Eyeshield 21

EyeShield 21, By Yusuke Murata is an American Football based manga. It centers around a young shy and very non-confrontational boy named Sena and his secret ability to run like the wind. At the school Sena attends there is a dead-end American football team that has only two dedicated members, Hiruma the captain/quarterback, and Kurita the main blocker. One day Hiruma witness’s Sena’s speed and agility skills when being bullied at school and immediately recruits him for the schools team, the ‘Demon Devil Bats’ but as Sena does not want anyone to know who he is he takes on the pseudo character of ’Eyeshield 21’ who wear’s an eye protector over his helmet to hide his face. Along the way the team gains more players, expands their own skills, and is constantly making their teamwork better. The manga focus’s on the teams passion for football, and their will to win.

If you love sports manga’s this may be the ultimate one, its long, intense and full of awesome adventures. All the characters that come up in the story line are always developed to a very relatable level and have their own problems and skills to work on. The manga focus on the whole team/individual players strength and weakness’s and how to keep making themselves a greater force. Along with being fun and funny haha its very realistic and had a lot of information to share! This was the most enjoyable way to learn a\bout football for me, I was doing powderpuff for school a year ago and had really no clue about football(Like most of the girls though) and I know can proudly say I can keep up with the sport. 

Except for the fact that’s it’s a very run-on manga I enjoyed it!
Grade=B

BxB Brothers

BxB Brothers is a dumb name for this manga(Yep I’m starting like this). By Ayane Ukyo, this shojo is pretty typical. I gotta stop reading shojo’s..  So its about a girl named Sono who starts attending a new school and is met by three handsome but trouble making boys who take an interest in her. We find out they are in club called ‘BxB Brothers’ and invite her to join them and eventually she agrees; it’s a typical shojo, little adventures, cute love triangles between characters, so much suspense and tension between the characters to just get it on! But they never do.. But compared to some shojos I’d say this one is worth reading, they have good supporting characters and 2 of the main boys are pretty fun, kuremura, who is typically Sono’s love interest, and Hikaru, a male transvestite who likes Sono and is also apart of the BxB brothers club.

It’s cute. I’ll give it that! And it was a pretty easy read, I Just finished it 10 dragged on volumes haha only like three days of reading, and today was Christmas and I still got it done! So if your in the mood for a shojo that’s not half bad, I’d give this one a try, the beginning is a little off, I think the start of the manga is a lot different to what it becomes along the way. It might have something to do with the fact that I think its originally a Chinese manga that translated funny :} haha

But seriously! Until the end and in the beginning the club name isn’t really important! I think they just didn’t know what to name the manga, damn that’s silly!
Grade=C

Homonculus

Homunculus, is a Horror/psychological senin manga by Hideo Yamamoto. The manga takes place in the middle of Tokyo by a local park that is camp to homeless people and across the street is a hotel for the wealthy, this is where a handsome homeless man, Nakoshi, lives in his car on the street between the too. One day walking through the park a punk guy, Manabu, stop and asks him if he can perform trepanation on him for 700,000 Yen(the surgery where they drill a hole in your skull, medieval surgery) in belief that by opening a hole in Nakoshi’s skull he can open a sixth sense. Nakoshi is a misanthrope who does not believe in the supernatural but goes with Manabu who is a surgical doctor who is quite interested in the human behavior from psychological, medical and occult.

Homunculus was awesome, its one of those manga’s that is like super glue but also a headache at the same time. You love it, and where it’s going but just can’t figure it out! Homunculus makes close to no sense as I’m reading it, but is still completely interesting, a lot of it, even though 12 volumes in, has a lot of mystery. Nakoshi does develop a sixth sense, he is able to see other peoples ‘Homunculus’ which are illusion type deformities and when he gets close enough to a person with one he can slowly unravel them and disarm them of their homunculus, but it will then latch itself on to him. The concept is great, I love mangas from Japan where they are realistically from Japan, like the art is actually real and the people are Asian. So along the way of figuring out these ‘homunculu’s’ Nakoshi must deal with his own past, he is a pathological liar who never  tells anyone about himself till he is actually confronted by it when Manabu starts to try to figure this strange homeless man out.

If I could I’d make everyone at least try this one out, it’s a nonsense concept and I love it!
Grade = A-

Death Note

Death Note,  The story written by Tsugumi Ohba and manga art by Takeshi Obata. Alight, I know when it comes to Death Note there are two teams, the first are the people who think its way overrated and just not great, while the team who thinks of Death Note as a work of genius; and I must say, Death note, all around, is one of the best manga’s I’ve ever read and completely deserves all the popularity its gained.

Okay so the story, Death Note is about Light Yagami who is a genius high school student, and one day while looking outside during class he saw a book fall from the sky. After class he went to go see what it was and found out it was the ‘death note’ he takes it home, believing in all the rules it states ‘who’s ever name is written in this notebook shall die’ and is then greeted by the books holder, a shinigami(death god) Ryuk. Light is the new owner of the book and decides to kill all the evil in the world so he can create peace. All the while the world police enlist the help of a world famous detective who goes by the name L to help catch the killer responsible for all these unexplainable criminal deaths. There the story spurts into genius madness, where Light(Kira) and L play a game of cat and mouse to kill each other before the other one does.

I read the manga when it showed up in borders a few years ago, and loved it from the start, and I watched the anime as well, both being great. I still have a lot of questions about death note but I loved it from beginning to end.  I completely say if your not sure if you want to start reading mangas or just want to try this one out start here, it’s the hook!
Grade = A                                                     

Durarara!!!

 Durarara!!! Is a manga/anime by Ryohgo Narita and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda. I just got done watching the 24 episodes and one OVA they have out right now. I liked it a lot, its very different and confusing but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how its supposed to be haha. So we follow the main character Mikado, who wants to experience the exciting life of the city, he transfers schools to where his BFF is, Masomi in Ikebukuro. They soon enough begin a friendship with an attractive girl in there class, anri; The story surrounds about 16 characters, all of them having different significance to the story but what they all have in common are little parts in big things that happen within the city. Its kind of gossipy and crazy and weird. But a pretty good anime that I enjoyed, I especially liked the black ryder character, who is a headless woman who rides around in a ultra strong motorcycle with a cute helmet with cat ears haha

But yes, I’d watch this again no prob, its very fun and all the characters are interesting, anyone could get attached to any of them.
Grade = B-

Absolute Boyfriend

Absolute Boyfriend by Yuu Watase, where a young girl who seems to have no luck with getting guys stumbles upon a website that provides with the 'Absolute Boyfriend' thinking its just a game she fills out the application and personality/qualities of her boyfriend for fun. The next morning before school a giant package is delivered to her house and crazy but a real life human robot is inside! Riiko, the main character, is blown away and embarrassed not knowing what to do with it before her next door neighbor and childhood friend comes and picks her up for school. Soshi, the neighbor, is avoided and Riiko ignores her new handsome boyfriend for awhile because she is freaked out but when Night, absolute boyfriend, protects her from some boy that turned her down and was now making fun of her, she falls head over heels for Night. The story is virtually a love triangle between Riiko, Night, and Soshi, both wanting to be with her but she is always falling for Night as he was made for her.

The art and main male characters are really great and like most shojo mangas, its really cute, and probably one of the more longer and better shojo's but I myself get sick of them about half way through but since I committed to it that much might as well finish it (True Otaku) so I'd say if your looking for a cute shojo this is it, took me three days to read the series by the way haha. Like i said, Shojo's aren't my fave..
Grade = C+

Gantz



Gantz is an extremely gory, sexual, sci-fi(but also realistic), awesome manga by Hiroya Oku that I've only read the manga so far but really, words can't explain how much I've gotten addicted so quick! I had never wanted to read it before because it's really long, and I keep up with naruto, it makes sense to me. BUT! so this story is about people who die, usually in pretty tragic ways, like being slaughtered by an express subway, Suicide, Shootings, you name it; and after these random people die they are transported to a room. Gantz is the giant black orb that resides in the room, even now most of the game is still a big mystery that the players are always trying to figure out. The people in the room are sent on live or die missions, located still where they live, but no one can see them or the 'aliens' 'monsters' they were sent there to fight, Gantz gives his players and protective and superhuman suit along with T-Guns(Crazy ultra neat futuristic guns) if you die in the fight to stop the aliens you die for good and do not return to the room, if you live and defeat the monster you go back to the room, where you receive points for your killings, and are let free back into the real world. But the catch is you'll keep being brought back. You will live your normal life but until you receive 100 points. Which I can't tell you anymore because that gets to much into the plot and little twists and turns of this manga.

I've never read gory manga before but I have no problem with it I've learned! Gantz is completely interesting and for how long it is everything involved strings along wonderfully, the fight scenes are way better than anything you'd read in Jump! The characters supporting characters are always changing(dying) so you'll never get bored and it really has every aspect to a what a great manga should be like. Plus the chicks are hott.

Grade = A