nodame ending

Oohhh the last chapter of Nodame is out. Now I can’t wait for the Indonesian edition to finish.. ^^

 

bloody monday = bloody boring

I take back what I said previously about Bloody Monday. It’s BOOORIINGG because the story’s got no substance whatsoever. The perfect example of a plot-driven manga. I groaned practically at every chapter due to the stupid plot. むかつく!!! Ughh.. Skipped to the last three chapters and I’m thankful that I did. Turned out the mangaka made another outrageous twist. Bah. I don’t think it deserves the previous 7.5. I doubt it even deserves 5 out of 10

 

Vinland Saga

Read it. ‘Nuff said.

 

Bloody Monday

A fast-paced action with plot twists coming up one after another. Contrary to what most people say about it, I don’t think it’s THAT great. Everything was too much, even the plot twists. Reading it feels like watching a big-budget Hollywood action flick. Great action, no substance, just flash-bang-boom all over (think Transformer). It used the common ingredients and formula to make an action manga a bestseller and I think that it fairly succeeded in accomplishing what it set out to do. But that’s about it. I doubt it’ll leave any impression on me by the time I finish reading it (though I have to give the mangaka props for managing to make it somewhat enjoyable despite the  overused formula). 7,5 out of 10.

 

gak bangetttt

deep love series. avoid them at all costs. and i mean all of them. ayu, reina, host (terutama yang ini    ) dan pao. total waste of time (and bandwidth and harddisk space if you download them).

 

started out good but then..

I’ve been reading many noteworthy mangas lately so I guess it’s time for another manga review This time, it’s Belmonde Le VisiteuR (ini memang dari sananya r-nya selalu huruf besar, don’t ask me why), a shounen manga published in the Weekly Shounen Jump. First of all, I should remind anyone currently reading the manga that this review contains spoiler.

The manga is set in France during the time of Cardinal Richelieu and the protagonist, Belmonde, is a man who happens to be an illegitimate son of a noble man with a witch. His mother was executed for being a witch and so he was raised by the monks in the basement of a monastery, forbidden to ever set foot outside the basement. Inheriting the witch blood from his mother (FYI, in this manga the word witch applies to both men and women), he could see through anyone with his eye hence he was appointed by Cardinal Richelieu to obtain information from prisoners. One catch though, he can only use his ability on someone who nearly loses consciousness. So Belmonde drives the prisoner to the verge of losing consciousness by “torturing” him with a special witch sword. The “torture” is the main theme from the beginning of the story almost up to the end of volume one and is actually the fun part. It’s not scary at all (to the reader, that is) being funny and very enjoyable instead. The manga was set in a light mood so I honestly can’t see the prisoners as evil cutthroats. They’re just there for the author to show us the creative and ingenious methods Belmonde uses to extract information. Belmonde along with the other characters, the royal guard Roland, the noble girl Celine, and the peasant Chloe are amusing and the interactions among them make this manga very entertaining to read.

(SPOILER ALERT)

Unfortunately the fun doesn’t last and near the end of volume one it seemed that the author decided to start a new plot that regrettably made the manga less enjoyable and even a bit annoying. To me, Georges’ motive is not sufficient enough to make his actions plausible. Add this to the ridiculous event happening to Louis XIII which leads to D’Artagnan being the good-bad-guy, and the author had succeeded in making me want to throw the manga out the window.

Bottom line, the manga was good, up to the point the five assassins came, because that’s where the new plot starts. Unfortunately I cannot tell whether it gets better or worse to the end because scanlation is only up to volume two while the manga itself ends on volume three. Maybe I should look for the third volume in Book-Off (kayak ngerti bahasa Jepang aja.. ).

 

Double Arts

Time for another manga review This time, the spotlight’s on Double Arts, a shounen manga. It was begun only recently, still on chapter 13.  But it looks promising. I love the arts. AND the storytelling. AND the setting. It’s set in an RPG-like setting. And the flow would actually remind you of an RPG game. You move between towns. You gather information at each town. While having enemies jumping out every now and then. (Sebetulnya ini hanya perkiraanku. Wong baru dua kota kok. )

Apalagi yaa.. Yah gitulah.. Bagus pokoknya

Summary: give it a try. I think it’s sooo much better than Psyren which has been given many positive reviews

 

Hoshi wa utau (the stars are singing )

huwaaa aku senaanggg menemukan komik baru untuk diikutii

hoshi wa utau is a new manga from takaya natsuki sensei, the mangaka of fruits basket (my favorite shoujo manga of all time ). membacanya betul-betul membuatku senaaanggg. gaya penceritaannya sangat takaya-ish.
the story is about a girl, named sakuya, meeting a boy who just showed up at her birthday celebration at home. she thought he was her brother’s friend. but it turned out he’s not. while her brother thought he was her boyfriend hence he let him join the celebration. naturally, she was intrigued by this “mysterious” boy. because he seemed to understand her feelings. he made a comment on one thing exactly the way she feels towards it. and nobody else thinks that way. and so she looked for any information on him with the help of her friends. (oh, and the boy’s name is chihiro)
one day, sakuya met chihiro by chance at the train station. and tanpa ba-bi-bu chihiro suddenly said “i hate you”. and the train passed between them and then he’s gone.. (sebetulnya gak sesingkat itu sih.. tapi you know lah i’m not good at telling stories) going home sakuya realized that she likes chihiro!! and that she was so sad because chihiro said he hates her (gampang ditebak sih tapi it’s okay). and the next day at school, there’s a new transfer student and it’s..  (jeng jeng jeng.. BGM.. ) chihiro!!! what will happen to the two of them??
yah begitulah kira2 ceritanya. the story itself may not be an original one. but the storytelling is what you would expect from takaya sensei. superb!!
and knowing takaya sensei (sotoy gini aku ), i bet the main story is not sakuya and chihiro’s relationship. it would be a long journey. a journey of self discovery (and things like that)..

 

Furuba Rulezz!!! :)

Just finished the new fruits basket (volume 16). dan abis siap bacanya aku jadi ingat lagi knapa dulu i said fruits basket is the best shoujo manga. Because it simply is!! hahaa gak menjelaskan

soalnya gini loo (who am i explaining this to??? ) kan aku dah lama sebetulnya baca bagian yang itu dari scanlation. Dan waktu baca itu kan aku emang lagi hot-hotnya gitu lo sama furuba. Jadi wajar aja semua terasa bagus dan menyentuh. Tapi by the time i read furuba yang dari elex, it’s been a long long time since i last read any of its scanlation. and the euphoria (if any) has surely faded away. Meaning i read it with a clear (if a little subjective) mind. Dan ternyata lagi-lagi aku tersentuh bacanya (huhuuii bahasaku..). i feel i can relate with all of its characters. Which is the highest compliment i can give to a book, for both novels and comics (and also I’ve been repeating over and over to my sister about furuba ).

So no need to say more: Furuba rules!!! Long live Takaya Natsuki!!!!

 

fruits baskettt

first off, one of my favorite books of all time. FRUITS BASKET.

i LOVE this book. everything about it is GREAT. ok, so perhaps some of you are wondering, what the hell is fruits basket? well, actually it is a manga. what? you don’t know what a manga is? shame on you!! in fact, since i think very few people don’t know what a manga is, i won’t bother explaining. just google it.

back to fruits basket, or furuba. it is actually an ongoing series. it’s been published up to volume 20 in Japan and the last chapter will be published on August 5 (oh no!! ) as i said, EVERYthing about it is great. its only drawback is that it’s a manga. since a lot of people don’t take mangas seriously. they don’t think it’s possible for a manga to have a deep story with characters that develop along the storyline. but furuba is all that and more!!

when you start reading it, you might think that this is just another standard shoujo manga. with cute characters and handsome boys with mysteries that will be uncovered only on the last volume. but it is not!! when you read, you can feel the characters actually changing along the story. for example, yuki in the early chapters, wouldn’t have done what the yuki in volume 15 had done. and the later kyou wouldn’t have done the earlier kyou had done. bottom line is you can sympathize with what the characters have been and are going through. and you want to know what will happen to them.  The story is DEEP… dalem gituu