Manga Round-up

Please Go Home, Miss Akutsu!

This one reminds me a lot of Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro but it’s even more sexualized. Not nudity, but more fan service as a degenerate sort of character, Miss Akutsu has descended on the main characters apartment. And, well, she’s made it her hangout spot which is driving the main character up the wall. He has no idea of what she’s going to do, and I’m not convinced that she does either. But either way, both of them kind of like the other or are growing to like the other.

You can see how that kind of matches up with Don’t Toy WIth Me, Miss Nagatoro. And it’s enjoyable to see it again. The stories are very short and vey slice of life as different things happen to both Miss Akutsu and the main character. But mainly, she just doesn’t want to leave his place and won’t no matter what he tries.

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Magilumiere Magical Girls is a new manga that I stumbled across. It’s a world of magic girls with magical powers who work at companies and defeat monsters for them. It’s kind of a business, though how the companies get paid, I don’t fully understand that.

Sakuragi is a recent college graduate who is failing at a job hunt. She over prepares and over thinks everything as she is looking for work. She helps a magical girl take out one of the monsters with her knowledges of the monsters. So the company that that magical girl works for recruits her.

The story is fun and different from my normal fantasy manga reading. The main character is a lot of fun. And the company that she goes to work for is a start-up magical girl company with an interesting cast of employees. It is more going to be about them, or at least it will be a lot of the time, than the magical girl fighting.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Now we’re to fantasy manga and Isekai. Our main character is brought to a fantasy world and, well, he doesn’t get what is considered a cool power. Nope, instead he gets healing magic. Turns out, healing magic is pretty rare. But the top healer, she is a bit eccentric in her training of healers looking for someone like her.

What is like her? Well, the main character is basically broken down and learns how to use healing magic on himself. He is a tank, not for combat but for being able to heal on the front lines. The last time the demons attacked, the other healer is the only reason everyone survived. So she wants other healers like her to keep the demons at bay next time they attack.

I enjoy this type of story. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is pretty standard in what is does. A fantasy world with demons attacking is what I expect from an isekai. It is just enough different and I haven’t gotten into the “let’s fight” portion of the manga that I’m enjoying it thus far.

I Want to End This Love Game

Now time for a cute manga. I really enjoy cute manga, and I Want To End This Love Game is a fun cute one. To me, I think of Kaguya-sama: Love is War as a comparison. Mainly it is two characters who love each other, but neither is going to fold to be the first two admit it.

How did we end up here? Yukiya and Miku make a bet as kids or more of a dare. They tell each other “I love you” and the first to have their heart flutter is the loser. Well, for both of them, the time of their heart fluttering has long past. They now love each other but neither of them dare admit it because that will mean that they lose the game.

The manga is the story of them trying to get the other to break. Because, once the other breaks, they now confess their love and their heart fluttering is fine. The story is just really cute and enjoyable.

Overgeared

Finally we have Overgeared. According to what I looked up, I haven’t written about this one. I thought maybe I had because I’m book three of this webtoon turned manga or manhwa. And it is back to fantasy with Overgeared.

At the moment he dies, our main character, in a video game, unlocks the secret new class of a master blacksmith. He rebuilds in the game from being a top character to now even a more powerful character, but one who has no idea of how it all works. It is less of a fantasy romp of fighting monsters and more of him figuring how to make it in his career as a blacksmith. And in real life how he is able to help support his family now through the video game. Though, half the battle is convincing his parents that is even possible.

It is a fun fantasy story. I like the ones with kind of an underdog character. I say kind of because he is powerful. But also I like the story of the unlikely skill being used to come up as a big time hero. Overgeared is that type of story, so I like that element.

Final Thoughts

I like all of these manga. Normally, I think there is one or two where I look at it and go, I won’t get more of them. In this batch, I want to read more of them. My investment with Overgeared is already there. The one that I think I might end up dropping is The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic but I want to read a little more of it first. Mainly that is the most generic of the manga in the group.

The one that I like best is easily I Want To End This Love Game. The premise is just so much fun, and the characters aren’t mean about it. They tease each other to get them flustered. But they both want the other character to get flustered and fall in love with them. So the idea of being too mean and antagonizing the other person is a real concern which means, they need to be sweet.

Have you read any new manga lately?

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Top 50 Anime – 40 through 31

40. Gurran Lagann

This is definitely one of them that falls into the odd category. Gurran Lagann is about mechs and trust, and rebuilding a whole ne world and spirals. A lot of spirals. Why spirals, it doesn’t make complete sense, but it’s from an age where anime like this needed to “mean” something deep without actually being that. But it’s a blast in what it does and the action is cool and fun for it being an older anime. It’s also nice because it’s not too long in what it does.

39. Saiki K

Another one that is very light and fun. This one is all about the slice of life vignettes of a psychic high schooler, and telekinetic, and basically the most overpowered character. But it’s not about him using his powers, really, it’s about how he wants to be normal and how, well, life can’t ever be normal for him. It’s good for a lot of laughs and some of the characters that he meets up with an interacts with are as crazy as he is. Not as powerful, but mainly just crazy and it’s a fun time for that.

Saiki K is one of those anime that is fun to throw on and just enjoy a few little slices of it and then come back for more in a day or two. You won’t lose the plot really, because it is slice of life and while there are a few stories that might show up again, none of them show up that often.

38. Edens Zero

Yup, keeping with the theme of light and goofy, this is a sci-fi anime from the creator of Fairy Tail. And this one I think is more fun for me. Edens Zero basically has some of the same characters in it, but the setting works better. And there’s less filler and less of a commitment to it. So I like that it feels a bit more focused.

It’s all about a boy, man, who is raised by robots. When they eventually stop working he needs to find out about the real world and go searching for a powerful being. It’s definitely got fan service, so does Fairy Tail, and it feels similar in the searching for someone plot line. But like I said, I like it better because it just seems more focused, in a crazy sort of way.

37. Rising of the Shield Hero

A year ago this one wouldn’t have been on my list. I hadn’t made it past the first episode. The first episode tries to be super serious and you don’t really like the main character or any of the other characters. But for me, once I pushed beyond that, it’s a fun isekai. It doesn’t for me stand out as one of my favorites, but there is a lot to enjoy about it.

The main character bounces back from being an edge lord well in it. And the other characters, as you start to meet characters from the world, they are all more interesting. It has a lot of tropes that you’d expect, but not in a bad way. It’s overall a solid and fun watch.

36. Food Wars

Let’s get it out of the way, this is a completely goofy and bonkers anime with the most fan service of any anime on my list. That said, it’s all done around how amazingly amazing or horrifingly horrifying the food tastes in it. And I like it because of the food theme.

The main character is only so likeable in it. But also he’s supposed to be. This is a school where everyone wants to be the best and they battle in food wars. Also he was raised by his father only who is not a remotely good role model for him. I haven’t watched the last season or so because it loses some of the actual food focus for it, but overall, it’s a completely absurd blast.

35. I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World

Not an isekai. I know the title makes this one sound like an isekai, but it’s only dabbling in that. The main character is a nobody. He’s out of shape, he’s not go much going for him. And he’s not really got any family around.

When he thinks he’s about down at the end of it when his Grandfather passes away, he discovers a portal to another world in his Grandfather’s house. There he becomes a new powerful character and person, and that translates into the real world as well. They bounce back and forth between real and fantasy world, and I enjoy it for that. I like an underdog becoming a hero, though, does his look fully need to change, probably not.

34. Toradora

I know my wife has this one rated much higher. It’s a high school anime where two unlikely characters fall in love and it’s really fun, quite funny, and quite heartfelt of a story. I really enjoy the dynamics of the main characters and the surrounding ones as well. Does it feel like something reasonable in real life, probably not, but it’s a well crafted romance. I think the biggest thing is that the main characters are really enjoyable for as absurd as they are. Which, thinking about it, kind of hits on a lot of anime in this genre that I love.

33. After School Dice Club

In all fairness to this anime, I doubt that After School Dice Club would be as high for most people. Why, because it’s about board games, and the story is just fine. The main characters are likable but they don’t always stand out. What I love about this one so much is it’s attention to detail for board games. It isn’t creating some random dumb game, it’s using real games, explaining them, and crafting stories around them. It’s amazing that way as a fan of board games.

32. The Devil is a Part-Timer

This is technically an isekai, fantasy, slice of life, romance, and probably a handful more different genres. It’s about the devil, from this weird realm, coming through to Earth. He loses out of his magic and needs to recharge to return to the war that is raging on in his realm. But how does he live in the real world, he gets a part-time job at McRonalds. Yes, it’s legally different, but you can guess what fast food restaurant this one parodies.

I like the action in it, I like the humor in it, and while not all the episodes are amazing, the show as a whole is a lot of fun. And for being a lot of slice of life, it handles weird random arcs that last several episodes really well. It’s a classic one for me at this point that I need to catch up on the latest season.

31. Don’t Toy with Me Miss Nagatoro

Another one that I really need to watch more of. I love the manga for this one as well. The main character is just a quiet artist in high school. Unfortunately for him Miss Nagatoro, one of his school mates who is younger than him has decided that she likes him and that he is her senpai. Except how she shows it is just messing with him as much as possible. It’s completely absurd, she is at times pushing it too far, but as she realizes that she likes him, the anime and mange shift in a fun way. This one is completely a romantic comedy and one that I enjoy as that background filler type of anime.

Final Thoughts

Which one of these do you like best or do you want to see? Let me know and let me know if there’s anything not on the list yet, that you think I need to watch. This section definitely is a whole lot lighter. But like I said, a lot of that comes from how much I’d want to watch it again. And there are a lot of them that would just be fun to watch again. I do promise there are a few heavier or more serious ones on the list. But it’s not that many.

So maybe that’s a question, what are some more serious anime that I should checkout. I’ve watched the 1997 Berserk, very serious, and that one didn’t make the list. But what else would be a good serious anime to watch?

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