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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the second volume really is when you start to realize just how much they changed in the anime. like how half of the deaths in the manga are different than the anime. also they changed their explanation for how ryo became satan. and in the manga, akira waits for YEARS gathering his army to fight ryo, while in the anime he fights ryo directly after he finds miki’s body (atleast i’m pretty sure that’s how it went down). there are plenty of other things that are different but it would take me HOURS to cover it all. i’ll end this by saying, both the anime and manga are phenomenal and are PEAK FICTION lol
This manga is a product of its time, and may be of interest as such for its style of art and storytelling and its treatment of gender roles. Coming to it as a reader and not from more academic interest, though, there was a lot of cringe - titillating voyeurism (yes, let's watch this girl get undressed for her bath and giggle about her own butt and then blush over thinking about the thought of her foster-brother seeing her naked which she just said 'too bad for him' would never happen *eye roll* *facepalm*); a friend who is so mustache-twirlingly obviously bad news but the protagonist is too much of an idiot to notice there's something clearly wrong with him; if a girl has no respect for you, she'll act tough and defend herself from a gang who has attacked her before, but as soon as she's attracted to you she'll rush to downplay all that ('I hope you know I wasn't really going to kick their asses, I was so scared, tee hee, little helpless me!'); you're a nice guy because even if your female friend is being grabbed by a gang of drooling louts, you're too nice to throw a punch or even raise your voice (and when she pointedly tells you "Um, hello, DO SOMETHING???" you wearily sigh "Not this [ridiculous request for help from imminent assault] again...").
Yikes.
The storytelling isn't great, either, with info-dumps scattered between random flashy fights and a last section of this volume that felt like basically random vignettes slapped together by the author shoehorning his characters into melodramatic scenes with random famous characters that he read a two-paragraph surface-level summary about.
Maybe it was a big influence in its time, and if you're interested in how the art of manga and style of popular storytelling evolved in past decades you might enjoy it from that perspective, but as a reader looking for a compelling plot or character, I'd give it a pass.
Yikes.
The storytelling isn't great, either, with info-dumps scattered between random flashy fights and a last section of this volume that felt like basically random vignettes slapped together by the author shoehorning his characters into melodramatic scenes with random famous characters that he read a two-paragraph surface-level summary about.
Maybe it was a big influence in its time, and if you're interested in how the art of manga and style of popular storytelling evolved in past decades you might enjoy it from that perspective, but as a reader looking for a compelling plot or character, I'd give it a pass.
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It's a classic, but it's not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Death of parent
Moderate: Ableism, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is bananas. It owns but also is incredibly stupid - mostly in a good way but there's a wild chapter about Hitler that basically had me deduct an entire star.
Holy shit is this completely bananas. A six year old gets decapitated by a lynch mob. That's comics baby.
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was not prepared for the time travel plot