rnbhargava's reviews
411 reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 4 by Hiromu Arakawa

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This series just keeps getting better. We mostly learn more of the Elric Brothers origin story. It’s fun, uplifting, tense, sad and tragic all at once. Youthful sense of invincibility meeting horror and tragedy. It’s just something you gotta read. I frankly can’t wait to jump into volume 5 in the Fullmetal Editions. 

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 3 by Hiromu Arakawa

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I love this volume. Things really come to a head. The emotions and the literal story action and suspense is ratcheted up so much in this volume. This is clearly about where most will decide whether they enjoy the series completely or say this isn’t for me. I’m loving it.

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Spy x Family, Vol. 8 by Tatsuya Endo

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m absolutely biased. Yor is out to her personal and professional limit and I loved every single moment, including side plots and gags.

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Colorless Vol. 1 by KENT

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It’s a very striking science fiction action thriller noir with the key concept of a world robbed of color. The art style is actually mostly akin to North American comics as opposed to manga. If anything I wish the book volume was in a larger paper trim size. The characters and world got me intrigued enough with this volume that I am definitely continuing.

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 2 by Hiromu Arakawa

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The world of the series really opens up in this volume. It also gets darker and we learn more about the characters and the limits of alchemy. It’s all very involving with moral quandaries and thematically doubled match ups for conflicts. It’s intense ideologically as opposed to in action depicted which still dips in and out of aggressive violence

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 1 by Hiromu Arakawa

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This series has an interesting premise and world. It’s also quite thematically rich and dark at times. The ways that it makes you question certain institutions of society is creative. The characters are quite varied as well. It’s very good, not quite perfect for an introduction but I definitely see why it’s such a revered manga title.

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Summertime Rendering Volume 3 by Yasuki Tanaka

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This instalment has a lot of conflict and storylines come to a breaking point. The characters are running on full cylinders. The action and tension is intense. Frankly, if you’ve been enjoying this series you just might find this volume to be the best yet. Please keep in mind that this series can be a bit extreme with violence and has nudity that is intentionally arbitrary. There’s certainly blood and bodily trauma, albeit because of supernatural adversaries but be forewarned content worriers.

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Summertime Rendering Volume 2 by Yasuki Tanaka

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

4.5

The action and suspense really picks up in this volume, new folds into mysteries and new mysteries too come about and it’s a hell of a ride.

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Summertime Rendering Volume 1 by Yasuki Tanaka

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book is a good mix of slice of life, thriller and science fiction. Think of things like the shows LOST, Twin Peaks, or anything else with a somewhat geographically limited yet full of supernatural mystery type of narrative that’s not fully divorced from reality. If anything, toward the end of this initial volume some things get a little messy and confusing but I think that’s intentional as it’s a volume 1 and there’s at least 6 volumes already available in English (2 in 1 compared to the original Japanese volumes) if you get intrigued by the series. It will all mostly be explained as it progresses hopefully.


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The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The book is quite strong for much of it. However, in the tail end with excessive large battle scenes you lose a lot of the excellent character dynamics of more one on one battles, conversations and interrogation scenes that are Kuang’s strong suit. The Dragon Republic is strongest when focused on character dynamics in the face of the greater war politics. The inequalities and bigotries shown by different groups is quite prevalent throughout the book. Rin’s self hate toward her ethnicity is quite apparent through the narrative too. The book does a really good job of showing that all supposed great leaders ultimately have selfish interests. Some of the added backstory elements are really intriguing. The real life historical background references are very apparent if you know your stuff but it’s also got enough of a veneer of fictionalizing if you don’t. This middle book is a slight step back from “The Poppy War” but not by much and it’s mostly due to pacing hiccups. Please note the role that alcohol and drug use plays in the narrative if you are sensitive to such content. There’s a lot of it.

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