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"Bleach" by Tite Kubo
Bleach is initially about a high school student named Ichigo Kurosaki, who can see the souls of the dead. One night he encounters a Soul Reaper named Rukia Kuchiki who gives him her powers in a moment of desperation, transforming him into a temporary Soul Reaper, granting his own sword (a zanpakuto). He takes up Rukia's job until she can recover as she in turn assists him with her job. Later on, Rukia is captured and taken to Soul Society for giving up her powers to Ichigo, leading to a series of complicated events.
As of the time of this post, the current manga chapter (518) has Ichigo fighting a new group of baddies, revealed to be a long-thought-to-be-dead Quincy group, along side the rest of Soul Society. Soul Society's been heavily damaged, Yammato has been killed, his powers taken by the main bad, and Ichigo's zanpakuto has been shattered.
My thoughts on the manga series: This has got to be the most ridiculously hilarious of the three manga I read on a weekly basis, but it also pisses me off the most. What pisses me off is that, excluding the 'red shirts' of Soul Society and the humans, the manga has a current death counter of 2 for the hero's side and the two deaths have only been in the last ten or so manga chapters. That's right, no good guy has ever died until just recently and I'm not counting the fake out death they pulled with Ichigo. Another thing that pisses me off is that this comic really is the most misogynistic of the three manga, mostly because the "power level" of the women are almost always equal to the size of their chest (yes, I will explain myself when it gets to One Piece, so bear with me). But I think what makes me more pissed of all, is that Bleach really doesn't know what it wants to be: a serious drama, a comedy, a action adventure, a character study, or a sultry manga. There's a difference between being one, some, or all of those and just happening to be one of them, but I'll get to that and a few other points when I talk about One Piece and Naruto. In the most recent chapters, there's a lot of inconsistencies and rushed plot devices that lead to plot holes up the ass, I'll probably talk more about those as I do the weekly manga recap.
Do I recommend reading it? Not really, but I see no harm in picking it up to read a few chapters to see if it's your cup of tea. Where should you start reading? Anywhere will do just fine, but I would say pick it up at the start of the Soul Society Arc since that's where the most interesting stuff begins to happen.
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"One Piece" By Eiichiro Oda
This is probably one of my favorites, if only because it's all about the adventure and comedy more so than anything else. Unlike Bleach, One Piece is a comedic, action adventure manga with a bit of drama and sultry thrown in. It knows what it wants to be and revels in it with every moment.
One Piece is about a kid named Monkey D. Luffy, refered to as just "Luffy", who is inspired to become the Pirate King by the legend of Gol D. Rogers as well as a visit from a mysterious pirate captain known as Red Haired Shanks. During Shank's visit, Luffy ends up eating a forbidden devil fruit that ends up making his body much like that of rubber. However, the trade-off is that anyone who eats a devil fruit will become unable to act while submerged in water, risking drowning if they are ever thrown into the sea. Despite this, Luffy is determined to go forth with his dream and starts gathering members to form an unlikely pirate crew.
In the current chapter (690), a shichibukai (short explanation: one of seven pirate lords who have all allied with the World Government) named Trafalgar Law has temporarily teamed up with Luffy, along with the Marine Captain Smoker. While Law and Smoker have uncovered a scheme setup by another shichibukai "Joker", aka Donquixote Doflamingo, and the World Government, Luffy and his crew have discovered a secret test facility operated by a vaporous devil-fruit user named Caesar. The facility has several dark secrets, one being an experimentation on a bunch of kids and another being an experimental amorphous blob (now turned gas) that can turn anyone it touches into ash/stone. Currently, Luffy's crew is trying to escape the blob/gas and Luffy is fighting Caesar.
My thoughts on the manga: I honestly love it. As I've said before, One Piece knows what it wants to be: it's a story about the misadventures Luffy and his crew have in their quest to be the very best, like no one ever was. While it certainly delves into cheesecake a lot with the women, I can say that every notable woman displayed has their distinctive character that makes them stand out from the rest; Oda gives them chances to shine while developing their characters, and so I really can't call this manga as misogynistic as Bleach. If I have one complaint about this series, it just feels like there's no real direction that they're going with it, so they're trying to go for whatever direction they have available, which I can't fault it for since that's kinda the way it's supposed to be.
Do I recommend picking up this book? Yeah, I highly recommend it. If you just want to read wacky misadventure type stories with lots of mystical lands, strange powers and tons of adventure available, then One Piece is definitely a good read. Where should you jump on? Any chapter is fine. Since it's basically just about misadventures, you can just pick up the most recent one or any chapter you can find and it'll make a good starting point into the series.
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"Naruto" and "Naruto: Shippuden" by Masashi Kishimoto
Finally we arrive at the last of the three, but definitely not the least of the three. Naruto's a typical comedic action/adventure drama with a wide cast of unique and distinctive characters.
Naruto follows the adventures of Naruto Uzumaki, an orphan boy who lives in the ninja village of Konoha (Village Hidden in the Leaves). He originally is considered an outcast of the village because he contains the chakra of the legendary nine-tailed demon fox that nearly destroyed Konoha a few years before the start of the series. Because of this, he became a troublemaker that desired attention, but through several trials became determined to become not only the next Hokage, but the greatest ninja ever. At the conclusion to Naruto, his best friend Sasuke Uchiha leaves the village and Naruto, with the help of his other classmates, fails to bring him back. With the urging of his mentor, Jiraya, Naruto decides to set out on a 2 1/2 year journey to train with Jiraya before attempting to retrieve Sasuke again.
Naruto: Shippuden (Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles) picks up after the 2 1/2 time jump, where Naruto returns after his long leave of absence. He returns to the village and picks up where he left off with his attempt to retrieve Sasuke along with the help of his teacher, Hakate Kakashi, and his teammate, Haruno Sakura.
The current chapter (611) has the battle between the ten tails, controlled by Madara and Obito Uchiha, versus Naruto, supported by the nine-tails, Bee, supported by the eight-tails, Kakashi and Might Guy rages on. Unfortunately the chakra for both the eight and nine tails runs dry for now, but the entire allied ninja army arrives on the scene to back them up.
My thoughts on the manga: It's not the best manga in the world, but it's definitely one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite. While it still delves into the cheesecake with the women, I think it does it sparingly enough to not make them all into sex objects and to prefer to emphasize their character more than their physique. But that's not to say that I don't have a problem with this series, oh no...the problem I have with it is that the writer, Kishimoto, seems to not really understand relationships all that well, he seems to have a bias towards certain characters that force the others to act out of character sometimes only so that the end result is in the bias character's favor. Hard to describe that without going into a long-rant, so will have to explain that later. Another problem I have is that the most recent action scenes seems to be just random fighting that doesn't really have any rhyme or reason as to why its happening as opposed to the "tactical plans" of Kabuto's.
Do I recommend it? Yeah, I would highly recommend it. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty damn good read I would say with lots of really likable characters. Where would I suggest jumping on? Probably either at chapter 1-5 of the original Naruto or Naruto Shippuden chapter 1.
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With that, this concludes my introduction section for the weekly manga I'll be reviewing. I might decide to add in Fairy Tail at a later date, but I have to read it from the beginning and that could take some time that I don't have at the moment. Enjoy!
If you're interested in where you can pick up a copy of these Japanese manga, then check websites like Ebay.com or Amazon.com and Asian markets like Marukai, Mitsuwa or any other Asian market bookstore that may be available in your town.
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