Dendrobates Opinion

Dendrobates Manga Opinion Review

Okay first I would like to start off with the fact that I absolutely hate guns in real life. I could go into my reasons now but that would not be about the manga so I will spare you my thoughts on that issue for now. If you are interested ask sometime and I would be happy to tell you why. So you may be asking why I decided to pick up a manga that is so obviously gun related. Well its simple really, as I said before I have been attempting to read manga and manhwa I would normally pass over because... well.... I have read a lot already and I am running out of ones I can read that fit every single one of my picky criteria. I found some good ones recently, I would have never picked up if I didn't relax my criteria.  This one is the result of me trying one that I was sure I would hate, Just to give it a shot. So to make a long story short. Though I dislike guns, the main character of this story grew on me. So here I am writing my opinion.

This manga is only 6 volumes long and is completed already in Japan. So it is not a terribly long manga but not a 1 volume one either. I have only been able to read up to the first couple chapters of volume 3 so this opinion is based on what I have been able to read so far. Ill start first with the things I think are done well and then I will move on to my personal issues with the manga and what could have been improved or different.

The author and artist did a excellent job with the main character Sengawa. It is apparent to me that they made this character and  then built the story around him and his personality. He is a interesting guy because although he uses guns he is not the cowardly type that kills from far off to avoid the possibility of getting hurt. He fights and is strong in addition to his guns. He has a complicated personality and past too. He hides his strength and even his own personality around those in the police department. He has a co worker he seems to like at least a little. But he isn't really close to anyone. He is really handsome when you see him outside of his job at the police department but he covers it with glasses and a weird office worker hair style at work. He seems to have a strong sense of justice but he claims he is just a killer. Which I guess is true in a way. I am not sure what to make of him exactly, however, that is part of his appeal. I want to know more.

Although some people may find it a bit cliche reading about a vigilante cop, don't let that deter you from checking this story out. I think they did a good job with this one not making it like the movies and books that are out already. The main character doesn't give off the same feeling as the ones in those books and movies. He is actually quite interesting. Sengawa's reasons, personality, and way of doing things is different than in many of the movies and books. If you don't like this story it most likely would not be because of those reasons.

Although the story is still a little less than 1/2 way through. There really hasn't been much in the way of plot development. The main focus is the main character and his different Jobs he takes against the criminals of the city who get away with their crimes and the police cannot solve the problem. The issue with that is that there is still not any mention of a reason that he is in Japan or any type of deep story line or reason to tie it all together. The separate instances get resolved and the manga goes onto a new mini story with nothing to tie them together really except that they are all criminals and that a "client" asked Sengawa to take care of it or he takes notice for some reason. In a way I guess that is okay. But I hope for a more deep story.

If soon there is a deep plot that starts then it may become a manga I can really say was excellent but as of now, I can only give it like a 6 out of 10 score. That is just a personal score. However, I will say, this story does have good potential. I think some people would really enjoy it. I enjoy learning about the main character and I do expect it will start to have more plot soon. I will be able to rate it better at that point. I hope the plot deepens because it would be a waste if Sengawa was part of a story that was not good enough for his character. So I suggest this story to people who are not very young and people who don't mind some violence. Though at this point it is not one I can rave about, it is a good read and it takes a lot to get me to not hate a story with a lot of gun use in it, that said try it out and see for yourself if it sounds interesting. I will update my review when I get to finish the story.  So that I can give you my opinion of the story as a whole. Thanks for reading my opinion.

Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan Opinion

Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan Manga Opinion Review

This manga is a really sad one. However it is one I would suggest to everyone. If you can read though this whole manga without wanting to cry you don't have a heart. This manga is based off of a South Korean novel  that was also turned into a move. I have not read the novel yet nor have I seen the movie. However, this manga is worth your time. It is short. Only 8 chapters. However, in just that short time it really makes you think and feel more than any manga I have read to date. 

Yuu is unfortunate. He is on death row.  He wants to die in the beginning. He doesn't want to get involved with anyone. He had a horrible life and personally one in which I can understand his snapping. However, that doesn't justify. It is too bad that they didn't decide because of his circumstances he could be commuted to life in prison. Though until he meet Juri, that was not what he wanted at all, he wanted to die. Nobody knew the exact circumstances of his crime and he didn't try to justify in court or make even true excuses. He didn't feel that those circumstances mattered. He felt that his sentience was just. Personally though, the fact that he was able to prevent Juri from wanting to die and wanting to kill her mother, I think he was more valuable alive than dead. I don't think he was a bad guy. He was a guy who had gone past his threshold to withstand the way things were and snapped. Once you die you cannot make up for anything and though the family may want vengence, they will not feel any better about their loss once he is dead unless they are warped. Their loved ones won't come back to life. He was a handsome jaded and sad young man who meet his soul mate a little too late. He was human just like the rest of us. 

Juri was a bit annoying to me in the beginning. However it was because of her trauma that she never really grew older mentally. She was a beautiful and talented young woman with a lot of baggage. As a adult she was jaded, sarcastic, suicidal and a loner. She didn't want to be around anyone. She didn't want to live. She was critical of others but often was hypocritical in her actions and thoughts. She changed so much over the time of this story. Honestly I saw a lot of my own story in Juri's past which is part of the reason why I felt so strongly connected to her character. Her childhood trauma and mine are a lot alike. Yet how she spiraled because of what happened was different than me. In the very beginning I didn't like her, after I heard  her circumstances, I still wasn't fond of her but I understood her, but by the end of the story I really liked her a lot and felt for her and her situation. I suspect this character will grow on others as well over time.

This manga is one that I think everyone should read. Both Men and women, from pre teen to adult at least once. It is really sad and deals with difficult feelings, issues, and situations. Most people will only read it once because of how overwhelming your feelings will be from reading it. Yet it is something everyone should read. I have read it 3 times now. The first time I read it, I didn't know what I was going to read, I read the description and expected it to be tragic but I really didn't know what to expect. The second time I read it, I started it on accident thinking it was one I had not read yet. Then because I started it I had to read it all the way through. The last time I read it again was yesterday when I started this review. The manga didn't loose a single bit of it's impact with multiple readings. This one is a MUST READ.

Green Blood Opinion

Green Blood Manga Opinion Review

Green Blood is not the normal manga I go about reading, but I have over the past couple years read hundreds of romance, supernatural, martial arts, and samurai manga, manhua and manhwa so I decided to give it a try. I hate guns as a rule of thumb so I was steering clear of manga that had a gun using main character. However, I am beginning to have slim pickings of manga that fit all my picky criteria and are still good, so I decided to branch out. Though my personal feelings in real life to guns have not and will not ever change, I decided to try a few. After I tried Gangsta which had both guns and swords, and feel in love with it, I decided to try this one. I used to like to watch westerns when I was younger with my father. This one definitely has that feel to it. So I ended up breaking my rules again and I am glad I did. This manga is a really good one.

To start off with. The drawing is very unique for a Manga. It is done in great detail, however the creator doesn't make the characters without physical flaws or look too good to be human. They have freckles they have scars. Many have weird faces and many are unattractive. I think it is a nice change of pace to have the characters look more like real people. Each picture looks as though it was created with feeling. The amount of detail Green Blood has makes even ones that I thought had good detail before, pale in comparison. The creator obviously a true artist.

The story line is a interesting one. It is about The united states in its infancy. About the gangs, violence, discrimination, and the types of issues and feelings of those just making it into the country. A great deal of study probably had to be done by the creator in order to make this manga correctly and I respect that. This is a good comic western from a eastern country and it is unique. The creator did a really good job of making it so far. I cannot wait to read more.

Brad is my favorite character. He is a good man who is in a bad situation. Being the older brother he stepped up. He knows the way he is living is very wrong. However he froze his heart in order to protect his brother and in order to make the money so they could get out of that hellish area in which they lived and achieve the dreams of his younger brother. He also wished to punish his father. His true personality was a good brother and a good but realistic and slightly cold man. He is a complex guy but over all I see good in him. He also happens to be the only character who is drawn to look good in a rugged way. Most of the other men are drawn to look between normal to really ugly. I think most people will find his character to be a pretty interesting one. 

Luke is the younger brother and works hard for 50 cents a day. He is naive and gets into bad guys business when he sees things happening even though he can't do anything himself and sometimes has to be saved by his brother. He has potential to grow and become a more interesting character. However, as of now, I see him as the nosy little brother who good people like, but is also meddlesome, almost annoyingly so. Although that is the case, he is a good person overall. It will be interesting to see how he grows and changes with time.

Green Blood is a good read so far and I really don't have too much I can say that is bad about it. The action scenes are done well. The people are drawn in great detail and very realistically. The story line is very interesting and unique. I would suggest it to most adults. It is not really a good one for a kid I don't think. There is a lot of blood, there is brothels and sex and guns and gangs. So I think this is not appropriate for anyone under a teen age. Even then, it is iffy. But that is something people will have to decide for themselves. I like it and look forward to new chapters. I hope that it is licensed in English.

Gangsta Opinion

Gangsta Manga Opinion Review

Gangsta was one of the manga that I passed over as soon as I read the name assuming that it was not one that I would find interesting. It wasn't until I watched a MMV that I actually decided to look more into it. I was surprised that the story was not lacking in any way and the characters had a lot of personality and depth to them. It was not at all like my preconceptions of it. So, I ended up falling in love with a story I was sure was not worth reading. I am now anxiously awaiting each release and hope for a time that I can buy English copies of the manga and art. 

In this story the gangsters mirror more of the organized crime mafia gangsters in the way they run their organizations / families and the type of pull they have over the city and police department. The major difference is the setting. Though the city has a police department and the place is called a city. It is more of a city of banished and unwanted. It is run completely by the crime families. Twilights and criminals and excessively poor people live there. Its basically a place outside the law. Twilights are the main issue of the story so far. Twilights are pretty much stuck living there, otherwise they would be killed. Even the city they are allowed in is full of prejudice against their kind. I won't talk too much about the things you learn in the story about twilights. They don't look different than normal people and they have feelings just the same. It is truly sad and unjust how they are treated and some of their stories make me cry.

Every Character in this story is brought to life by the author. They are extremely well drawn and written. The story line keeps readers interested. You can tell the creator spent a lot of time doing their homework and coming up with the backgrounds, situations and personalities for the story. Every time a part of the story illuminates something about the characters it hints that there is more to it than that and leaves you guessing.

My favorite character is Nick. He is a Twilight and he is I think more human than Many of the regular people in this story by my opinion. It is really rare to read about a Deaf main character. I like that rareness. He is not left crippled by it though and has a very interesting personality. He has a good heart. He has been hurt repeatedly. I felt sorry for him for all the things he went through especially as a child. However even now, even with his supposed friend, he still seems to be suffering, but he still smiles and does his best and Jokes. He is not only physically strong but he is not mentally weak either. He sometimes seems like he is ready for it to all end, but although I do not know this for sure, I see things changing for him. I personally like Alex better as his girl than Warricks woman. However, Nick is super loyal to Warrick so I don't know how it would happen. He is cute in his own way. He helps people of his own volition. Although he is violent he is a good guy.

Alex is a great character. She is very mysterious since we are only now seeing small parts of who she was before she was made a prostitute (she lost her memories because of a drug that was given to make the prostitutes more docile). She annoys me a bit with that I am scared of Nick stuff. She seemed to like him the most at first but then he started ignoring her more and then she started finding him scary after she saw him fight. She is scared of Twilights. I don't understand this. Perhaps it is because of her past life which is still unclear to herself and the readers. Warrick seems to be the one who is close to her now. Though he seems self serving and spoiled as well as someone who is not showing his true colors and intentions. I see him as the more dangerous of the 2 if it is between him and Nick. Warrick is a regular guy though and not a twilight.

Warrick is a guy I am not too fond of. He was not bad at all in the beginning. I actually liked him. However as the story wears on I start to see things that I don't really like about him and mysterious things said and done that make me think he might not be a good guy at all. I hope that my intuition about it is wrong but I think he is selfish and blames nick for his father and families deaths when they were the ones hurting him and he was just trying to help him as a twilight mercenary that was all he knew. Nick obviously cared for him deeply as a friend. However, warrick's true feelings though there are some that have come to light so far are still a mystery. I think nick knows though and accepts it. I cannot wait to get the whole story between the 2 and find out what Warricks true motives and thoughts are.

This book is violent so if you don't want to read anything violent at all then this is not for you. However, it is really well done. I would suggest it to anyone who can handle a little violence and adult situations. It is a excellent read.

Below is a good MMV. If you came from my tumblr account then you have already seen it.

Midnight Secretary Opinion

Midnight Secretary Manga Opinion Review

This manga is one of the first Josei Romance Manga I ever tried. At the time I was super into supernatural love stories. This is actually one of the first manga I ever tried that was not so main stream The one before this was vampire knight. Which when I started reading it it was big but not as big as it is now and school life ones got old quick for me so I decided to switch to more mature manga me being almost 30 and all. This one has a ton of smut. I mean just a ton. I would put the smut level on the same level as black bird or Akuma no Eros just with a better story by a long shot so if you dislike smut skip over this review cause this manga is most definitely not going to be your cup of tea. Trust me.

 Now out of all the Josei I have read that are true Josei and not just mislabeled this one is the least mature. The issues the characters have and the way they communicate and their feelings are more on the level of school girl romance than a true Josei at times. However, that is not a major complaint.The whole secretary / boss thing is not a new idea but that didn't affect my good opinion of this manga. I found it to be a very good romance. 

Kyouhei Touma is a very good dominating guy character who is handsome and arrogant. He has qualities many women like in men. I have no complaints about this character. I think he was the perfect guy character for this type of romance in every way. He has a interesting personality. The thing I find most interesting about him and the vampires in this book is that they are not too far off from human. They don't have a ton of extra life beyond human years. They do not have heavy supernatural powers like shooting lightening out of their fingertips or anything like that. So his compatibility with a human woman is not bad. Its not like he will live a eternity after she dies or will have to deal with turning her into his kind. Though it is taboo for the vampires in the manga to love a human.

Kaya was good in the beginning for the most part... as time went on I had more and more issues with her. Though I liked the drawings of her and she wasn't so annoying that i'd write a page about how dumb she is. She was just... more nosy than I thought most guys would like and then her lie was ridiculous  She would tell Kyouhei that she was sleeping with him cause it was part of her job as a secretary to provide him the best blood so it didn't hinder his work... I mean come on, that is a horrible excuse. Also she had no confidence in him. He told her to wait for him once and it wasn't even 2 days before she started looking for him. She even went to his house and stuff. That is too obsessive. She ran away more than once yet claimed she would be there for him... I don't know... I guess I may be a bit hard on her. But when you read you will for sure see some times when she annoys you but there are other times she seems kinda cool.

Overall this is a good read. Not too long and not too short. It could have gone on a few chapters more cause I kinda wondered about something at the end though I cannot tell you what it is or else I will ruin too much of it for you. Suffice to say if you enjoy the Romance genre and don't mind some smut it is well worth your time to try out. Definitely a well written love story.