The Volume Rating Thread

That's a very well-written review into which you've obviously put a lot of thought. I can't really argue with most of your criticisms but I do see them from a different perspective. Maison Ikkoku is first and foremost a sitcom and for that reason the slow advancement of the primary relationship was never an issue for me. I just enjoyed watching those characters and their many ups and downs.

I'd also like to say a few words in defence of Godai. Yes, he can be spineless and indecisive, but it should be remembered that Maison Ikkoku hails from a different era with a more reserved culture. The reason it took six long years for Godai to make his move is that he felt unworthy of Kyoko until he had secured a proper job that would lead to a long term career. His initial plan was to propose upon graduating from university but, alas, finding work was more difficult that he's anticipated and so he made the difficult decision to study for another two years in order to qualify as a pre-school teacher. If anything, he showed a lot of spirit and determination to put his life on hold when all he wanted was to marry the woman he loved. Kyoko, for her part, took a long time to move on from Soichiro's death, to open her heart again without feeling as though her love for him was somehow not real. Whether six years is too long is entirely subjective and not something I'd feel qualified to criticize her for.

Maison Ikkoku is so great because the characters are flawed. It makes them real. Yes, we get frustrated with them but we also empathise with them; we recognize ourselves and people we know in them. Godai initially uses Ikuko to curry favour with Kyoko and is tempted by Kozue's advances. Kyoko leads Mitaka on, even though she knew from a very early stage that she could never love him, and is fiercely and unreasonably jealous. Mitaka uses all kinds of underhanded methods to edge his way into Kyoko's life and force her into uncomfortable situations, and he doesn't hide his feelings of superiority from Godai. But, deep down, they're all good people -- even the Ikkoku crazies.

So, yeah, it's a good review that I enjoyed reading and I'm glad you came to enjoy the series after being rather indifferent towards it to begin with.
 
Good review Aion, interesting to hear from the perspective of a reader who wasn't exposed to the series so much early on. I'm glad it still holds up even without nostalgia.

On Kyoko, I found her really annoying until I realised that she was actually very immature for her age in terms of relationship skills. Because of her first love coming and going so early she missed out on a lot of the awkward stage a lot of women (and men) seem to put behind them in those interim years and when she was thrust back out into life on her own she didn't deal with it well. By the end of the series I liked her and was rooting for her. Some of her lines really hit home, too, and it's rare even now to see a romantic comedy heroine with some dignity.

Godai always seemed weak and immature throughout. He did improve, but it was at a snail's pace - all in all this was for the best as Kyoko needed time to grow as well but I did want to throttle him a few times on the way. Mitaka was cooler, just not right for her.

I'm glad Ichinose/Yotsuya didn't really develop much as it was part of their charm. I fancy that she's already rather set in her ways and found her very pleasant immediately (despite her awful habits). I'd have liked to know more about Yotsuya but perhaps if that had happened it would have ruined him for me.

R
 
Negima - Volume 1

I mainly got this because I loved the Love Hina Manga.

I started read it not knowing what to expect from the first volume, but overall I thought it was pretty good.
It's pretty much the same as Love Hina, totally random and anything that can go wrong will.. This Volume was pretty much introductions, flying skits and a tad of humour.

Negi is a 10 year old boy (Actually around the middle it says he's nine) who's training to be a Magister and he's sent to a all-girls high school to teach English where he's not allowed to use magic or let anyone know he's a Magi. From there on he meets Asuna who doesn't seem to like him and trys to prove there's something wrong with him.

It was interesting enough to get a few more Volumes to see where the story is heading..

8/10
 
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After very rarely EVER getting review comments, I get two at once...when reviewing a 22-29 year old manga. The world is wrong.

Cheers for the comments. It's always nice to know someone bothers reading what I spend hours trying to put together. The Maison Ikkoku review was a pain because I started early in the morning, after finishing reading the manga following my 60+ chapter marathon, became too tired to continue and then I had restructure my review AND add more paragraphs. I don't know why I feel the need to go to all that trouble - I only intended to make a normal forum post at first. ;____;

I wasn't what I'd consider "indifferent" to the series at first. Even after I stopped reading following chapter 43 in the past, when I first acquired volumes 1-11, I rated it 8/10. I always found it enjoyable to read, I just lacked the motivation to read manga back then. I didn't struggle so much with the fillerish content this time around, although I did, as highlighted in my review, get annoyed with it at times. The end - the last 20 or so chapters - repaired most of the the damage the fillerish content had done.

As for me not being blinded by nostalgia, I doubt anyone could walk away from Maison Ikkoku hating it - it's aged very well, even when you consider how often the formula has been repeated. I'm a very critical person by nature and I still managed to become absorbed into its world, finding myself wanting Godai and Kyoko to get together, no matter how spineless they were. I was a little worried going into it because of me having read Love Hina beforehand, but my worries were baseless.

Now, onto fabio's Godai comments: You're forgetting one very important detail - Godai didn't wait before discovering if he'd passed his test before sleeping with Kyoko. He wasn't noble enough to have waited six years to get a proper job and that wasn't why it took them so long to get together. He'd thought about expressing his feelings verbally and physically many times, only not doing so because he was a wimp. Kyoko wanted him, he wanted her but neither of them had the guts to take their friendship to the next level. That's all there was to it.

It's true Kyoko was concerned about what her future would be like if she married Godai - no adult relationship can last without money - but she was simply using Godai's lack of income as an excuse to keep waiting. She didn't want to commit; not because of money but because she was afraid of giving herself to another man. And that's why it annoyed me when she put a vague (and random) summer dealine on her marriage plans near the end, seemingly suggesting she was going to wait to see about Godai's future, and then slept with him before finding out. That proved Kyoko was so indecesive simply because the author wanted to drag the story out as far as possible.

And, as for Kyoko needing to take 8 years (at the start her husband had been dead for 2 years?) to get over her husband, her thoughts had already drifted away from her husband long before the ending. It wasn't as if she'd suddenly forgot by the time Godai took her to bed. I found the 'I can't sleep with another man because my husband is watching me from above' thing to be an acceptable and understandable reason for not wanting to be with other men at first, but as time dragged on her inability to be with either Godai or Motaka was down to her being as bad as Godai at decisions, nothing more.

If you recall, near the start Godai got drunk and carried Kyoko to his room. Rather than resist, she was willing to let him do what he wanted with her. And she was actually made angry by him passing out before doing anything. That occurred a long time before the end... I don't think Mitaka had even entered the picture yet.

Finally, I understand Japanese culture differs greatly from ours and Maison Ikkoku is old - the fact Godai went to hit Kyoko with a open-hand slap in public highlighted that - but I just don't think its realistic that someone like Mitaka would wait around for six years, putting his life on hold, for a woman who wouldn't show affection. It was a stetch even to think a guy as pathetic as Godai would. Maybe if I jumped back in time I'd have a different view, but in this day and age that sort of love story just doesn't happen. True love is dead.
 
Aion said:
Kyoko wanted him, he wanted her but neither of them had the guts to take their friendship to the next level.
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Nah. Kyoko was afraid. Godai always lacked the self-confidence. Until he got his **** together, he'd always be comparing himself unfavourably with Soichiro and Mitaka, and Kyoko understood that. He desired her, certainly, but he knew deep down that a relationship, a marriage, was out of the question. For a long time there was an implicit understanding between the two of them that they would be together once Godai had found his place in life, whatever he chose to do. Indeed, Kyoko even spoke about "waiting" for him on a couple of occasions. By the time they had sex he knew where he was going, even if he hadn't quite reached there yet.

EDIT: You should watch the movie, which takes place the day before the wedding. It's not licensed but I'm sure you'll be able to "find" it somewhere.
 
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This probably feels like a very slight comment given the heft of the review, but I actually like not knowing, for instance, Yotsuya's job, as the imagining of what he might do has endless entertainment value; being told for sure that he sells insurance, or something, doesn't have the same charm. :p
 
The movie? There's an animated movie?

I wasn't aware of its existence, but I'm certainly intersted in it if it takes place before the end. Did the TV series not cover the manga ending or is the film all filler?

I'm in the process of downloading HQ DVD-rips of the TV series, but the first episode didn't impress me - it had too much filler, the art didn't look right, I wasn't hot on the voice acting and the soundtrack is awful. I'll give it until the 10th episode before deciding if its worth seeing a filler version of a story already full of filler.

Yotsuya: I agree the mystery made Yotsuya more interesting. However, it wouldn't have hurt to learn about his job near the end, when he wasn't a character getting much 'panel time.' Just leaving it open, with no hints about his job other than him having the ability to tell when he's being followed, doesn't sit right with me.

Question: Besides the length, does my review contain numerous flaws I'm blissfully unaware of? I ask because I posted it on MAL 4 hours ago, checked just now and saw it had a score of 1 positive/3 unhelpful. That stings a little after I put something like 3-5 hours into it. I'm going to repost it over the weekend.
 
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei Vol.1 9/10

Picked this up a few weeks ago after reading Sarah's review and really enjoyed it. I found it such a funny series, its among the best satire i have ever read. It was really refreshing to have a comedy take on what would usually be awkward topics. I would recommend this to anyone after something different and i'm so glad i was tempted into trying it.
 
Good idea, Aion, even though you did kind of steal it from my movie rating thread :p

Last manga volume I read was Astro Boy vol. 3, which I rate at 7/10 :]
 
Claymore Vols 1 ~ 7 - 8/10 For everything Clare, and 9/10 for the Teresa arc.

Right now on volume 7, I've found the trick to power her up really interesting.

Ghosttalker Daydreamer vol 2 and 3 - 9/10 the story gets darker as Misaki intentionally kills a guy.
A little bit about her past is revealed, but still very few..

Welcome to the NHK V1 - 8/10 great comedy, some of the moments were laugh out loud material.
 
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Yubisaki Milk Tea v1 - 6/10

Our protagonist is a typical high school student named Yoshinori. Except that he secretly enjoys crossdressing. He finds it liberating, pure escapism. He has a childhood friend named Hidari, who's a couple of years younger. Immature both physically and emotionally, she has a crush on our crossdressing dullard. Yoshinori treats her like a child, yet is sexually attracted to her, going so far as to take a peek inside her underwear while she sleeps. WHAT.

Enter Minamo, a quiet, bespectacled girl in Yoshinori's class. Everyone avoids her because they think she's weird, but that horndog Yoshinori thinks she's cute and decides to go talk to her. She's basically a female Shinji Ikari and doesn't react well. Yoshinori reckons she has a problem dealing with boys, so, yeah, he goes to SCHOOL dressed as a girl. Minamo sees through it but still opens up to him. Yoshinori gropes her. WHAT.

And that's just the first few chapters. For the sake of brevity (and because nobody will read this) I won't go into what happens next, but suffice it to say that a love triangle forms and it gets even more bizarre. If nothing else, this manga captures the confusion and turbulance of adolescence. I'm certainly confused and I get the impression that the mangaka was too.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
...(and because nobody will read this)...
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You expected a post with the second sentence involving the word "crossdressing", not to get read? How very mistaken :lol:
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Yubisaki Milk Tea v1 - 6/10

Our protagonist is a typical high school student named Yoshinori. Except that he secretly enjoys crossdressing. He finds it liberating, pure escapism. He has a childhood friend named Hidari, who's a couple of years younger. Immature both physically and emotionally, she has a crush on our crossdressing dullard. Yoshinori treats her like a child, yet is sexually attracted to her, going so far as to take a peek inside her underwear while she sleeps. WHAT.

Enter Minamo, a quiet, bespectacled girl in Yoshinori's class. Everyone avoids her because they think she's weird, but that horndog Yoshinori thinks she's cute and decides to go talk to her. She's basically a female Shinji Ikari and doesn't react well. Yoshinori reckons she has a problem dealing with boys, so, yeah, he goes to SCHOOL dressed as a girl. Minamo sees through it but still opens up to him. Yoshinori gropes her. WHAT.

And that's just the first few chapters. For the sake of brevity (and because nobody will read this) I won't go into what happens next, but suffice it to say that a love triangle forms and it gets even more bizarre. If nothing else, this manga captures the confusion and turbulance of adolescence. I'm certainly confused and I get the impression that the mangaka was too.
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So much fun from your description alone and you still rate it 6/10? I got really interested in this from you're review.
 
Assigning a score was problematic because it's an absolute train wreck, yet I couldn't tear my eyes away from the pages. The story is all over the place, there are too many improbable coincidences, characters act impulsively and change too quickly... crazy. But I read it all the way through, and that rarely happens.
 
Train-Man (Densha Otoko) v1 - 8/10

A thoroughly charming romance about an otaku who confronts a drunk on a train and gets stabbed up for his trouble. Okay, that would happen here, but in Japan the guard comes to the rescue and the otaku wins the admiration of the other passengers -- including a beautiful young woman. He posts a thread on the internet telling his story and, since he has about as much experience with women as every other otaku, he asks for advice. The manga switches between the otaku's conversation with the surprisingly helpful forum posters and his interactions with the young woman who clearly wants some geek love.

Apparently Train-Man is based on a real 2ch forum thread. Whether the events described in the thread actually happened or if it was all just an elaborate troll attempt has never been established, but it doesn't really matter because it's an amusing, heart-warming story that anyone with a soul would enjoy. The art is lovely and breezy as well, although in some panels the female lead has a remarkably large forehead...
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Train-Man (Densha Otoko) v1 - 8/10

A thoroughly charming romance about an otaku who confronts a drunk on a train and gets stabbed up for his trouble. Okay, that would happen here, but in Japan the guard comes to the rescue and the otaku wins the admiration of the other passengers -- including a beautiful young woman. He posts a thread on the internet telling his story and, since he has about as much experience with women as every other otaku, he asks for advice. The manga switches between the otaku's conversation with the surprisingly helpful forum posters and his interactions with the young woman who clearly wants some geek love.

Apparently Train-Man is based on a real 2ch forum thread. Whether the events described in the thread actually happened or if it was all just an elaborate troll attempt has never been established, but it doesn't really matter because it's an amusing, heart-warming story that anyone with a soul would enjoy. The art is lovely and breezy as well, although in some panels the female lead has a remarkably large forehead...
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Thanks for you review, I'll definately pick this up, you've made it sound really appealing. :3
 
Note that there are several manga adaptations of Train Man. I'm reading <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781421508481/Train-Man">this one</a> by Hidenori Hara.
 
FMA: 6-10

The pace slowed down a lot after the seventh volume, where the plot started to diverge from the first anime. There was lots of talking about Meas Hughes' death, a fair bit of showing what the cast were up to, the introduction of random and seemingly needless Chinese characters and very little in the way of actual story progression. It's almost as if the mangaka thought she was going too fast and decided to slow things down. But FMA was still as enjoyable as ever, despite the pacing switching from fast to slow.

Oddly, despite the situations changing, the plot still isn't that different from the manga at this point. The same people die, the same people stay alive. Volume 10 even ended at a point that was almost exactly like in the anime, even though I don't believe that chapter was out when the first anime series was made. Going on what was said in the extras, this is because the mangaka explained the way her story was going in detail, going as far as the ending, because there weren't many volunes out when production on the anime started. It wouldn't surprise me if Mustang has a showdown with Wrath just like at the end of the first anime, the only thing making me think he won't being his quest for revenge against Envy. He isn't the main character, so he can't be allowed to kill all the baddies on his own.

There are a couple of things I'd like to see go down different in the manga, namely EdxWinry and MustangxRiza. At first I thought Ed and Winry weren't ever going to go above having a sibling sort of relationship in the manga because of how Winry never blushes when she sees Ed naked, but there have been small things like Ed getting jealous that have started to make me think otherwise. If they never mate because shounen characters aren't allowed to do the romance dance, the sexual frustration will be too much. The same goes for Mustang and Riza; a pair who seem destined to dance around the issue and have a master/servant relationship forever instead.

The pacing and additions of seemingly unnecessary Chinese characters seems certain to keep my rating at 9/10 and not 10/10 for the foreseeable future, but it's entered my top five. I can't see it moving from its current ranking of 4th, either. It has the quality all top class stories have - a quality that keeps you coming back for more out of addiction.
 
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The random chinese characters seem random now, but they become very well intergrated into the story, Ling especilly.
I was also kind of irked when they showed up but give them some time.
 
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