July's manga / #Adventure(11)

I love the male lead cruising through life as an otome mob character, and building a harem as a result. This idea is pretty cool, and I enjoyed watching him screw up the original otome plot. It seems like the story is starting to slow down in recent chapters though, so perhaps the author has run out of ideas... Hopefully it picks up again soon.

This is on par with Feng Qi Cang Lan, although I would say the art in GCS is better. The two webtoons share a very strong female protagonist, who can accomplish anything they put their minds to. Unlike FQCL, GCS's lead hasn't struggled or fallen down yet. The story goes downhill after the Desert King arc though. The author seems to be trying to mix things up so her missions are different, but honestly, watching her make guys fall for her was the best part of the webtoon. The Venice arc was utterly garbage, and I thought the lead suddenly changed in personality. She's back to playing mind games with two guys in the Ghost arc but it's just not the same as before. Hopefully, the author finds their groove back to make this exciting and interesting again. Docking off a star due to the declining quality of recent chapters. Ugh, the cultivation arc is by far the worst arc yet, please go back to a simpler set-up.

One of the first manga I've ever read, it's still a classic. Inuyasha is a great character and his love triangle with Kagome and Kikyo was well-done. I'm a sucker for the "a group of companions go on a quest to accomplish something" type stories. Definitely worth several read-throughs!

I'm so conflicted about this webtoon. The art is one of the best I've seen, but the plot is one of the worst. It's like someone took a trip while high and starting writing about their visions. Nothing makes sense and it ends abruptly. Such a waste of good art. Thankfully, the sequel is a little bit better.

It's a nice short side story that explains the ending of the first season of the anime. I think there's only two chapters? Beautiful art as always.

One Piece is the best! Classic shounen manga~

A man is randomly summoned to a different world by "accident" by a goddess, and the new world he's in operates like an RPG game. He's chosen to be a craft type class, so he begins his quest by collecting and hoarding everything he sees, and his item box has unlimited capacity. A somewhat basic isekai with an OP hero who starts off with the best of the best in terms of skills and equipment, etc. He's not really a unique character, and I don't like him as a protagonist. Everything goes super smoothly for him, it's rather boring to read. World-building is rather weak so far, so the story isn't engaging in any way.

A boy with the useless job class of Appraisal is abandoned by his party members, and he nearly died, but is saved by a tree spirit and her guardian. He lost his eye, so they replaced it with an even more powerful version of his appraisal eyes, and he's learning to fight using his new ability. It seems ok so far, but nothing special. The tree spirit is completely in love with the male lead already, which is lame. The art is a bit too rough for my taste, but it's serviceable for shounen manga.

I so, so, so wanted to like this manga. In fact, I was in love with it from the first chapter, but it went downhill pretty quickly after that. But, wow, that first chapter was beautifully done, with some of the best art and panelling I've seen recently. There were a series of panels without any words, just action and wide shots, so amazing. It really captured the beauty and dangers of the new world the protagonists find themselves in very effectively. The only problem is that the pacing is too goddamned fast. Like we were introduced to 4-5 main characters in a short span of three chapters. Slow down! How do you expect readers to keep up? Not to mention, this is based on the Water Margin, where there are 108 main characters or heroes, who will all probably appear in this manga too. I think this could have been good, but maybe it will find the right pace later on. By the way, I love how the girl character doesn't fight, instead, she commands the guys around her like a general, but I wish it was more believable, since there wasn't too much explanation to why they'd stoop to serve her if they're more powerful than she is. And her being the supposed savior isn't enough for me, since she doesn't have the kind of charisma to pull that off.

Ironically, this was more of a gripping read than Naruto, but the characters are even worse in this sequel with nearly zero development, aside from the two male protagonists. However, it was pretty interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat to see what would come next. The art is awful though and the main characters from Naruto are severely nerfed to the point of being useless.