Still on the manga binge, and guess what: Sturgeon’s Law applies to manga also. Reviews below the fold.
No Bra — B+ Well written, but soooooo wrong that it’s disturbing when it doesn’t squick you… See the earlier writeup.
The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer — D- Idiotic. Teen boy finds out he’s a reincarnated mystic knight, next-door girl is reincarnation of a famous princess. They’re supposed to save the world; instead they each want to destroy it for their own shallow angsty reasons.
Shina Dark — C+ An eclipse has awoken Satan and his legendary island has appeared. All the nations of the world ship beautiful women there, 1000 of them, in the hopes that he won’t destroy their countries. The kicker? He could care less, and just wants to be left alone — but he can’t let them all just starve… so he has to teach them to rule themselves. The two princesses he sets up as leaders have well-developed backgrounds and are vivid characters, but Satan is a cipher and the plot feels made up as it goes along. Even the manga-ka admits he can’t get the tone to be what he wants.
The Devil and Her Song – B- (not sure I’ve got the title right. Edit: it was listed under Akuma to Love Song) Everyone’s broken in some way, no one more than the protagonist. It’s very well written, and the characters are fairly unique. Unfortunately, the story is about a subject I have a hard time with: high-school cliques, bullying, and their petty cruelties. Intriguing main character, I suspect she is secretly a receiving telepath and has been since birth, although this isn’t that kind of story.
Aflame Inferno — A. Recommended if you like your intrigue served with a side of blood and death. Technically, this is a manhwa, being from Korea. Mix of ecchi, horror, supernatural, and seinen. Quite bloody, and good/innocent people die, so it’s not for the weak. The four great demons made a pact to divide our world among them in secret. But hundreds of years ago, the most powerful, Aflame Inferno, abruptly retired, told his demons to follow the others, and disappeared. Why? Why has he returned, merged with a Japanese Korean high school boy? And what does the sexy Gehenna want?
Parallel — D-. Nekota and Hoshino are the male and female student leaders at school, and always at each others throats. But in reality,the juvenile Nekota likes Hoshino… and confesses to her. He gets shot down, only to find out the real reason for the refusal is that her mother is about to marry his father — and take off on a year-long trip, leaving the two of them living together! The contrivances and logic failures are legion.
Omamori Himari — B- Very ecchi; panty-fest, multiple kisses, and lots of groping. the girls are seriously cute. Yuuto is an orphan, with hazy memories, a cute neighbor classmate/childhood friend that is secretly in love with him (of course), and a good-luck charm that he never lets go of. On his sixteenth birthday, the charm disappears… to be replaced by a sexy, katana-wielding cat spirit that announces that Yuuto is her master — in all senses of the word! Himari is his bodyguard, as Yuuto is heir to one of the 12 great demon-hunting families. She moves in — but he’s allergic to cats! Before long, he also gets a live-in loli snake demon, a demon-hunting fiancee, and the spirit of a teacup all vying for his affection. Of course, demon hunters aren’t very popular… among demons. Manages to invoke the “can’t we all just get along†trope without being overly sappy. Surprisingly western in its outlook about war, fighting, revenge and such. A fun romp with dramatic moments.
Freezing C- Once again, someone’s crossed Lord of the Flies with Candidate for Goddess. It still doesn’t work. Pandoras (all women) select underclassmen called Limiters (all male) at the Genetics military academy, and form offensive/defensive partnerships to fight alien invaders. Chosen boy Kazuya Aoi (younger brother of a deceased war hero) transfers in, where meets a look-alike of his sister, the busty meganekko tsundere Satellizer L. Bridgette (no one calls her by anything shorter). She’s the hyper-violent Untouchable Queen. Surprise, it turns out, he’s the only one who can touch her. But why does he have such incredible, yet temperamental freezing power, that he can use without a Pandora partner, and why is every other woman at the academy violently gunning for Satellizer L. Bridgette?
Turns out that they made an OVA of Shina Dark. I haven’t seen it, but I’m downloading a raw of it (all I could find) just because I’m curious.
I thought I’d heard of it as an anime, but I coudln’t find it at ANN. It might be because I was mistakenly looking for ShinRa Dark, instead.
The princesses are really cute and well done, but they have to be the center of the story because Satan and his staff are not up to it.
edit: Ah, as you said, it’s a raw. Thats why.
I was a bit surprised that no one subbed it.
I know I’ve seen some fan comments about it somewhere, so it does seem kind of odd.
UPDATE: FYI to anyone following the commentary, we both checked it out and the “OVA” is really a pair of OP’s and ED’s strung together to pitch the series. Obviously, it failed. Also, I think they moe-ified the blond princess too much.
Plus they tossed in a group bathing scene, just for gratuitous fan service.
Oh, that’s in the manga too. Apparently a number of the girls decided to take over his private hot spring. I’m not clear on what’s going on with the sign; I think someone keeps switching the old door sign back, so he’ll think it’s been re-designated private for him only, and go in…. At any rate the princesses have definitely assumed it’s theirs to use, regardless of whether he’s in it or not.
The funniest thing to me was the dragon. It seems that during a prior appearance, Satan let a madman design his treasury vault. It’s a dungeon that randomizes its level from 1 to 100 every day. Past level 70, Satan’s not sure he can handle it. (note that Satan is just the scanlator’s translation; “Demon Lord” would be more appropriate). Anyway, the dragon was contracted to be the final guardian and let no one but Satan reach the horde. Only the contract ran out, and the dragon has no desire to renew it… or move from the piles of ancient gold coins that are worth 10,000 times their face value due to age and rarity. (well, rarity unless he can get to enough of them!)