Yu Yu Hakusho by Yoshihiro Togashi

While trying to stop myself from reading Neuro again right away (I'm obsessed, really, I'm watching the anime to try and hold me over but its not the same) I decided to find a more classic Jump manga to read this time around. Though three long manga in a row has basically wiped me out, seriously my bum hurts from sitting for so many hours at a time and I won't even bring up my shoulders, I'm glad I read this trio of shonen manga in a row. Though I think I'm in the mood for something more girly now.


Yu Yu Hakusho by Yoshihiro Togashi

Art and story (c) Yoshihiro Togashi

Genre: Supernatural Fighting Shonen
Length: 19 Volumes - 175 Chapters

with her on the next page

For example, this thing

           The art is fairly rough, after a while it seems that that roughness is given more of a stylized look, but there is a weird contrast in this manga. There are times when people are really amazingly pretty and then something really nasty will show up and this nasty looking guy will hang around for chapter after chapter until you, like the main characters, want to punch him in the face. The background guys, too, will be the strangest people you have ever seen. This being such a well known manga, I've seen it around for a long time, as such I've always though about how appealing and not appealing it can be all at once, I suppose its part of its draw. Characters are easily recognizable, its very unique, in an older style. The eyes, when given the chance, have lots of sparkling depths, and considering its mostly all bouts and comedy, the chances are quite plentiful to see it. The clothing isn't special in any way, typically the characters wear school uniforms or black clothing, their casual clothing is given some detail but that is not often seen. The backgrounds aren't notable, fighting sequences don't tend to lend to them anyway, but they are lacking. Its really hard to describe this art in my usual terms, to see it is to know it, but beyond that it is hard to define.
           Yusuke Urameshi is a delinquent of the highest order, able to win every fight the other punks challenge him to, or he used to, its now impossible for him to brawl or smoke because he's dead. In an unexpected twist, having died saving an innocent child, he's given a chance to redeem himself. All he has to do is be a ghost for a while first. Little does Yusuke know, though, that this encounter with the underworld will soon change the course of his life forever.
           I remember reading bits and pieces of this manga in the American version of Jump back in high school, and enjoying it, to boot. This time around I set out to actually read the thing all the way through and see how it fares over all. Personally, I found that it hasn't really held up as far as the story goes. I enjoyed it, but I probably would not read this again because I found it a lukewarm narration. My main problem with it was there was never any in between of the character's lives, it was always straight to the next set of challenges. So, even though romance elements are introduced, they're never really given any weight, only teased whenever the author felt like it. Before I get too carried away though, lets go back to the beginning. The beginning

of Yu Yu Hakusho is nothing like the rest of it, more specifically, volume one and two essentially are just Yusuke being a ghost and meddling in other spirits or human's lives. I don't know if the author got wise to the boring-ness of this or got bored himself of drawing it this way, but suddenly the premise put into place is thrown away to put a more action-y spin to things. And that is when what its typically thought of as Yu Yu Hakusho really begins. What is typical to it, you may ask? Well, epic fist fights with demons that don't end until Yusuke wins, no matter how many times he goes down before hand, and super powers endowed by character's auras including finger lasers and disgusting transformations. These fights, ending in the main characters being bloody and broken, are always proceeded by a page or two of peace, but the next threat, more sinister than the last, always shows itself right away. I found the action sequences themselves were easy to follow and enjoy and the characters themselves interesting and funny, but it got repetitive really quickly. That could be said about most manga, especially fighting manga, but the way that things restlessly move on in Yu Yu Hakusho really felt like a grind to me. Its a classic, its fun to read, but I can't really recommend it wholeheartedly. With such interesting characters around all the time, I wish I'd had more time outside of fights with them so I could get to know them better. The ending volume really tires to remedy that, too, I think, but the loosely connected stories of the gang's happenings just feels more like limping along instead of heading towards an ending (its also a bit like Dragon Ball's ending, too, in more ways than one), and after 19 volumes I'd hoped for something much more satisfying. Just like the strange art, the story also was likeable and unlikeable at the same time.



2.5/5 Despite being a classic and nostalgic, I found it lacking in long-term appeal. 

Ah yes, I read this manga often in the American Daily Shonen Hop magazine. Memories of my youth...

Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro by Yuusei Matsui

After researching for my Beelzebub post, I found out some exciting news, well, in my opinion as a manga and video game fan. Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, which recently had it's 45th anniversary a few years back, runs chapters of just about every famous manga every week for boy's manga fans including One Piece, Dragon Ball, Toriko, Gin Tama, Yu Yu Hakusho and so on (more info here). They've also put out several games that pit all these characters against each other, but, since just about everywhere outside of Japan the manga have been

licensed by different companies, these games have never been imported. Until now, that is. The newest installment, J-Stars Victory VS, will be arriving on the thirtieth of this month. I'm very excited about this, even though I can't afford to buy it, so I decided to continue to read some other Jump manga included in the new game's roster. Of course its not as easy as that, since most of the manga are still ongoing (looking at you Kochikame, with your 1976 start date and over 1800 chapters) but luckily, I had this here manga waiting for me and I've been wanting to read it for about a year now so while I may not find a third manga to go along with the release of this game I at least get to read a manga I've been thinking about reading for some time a now.




Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro by Yuusei Matsui

Art and Story (c) Yuusei Matsui

Genre: Supernatural Crime Shonen
Length: 23 Volumes – 202 Chapters


              Take typical silly shonen art and add to it mind-bending images of insanity and you will then have the art of Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro (or, more plainly Demon Detective Neuro Nogami). The proportions are a little off in the beginning, typically with head size, but considering the first time you meet Neuro he is

See, leering.

standing sideways and at an unnatural perspective, sometimes its hard to decide what is lack of practice and what is lack of respect for what is considered normal. Still, beyond that the art remains remarkably the same through out the whole run so its hard to really nitpick. Within the first volume, the strange art really infects your reading and I found myself giving them a second or third look just to try and dissect them. Meaning, you get used to it quite quickly, even though it gets grosser and more disturbing. That also means, it could be off putting to some due to its violent and demonic images. Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro is definitely not a manga for younger shonen fans. Beyond that, the character designs are quite unique, unless they are purposefully generic, even then all the characters are unique in one way or another. The eyes are quite lively (a nice way of saying they are often evilly leering at you) though there isn't a lot of different shapes to them, the faces are generally all different (and leering at you). The clothing is, at a glance, mostly suits, but there is also a lot of variety to the clothing in keeping with characters who wear them to the point that the main character looks odd when she is not wearing her school uniform. The backgrounds also became stranger the longer the manga went on, they were there for the most part, too, though there were some blanker pages from time to time, but when people are twisting themselves in to caricatures of themselves all the time its pretty much forgettable if a background was there or not. The hair is all over the place, truthfully, its drawn with a chunkier style of tresses but there were a few hair cuts that often looked out of place. Very unique all the way to the end, though, and sometimes it felt like the stranger the better for Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro.
             Yako Katsuragi recently lost her father in a murder that the police don't seem to be able to solve, and her spirits, already low from his sudden death, spiral even

further with out knowing the reason why he was killed. Unluckily, this atmosphere is what brings to her side a man calling himself Neuro who plainly states he is a demon who wants to eat the human world's mysteries created through the complex puzzles humans make when they commit crimes. Chosen instantly as his puppet in the human world, Yako has no choice but to follow at this demons beck and call, as she is his 'face' to hide his true demonic origins while he searches for the next meal in hopes of finding the ultimate puzzle that will give Neuro a feast to fill his stomach completely.
             To call this manga weird is an understatement, but it still describes Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro well enough. I remarked it's strangeness with a smile every time a popularity poll came up, because with popularity polls there are always lots of background people to show up with a surprising amounts of votes, but as far as this manga was involved the strangest characters would appear, characters such as 'starch,' 'fried oysters,' and 'statue of Liberty lighter' just went to show that the things that went on in the story had to be out of the ordinary. Yet, its so interesting that all those weird things become the manga's strong point. The silly gags mixed together with Neuro's demonic imagery make a much better pair than would be thought possible. This unique combination made for not only a story line unlike anything I've read, it make such a strong impression very quickly that even if you only read one chapter you'd remember Neuro. Which is in fact what happened to me so many years ago that I had to look him up even when I'd forgotten everything but his two-toned hair. All that combined really makes me want to read this mangaka's other works now that Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro has ended, in fact Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (also known as Assassination Classroom) is running still in Jump and though my first glance of it did not endear me to it before, knowing it's by the same author certainly changes that opinion a bit. Back to Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro, this manga is a bit of trick, it starts out as a crime solving manga with a little bit of supernatural criminals mixed in for drama and action, but the supernatural starts to eclipse the simple human crimes until the whole manga is about how humans can be as demonic
as the demon. I'd say the last third of it completely left the 'crime' genre and went into more of the 'fighting' genre, truthfully.There were times I missed that simple crime solving aspect, but there were also times that the criminals were a little too over the top to be as fun as they interrupted the longer running plot. Of course, since I am reading things with the intention of reviewing them I also tend to look more closely than someone would normally; the plot, though it does change, does so in a normal upscaling of events than anything abrupt. The ending was also quite satisfactory, which I don't often get. To compare it to my previous Jump post, Beelzebub, which had the same type of 'its over but not really' ending, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro felt so much more complete. Continuing the comparisons, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro also does not have an English release which is also a shame. I suppose the violence is the cause of this one, but Neuro is such an amazingly horrible hero that he deserves much more exposure here in the human world, since everyone in the demon world already knows his name. I can see some types of readers not liking this manga, there was quite a bit of gore through out, it was rather wordy at times, and the art work can be called disturbing, but the characters are very memorable and the story isn't like anything else I can bring to mind. I was surprised myself at the heart the story was given when it has so many other slapstick elements. I've been waiting for the right excuse to read this and so my anticipation was quite high and Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro didn't disappoint me even a little.



5/5 A bloody mix of demon tools and evil intent, poured just right.

...yay....

Beelzebub by Ryuuhei Tamura

Boy, thanks to many distractions including birthday manga, a family member moving, graduation parties, and getting stuck in traffic so long my car's radiator cracked and I had to ride home in a tow truck, I totally missed posting anything last week. I'm sorry about that, truly I am, it never fails that as soon as I pick a long manga to read things just keep me away from finishing in a timely manner. Because of that I'll try to post another manga review this week to make up for it. All the same, I really enjoyed this manga and I hope you will, too.



Beelzebub by Ryuuhei Tamura

Art and story (c) Ryuuhei Tamura

Genre: Action Shonen
Length: 27 Volumes – 240 Chapters


            At the beginning the art is a little sketchy, but the character designs are quickly put to memory and the art settles to what it will be for the rest of the story. The backgrounds are pretty typical because it is a fighting story a lot of the blank panels can be excused for dramatic shots so, overall the backgrounds are filled in when its not a rumble. The clothing, not so much, they are high school kids so their clothes don't much change out of simple uniforms, though that is also typical with delinquents, just about all the clothing have a simplistic style to them. I suppose that isn't bad, but one of the main character's maid outfits always looked ill fitted and that did bother me. The style is strong, there’s a lot of unique looking characters, and the characters look different from one another. The hair was always well done and, though the eyes don't have a lot of detail, they showed the emotions very well. The action sequences were easy to follow and understand, and considering there were a lot of them this is definitely a feat. There was this one major problem that I had with the art, though, and that was that the hands always looked too small for the arms and you see the hands a
lot, so it kept tripping me up. The proportions never changed and my eyes never got used to it, every time I'd stop and think 'that hand is too small.' Mixed in with everything else, though, it was just a small, personal problem, and didn't detract from my enjoyment.
            Tatsumi Oga is the toughest kid at school, an endlessly idiotic muscle head, feared and revered where ever he goes often through quickly applied force. Then something in his life changes, he finds himself taking care of a little green haired child who goes by the name Beelzebub. Once this child comes in the picture and relies on him, Oga is no longer the punk he once was, but instead becomes stronger and even more ruthless! For Beelzebub is no normal child, but, in fact, is baby demon lord in training!!
            First things first, it is possible to count on one hand how many times through out twenty-seven volumes of manga that the baby wears clothes. Going in I wish I had had a little warning about the constant full frontal baby that is Beelzebub so I am putting this warning at the beginning of my review. Its pretty much constant baby ding-dong, and you almost become desensitized to it because its always lurking there so casually. Which has got to be why this manga has not seen an English release, but that is just a shame because this was an excellent read. Within the first ten pages I was laughing way too hard at the stupidity, and that was before all the action really kicked in, and I was already hooked. Like any action manga, Beelzebub is a story of slowly ramping up fights where the characters must grow stronger each time or be defeated so that they can then grow stronger afterward in time for a rematch. There were a few times this type of story telling was a little boring,

usually because the actual training parts were foreshortened or cut out completely, or the fights just felt like a grind instead of an actual plot. But that irrevocable humor would kick in and I'd forgive all the other faults. Not only is Oga completely insane and outrageous, but the cast of side characters (at times overwhelming in their numbers) are more than often having you roll around in fits of laughter as well. The whole cast goes together perfectly, though I did get tired of seeing Beelzebub's man bits, there's not much else to complain about when all is said and done. When looking for action comedy manga, its not often you find one where the two parts are equally given time but Beelzebub did give me that balance. What originally sounds like an overused delinquent plot, and almost comes close to being one at the beginning, is actually a supernatural tale of the human world and hell's politics rolled in rip-roaring gags. If I really had to dig, I'd have to say the ending was a little rushed, but the bonus I've mentioned at the end makes up a bit for that. Considering that all the fights are basically fist fights on more and more epic proportions, I'd say this manga did a really good job of keeping the interest of the reader. I don't think it ever was wholly predictable, either. I'm really glad I decided to read this, and I don't think it will disappoint anyone looking for something in this genre.



5/5 Hilarious and action packed, its the full package.

Yes, Oga, that's you.

Bonus: 
Beelzebub Sidestory by Ryuuhei Tamura


Genre: Action Shonen
Length: One Volume – 6 Chapters


This is just a few extra stories of the Beelzebub crew after the main story is now over and you are lost in despair with out it. Mostly made up of silly gags and even more couple teasing, it has a bit of everything you are craving after the bit abrupt ending given following the Beelzebub ending. I really enjoyed it, actually, it filled in a few gaps and helped the ending of the original plot line sting less. Its not all about Oga and Beezl, either. Make sure you read this one once you finish Beelzebub!