Trace, The darker Boku no Hero Academia (Manwha Spoilers)

Boku no Hero Academia (or My Hero Academia in english) has been for quite a while now, getting attention left and right.  In MHA, you follow Midoriya Izuku, a boy without a power in a world of super powers, who wants to become the greatest hero that’ll ever live.  It follows his adventure in a society where people with powers are common place, and being a super hero is an actual job.

Randomly I suddenly remembered a Korean Manwha that followed people getting powers.  I started reading the story approximately 9 years ago and finished it in 2010.  The story was simply called Trace and it lasted for a mere 7 volumes.  Now at this point, I’ll put to your attention that this is simply for Trace.  Trace has gotten 2 sequels that I know of:  Trace 1.5 and Trace 2.0, but since I haven’t read either of them, they wont be included in this review.

In Trace, other than the normal species, there are two more… Troubles and Traces.  Troubles are monsters that can have a variety of look who seem to kill for no reason at all.  Traces are humans with super powers who fight these Troubles.  It’s not like they do it for good however, but it’s just their innate instinct.  They see a Trouble, and they kill it…  to them it’s the same thing as turning on the light switch in a dark room.  That said, Traces aren’t looked up to at all, most Traces use their powers to commit crimes.  Most Traces are looked down upon, and are sent to special “Trace” areas where they are only really used to kill Troubles.  Rather than as people, many look at Traces as monsters.

Trace follows the story of three protagonists.  Sa Ghang-Gwon is born with the Trace ability to manipulate Ice, and while he was young he accidentally almost killed his parents since he couldn’t control his power yet.  Just like that, his parents abandoned him and he grew up on the street, losing his emotions.  As if it was by luck, he was found unconscious by a girl of the same age, Han Tae Eun, who manages to convince her single father to adopt the young boy.  Feeling warmth, he hides his powers and appears humans, yet follows his instincts to kill Troubles whenever they appear on the pretext of keeping his new family safe.

Then we have the story of Kim Yun-Seong, a middle aged man with a perfect life: A high paying job, a beautiful loving wife and a cute daughter.  One day, he collapses and finds out his legs are mutating, he had become a Trace.  He tries to hide his powers the best that he could to live a normal life but it didn’t matter…  and his family was forcibly taken away from him.

The final protagonist is Morrienoah Jin, a hit man trace with the ability to shoot out of his fingers.  Just like always, he got a job, but this job wasn’t a hit job… it was a body guard job.  He refused it but the woman, Jang-mi Rose, insisted.  He ended up taking the job, and slowly fell in love with the woman.  After killing the killer however, she commited suicide in front of his eyes.  It turns out that he killed her father a long time ago, so she swore revenge by having him fall in love with her… then taking that love away.

Even though there are three protagonists, there are essentially only two stories – Sa Ghang-Gwon who deals with the trouble of identifying as a Trace and Kim Yun-Seong’s and Jin’s story, a criminal group that is otherwise known as the “Beggar Team.”  With two of the main characters in one story, it’s obvious to know that we deal with the “Beggar Team” more than we do with Sa Ghang-Gwon.  I actually have no complaint about this though since the Beggar Team has a much more interesting plot, following the route of a villain rather than a hero.

Unlike MHA where people with powers are glorified, Traces are looked upon as freaks and have been for the past 30 years, even when their humanities only hope to fight against Troubles.  Instead of focusing on how amazing it’d be if humans suddenly got super powers over night, it shows a much more darker story, where people are killed and the “heroes” that protect them are simply just another evil.

I remember being really attached reading this, and after my quick little reread, my heart was torn.  The writing in the beginning isn’t very good at first, but the quality of it improves over time.  Really, I remember trying to get into Trace 1.5 and just couldn’t get into the story, but after rereading it again I’d like to give it another go.  When that time comes, maybe I’ll be making another post about it, who knows?

An Actual Review on Death March To A Parallel World (WN Spoilers!!!)

So not long ago I made a post about how some stories that are good, when translated to anime aren’t as good as before.  The main topic I used was Death March To a Parallel World (Which I’ll just call Death march from this point on.)  Death March after the anime was released, had been given a bad name, a shitty story.  A story of a character who never faced any problems simply because he can max out any skill he learns due to having nearly infinite skill points.  How can a story following a character who can solve anything be interesting?

I started reading death march quite a long time ago.  I don’t remember when I got into it, but I remember finding the manga online and reading it.  I got interested in the story and was curious as to how the story would develop.  At the time the manga was being translated by a fan group, it was only a few chapters in and it was enough to spark my curiosity.  Seeing that it was a web novel/night novel, I decided to give it a shot and ended up reading the web novel online.  The result?  I was really bored.  The beginning was a bore fest that thankfully wasn’t brought into the anime as it was pretty much Satou walking forward looking for civilization as he learned new skills.  It had only given me enough of a curiosity to keep on reading, though if I hadn’t read the manga ahead of time I probably would’ve given it up earlier…  and managed to persevere… and I was rewarded!

The story follows a programmer who after staying up countless nights doing work, wakes up in an alternate world very similar to the one he was programming.  He even had the cheat skill, meteor… which after using it is proven to be too overpowered and immediately levels up from 1 to 312.  He then goes and finds a town and makes friends, before setting off in an adve- oh wait, it’s not an adventure…  just a tour!  A tour of this fantasy world!

The story isn’t an adventure story, but a sight seeing story as Satou is too powerful to really have any threat at all.  How is that entertaining you might be asking?  Well it’s in the same way as how Superman from DC comics is entertaining… it isn’t the struggle of Satou that is entertaining but how someone as godlike as him fits into this world.  As he progresses, he gets more and more powerful, creating holy weapons as if they are nothing and even making his own alter-ego, the hero Nanashi.  As the story goes on, we’re not expecting Satou to struggle, but were looking forward to how he’ll accomplish his goal.

Then there’s other points that well like… the cooking!  There’s a joke in the community saying that the story is actually a cooking story…  with the killing of world ending Demon Lords or final bosses simply being mere side quests.  One of my favorite parts of the story is where Satou (in disguise as Nanashi) meets the hero, Hayato.  As they are fighting a demon lord, giant flying space whales fly into the world and are destroying the city.  Hayato looks up and is in panic, wondering how he can even hope to defeat these creatures.  What about Satou?  He looks up at them and merely thinks of them as a high level cooking ingredient.  As he looks and sees the shocked face of Hayato, he isn’t surprised… he simply thinks Hayato is also thinking the same thing.  This, although proves that there is nothing Satou can’t defeat, shows that this story isn’t one where you are left in suspense, but merely here to enjoy the ride.

Although the anime was pretty much a flop, only entertaining to those who actually read the novels, the novels are incredibly entertaining.  That said, the beginning of the web novel is incredibly boring but if you can get through it, you can make it to the true meat of the story.  I highly recommend you read a few chapters of the manga first, since it gets to the heart of the story faster than the web novel.  If you think this is something for you after reading the first few manga chapters, give the novel a try!  Just remember, this isn’t an adventure story, but simply an enjoyable vacation.

 

The King’s Avatar

So after reading the web novel, The King’s Avatar (also known as Quanzhi Gaoshou or 全职高手),  I knew I wanted to write about it.  The story is amazing as it follow the esports scene of a video game, something that is quite new to our world but still getting incredible popularity!

Starting from the animation released in April 7 of 2017, I quickly fell in love with the story and learned of the web novel of it.  However, like most people who watched anime, I had no interest in reading the novel.  For one, they advertised they were going to make a sequel soon so I figured I could wait for that.  However, after watching the OVA, I quickly downloaded the webnovel app and started watching it.  After the OVA, I just couldn’t wait anymore!  So here is what I love about the series.  Please note that there are potential spoilers like always from this point here.

The story starts of following Ye Xiu as he’s kicked out of his professional esports team, Excellent Era.  He has no where to go and despite being the so called number one player in the world, has no money.  The first thing he does is go into an internet cafe across the street and applies for a job simply because it offers food and shelter as well as a salary.  What’s more, it allows him to continue his passion for free… playing Glory, the most wide spread MMORPG that he became famous for.  Ye Xiu for some reason never showed himself to the public, so nobody recognizes him as he applies, but his skill for Glory could be seen.

Everything he does from the point that he leaves the internet cafe is done on an impulse with no plan at all.  Slowly he starts becoming he number one player in the newest server, getting a bunch of infamy from all the top guilds due to all the records he breaks with ease.  The pro players figure out that he’s simply playing the game after retirement as he slowly meets more and more people who, although new, have potential for higher heights.  It isn’t until here where he starts considering to make a new pro team from scratch.  He isn’t sure if his new friends will follow him however.  However, as soon as his boss figures out his real identity, she decides to help him in any way she can.

From this impulsive idea, they start making a pro team from scratch… a grass roots team that formed from an internet cafe that want to work their way up into the alliance of professional esports teams, Team Happy.

The story is simple, the fall and rise of a professional.  Although we know that he deserves more than simply working at a small time internet cafe, the story starts off with no clear goal as there are many uncertainties.  The lack of clear goal at the starts is simply because Ye Xiu isn’t sure of what to do, and is simply in deep thought as he was just kicked off of the team he created.  Although Ye Xiu is a “god” in this game, he still very much human.

What I find really amazing in this story in general is the characters.  All of them seemed fleshed out and alive.  Even many of the smaller characters in the beginning of the story have a bigger role later on.  There are just so many interesting characters within all the pro teams in the alliance.  From Blue Rain’s loud Huang Shaitain to Excellent Era’s arrogant Sun Xiang, to Samsara’s quiet Zekai Shou.  What’s more, any huge event also effects the fans of these teams as the story goes forth, yet through all this drama we still get a huge laugh every once in a while.

Honestly, there’s too many likeable characters here.  I’ve had ideas of maybe writing a mini series called “Why I like” where I write down why I like certain characters and go more in depth while also going deep into spoiler territory.  If I do this, I’d of course do this for other shows/manga/novels other than The King’s Avatar, but this is something I still have to put more thought into.

The King’s Avatar is currently the number one novel I’m reading right now which I can’t just seem to put down.  In a matter of 3 weeks, I’ve managed to make it to chapter 1088!  If you have any sort of interest in the esports scene, I highly suggest this novel as it’s a good read, and the official translation is free for at least 1000 chapters!  I do warn those who enter the novel that the story is very informational based, so maybe check out the animation first before diving into this.  Regardless, see you all on stage!

The Problem with Light Novel Animes

Nowadays as you go through anime, you’ll find a lot of anime with a very set story and possibly a really long name.  From “Is it Alright to Pick up Girls From a Dungeon” to “Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody,” many of these anime originated from another source of medium, Light Novels.  Most of the time, these light novels adaptions are hit with severe criticism either from the name or the content of what’s inside it.  With the recent release of Death March, many have vocalized how it’s a really bad story with a really over powered MC and his harem.  Here we’ll talk about the problem with light novel anime adaptions, as well as acting as a review for the Death march anime.

The biggest problem with these Light Novel adaptions is that it’s an adaption.  The story wasn’t originally made for the medium of… well being an anime.  It’s made for a book that you read whenever you have the chance to, at your own pace.  For an anime however, you watch a show for about 22 minutes or so, and then that’s all.  Although 22 minutes isn’t a lot of time, you still have to go through the story at the pace it’s presented to you compared to your own pace like with Light Novels.  Anime doesn’t let you take a story in at your own pace, and your forced to go through it.  Plus, since everything is voice acted, you have to watch every event.  What ends up being a five minute read can take up an entire episode!

Now I fully understand that I’m a fast reader, but that’s my personal pace in reading.  What takes 5 minutes for me to read can take up an entire episode, but for others it might take the same amount of time.  This only furthers the point of how Light Novels are written.  Very rarely were going to get animes like Re:Zero or Konosuba who properly adapts the pace of the Light Novel to fit into the anime.  Many animation studios look at the success of Spice and Wolf or Index and believe they can just follow the story and the anime will be a hit.  The Light Novel was big for what it was, so it’ll be big if we just convert that into an anime.  However, not all stories work well like that or we’ll simply get another Isekai Smart Phone.

Another big change is the difference in communities.  Light Novel communities tend to be more relaxed when it comes to standards than an Anime community.  This is once again based on how the community takes the entertainment through it’s medium.  When it comes to Death March, for Light Novel users we get an Isekai story where the main character becomes over powered.  However, despite being over powered we slowly learn more about the world as well as the character’s thoughts.  The anime, getting too much of the characters thoughts is just an over flow of information, so some things are cut to make it less boring for the viewer.  However, the story ends up bland in the end and it becomes another generic over powered MC story.

Further into the communities, there are other several factors that change from the translation of anime to light novel.  How the community interacts with each other.  Going back to the story of Death March, the community at first was unsure of what to think of it.  Before long, the community fell in love with the story, never taking it seriously and calling it: “A cooking anime where world threatening demon lords are merely side quests.”  Whether it’s going to volume discussions online or chapter discussions from a translators website, the community is always active and keeps the traffic going on the story.  For the anime?  With how much anime comes out and how little time there is to watch they, they judge it at a moments notice and take stories like these too serious, which I can’t really blame since the translation from text to animation is most of the time never really good!

Light Novels are an amazing source of entertainment.  They can be quite fast to read and can have various different moods between them, from serious to just the story of a guy exploring a fantasy world with his smart phone.  However, once it’s brought into anime, what some would call a more “professional” form of entertainment, many of these light novels were just not written for that form of medium.  Sure, Index, Danmachi, Konosuba and Re:Zero did a fabulous job in their adaptions, but not all light novels are good for the translation.  Companies see the success of a light novel and adapt it in hopes it’ll be just as successful as an anime without realizing how the change in medium will affect the story.  Animation companies need to really look at the medium they’re translating.  If they truly believe they can make it into a good anime, then they can just push it as is.  However, if it needs some polishing like Re:Zero, they should take their own liberties and change some parts of the story to better the pace of the anime.  After all, if the adaption is boring it only hurts the original story in the end.

Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World WN Review (spoilers)

So I decided to do more light novel reviews and to start it off, I went with the last Light Novel I managed to catch up to date on the translation.  I say up to date but it’s really the Web Novel version of the story.

After catching up to “Kumo Desu ga, Nani Ga?”(A WN I’ll do a possible review for in the future) I had an empty void in my heart.  From there I decided to jump straight into Slave Harem and honestly, my expectations were all over the place.  The story follows Michio who has a set amount of skill points that increases the stronger he gets.  He’s able to use these skill points, as well as having the ability to reset them at any time, creating the over powered character we see today.

When I started the story, I was first kind of expecting quite a lot from the main character, Michio, as he started choosing what skills he wanted on his computer as he goes to another world.  He quickly kills thieves doing illegal activities and then becomes a hero!  An awesome start which is slowly going toward the direction of your typical OP character, except that after all of this he is a wimp.  No, he isn’t being careful, he’s just a wimp.  From there, the story is quite hard to go through as we are just grinding through his process to get money from the labyrinth to buy his first slave, Roxanne, who he is extremely pervy toward.

The story does get better though as soon as Roxanne is bought and Michio loses his virginity.  He stops being as creepy as he was and ends up being a pretty well established human being who makes quite a lot of money from his work.  When the story gets stale, he ends up buying a new slave which adds life to the story as he increases his harem further and further.  Really, the characters is what gives the story life, but the plot has pretty much nothing going on.  The story progression is exploring labyrinths more and more, cooking new food and perverted ideas that lead to off screen sex.

More in depth spoilers from here!  Beware!

As for the characters, I’m really interested in the side characters.  The Duke is an interesting character despite Michio’s dislike of him, and Gozer is quite entertaining.  As for the slaves, my favorite one would be Sherry, the dwarf.  The reason isn’t because she’s a loli, but she’s the one that doesn’t blindly believe what Michio says and actually questions him despite being his slave.  She’s also the only character who realizes Michio’s discount ability and is actually happy when Michio fails something.

Other than Sherry, the other slaves just aren’t that great.  Roxanne and Sherry had good character development from when they were introduced.  However, to stop the slaves from being amazed at Michio’s ability, they’re sort of just have their reactions covered up quite fast and in turn, aren’t able to further develop their character traits.

Miria’s character development is simply just her learning Brahim, the main language used by the cast.  As she doesn’t fully know Brahim, it helps shape her reactions and her character is simply that of wanting fish… and learning how to fish, and finding magic crystals to get more fish.

Vesta, the fourth slave was more interesting than Miria, but other than her becoming a tank, we get no real character development on her!  NOTHING!  She’s just not that interesting despite having an interesting character design from the illustrations I’ve found online from the light novel.  I do like how they gave her a reason to have big boobs in the form of air sacs, but I really wish there was more to her character.

The last slave, Ritsuna simply has the characteristic of an ex-noble elf.  That’s her character.  Sure, she knows magic and wants to be useful, but I find it annoying how the only thing she cares about is this “lord’s assembly” that she talks about all the time.  If anything, she was used more as character development for Roxanne to solidify her spot as the number one slave.

Then lets talk about Roxanne.  As the first slave, she has the most character development as well as saves us from the boringness of Michio being a perverted virgin.  Taking away his virginity improved his character for the better, and honestly she’s my second favorite slave due to her character development.

Michio, the main character is just… boring though.  He has an over powered ability but whether or not he’s over powered is something we don’t know.  We see more powerful peoples levels, in the likes of Gozer, but we’re unable to see just how powerful Gozer is.   This just tells us that Gozer is powerful, but we’re unaware of how powerful he is which just gives us the illusion he’s powerful.

Really, although the story is nothing special, the web novel is quite entertaining despite my complaints.  No developments ever happen but the story is just something interesting to read.  I find progression really slow but I don’t mind it.  I especially love seeing the absurd discounts Michio gets with his 30% off discount, laughing as he slowly destroys the economy.

All in all, if you want to give the story a chance, I don’t see why not.  The story isn’t anything special but it isn’t anything bad either.  As the story slowly gets updated, I’ll probably read any new chapters that come out.  Maybe I’m just invested after spending so much time on this story, but I find that I like this story, especially later on when Michio unlocks intermediate class jobs.  If I were to give this story a rating, I’d give it a 6 out of 10.  Although I say 6 out of 10, it’d be high on the 6 scale, almost a 7 so it’s a barely passing grade and I look forward to reading more chapters that will be released in the future.

Konosuba Light Novel Volume 12 Review (SPOILERS!)

Alright, since I’ve yet to do a Light Novel review, lets start it off with Konosuba Volume 12!  YAY!

After watching the anime, I got obsessed with Konosuba.  Sadly, as the 2nd season ended, my obsession was dying more and more and for some reason, I didn’t want it to fade away.  So I started reading the Light Novel.  I was kind of scared since I heard from many fans that the Light Novel got hard to read because Aqua started becoming more and more annoying…  Yet I persevered and have now read volume 12 of this amazing adventure of my favorite goofballs!

Anyways, from here on out, there will be spoilers up ahead, so I don’t recommend you read on but…

SHIP!!!!!!!!  After all of the waiting, all the teasing, as well as pretty much 3 confessions, I repeat, THREE CONFESSIONS, the Kazuma x Megumin train is now rolling!  As this was a Darkness based book, I was expecting the ship to sink and for Kazuma to continue still being neutral despite how previous volumes have been, even prolly ending since Megumin would get over how indecisive Kazuma is.

That said, despite the ship sailing, I’m disappointed because…  it’s a Darkness volume.  I love Darkness, and she was funny, but a ship sails yet there is NO interaction between the couple after!

Anyways, the story goes with the adventurers avoiding Darkness because they don’t want to pay taxes.  How much are taxes?  Half of their income.  Naturally, Darkness makes it her duty to stop Kazuma herself, by handcuffing herself to him while wearing weights so that even if he drain touched her, he still wouldn’t be able to move.

How does he fight this?  He starts stripping her clothing one by one using “Steal!”  Only way to stop him is by running away from him, and after getting surrounded, Kazuma performs the crime of assaulting an officer to get arrested and avoid paying taxes…  just for the key to the handcuffs to be in an unknown area.

The rest of the night is spent with them handcuffed as they returned home, and having to sleep and bathe together while handcuffed.  Darkness confesses, and surprise, Kazuma rejects Darkness!  Darkness, feeling upset, tries to leave but the handcuffs stops her from leaving, which upsets her more and somehow gets her to try and rape Kazuma.

When I say try, I really mean try.  She was so pent up, she didn’t know how to actually rape him and Kazuma ended up giving instructions on it just in basic Kazuma fashion.

Really, the entire book was hilarious, but I wish there was more Megumin here.  One thing I really like was how it was focused on the story between Darkness and Chris though, showing more of their relationship of best friends, while showing just how much Eris cares about her believers.  Darkness was hilarious in this novel and her masochism has actually never been more funnier.

All in all, I only have few complaints about this book.  Not enough Megumin, and after Megumin confesses, there’s no kiss between them at all…  YET THERES 2 KISSES BETWEEN DARKNESS AND KAZUMA (all forced by Darkness).  I don’t mind the Kazuma x Darkness moments, but like…  this is after the confession a lot of fans have been waiting for!  Other than that, this was a great volume and I loved it.  I couldn’t stop laughing and I found myself glued to this book that I finished it right away.  I really can’t wait for volume 13!

 

ReLIFE Review (Spoilers)

I remember seeing this manga in the trending page for quite a few months and I thought it was the silliest story ever.  A grown man who is a NEET going back to attend High School.  Felt like a story of a man who missed his youth, but after seeing this over and over again as a trending manga, I decided to give it a shot and started reading it.

The first few chapters I thought was silly, but I laughed at the main character fail at his return to high school (after taking a pill to change how he looks like to that of a high schooler).  He forgot his pencil case, didn’t study, had cigarettes in his book bag despite being a kid, and was physically unfit for physical education.   It was quite hilarious!  However, I still found the story quite silly.

As I continued reading the story, I started falling in love with the characters.  The main character Kaizaki, just has it unfair.  He quit his job on impulse because of how badly his bosses mistreated his co-workers, to the point that his senior commits suicide!  Despite that, because he quit his job so early, he was unable to find new work, and the ReLIFE experiment was what was giving him the chance to restart and find a new career.  The other characters were of course, high schoolers, yet just because they were young didn’t mean that they were immature.  I forget that high schoolers are quite mature, mainly because my high school had many students with a bad attitude.  The students were just… real, and were able to talk with the grown man Kaizaki as a friend (even though they all thought he was around their age).

Then the love stories were great!  The love story between 2 side characters, and the love story between Kaizaki and another high schooler!  As Kaizaki is an adult, he was stressed out in telling her his true feelings since she was a high schooler and he was an old man she’d simply forget about once the experiment was over.  In a year, he’d make a group of close friends that will only just forget about him in the end, and that’s just heart breaking.  At the same time, it’s not different from real life as you probably don’t talk with many of your high school friends like you use to once you grow up, but in our case… at least they remember us.

The ending, without going too much into spoilers, was amazing.  I loved it.  It was simple and straight to the point, not pulling any 5 centimeters per second ending bullshit, and just jumped straight to what we wanted to see.  Now that the story is over, I find an empty void in my heart.  A manga that I was once laughing at had somehow become a big part of my weekly routine, and I found myself excited more and more for each chapter.  I really hope that Kaizaki has the best life after his ReLIFE.

Persona 5 Thoughts (Possible Spoilers)

The following post may or may not have spoilers regarding the latest entry of the Persona series, Persona 5, but I’ll try my best within my excitement to keep spoilers to a minimum.  This isn’t a review, but sort of my thoughts on how the game ended after I finished it, and I may or may not do a review later on.  Who knows, I’ve been quite lazy on it?

All I gotta say is… long live the Phantom Thieves!  This game was amazing!  It was awesome.  This game has put so much emotion to me, and was really full of hype all around.  The final calling card was amazing, and as we entered into the area where we’d go into the final dungeon, I was wondering…  do I really want to finish this game?  I was worried, knowing that this would end my time as the leader of the phantom thieves, and that a big part of my life would no longer be there.

Now, I know it’s a video game, and that I wasn’t a Phantom Thief, my character was, but after going through all the hardships with my fellow partners in crime, I felt attached to them.  It reminded me that my character was going to go home after it was all over.  However, at the same time, I knew that I needed to finish this game, to save Tokyo from the true bad guy…

And, holy shit, was it awesome!  Really, I didn’t see who the final baddie would be coming!  The whole “fight” against the twins was amazing.  Really, I trusted them a bit too much.  Prolly cause the helper in the Velvet Room always… helped.  However that’s cause I played previous games, if I entered from the perspective as a new player, they’d probably have suspicions on the them, as well as their master…  who was obviously the bad guy now that I think about it since he lacked the ability to fuse personas like previous games.  Oh well, didn’t think about it much!

Then the final fight itself, I cried of happiness.  Seeing ally my “confidants” coming out to support my cause, it was something that felt just right… and felt like I had to truly do my best to beat the big boss.  All in all, it was an amazing experience, one that will be hard for me to forget.  Persona 5 may not be the best game in the world, but it is something I truly enjoyed playing through.

Katamari Damacy Review

 

Alright, so for the longest time I avoided this game like it was the plague, thinking it was the stupidest thing ever.  However, as I slowly grew up, I found myself interested in this game more and more.  I finally decided to get this game when I found it in the store, especially seeing how happy my girlfriend was to see it, since it turns out it was her favorite series.  So really, if I wasn’t dating the girl I’m dating now, I probably wouldn’t have played this great gem of a game.  So here we go, this is Katamari Damacy for the Sony Playstation 2!

Now, when it comes to spoilers, there really isn’t any.  Stars and what not in space are missing, so you, the son of the king, aka the prince, has to make things right.  At a very microscopic size, your job is to take your katamari and roll things up, to transform what you make into a star of some sort.

Nothing special in story,  however, the story isn’t why you want to play this game!  It’s all the gameplay!  The game will often pit you against the clock as you struggle to make your katamari as big as possible.  It’s the only thing on your mind!  Even when you complete the level, your next thought is:  “I want to make the katamari bigger!”  which often translates you to trying to get a better score, making you compete with yourself and get better, adding in more additional play time.  That and you also get to listen to the weird funky music that you would hopefully fall in love with (like I have).

In this day and age where all we see are the same shooters, assassin creed storylines and what not, I wish there were more games like katamari, trying to be unique.  Sure, there’s nintendo doing it with the wiiU, but I miss the age of gaming where you risk putting a game no one has seen before and then watch it build up to extraordinary levels.  Katamari is not a platformer, it’s not a sandbox game, nor is it one of the huge amount of FPS games we see running rampant these days.  Katamari is… well, it’s Katamari!

Now if you excuse me, I’m going to hum the song as I enjoy my day.  I give Katamari Damacy a 9.5 out of 10.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A Silent Voice

Bullying is a serious topic, especially since you can bully about anything.  As a victim of bullying myself, I know the pain, but this story doesn’t follow the perspective of the victim, but the bully itself.  I give you all, Koe no Kitachi, or its english name, A Silent Voice.

The story follows Ishida Shouya, just a popular elementary school student who just enjoys having fun, but he’s finding himself bored of life.  One day, a girl named Nishimiya Shouko transfers in, but she’s not like other students, she’s deaf.  Thinking of her as a new toy, Ishida takes it upon himself to bully the poor girl.  Before long however, he gets in trouble by the teacher and all of his “friends” betray him and start bullying him in return, as Nishimiya transfers schools while he’s the one who stays getting bullied.  The one who starts bullying is the one who gets bullied, and as a little kid, he finds out the pain he put on Nishimiya.  The story then continues in high school, where

From here on out, I feel like it’s all spoilers, but I recommend you read it.  Although the art can be a bit choppy here and there for 2014, it’s still better than Attack on Titan’s art.  That and a lot of the time, the art is actually really good, only in a few places is it off.  The characters are simple, yet somewhat likable.  Some of the characters you will hate.  Actually, in my case, I hated about half of the characters, but as long as it focused on Ishida and Nishimiya, I was happy.  The story, after chapter 6, focuses more on Ishida trying to forgive himself for what he did in the past.  Although that may seem spoilerish, it’s pretty obvious from what you read in the first few pages of chapter 1.

It’s really hard to give a review without spoilers, but all in all, in my opinion give it a read!  I first read the story as a doujinshi on fakku(back when Fakku didn’t just focus on selling all of their material).  You can find english U.S. copies in book stores such as Kinokuniya if there is one near you, or online possibly on amazon.  How far the U.S. translated manga has gotten, I have no idea, but I enjoyed the story so much that I’d appreciate it if you support the author.  If you can’t buy the manga however, because you’re broke like me, feel free to read it online fully translated on manga sites such as mangapanda, mangahere, mangapark or whatever medium you enjoy reading your online manga on!  It’s a touching story that was able to hit my heart (and hopefully yours as well) and fully worth the read!

I give A Silent Voice a score of 9 out of 10.