Reviews

Laughing Under the Clouds, Vol. 1 by Karakara Kemuri

haltijakapala's review against another edition

3.0

Re-read in English in the hopes that the easier reading experience would make me like this more, but nope it was still on the level of pretty okay, nothing great.
I do like the art though. BUT, Tokyopop's decision to translate the kanji 曇 on the backs of their clothes as a butt ugly KUMO annoyed me to no end. I almost wanted to drop a star just for that atrocity, but it is not the fault of the original manga so three stars it is.

booksnacks's review against another edition

3.0

An interesting first volume, we watch three brothers who take criminals to a prison in the middle of the largest lake in Japan, Lake Biwa. I enjoy the characters so far, and the art is quite stunning. This volume is half about this story, and half about a short story that is a prequel to the current events. It includes an alluded story thread about a human vessel for Orochi, a human who was possessed by a demonic serpent.I enjoyed both and am curious to see where this will go.

Gathered from other reviews, this series has a sequel series (Donten ni Warau Gaiden) and a prequel series (Rengoku ni Warau). This manga was turned into an anime, so I will be checking that out as well. Thank you to NetGalley and Independent Publishers Group for the ARC.

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

nvciel's review against another edition

4.0

The premise of the story is interesting. Three brothers as “bounty hunters” for a huge prison. The art was a little hard to follow. There were times I could not distinguish between the brothers. I think it will be easier to follow the action in future volumes. I do not understand why the volume ends with a different story. Since Fleeting Laughter takes place in the past, should it not have been the first story in the volume with a tie to the laughing clouds story? I hope the next volume is more focused.

avjung27's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

3.0

 Laughing Under the Clouds 1 getting us going right out of the gate. We follow two different storylines in two different time periods. The first is ‘present’ time with three brothers of the Kumo family, Tenka, Soramaru, and Chutaro. Their family protects their family’s shrine and guides prisoners to the prison at the center of Lake Biwa. It’s said that this prison is inescapable, so it seems many prisoners attempt their escape before they get dragged across the river. The three brothers are there to stop them from getting away. The second timeline we jump into takes place 600 years prior, with a Kumo family ancestor. He lives with two friends, Sasaki and Botan inside his family’s shrine. When black sheep of the Abe family Hirari shows up, they have no real choice but to let him stay. Both of these timelines have a darker, more dangerous undertone as orochi, a demon or spirit said to come back every 300 years, main goal is to bring destruction to the Earth.

I was originally pulled into this series through the artwork. I like the style. It’s nothing particularly special, but it is decent to look at. I actually like most of the characters, despite some of them having certain personality traits that I normally find utterly annoying. I’m looking at you Hirari. I’m not one for annoying suck up guys, but he ends up not being the worst of the worst. I can stand him enough to get through his story, at least. The three brothers have a nice feel when interacting, though we don’t see that much of Chutaro. I hope he’ll be brought in more as the story goes on. I like the stronger mentor troupe used with Tenka and Soramaru, at least for the time being. 

As for what I didn’t love as much, we’ll start with the fight…

I mean the one with Soramaru and the samurai, specifically. I didn’t mind being in Soramaru’s head, and I liked that he didn’t just walk out and prove his older brother wrong by defeating a guy right out the gate. That being said, the fight is a very fool me once, shame on you fool me twice, shame on me thing. Why in the world would Soramaru simply assume he’d managed to take out the samurai a second time, when he hadn’t done it the first time. He even let Chutaro, who’d just been caught by the guy, pick him up and run off with him. What?! And then there’s the whole, we saw Chutaro using his phasing move thing, but he couldn’t use it in the fight? I would have liked to see a little more logic in the fight. It’s not that Soramaru or Chutaro have to be the smartest characters in the world, but they literally do some of the same stupid shizz twice in a row. It’s starting to feel like Soramaru isn’t just weaker than Tenka, maybe he just doesn’t have the brain power to fight.

My only real complaint about the 600 years in the past story was that it felt too fast. I know it was probably just to give some background, but it was hard to get attached to any of the characters on a deeper level since we were with them so shortly and they just threw stuff at us. The big moments didn’t feel as big because it was just like, oh shizz can’t stop and pause on that. Got to go! I think it will be fine, if we don’t keep returning to Kagemitsu and Hirari throughout the series and rushing through their moments. It’s fine for a background, but it’s weird if we’re setting them up to be big players throughout the series. I guess we’ll just have to see. 

Overall, this volume is fine. It sets up what it needs to set up. It gives us a bit of intrigue with the prison and that one prisoner, but on the other hand it doesn’t really take us deep into the characters or give us much of a reason to keep reading. I don’t think the mystery is big enough to pull in those who weren’t like super big on the three brother characters or people who felt a little meh about the second storyline. I’m going to keep going with it since I have the second volume anyways. I can see myself dropping it after that, however, so we’ll just have to see how I’m feeling after that.

lilsuccubus's review against another edition

1.5

Something really feels off with this volume. I felt nothing the whole time reading it.

tmledvina's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

gio_shelves's review against another edition

Pretty formulaic (dare I say even weak?) storyline, but very nice art and concept. Might read the spinoff once it’s completed. Wouldn’t generally recommend this unless you’re looking for a quick read with fantasy/historical elements (hot dudes lol) and great art.

gmzzn's review against another edition

4.0

(I received a free digital copy of this volume via Netgalley!)

I’ve wanted to read this manga for sooo long already, ever since the anime came out in 2014 (the manga was published in Japan from 2010 to 2013, so it’s been a while too), and I’m really happy we’re getting the chance to check it out now in English!! The art is super pretty and it’s what attracted me to it at first, but now the curiosity this first volume built up in me will probably get me going until the series is over.

There’s three brothers, a lot of criminals, and a huge evil called Orochi soon coming back; the plot by itself didn’t show up until the end (maybe not until the extra story called Fleeting Laughter, kinda a prequel set 600 years before the start of the series), but I enjoyed the siblings by themselves and interacting with each other a lot. There wasn’t much, though, I feel like the extra story had more emotional depth than the first few chapters of the manga, but I’m sure the angst will build up soon enough.

It’s good, I’m curious, and I can’t wait to check out the second volume to see how the brothers will interact with each other and grow. And hopefully meet some more characters as well, since some things were hinted at, but nothing clear was shown - just creating more suspense.

hawful's review against another edition

3.0

LOVE the anime and the 3 OVA films. I’ve been DYING for the manga in the states.

I’m not a fan of the KUMO edit on Tenka’s back. It looks so out of place— there could have been a better workaround for sure.

The timeline jumps were jarring and made it a bit hard to care about past events. I think if I hadn’t watched the anime that I’d really be lost.