the reader in a steady realm of mystery and does not rush to reveal the answers some might be looking for too quickly. There are however always enough new things to discover, that it does not get bothersome. At the end of its seven chapters, this first volume leaves enough room to be filled by its sequel "Duel Masters LOST: Gekka no Shinigami". As of writing this review, an anime adaptation has been announced. It hope that it will have some time to fill some of the characters of this manga with more background.

I enjoyed this manga a lot. While it might be helpful, if you have read or watched at least parts of Duel Masters Win, it is certainly not neccessary. This new installation of the Duel Masters main series brings us great cheesy shounen action as known from Shigenobus former works with a not too high amount of childrens card games. So if you liked Ninjala, if you thought that Duel Masters Win was lacking or if you don't care and read anything from Cororcoro anyway, have fun! ... If you can read Japanese. I don't assume this will ever get any translation.

Mashin Eiyuuden Wartaru is a franchise, wich includes several anime series. All have in common that the brave and more or less (but increasingly) distinct saviour and hero Ikusabe Wataru fights evil in his mighty fighting robot. This is the second season of the franchise, which was broadcasted a half year after the end of the first season. In the meantime, the anime Madou King Granzort had been shown in the same timeslot.

The basic structure of this season is the same as its prequel: The world is split into seven levels, in each of which a final boss as well as one stage boss for ... each episode await the hero to be heroically defeated. Only very few side quests distract the hero from this path and helpful characters will make sure to excplain him the next goal of the main quest. Shibaraku and and Himiko accompany him on his quest while other friends from the first season join in later. A around the half of the episodes, some budget seems to have appeared in the studio and gets allocated into character development and story building. After not much happened for over 20 episodes, quickly all characters get some backstory thrown at them for some actual story telling to commence. By this, the end of the series feels a little bit rushed, while the first half felt even more insubstancial than some parts of the first season. All in all however it is still entertaining thorughout all episodes and builds up the expectations that are fulfilled with the OVA "Owarinaki Toki no Monogatari".

The experience of the magical Soukaizan realm is well underlined by beauiful backgrounds and atomspherical music. In many fighting scenes however, frames are heavily reused and the quality of art heavily varies with the importance of the scene. Although the exclusive use of songs by the band a・chi-a・chi, which is certainly an integral part of the marketing strategy, makes me sometimes feel a lack of variation, all opening and ending songs fit perfectly with the style of the series and are accompanied by good animation. The background music is mostly unobtrusive, only some songs might have been used a little bit less often.

Most main characters where already introduced in the first season. Umihiko is the only notable new main character, I did however enjoy him very much. At first he seems to be quite similar to Toraou, he is however very unique and the only character with a majour backstory. (Umihiko, I love you<3) The other characters are further developed, especially by their relationships. Wataru seems to have grown in confidence and Himiko sometimes behaves even more ignorant of her environment than she already did before, does however also show some development of slowly becoming more mature. Although Shibaraku recieves some character development, he stays a sidekick more than any other character. Kurama (Mr. Bird) is mostly developed in his relationship with Umihiko and Toraou became to have a strong friendship with Wataru, did however not lose his original behaviour.

Although the first half of this series only progresses very slowly, it has its funny moments and still portraits a colourful realm of adventure. Enduring the first half is then rewarded with the so far best part of the franchise and while the end leaves several open questions, you will certainly not regret watching this childish, cool and interesting adventure.

Please watch the successing OVA, it is very good and gives the franchise a great finale. (Before it returned with Chou Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. I have however yet to watch that series.)

"Pocket Monster Platina: Mezase!! Battle King" is a one-volume manga from 2009 which is different to most other of the many Pokemon manga series it that it soes not play in the fictional Poke-World of the games but in (more or less) the real world. Pokemon is just a DS game here and our hot blooded main character does not depart home for a long journey around the world full of adventure. He does Pokemon battles against other people and that's basically it.

The story is not especially exciting, but relevant enough to keep you reading. The plot twists can be seen miles before they happen ... though. The battles are quite exciting and never repeat themselves, as the characters are constantly changing their teams.

The drawing is also not astonishing, but the depictions of the Pokemon battles are quite solid and it never feels cheap.

As a fan of silly primary school targetet action shounen, I was able to get a lot of enjoyment from this short, but entertaining game advertisement.

(I read the japanese version.)
The language is very simple, there are no comlicated words or sentences. You will however have to get used to the japanese names of Pokemon and Attacs.

Don't expect deep strategies here, it's still a childrens manga. But if you want to get a different perspective on the franchise or you just like anything related to Pokemom, you should definitely try this manga out.

tl;dr
the manga is much darker than the anime version
imo it is very exciting but short
read if you like Shounen aimed at primary school age


"The most controversial B-Daman series of all time. I can write a book about the anime and manga, so to put it simply, the manga is dark souls and the anime is Mario Odyssey..."
This quote by youtuber bdablader95 from the video "What happened to B-Daman?" by Negative Legend really sparked my interest for this manga. By incident, I had allready bought the Manga, when I watched the video. I might also watch the anime of the same name one day, but for ... now I want to share my expirience with the manga.

In your hands, powered by your hearts strength: Crush B-Daman!!
Our hot blooded protagonist Tamaga Hitto is living with his lazy and incompetent father Professor Tamaga, running the household and earning money by finding other peoples lost belongings together with his friend Mamoru. For his birthday, His father gives to him the B-Daman Ifrit. Hitto is only faintly excited, hearing that this is what his father spent all his time and energy to create. But little does he know, how deeply his fate is linked with Ifrit....
So far, so ordinary. But the story quickly gets a dark tone and the big plot twist in the third volume was near to too much for me.
The ending of the story is fairly open and gives room for further tales. Those are however limited to fan fiction as there is no sequel.

The drawing is medium to high standard for Corocoro Comic. The level of detail is not overwhelming, but the art does never seem sloppy.

Of the characters introduced in the first chapters, none are keeping their importance to the end. I think at least Konta should have been granted a role in the big last fight, because he is cool. Kodou gets the most character development of all the characters. The story of Teruma is also interesting but seemed a little bit put-on to me at some moments. Hitto is a good main character, nothing special, but definitely very enjoyable.

The technical component of the battles gets much less important in the later half of the story. But the Power-dragonballing it is replaced with is written well enough, that the enjoyment is kept high. Many issues and capabilities don't come to play due to the brevity of the manga.

I had an amazing time reading this hot blooded shounen story by Kuratani Tomoya. I hope you can have the same fun as I had reading it. If you are familiar to the stories from Corocoro comic you should allready know if this is for you. If you are just here because you love B-Daman, you should definitely give it a try.

Fighting the hottest battles in manga history! Beyblade being born inside a vulcano! Explosions! Battle! Awesome!!!

You don't like over the top action? You want a well thought storyline? You think that commercialism is a big threat to manga culture?
Read something else!

This is Metal Fight Beyblade. Where friendship is still real friendship, where power is still real power and cheap overpriced plastic toys are THE MOST EXCITING THING EVER!!!

(story)
A normal primary school boy meets the hot-blooded blader Hagane Ginga, an over the top talented person with less personality than Kudo Taiki... But he is so cool! They meet the wild gang who takes other childrens ... beys after defeating them. Some tournament, some mysterious evil blader, some crazy scientist.
If you have read things like "Bakuso Kyodai Let's&Go", "Bakuten Shoot Beyblade" or "Super B-Daman", you should already know the story. So don't expect too much, if you are not into this genre.

(art)
As usual, the designs look less "clean" than in the accompanying anime. The rough drawing style give the manga its distinct flair and fit the theme. The overall quality is average.

(overall)
If you are into the genre, you should definitely not miss out on this, as this manga was published in many countries, normally not so blessed with Corocoro manga releases. I was really happy to read an official German translation, which was quite good.

Read this if you search for another exciting "shooting hobby" manga. If you like Beybade, but thought, the anime was too long and filler-heavy, you should try this out, as the story is much more compact.

3, 2, 1... Go Shoot!!!

I don't play Duel Masters. But I really enjoy the typical manga series from Corocoro-Comic and their anime adaptations. I can not compare this to the first season, as I didn't watch it.
"Duel Masters!" is the second season of the anime following Kirifuda Joe.
The drawing is mostly simple, the creatures are highly detailed 3D-animations.
This anime is enjoyable for its childish humor and the charakters allways being quite over the top. There seems to be a main story, but it does only show up on special occasions... The duels are fast paced, but not well explained. I actually skipped them sometimes, as I didn't really know ... what was going on and they were all quite similar.
I think that the this season has with "ジョー☆デッキ―！！！" the best opening of the Duel Masters series so far.
You should watch this anime, if you like colourful, funny series with everything being slightly over the top. If you enjoyed series like Bakutsuri Barhunter, Kaitou Joker or Youkai Watch, this might be something for you.
You should avoid this, if you dislike flat personalities, silly humor and total overacting.

This series gets 6 out of 10 dancing ramen bowls for being overall enjoyable but loosing potential on the duels.

This is an anime about children defending their home town from evil by using a giant robot. The twist this time is, that they have to keep their identity secret, as they would be transformed into dogs. So they get very cool tokusatsu uniforms. Even for this type of series, the main charakter is very selfish and childish.

The series is enjoyable for being considerbly funny. The opening is ggod. The episodes follow the well known Schema: Strange things happen; Everyone is puzzled why that thing happens; Main cast finds out, that the Monster of the Week is responsible for strange things; they fight it with ... their mecha; the Evil transforms the Monster into Big Monster; Big Monster is defeated with friendship; Evil escapes.

You should watch Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger, if you like children saving earth, childish humor and repeating mecha transform sequences.
I liked it.

Please note: This review is written by a person, who does not speak japanese but has watched the series in the original version without any subtitles.

When I first discovered the existence of this anime by finding its openings, I thought of it as being digimon, but without digimon references. Although the similarities are quite obvious, Plusterworld creates its very own world with many lovable, interesting and unique characters.

The story is more loosely than usual for that genre, many episodes tell a story for themselves, without being very related to the main arc. Also, there can be episodes, wich are not only boring, but seem totally ... irrelevant. (Why are there car races?? Its SO unnecessary!!!)
However the episodes, which are not recap, filler, or car race, tend to be quite exciting.

I personally like the art style of early 2000's anime, so I enjoied it. The animation is not allways high-quality. But decent standard for the genre.

The main problem of Plusterworld is the absence of good songs. Unlike in digimon and similar series, Plusterworld has no songs being played during the episodes. The transform sequences are accompanied by generic background music.The only good song is the second opening wich is well used during the last episode. The first opening and the ONLY ending theme are only enjoyable as being "nice trash".

Did I mention that the characters are amasing?
Some of them are very cliché, some are very unique, also in their visual design. But its a nice mixture of both.


tldr:
I would have liked it much more, if the music had been better!
I do not recommend it to anyone who has not watched other similar series like digimon frontier or brave beats.
You should NOT watch it when you dislike childish series.
It has a very simple language and can also be understood by people not being fluent in japanese.

For the general impression, I suggest first reading the review by DerOkashi.

And now I will try to explain, why there are people like me, who like anime like Webdiver.
As you read, Webdiver has a simple, generic and repetetiv story. I had no problem with that, because I love the setting. It reminds me of an old childrens book I own, "citties of tomorrow", where different assumption on future events are described, especially on how living will be, but also eg. the moon base to be build around the year 2000...
Another reason for me to like the story are the charakters. Most of them having importance ... for one episode and then just being nice ornaments of the background, there is a handful of interesting main charakters of which everyone has an interesting (but simple) personallity.
A point important for me: The parents of some of the main charakters play a role!
These interactions between charakters in the city of "Diverland" are the best parts of the series. Unfortunately these moments only make one sixth of the whole story, which mostly plays in "Magical Gate" (the digital world).

Magical Gate brings us to the artstyle. While Diverland, the real world, is well conceived, while the charakters are decently animated and designed, the mechas and the place they are in is really cheap 3D-dejection. There is actually one thing that looks good: The evil creatures of the second story arc. Their design is very creative!

But for me, I had to find out: It does not bother me at all. There are moments, I think "Oh Mein Gott, sieht das Kacke aus!" (Oh, my god, this looks crap!)... and these moments can get long; remember, this is a very typical mecha show, which means: Mecha Transformations!... Back and forth and with different variants and everything you would expect! This show is still mostly made to sell a variety of merchandise products produced by takara.
And now: When I sit there, looking at crappy animations of crappy 3D graphics for the 10000th time, you might ask the popular question: "Why?"

And I would not listen, absolutely absorbed by the music.
For this show of 52 episode, there exist each two opening and ending songs, aditionally some insert songs. Of these songs, four are under my absolute favourites of anime music and only one is really bad. The background music is not high quality, but I personally like it really much.

This piece of post 90's "primary-school-children-are-our-only-hope-to-rescue-the-world + mecha" series is one of the latest of its kind and suffers under a low budget and general lack of interest.
However, it was able to find its fans and has some interesting concepts.
Those who had fun with similar shows like erudoran-series, might want to give this a try. All those who dont know the genre, but wanting to explore it, should start with something else.

I express my gratitude to the members of Subdiver, having translated this show into english, korean and indonesian.

Please be aware that I allready watched this as a child. The review might not be objective.

Once upon a time... there were men. They explored the world, science, their own body. A very long time later, they were exploring space. The heros of our story witnessed other beings on different levels of technical and ideological progress to finally meet the witnesses of themselves.

This is a review about 「銀河パトロールＰＪ」, also known as "Once upon a time... space", "Il était une fois... l'Espace", "Ai confini dell'universo" or "Es war einmal... der Weltraum". I have watched the German version and I highly recommend NOT to watch the english ... one. (These series live of things told between the lines. The english version just leaves many information out.) As you might know, this series was co-produced by a japanese and several european companies, the producer is french. Thus the art is not comparable to that standart anime, but has a very own style, kept throughout the other six series by Albert Barillé.

The style of how the story is told varies a lot between episodes. At the beginning, the episodes seem not to have any relations, but in progress, most things piece together.
Aside the main charakters Psi, Pierrot and Métro, there are several side charakters of which some are very flat und undistinguishable.
Albert Barillé is mostly known for writing educational stories, so it seems odd, he chose the science-fiction setting. And although there are many episodes containing lessons about humanitiy, physics or history, it does never get to much.
The fantastic music creates the perfect atmosphere; With two Mecha battles and several space battles, extrasensory powers and many odd aliens, Barillé's journey into the future can be called a success.

All those speaking German really have to watch this, it's great!

All those only speaking english should ignore the show and watch "The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" (Live action TV series) or "The Animals of Farthing Wood" (ファージングウッドのなかまたち) or something else. I'm sorry for you.

Please be aware that I allready watched this as a child. The review might not be objective.