Input: [Read all▲▼] Midare Somenishi (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I picked this up because I am a fan of the mangaka's other work, Kizuna. I found this one to be very dark, violent, and disturbing and also somewhat of a rape-fest. I can't say I enjoyed Midare Somenishi, but it wasn't a bad manga, it was actually fairly good. The characters were well written and the story itself was decent, if a bit rushed. I like Kazuma Kodaka's art as well. I'd be interested to see more of her work licensed and translated.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Metro Survive (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Metro Survive is a short 2 volume survival drama series. A massive earthquake hit Tokyo, trapping a group of people in a subway station. Plotwise, I thought it was great. It moved at a brisk pace and told a complete story. The characterization was a bit flimsy, but at only 2 volumes, it's to be expected. The art was servicable if not spectacular. It managed to convey a sense of desperation, which fit the story well, so it got the job done at least. Overall, I thought the series was good and entertaining.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] MeruPuri - The Marchen Prince (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Meru Puri is a silly, fanservicey manga. In short, it's mindless fun. The character designs are absolutely beautiful, with really elaborate costumes and detailed hair. The backgrounds are your standard shojo sparkle though. The characters are so well drawn, one hardly notices. The plot is of your standard fairytale variety. However, at only four volumes, it works. I didn't expect anything great out of Meru Puri, therefore I was able to enjoy it for what it was: a couple hours of light entertainment.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Merry Family Plan (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is an anthology by a new-to-me mangaka. The art style took some getting used to. It's drawn in a quirky, cartoony, highly stylized fashion. The characters have really round heads and crudely drawn bodies. I must admit that I really didn't like the look of it. However, the stories them selves were more on the realistic side, with minimal cliche usage, which is refreshing in the BL genre. Unfortunately, being an anthology, they were far too short. I am curious to read a longer story from this mangaka, because despite the art, I think her writing is fairly good.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Menkui! (manga by S. Tanaka) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Meh. A Menkui is a shallow person and that describes the main character. One character quirk does not characterization make. This three volume manga was the very picture of mediocre.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Melted Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I found this antology to be an uneven mix. I thought the second to last story about the tattoo artist was quite good. On the other hand, the story with the torture loving dentist was just bad. The rest were a pretty forgettable bunch. I had a problem with the art. The odd sort of "flat" way the mangaka draws faces just about pulled me out of the story. The proportions are just strange, making everything look off. Needless to say, I didn't really care for the book, with the exception of that one story.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Meeting You (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I haven't been impressed by anything I've read by Mio Tennouji thus far. This book is no different. It's yet another yaoi anthology with shallow forgettable stories and cardboard characters. The first story is yet anther BL in an all boys school. Yawn. "Stale" pretty much sums up this collection.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Maybe I'm Your Steppin' Stone (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a spinoff of I'm Not Your Steppin Stone. If you've read the first, you know what to expect: manly men in porny situations. I've become a real fan of Shiuko Kano's art. No girly looking anime dudes here!

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mars Gaiden (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: The title of this is a little misleading. It's actually a compilation of three short stories of which only one has anything to do with Mars. The stories were just ok, but I'm not really a fan of short stories. I prefer longer and more detailed plots.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mars (manga) [Rating▲▼] Masterpiece [Comment▲▼]

Output: I couldn't put this one down. As soon as I finished one volume, I found myself reaching for the next. This is what I look for in a shojo love story; likeable, interesting lead characters that are fun to root for and good, believable motivations for their actions. The story itself was engrossing and while drama as present, it didn't feel contrived or too over the top. The art in this series was excellent as well. Sometimes I would stop reading and just take a moment to look at the pretty pictures. I definitely plan on re-reading this series someday.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Marmalade Boy (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Overall, I enjoyed this story. I felt at 8 volumes, it was the perfect length; it didn't drag on too long. I can appreciate that this is a classic in the shojo genre. I recognize a lot of the story elements from more modern manga. It does feel a little dated, so I prefer the more modern stories to this one. This is definitely worth a read though.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mardock Scramble (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: The first volume had an interesting set up: a young girl is murdered and then revived in a new cyborg body to help take down her killer. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be very good. After the first volume, it starts to get weird, and not in a good way. Weird villains with grafted body parts, weird names like "Boiled" and "Shell", and other shit thrown in seemingly "just because". The casino arc in volumes 5 and 6 was very tedious as well. As for it's good points, it's fast paced, somewhat entertaining, and the series isn't long, so I didn't feel like I wasted my time at least.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] March on Earth (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: March On Earth is a two volume series about a high school girl raising her 2 year old nephew after her sister passes away in a car accident. It was handled in a very straightforward and realistic manner, showing all of the things Yuzu has to give up and the sacrifices she has to make as essentially a teenage mother. Since it's a manga, it all seems to work out in the end, but just seeing the situation portrayed in an unglorified way was a breath of fresh air.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Maoh: Juvenile Remix (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I read this manga as each volume came out, so the finer details were a little hazy with each new book. However, I had no problems diving back into it as the characters and the story were so memorable. This is the story of Ando, who witnesses the rise of a popular and sinister organisation called "Grasshopper" and doesn't like what he sees. The manga has interesting things to say about mob mentality and going against popular opinion. There is a big twist in volume seven that I didn't see coming, that's for sure. This is based on a prose novel, and it shows, as it is fast paced and tightly plotted, without that "made up as it goes along" feel of a lot of shounen manga. I was satisfied with the ending as well. Overall, the series was an enjoyable, memorable read.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Manic Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is the prequel to Fake Fur, in which Maki is the main character. While I did like this one, I didn't like it as much as Fake Fur only because I didn't "get' Maki. I encounted the same feeling of realism in the plot, but because Maki isn't as sypathetic as the characters in Fake Fur, I didn't enjoy it as much.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Maniac Shorts Shot (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: There are four short stories in this book. The title story, about a couple of guys who find a box of novelty underwear, is plotless porn. The second story, about a couple of guys meeting at the class reunion, was the high point. The third story featuring the bike shop was a typical "rape is love" plot, ugh. The last story, about the hair fetishist, stood out as being one of the most completely twisted scenarios I've read. To say any more would spoil it. All stories were about adults which for me is a big plus. This book is also memorable, but more for the weirdness of it's stories than anything. The stories aren't long enough to have interesting characterization or much of a plot. It was certainly entertaining, but all in all, the collection was just decent.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Man's Best Friend (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Creepy premise alert! *Whoo Whoo (sirens) The dog man story was pretty icky. The art was great but I couldn't get past the dog-man part. Thankfully, that story only takes up half of the book. The other half is a story of two childhood friends reconnecting. I really liked that one.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Man Who Doesn't Take Off His Clothes (novel) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here we have a two volume yaoi light novel series from DMP/June. This one is a salaryman romance falling firmly on the romance end of the scale rather than porn. The lead character, Kaitani is kind of a screw up and despises his prissy uptight boss, Fujiwara. Watching these two grow from dislike to love was highly entertaining. Since this is a two volume series, the relationship is developed a lot more than I've come to expect from these yaoi novels. There is also quite a bit paid attention to Kaitani's job and the workplace environment. I wasn't jarred out of the story by awkward prose, so I found it passable to read. Overall, this is one of my favorite releases from June's light novel line.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Man I Picked Up (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a collection of related short stories featuring employees and customers of a gay bar. They're all pretty short, so there's not much development, bu they still managed to entertain me in a shallow way. Michalski's writing is lighthearted and comedic, which is a good fit for short and sweet stories like this. I'm also a fan of her art, even though it adheres to the seme/uke tropes a bit too much, it's clean and attractive. Overall, this isn't a particularly memorable book, but it was a pleasant enough read.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mamiya Doll House (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Kazuhiko Mishima is a mid-tier mangaka for me. I buy her books because they are entertaining fluff reads, but they don't tend to leave much of an impression. This book is no different. The title story about a shady "real doll" store that specializes in making dolls indistinquishable from humans, is kind of creepy. The very last story is about a man buying a body pillow, except its an actual human pillow...thing. Are these stories a playful poke at weird otaku? Could be, as their tone is not entirely serious. My favorite stories were the trio of schoolboy stories padding out the rest of the book. Especially the one with the bishounen fearing future baldness and going overboard to prevent it. I did laugh out loud reading that. Mishima's pointy, spiky haired art style seems more suited to drawing schoolboy stories as well. In the end, I was mildly entertained by this book, although I'm sure I will forget most of it by tomorrow.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Make Love & Peace (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This manga is about a girl and her cop boyfriend and their relationship. That's it. I found it and the sequel "Make More Love and peace" to be really bland. The characters felt very one note and the plot was flimsy as hell. There was quite a bit of sex in this manga, but even that managed to be boring, not hot. I kept waiting for something to happen for me to care about the characters, but it never did.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Maid in Heaven (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: Eh. It wasn't very good. The plot was extremely shallow and the characterization was flimsy as hell. Also the art wasn't to my liking either (really girly looking main character). It was entertaining in a brain dead way. I've read good yaoi that was not only entertaining but also not mind numbingly stupid, Maid in Heaven is not one of those titles.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mai the Psychic Girl (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: The set up for this story was really interesting. Unfortunately, it falters a bit in the middle and the ending was blah. The art was excellent, no complaints there. I think my problem stemmed from the lack of character development for pretty much everybody except Mai. The plot was interesting, as were the characters, but it felt like the author could have done so much more with it.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Madness (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I have to commend a BL manga that focuses on plot instead of the same ol' same 'ol romance. Unfortunately, the plot of Madness was kind of a hot mess. Izaya is a priest who keeps a prisoner underneath his church. The prisoner is Kyo, a mass murder and the leader of a gang called Madness. One of Kyo's old cronies shows up, they fight, and Kyo is set free. He decides to be a bounty hunter and hunt down members of Madness. Izaya tags along. Along the way they team up with more of Kyo's old aquaintances and are hunted by a church assassination group. It sound convoluted, and it is. I had a difficult time establishing the setting. The messy art made following all the action sometimes difficult. Also, Izaya was clearly "the girl", a useless, crying, protesting stereotypical BL "uke". That's even more apparent when contrasted with Miyabi, the series' sole female character. She's capable, and not a crying, useless, submissive mess. I guess that why she's not the heroine. This series is clearly very flawed, but in the end I was at tleast entertained.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Mad Love Chase (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I quite enjoyed this little five volume shoujo comedy. Yamoto is the demon prince who escapes to the human world in order to escape his life and arranged marriage. On Earth, he is an average high school boy. However, soon his father's minions as well as his fiancee come to earth in order to find the demon prince. This is a silly plot well beftting the slapstick style humor. I usually don't like slapstick, but in this instance, it works. Takashima's characters are fun and memorable, and their interactions make up for most of the humor. All of the minions end up at Yamato's school in one way or another, and watching them all try to accomplish their goal while pretending to be normal is highly amusing. The story also manages to balance the silliness with a few emotional moments. All in all it was a pretty entertaining series, not great literature by any means, just solid fun.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Lychee Light Club (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: WTF did I just read? I don't even know where to start. Let's just say that it was "interesting". It's about a group of really wacked out kids who form a club (more like a cult) in an abandoned factory. They build a robot and order it to catch a beautiful girl. The gimmick here is that the robot ends up being more human than the boys who are all psychotic. The violence in this is over the top. I couldn't stop reading, but only because of the sheer what the fuckery of this thing. Is all of Furuya's work like this? This one is definitely not a fave, but I'm interested in reading more of his work.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Ludwig II (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I'm always interested in historical manga, and this one doesn't disappoint. Using German history as a framwork for this story made for some interesing plot and characterization. It's almost fool proof really, the bones are already there, all the mangaka has to do is flesh it out. You Higuri is obviously up to it, as is her art, which compliments a story of this style beautifully. I quite enjoyed it.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Lovers in the Night (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is another one of Yoshinaga's European historical manga. I liked this a little less than Gerard and Jaques because it lacked a little depth in comparison. Of course, it was only one volume long, so what do you expect? Even a mediocre manga by Fumi Yoshinaga is better than 90% of the other crap that foisted upon us in the yaoi genre.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Lovers and Souls (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This one was a tearjerker. I admit it, I cried. It's not often that a manga can do that to me (anime does much more frequently). It's a great accomplishment if a mangaka can set up the characters and make me care in only one volume. This is one of the best tragic romances I have ever encountered in manga.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Lover's Pledge (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here we have a BL anthology with three stories. The title story is the weakest. Overall, it was a mediocre book so I don't have much to say about it. I found it to be mildly entertaining.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Lovely Sick (manga) [Rating▲▼] Bad [Comment▲▼]

Output: This manga can be summed up in one word: Creepy! The relationship between the doctor/guardian and his patient/ward was not "cute" or "romantic", instead it was all kinds of wrong. Just. Ick. This one wins the "honor" of being the grossest manga I've ever read.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Loveholic (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Toko Kawai's manga run from the pretty serious to the silly sappy sort. Loveholic falls somewhere in between. It's a pretty traditional romance between two guys who work together, complete with a happy ending. I'm not a fan of Kawai's sappy stuff, so fortunately the silly parts of Loveholic didn't overpower the more serious apects. Although, the lighthearted bits did work out, the characters played off each other well. Overall, I did enjoy the series, as it is entertaining if not particularly original.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love/Knot (manga by H. Ishimaru) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This one shot BL story makes an attempt at a plot, when Keigo discovers a runaway and takes him in. Turns out his runaway has psychic powers and escaped from a government research facility. Unfortunately, the story is very bare bones and the characters are as flimsy as cardboard. The art is pretty rough also. The book could have been good, but suffered from poor execution.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love+Alpha (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I haven't really been impressed with anything I've read by Takashi Kanzaki. I do like her art, but her plots tend to run along the silly and ridiculous line. This one is no exception. The story goes like this: Yuuya is being persued by his childhood friend and another friend who is also a ghost. What really happens is they take turns molesting him while he makes a wishy washy token protest. This manages to work for me since Yuuya isn't portrayed in a girly way, just in denial about his gayness. The book is entertaining in a tillitating way, but that's it. It is pretty stupid and it's not something that I'm going to have out on my bookshelf and readily admit to reading.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love*Com (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: While high school set romantic comedies are a dime a dozen in shoujo manga, Love Com is a step above the rest. This one centers on a romance between a short boy and a tall girl. The lead couple is funny and has genuine chemistry, making them fun to read about. Aya Nakahara has a knack for conveying comedic expressions as well. The story follows the couple through all 4 years of high school and ends with graduation. My only complaint with the series is that it appeared to jump the shark around the time Grampa showed up. By that time, all the major problems with the relationship had been smoothed out and it seemed like the mangaka had run out story and so invented new problems in order to keep it going. I also had a slight complaint with Otani's character. He was so prickly at times that sometimes I had a hard time seeing why Risa liked him so much. As a story though, it did generate a lot of the comedy, as Otani and Risa's reactions to each other were what made this series funny in the first place. Love Com is a shining example of shoujo romantic comedy and I enjoyed it very much.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love!! (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: Yawn. Another all boys school where everyone happens to be gay. This time it's a lighthearted romance between a perverted transfer student and the uptight student council prez. It was pretty shallow and forgettable and the awkward art doesn' t help. The book is not offensively bad, but not recommend either. It's a time waster.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Training (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This collection of shorts took place at a school (so common) and featured a group of students all relating to each other in some way, so the whole thing felt more cohesive than your average volume of short stories. The art was ok, I wasn't blown away by it but I wasn't offended by it either, and it was fairly expressive and overall pleasing to the eye. The stories were your standard romance short stories, nothing groundbreaking there either. Overall, I found the collection to be entertaining.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Syndrome (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is yet another boy's love anthology from June. It completely failed to make any impression on me what-so-ever; the absolute height of mediocre forgettable boys love manga.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] A Love Song for the Miserable (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I actually got in to this one. I expected another bland June offering, but A Love Song for the Miserable proved me wrong. The art was nice and the romance worked for me

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Share (manga) [Rating▲▼] Weak [Comment▲▼]

Output: Eh. Typical BL manga. I didn't really "get" the characters or all of their angst. This manga-ka just isn't for me. I just read this again as I'm weeding out the duds from my collections and I can better explain whats wrong with the book now: pretty much everything. The characterization is so sparse that they may as well have been stick figures. Nothing is elaborated on, so I had no baseline for the characters: how they met, what they were to each other, nothing. Some of these things are explained at the very end, but by then the book is over and it's too little too late. Even the art is the same face with different hair and blank backgrounds. Basically this is as bare-bones and generic as it gets. Avoid.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Quest (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I was fully prepared not to like this as I have heard not so good things about Lily Hoshino's manga (especially about her style of depicting really girly looking boys-not my thing). After reading it, I can call myself a fan. The story was a silly fantasy romp. I thought it was great fun. Hoshino's art is pretty, with clean lines and a distinctive, recognizable style. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this book.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Mode (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Love Mode has a large cast of loosely related characters and tells their stories as they pair up and fall in love. As such, it is light on plot and focuses more on characterization. There is a ton of feel good romance to be found in this series, as well as some high drama. (It seemed like there was a hospital scene in every volume LOL). The art started a little shaky, I'm not a fan of the really angular faces and some of the anatomy looked really awkward, but I felt it improved with each volume (or maybe it just grew on me). Since this series was 11 volumes long, there was plenty of room to introduce and flesh out the characters and their stories, which made a pretty satisfying read (I hate cliffhangers and unresolved endings). Overall, I found it to be a highly entertaining series for romance fans.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Machine (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Meh. The andriod thing has been done to death in pretty much all genres. Chobits, Absolute Boyfriend, the list goes on. Even still, those works were still enjoyable, and this one is not. I do not like shota; it creeps me out. Even when they're robots.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Lesson (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I found this short story collection to be pretty hit-or-miss, with mostly misses. Let's start with the art, which in my opinion, was pretty bad. The faces were really awkward and alien looking. The stories themselves weren't enough to carry the amaturish art. The first one, a teacher-student story, was more creepy than romantic. Most of the middle ones were mediocre and forgettable. The only story I sort of liked was the last one. I wasn't really into this collection and I'm not planning on picking up this manga-ka's work in the future.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Knot (manga by L. Ichijo) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a rather run of the mill yaoi anthology. Nothing groundbreaking or original, yet nothing too offensive either. I was mildly entertained. I also appreciated that the mangaka wasn't afraid to draw a penis. I think it's a bit weird when some BL manga opt to go for the "Ken doll" look when drawing naked dudes. These are supposed to be boys after all, not androgynous genderless creatures of BL land. Anyway, the book was decent, nothing more.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love is Like a Hurricane (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This series is the epitome of boring cliche schoolboy yaoi. Seriously, if there's a stereotype of what kind of manga a "yaoi manga" is, this fits. You've got a bunch of genericly drawn young looking pretty boys at an all boys school. Of course the really pretty smaller ones are "bottoms" and of course they dress up as waitresses/maids for the school festival. If the characters weren't getting it on so frequently in the story, I would've fallen asleep. That's all this series has to recommend it though.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Hurts (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Published under the Blu label, this book skirts the edge beween regular shoujo and boy's love. In fact, the last story was purely shoujo, about a girl who can see aliens. The first couple of stories were very strange and features a man who kills his boyfriend, and two guys who are always duking it out. I think these were supposed to be some sort of dark comedy? Whatever, I didn't laugh. The third sotry was about guys with superpowers who fight crime, but we never learn what those powers are and there's no actual crime being fought. All of the stories were pathetically flimsy with cardboard characters and little development. I didn't like the book, nor did I like the mangaka's other series, Menkui. I'll be steering clear of her work from now on.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Full of Scars (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is another one that brushes off those yaoi conventions with a dismissive wave. For one, the artist actually drew some body hair. More importantly, the standard male/female stereotypes yaoi characters adhere to are totally turned on their head. And despite the angsty sounding title, the manga is genuinely funny as well. I laughed out loud several times. It's definitely one of the better entries in the genre and I enjoyed it immensely.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Love for Dessert (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Of the few book published by Luv Luv, this is one of the better ones. It's an anthology with several stories. I didn't notice anything particularly offensive in this book that bothered me with other Luv Luv books, such as girls falling for jerky douchebags and attempting to portray such a thing as romantic. The stories were all interesting. It's nice to be able to read about the love lives of adult women for a change. My only complaint is with the brevity of the stories. They're just too short to be particularly memorable. This is actually the second time I've read this and I completely forgot about half of the stories. Even rereading did not jog my memory. On the other hand, I read it twice and enjoyed it both times, so that must count for something.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Control (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a salaryman romance. Kei is hired to do the interior design on a bar. The owner is a player and flirts heavily with him. Kei falls for him against his better judgement. The characterization here was pretty cardboard. The character designs themselves were well drawn, pretty in a masculine way. I found the series entertaining enough I guess, but lacking any sort of substance that would compel me to revisit it.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Love Bus Stop (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This collection of short stories actually proved to be fairly good (I'm usually not a fan of shorts). Perhaps it's because all of the stories featured adults after being inundated with tons of high school settings and characters. Even though I liked Love Bus Stop, I would have prefered the stories be longer and more in depth. I thought most of them showed potential but were cut far too short. It's a common occurence with short stories and one reason why I generally don't like them.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Loudest Whisper: Uwasa no Futari (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: More cliche schoolboy boys' love. Yay. Seriously, reading this title was like going down a checklist of boys' love tropes. It was mostly short stories with the title story carrying over to the next volume. None of the stories had any depth whatsoever. They basically served as mindless fluff to pass the time. Matsumoto's art isn't the best either. It was messy (not in a good way) and I sometimes had trouble telling characters apart. They all looked alike. Despite not being impressed with this offering, I still want to try Kyou Kara Maoh!, also by Matsumoto.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Lizard Prince (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was obviously supposed to be a one shot story that got expanded in this two volume series. The main conflict was pretty much solved in the first chapter, so the rest kinda ends up being a plotless mess that goes nowhere. I will say the second volume pulled itself together a little better than the first in offering some sort of plot, but it's nowhere near as interesting as the first chapter.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Living for Tomorrow (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Tasuku's mother was an "ageman", a woman who brought men good luck, so everyone wants to date him and hopes he has the same power, but he's in love with his best friend. This is a pretty simple school boy romance. Its sweet without being saccarine, but its short and lacks depth. I like Taishi Zaou's character designs, as they have a "bright and shiny" appeal. Overall, I was mildly amused by this book, although it's not my favorite by her.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Live For Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Bad [Comment▲▼]

Output: In the end, it was the art that did this one in for me. Small, short noses, with pointed chins and tiny mouths made the characters look distinctively mouse-like. If being jarred out of the story by extremely ugly character designs wasn't bad enough, the plot was undercooked as well. It's about a pair of private detectives. One is adopted and agrees to go to a marriage meeting at his family's behest. The other one objects, then there is a rape and a love confession. The end. This book is just terrible.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Little Crybaby (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is yet another ho hum boys' love anthology. Little Crybaby features, you guessed it, a whole lot of man crying. I guess we are supposed to find this cute? Not me. The stories were very short and shallow as hell. I have a hard time even recalling them a mere hour after I read the book. The only thing I found somewhat palatable is Keiko Kinoshita's art. She uses very light delicate lines which give the whole thing an "airy" look. Occasionally, faces were a little off proportion, but her style overall is very pleasing to me. It's a very recognizable, non-cookie cutter style which stands out and it's the only thing that made this book readable, although I hear her other work is much better, so I won't write her off just yet.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Little Butterfly (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Little Butterfly is a touching and emotional high school romance. Kojima befriends Nakahara, an outcast with a difficult homelife. Nakahara has a lot of problems, but his relationship with Kojima manages to keep him grounded. Little Butterfly gave off a realistic vibe, and I really enjoyed reading a plausible school boy romance for once. The characters were well written and more importantly, their romance made sense. After reading a bunch of June titles, I count Little Butterfly as one of their better offerings. Too bad volume 1 is already out of print.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Lies Are A Gentleman's Manners (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here's a more mature josei BL book about a closeted gay man. Despite his preference for men, he ends up marrying to please his family and in the end he truely loves his wife and daughter. It was quite sad actually, as he was never able to pursue a relationship with either of the men he loved. I appreciated the much more realistic tone of this book. After so many trope filled BL with samey stories and stock characters, this book reads like a breath of fresh air.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Lies & Kisses (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: In this one volume story, our main character picks up some guy in a bar who turns out to be his long estranged half brother. Yes, there is drama in this story. The art is quite nice also. I liked it, but only because I didn't allow myself to think too deeply about the incest part. I realize it's not for everyone, but since I was able to enjoy something like Koi Kaze, the plot doesn't unnerve me as much as it would others.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Liberty Liberty! (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I really have a hard time connecting with Hinako Takanaga's work due to her penchant for drawing young looking blushing girly boys. The lead character here was supposed to be a college drop out that is found drunk and laying in the middle of the street in his own vomit, yet he looked like a skinny 12 year old girl, with blushing cheeks and huge eyes. The guy who picks him up is drawn in a normal masculine way, so I know she can draw men looking normal. I guess she adheres a little too much to the formula, i.e. small looking girly one =bottom and taller manly looking one =top. I would rather see this disappear in favor of well rounded charcters instead of the stereotypical boy's love tropes used as chaacterization shorthand. It's lazy and I'm sick of it.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] A Liar in Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a one shot by Kiyo Ueda (The Color of Love). It was about a lying using playboy type who finally falls in love. It was decent in that the was some character development for the playboy lead, but the love interest was a cardboard cutout. The art was generic with nonexistent backgrounds as well. The book was just a small step above "meh" overall.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Level-C (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is pretty much plotless porn. The art isn't that great, it's very '90's. There's not much to say about it, other than at least it's better than the OVA, which is extra bad. Either way, even as porn, it's mediocre.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Let Dai (manhwa) [Rating▲▼] Masterpiece [Comment▲▼]

Output: It's been a long time since I've read a wonderfully emotional drama such as Let Dai. It's the fully three dimentional nuanced characters that make stories such as this succeed so well. Seeyeon Won's art really adds to this story, as she depicts people and emotions with skill. Let Dai pretty much worked on every level for me. I went through the full range of emotions while reading it: I cried, I got pissed off, and I felt happy, al signs of a great drama. I will read this one again someday (I just have to brace myself for the emotional onslaught).

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Laugh Under the Sun (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I quite liked this one shot about a shiftless, loser ex-boxer and his two friends. The characters felt very 3 dimensional and their actions were believable. I like Yamada's sense of comedy too. Her works tend to be more sarcastic funny than over-the-top silly, which is more my style. After reading several of her manga by now, I can say that her art does grow on you as well.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Last Portrait (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: There are two stories contained in this volume. In the first, a man is in love with his sister's fiance. This was a very well crafted short story, not just for a yaoi, but for any genre. I wish it had been longer with more time to delve into the character's backstories. I found that whole family facinating and thought it really could have been expanded into a series with some more development. The second story was a bit weaker, dealing with FBI agents. I didn't think the setting and plot felt authentic in this one. I wonder if the manga-ka had ever even met an FBI agent, much less been in their offices. It didn't feel like it, which is why I couldn't get into this story as much. On the plus side, it wasn't a total waste, as I did get into the characters. Both of these stories were pretty non explict, with mostly implied sex. So, those looking for porn yaoi, look elsewhere. For the rest of us, Last Portrait offers an interesting read.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Lapis Lazuli Crown (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was about as bland and mediocre as shoujo gets. There's very little plot or characterization here. It's short, at only two volumes, possibly because even the mangaka knew she had nothing.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Land of the Blindfolded (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I found Land of the Blindfolded to be rather bland and vanilla. The premise was interesting and it's fun in a sweet, innocent undemanding sort of way. There just isn't really any real conflict in the story, which makes for a bland read. The characters were very pleasant but shallow. It was just a bit too saccarine for me. The art was standard shoujo. Overall it was a forgettable experience.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kodocha - Sana's Stage (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I was introduced to Kodocha first through the anime (of which I've only seen the first 52 episodes). After reading up to volume four, I was only mildly interested, as I already knew what was going to happen and the story up until then still focused mostly on silliness. Starting volume five, the story became more serious and I found myself becoming more engrossed. Sana and Akito's story is very charming and I found myself staying up late to finish it.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kizuna - Bonds of Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I'm not very well read in yaoi manga. My initial impressions (before actually reading any of it hehe) of the genre were not so good; I mostly thought that it was shallow gay romance. Kizuna is pretty good though. Combining one part yakuza story, one part sports manga, and two parts romance, Kizuna manages to rise above my low expectations of the genre to tell a good story. The characters were interesting and nuanced, and I actually cared what happened to them. Unfortunately, this manga was never finished in the US. I've only read up to volume 5, and volumes 6 and 7 are astronomically priced on the used market. It's not likely that I'll ever get to read the rest of the story and that's a shame, as this is one title that deserved to be rereleased. It's been several years since I first picked up Kizuna and wrote the above. After all this time, the characters and story have remained with me. The cast is memorable and they and their relationships are well developed. Instead of following a formula with generic characters who fall in love, then bed, the end, all in a single book, Kazuma Kodaka has created an actual story about these people that feels real and genuine. If I have to criticize, I'd say the series biggest issue is the choppy narrative, especially in the beginning volumes. The timeline jumps all over the place from chapter to chapter before finally settling in. The series has other flaws as well, like using a couple of hoary old romance cliches here and there, and perhaps the dated art style (which I love). Despite not being perfect, I feel lucky in having picked this series as my introduction to BL, because it's one of the best.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kitchen Princess (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I've come to notice that in shoujo manga, the larger the eyes, the younger the target demographic. This proved to be true of Kitchen Princess as well. It's basically a cliche ridden high school romance with the main character being an underdog sort with dreams of being a pastry chef. Typical school romance tropes pop up constantly, with the mean girl rival, the love triangle, and the way Najika seems to solve all problems by "doing her best" (which mostly involves baking a dessert). For the target audience, this isn't a bad choice, it's cute and inoffensive. For me, it's a little bland. I think I'm too old for the super sparkly shoujo.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kissing (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: More "school boys in love". This time it's a couple of college students who start out as friends until one of them wants more. It was ok, but nothing particularly memorable. I've read this scenario before, and the author didn't manage to make her story stand out in any way from all the rest.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kiss Blue (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Among all of the English translated BL, Kiss Blue is somewhat of a rarity: an understated, rape and fanservice free tale of two adults finding love. The plot is a super simple, but realistic and well executed take on best friends falling in love. While it's not my favorite style, Kinoshita's sketchy, expressive art fits the story well. I'm so glad that the second volume of this two volume series was finailly published (years after vol. 1). This is by far the best of Kinoshita's works available in English. The other two I've read by her, Little Crybaby and You & Harujion were not impressive, which probably acounts for her poor sales here. That's unfortunate, because Kiss Blue is a quality title and should be recognized as such.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kiss All The Boys (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was a quick and entertaining read. The characters were interesting and their "issues" were believable. The humor worked for me and Shiuko Kano's art is another plus. On the other hand, the end is just a little too neat and tidy. Some of these characters really get the shaft (no pun intended) and to have everyone end up happy after all that goes down seems a little hard to believe. I also wasn't a fan of the pairings; seeing middle aged dudes paired with high school boys slightly creeped me out. Despite these problems , Kiss All the Boys is still a fun read and I was able to enjoy the story.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] A King's Lesson (manga) [Rating▲▼] Bad [Comment▲▼]

Output: What a terrible book this was! This book regurgitates every negative stereotype people have of boys love manga, starting with the ridiculous "rape is love" plot, which takes place in an all boys school, and features a girly looking young man. The art is terrible too, with simplistic badly proportioned faces and overuse of screentone. This is just a bad book and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] King of Thorn (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I thoroughly enjoyed this action/horror manga. The plot was fun and imaginative, if not terribly original, as the manga-ka himself admits that he swiped the ideas from movies he's seen (Jurassic Park would be an obvious one). Even so, The story is faced paced with plenty of action and feels fresh despite the obvious influences. I thought it was pretty cool and I tore through all 6 volumes in a few short hours.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] King of the Lamp (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here is a collection of shorts. The first few are about a genie that grants girls' wishes, making this a wish fulfillment manga for girls, literally. The last story was about an orphan girl and a pair of womanizing incubi who take her in. All of the stories are super shallow love-confession-happy ending things. The book in entertaining enough, but it very thin on plot and not the sort of thing that sticks with you.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) King of Debt (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a BL antholgy and I have a hard time coming up with anything to say about it because it was so painfully mediocre. This is the second time I have read it actually, because I had the book, yet I had completely forgotten its contents. I expect to forget again within an hour or so. The art was the same way, sorta generic, and the anatomy (especially the naked parts) was laughable. On the other hand the book wasn't bad, just extremely bland and seriously lacked depth.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] King of Cards (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a shoujo about a girl who gets into a fictional card game called "Chaos" by accidentally aquiring a rare card. You'd expect a manga about a fake card game to be cheesy and boring, but this wasn't the case. Tateno manages to make it interesting and creative, explaining the rules and tournaments in such a way that it sounds like fun. If it were a real game, I'd play. The heroine, Minami, is kinda your typical shoujo crybaby, but strangely, for this story it works. She gradually builds confidence as she gets better at the game. The love triangle was also well done, since the final choice wasn't clear to me until the very end. I was pleasantly suprised by how much I enjoyed this series. since I've been lukewarm on most of Tateno's work except for Yellow and Hero Heel. It seems I enjoy her longer series more than her more numerous one shots and short little 2-volumers.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kimi Shiruya - Dost Thou Know? (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This one shot is about a pair of brothers who do kendo. It is saved from being your typical "schoolboys in love" story by having kendo and the rivalry between the two older brothers figure largely in the plot. I liked that the mangaka didn't just use the sport as "window dressing" but really integrated it in the story. The story itself was decent, but nothing special. I like this mangaka, but I don't think her work is very popular here. All that's been published thus far is this and one volume of "God of Dogs".

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Kill Me, Kiss Me (manhwa) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: The first volume of this is an amusing genderbender, in which a pair of cousins swich genders in order to attend each other's schools. if it had continued in that direction, I would have liked the series much more, as those characters were interesting. However, from volume 2 onwards, we follow a different set of charaters and it's only loosely related to the first volume. Basically it's like two different series. Unfortunately, the rest of the series is not nearly as interesting as volume one. In fact, months later now, I barely remember it while I do have some recall of the first volume. Not a good sign.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Key to the Kingdom (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: "Meh" pretty much summed up my reaction to this one. I have no real objections to it though. It was decently plotted and the characters were interesting enough, but it just didn't grab me. I read a lot of fantasy fiction back in the day, and this read a lot like that. It was basically just your run of the mill dragon fantasy. I think I'm burnt out on such things. If it doesn't bring anything new to the table, I have a hard time getting into it and unfortunately Key to the Kingdom isn't anything new.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kaze no Hana (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was a really disappointing manga. It's like one big ball of dangling plot threads. The plot went absolutely nowhere and the ending was one of the worst non-endings I've ever read. I went searching to see if there was a follow up series and I found nothing, which is really sad, as the story started out with some promise.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kare Kano (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I wanted to like this story more than I did. The anime is one of my favorites, despite's it's non ending. Unfortunately, I was only mildly entertained by Kare Kano the manga. While the main story itself kept my interest, I felt the volumes in the middle that focus on the side characters were pretty boring and unneccessary. I also felt the story began to drag around volumes 17-20 where the focus shifts to Soichiro's dad and an extented flashback to his childhood. I did find the ending to be very satisfying though. There are no loose ends or plot threads left dangling (I'm looking at you Kare Kano anime). The art is standard shoujo, nothing spectactular. I did notice that it seemed to improve withthe later volumes. The manga was written over a period of 9 years, plenty of time for Tsuda to improve her art. Finally, I'm going to be honest and say that sweet high school romance stories such as Kare Kano aren't really my thing. I'm an adult so a lot of the character's actions I find it hard to relate to (i.e. Oh! He touched my hand! *dies from embarassment*). Although, I did rate Mars highly, but I wonder if it would hold up as well if I read it again today.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kare First Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This series started out entertaining and sort of fizzled out at the halfway point. It's nothing one hasn't seen before in a million romance stories, glasses wearing shy girl somehow hooks the cute guy. After they start going out, Karin deals with normal teen romance things, like disapproving parents and Aoi pressuring her to have sex when she's not ready. After they clear these hurdles however, the story focused on Aoi's personal problems with his family and truthfully, it became a little dull. Have no fear though, this one ends in standard romance fashion with a wedding! So overall, as a fluffy teen romance it was decent but not notewothy.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Karakuri Odette (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is an excellent series! It's about a young girl, who happens to be an android and is virtually indistinquishable from a human. She decides to go to school and must learn all about fitting in and getting along in the human world. Odette doesn't know or understand a lot of things, so she questions a lot. It was an interesting look at human behavior through Odette's impartial eyes. At only six volumes, the series is the perfect length, long enough to build a story but not so long that it drags on. The plot is paced well and it wraps up nicely at the end. My strongest impression of the series is an overwhelming feeling of cuteness. Watching Odette deal with developing feelings and having them explained to her was just super adorable. I loved this series.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a hodgepodge of short stories and illustrations by Kaoru Mori (Emma). Mori's art is top notch, but the book itself is rather shallow. None of the stories are longer than a few pages, and I was a bit unprepared for the fanservice. This stuff definitely ran in men's mags, male gaze was evident with all of the ass shots and such. Mori likes her maids as well, since a few stories have them too. This book is a must for a Mori superfan, but I only really liked Emma, so it's on my purge pile.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Ka Shin Fu (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was pretty mediocre. I like Tateno's art style, but the plot on this one was underdeveloped with shallow one-note characters. Its about a couple of long lost heirs to some family dynasty who discover a family secret (not that interesting). They fall in love, the end. I realize they can't all be a "Kizuna" or a "Love Mode", but is it too much to ask for some well written characters? Aside from my ranting, I found Ka Shin Fu mildy entertaining but ultimately forgettable.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] K-ON! (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I'm going to state up front that I'm generally not a fan of 4-koma style manga. With the execption of Azumanga Diaoh, they've all failed to capture my interest. K-ON isn't too bad, but it didn't exactly change my mind. It's cute and the characters are memorable, but it lacks substance. It is literally "cute girls doing nothing". I am so not the target audience, because "cute girls" just leave me cold. While I occasionally got a chuckle out of their antics, a lot of the time I was just bored. I have a feeling that I will like the anime a bit better, as this really could use some livening up with sound and acting. Overall though, K-ON the manga was mildly entertaining for me.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Jyu-Oh-Sei (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Jyu Oh Sei is a science fiction story about a pair of twins condemned to a prison planet and forced to learn how to survive. The place is a very hostile environment, with carnivorous palnts and brutal winters. I found the setting pretty cool and imaginative. The story was fast paced and well written. I really like sci-fi stories, so this was right up my alley. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Just Around the Corner (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Student/teacher romances are a dime a dozen in yaoi-land. This is by far one of the best written though. The characters don't fall into cliche stereotypes and the drama is present in small doses. I found it to be a more understated romance. While Toko Kawai's art is not my fav, I do like that she avoids the blushing girly-boy style. While the characters *are* pretty, they still look masculine. Overall, this is one of my favorite by her.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Junior Escort (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is an anothlogy of the blandest and most forgettable sort, featuring cardboard characters with only the merest sketch of a plot. The art is also similarly bare bones, consisting of a few lines for the characters and very sparse backgrounds. Faces are oddly proportioned and character's faces and clothes have no detail whatsoever. The eyes are empty of expression and really the only thing differentiating the characters were their hairstyles. The whole thing is pretty amateurish looking. The title story spins off into sequels. I've read them and they are just as bad. Or, more acurately to say, I don't remember a thing about them. I'll probably forget this one again too (even though I've now read it twice).

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Judged (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I picked this up after reading Akira Honma's other work published by Dramaqueen, the very good Last Portrait. While not quite up to the standard of Last Portrait, The Judged is still pretty decent. The characters in this all have serious issues and plenty of angst. I've really appreciate Honma's art as well. I really wish DQ hadn't disappeared so that we could see more of Honma's work in English.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Jihai (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a 3 volume futuristic fantasy series about clones with predetermined lifespans. Aoi is such a clone, and his time is almost up. He has some sort of special ability, so people are after him. He's taken in by a mysterious dude who runs a diner. The plot had some interesting elements, but none of them are really explored in detail. I enjoyed reading it but felt it was a little too shallow. I did like the art thuogh.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Jazz (manga) [Rating▲▼] Weak [Comment▲▼]

Output: Jazz is supposed to be a about romance between a doctor and a patient, but I didn't feel the love. In fact, it reminded me of one of those awful bodice rippers from the 80's, with the abusive cavemanlike hero. The doctor had pretty much no personality at all, and the patient was a crazy obsessed stalker type. Instead of jumping into a relationship with this psycho, the doctor should have gotten a restraining order. Needless to say, I didn't like this manga. As a romance, I felt that it failed. It's been several years since I first read this, so I had to reread it just to see if it was as terrible as I remembered. It was. In the very first volume, the patient, a high school boy, drugs and rapes the doctor, and we're supposed to buy into this relationship? I'm seeing creepy obsession but no real love here. If it were standard shoujo, it would read like a training manual for abusive relationships. This series is absolute trash.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Isle of Forbidden Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This story had an interesting premise, in which an isolated island of the coast of Japan exist in which people live unaware of the outside world and are frozen in time. There's a bunch of murders there and a task force from Tokyo (modern day) is sent to infiltrate the island and investigate. The problem was that all this was written in the most cursory and bare bones manner, nothing is elaborated on. The characters are similarly bare bones, so their love relationship came off shallow as hell. The art is nice, but it's not enough to drag this from being barely mediocre.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Invisible Love (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: A yaoi anthology; typically mediocre, and this one is no exception. The title story about a couple of friends with secret crushes on each other is the longest and best of the bunch. The rest are not worth mentioning as they were the barest of the bare in terms of any kind of detail or development. Honjoh's characters all look alike as well, just with different hairstyles (something she admits to in her notes). This seriously makes it even harder to distinguish these cardboard slabs from each other. This is not a terrible book, just utterly forgettable and I wish I had done something more productive with my 30 minutes.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Intriguing Secrets (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is standard school boy boys' love. Two boys become friends after sharing in some afterschool punishment. They develop crushes on each other and after some silly misunderstandings, confess their feelings. The end. This was a light fluffy sort of story and I didn't find anything objectionable about it. Both boys were drawn in the same manner, there was no forced seduction, it was all pretty straightforward. For me, it was a little too cutesy. I vastly prefer stories about adults, but this would be fine for the teenage fangirl set, as it is very vanilla.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Intense Rain (manga) [Rating▲▼] Weak [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a very formulaic BL one shot containing two stories. The first is about a pair of reunited lovers and the second, well I forget that one already. Characters are the cardboardiest of cardboard, backgrounds are nonexistent, art is generic as is the writing. I really don't have anything to recommend about this book. At least it wasn't offensive, just painfully dull.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Innocent Bird (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Innocent Bird is essential a romance story tossed into a mildly interesting plot about a war between angels and demons. The art was really lovely, with elaborate clothing, flowing hair, and really detailed wings. I also appreciated that the men looked masculine and not like little boys (or girls). Overall, I enjoyed the stroy.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Incredible Kintaro (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a gag manga, with most of the jokes centered around penises (penii?) and nudity. Granted, penises can be pretty funny looking so the humor did work for me. The premise is that main character-kun is the heir to a private school and in order to become the next principal, the staff members have to compete for his virginity. To protect himself, he enlists his childhood friend Kintaro as a bodyguard. Kintaro busts out some ridiculous naked martial arts and wields an ax as he takes down weird tentacle robots and pervy swim teachers. The book is pretty silly and I got a chuckle out of it.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Immortal Rain (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a different sort of shoujo, taking place in a futuristic world and featuring an immortal man and a teenage girl who fight against a evil corporation and a figure from Rain's past who are bent on world domination/destruction. There is a lot of action in this manga and it is quite well drawn. The story got a little ludicrous at times, but the emotional aspects were solid. While I'm glad I read this and I liked it overall, it's not something I enjoyed enough to keep on my selves to be read again.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Immoral Darkness (novel) [Comment▲▼]

Output: I'm not even going to bother to rate this book. It is a yaoi light novel published by DMP. It has one of yaoi's staples, the student/teacher relationship. However, the only way to enjoy this book is to completely divorce yourself from reality. If that is not possible, DO NOT READ THIS. It borders on erotica and is kinda rapey. In the context of reality, the relationship is super creepy. On the other hand, as a fantasy novel, it's kinda hot, which is what it basically boils down to.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Imadoki! Nowadays (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Imadoki was a slight disappointment for me. I had expected more after reading other Watase works such as Ceres and Fushigi Yugi. It wasn't bad however, just your standard high school based romantic comedy. It was cute and sweet, but not particularly memorable. I vastly prefer Watase's other series.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Il Gatto Sul G (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Always on the lookout for something different, I initially was very interested in this story as it features a protagonist with multiple personality disorder. Too bad I did not like the neat and tidy way the boy was "cured" i.e. falling in love cures all things. *barfs* I did not expect complete realism in a manga, but at least it could have been believable. Also, the art was done in a style that I've come to identify as "generic BL". Wispy, feminine boys and sparse backgrounds is not a style I particularly admire and it's worse when it has no distinctive quality that sets it apart from other manga of it's style. In short, the art has no personality. It's boring. Thankfully, the plot wasn't boring. Extremely unrealistic and cliched, yes, but not boring. So, I despite its flaws, at least I was entertained.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Idol Pleasures (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here is another lackluster manga form Fuhri Misasagi (I've Moved Next Door...). In this one, the brother of a talent agency exec is given a job to manage a young idol, who has a generic tragic backstory. I'd be amazed if these characters could be more cardboard than they are. Anyway, the idol becomes attached to temporary job-kun and at the end we get a random revelation that he used to be a detective and a former coworker attempts to revenge rape him only to be saved by idol-kun and they admit their love, yadda yadda. Yeash, the more I think about it, the book was terrible.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Ichigenme... The First Class is Civil Law (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I really like Yoshinaga's manga. I haven't found one dud yet among them. This one takes place mostly at a university and actually feels pretty authentic. The characters and the setting were well done. So many manga use setting as "window dressing", i.e. Schools when no one studies and workplaces where no one does any work, so it was nice to run across a university setting where the characters actually go to class.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] (The) Ice Wanderer (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a collection of short stories by Jiro Taniguchi, mostly focusing on the wilderness and the great outdoors. My favorite were the Jack London adaptations and the whale story at the end. Overall it's a pretty strong collection of stories and Taniguchi's art is great as always.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I've Moved Next Door to You (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here's a prime example of "plot, what plot?" boys love. There is a shallow story here that's just there to set the stage and handwaved away at the end as the couple gets together. None of the characters are any more than cardboard cutouts. Unfortunately for a story this shallow, the fanservice is...not that interesting. So in the end this book is pretty forgettable.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I'm not going to bother with a plot summary, because it's not really the focus here. This manga was pretty porny. I thought it was hot, so I guess it accomplished what it set out to do. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who isn't into explicit boys' love. Manga like this appeal to a very narrow niche and anyone who isn't the intended audience just isn't going to get it.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I'll Be Your Slave (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I guess this was supposed to be a parody or a gag manga? Either way, it fell flat for me. Most likely because the characters had no personality whatsoever. It's hard to see the humor in something that fails to be interesting.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I Shall Never Return (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This was a really excellent high-drama style romance story. The characters are interesting and well written and there is actual honest to goodness character development in this series. The art style is typical of the early ninties, and I liked it. I was satisfied with the ending too. It ended happily with out being sickly sweet.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I Give to You (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is the first book I've read from this mangaka and it was just...ok. The lead character is an airheaded sort who is running form the loansharks after his boyfriend skips out on him leaving him with tons of debt. He ends up at a tea shop run by former Yakuza. The story itself wasn't bad, I just wasn't able to connect with the characters at all. They were uninteresting and flat. The romance can basically be summed up as "upbeat guy charms sullen recluse out his shell". There wasn't much else to it. I was mildly entertained by this book only.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] I Can't Stop Loving You (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This two volumes series rests on the "meh" part of the scale, neither good, nor bad, but directly in the middle. It's characters are a couple of high school boys, one who's a buddhist priest in training and another who can see ghosts and has super human strength. They are dating and constantly getting cock-blocked by one ghost related incident or another. There is no real plot to this thing, it's all short little episodes starring the same two characters. The characters themselves are pretty thin. I did get some chuckles from the humor though. I do like Row Takakura's art too. I like how she draws faces, even the gaggle of little old ladies in volume one. Overall, this series was entertaining if middle-of-the-road.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Hybrid Child (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a short story collection from the creator of Junjo Romantica. Unfortunately, this doesn't compare to JR at all in terms of quality. Hybrid Child is a story about androids set in the 19th century. It took my a couple of stories to figure out that this was a historical piece. It was an awkward mix IMO. I did like the one (tragic) story without the androids though. In the end, I found the collection mildly entertaining only.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] How to Seduce a Vampire (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a mediocre first effort by a new to me manga-ka. The title story, about a vampire barber, is marginal. The second story, which takes place in a historical time and also features the vampire barber, is much better and pushes this book into "decent" territory. This is a darker story which explains where Kureha met the blacksmith who makes his magic shears. The final two storys are comlpetely forgettable. One is about cosplay and the other is a historical piece. Both feature bearded dudes with long hair. Clearly the manga-ka has a fetish. On the whole, this book isn't goin to blow anyone away, but I found it mildly entertaining. It's not bad, but I wouldn't call it good either, strictly middle of the road fare.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] How to Control a Sidecar (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This book is a sequel to Martini, but focused on diffeent characters. This time, it's another bartender who's being persued by two guys. This book wasn't as engaging as the first book. The characters don't have any history together, so the romance seems even more rushed. This book also uses the tired old rape & later fall in love with rapist plot, which really stretches believablity. Especially since it was a pretty black and white rape, not a "forced seduction". I couldn't get into the relationship because of this. It appears this is one of Makoto Tateno's "misses".

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] How to Capture a Martini (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Makoto Tateno is hit or miss for me. I've enjoyed her longer series like Hero Heel and King of Cards, but her one shots and anthologies tend to leave me cold. Martini ends up in the middle of the scale. In this, a guy runs into an old boyfriend (a bartender, hence the title) and wants to rekindle the relationship. Since they broke up years ago without closure, he's still in love with him. It's an emotional story and which mostly worked for me, except for the revelation about why they originally broke up. It was super contrived and tested my believablity meter. I wish Tateno would've come up with a more plausable reason, as otherwise I mostly liked the book. It does suffer from a lack of depth and a rushed story, but the fact that it wrung any emotion from me at all gives it a leg up on the countless other yaoi onehots that I read and forget immediately after.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Hotel Harbour View (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: I bought this because Jiro Taniguchi did the art. His writing is excellent also, but unfortunately he didn't write this. The book contains two stories in which a man is killed by a female hitwoman. They are very dated in that 80's pulpy ultra sexual and violent way. But, I since I wasn't expecting much from the writing, I wasn't disappointed. Taniguchi's art is the draw here and the book's production values really compliment it with it's thick white paper, clear dustjacket, and large size. I wish this type of presentation was more common.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hot Limit (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I was pretty entertained by this one because it aspired to a plot beyond your usual insipid love story. It can be summed up like this: a rich kid is prostituting himself at the behest of a crooked polititian/lover and ends up being helped out of the situation by a broke college student who falls in love with him. It's not going to win a literary prize, but it sufficed for some light entertainment.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Hot Gimmick (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: I really enjoyed this story despite the fact that none of the characters were particularly likeable. Ryoki was an abusive d-bag and Hatsumi continued to be a doormat throughout the whole story. Their relationship was completely disfunctional, and that's what made it interesting (and disturbing). I just wish Ryoki would've gotten a clue, and Hatsumi would've stood up for herself. There's no effin way I'd ever allow a man to slap me. Why Hatsumi? Why?

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey/Chocolate (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: The first half of this book is a continuation of one of the stories in The Object of My Affection. The second half is a student/teacher romance. This is just mediocre fare, with underdeveloped stories and characters. It mildly enjoyable but still strictly middle of the road.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey*Smile (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is the second lackluster Yura Miyazawa manga I've read, the first being Love Syndrome. In this there are two stories, both featuring coworkers at generic offices. The characters are stock types of the cardboard variety, and the romance feels manufactured and shallow. There is nothing offensive in this book, it's just very forgettable fare. On the plus side, the art is clean and attractive, but that can't save it from bad writing.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey Senior, Darling Junior (manga) [Rating▲▼] Not really good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is actually the second time I read this, yet I didn't remember a thing. The stories in this are a forgettable as they come. The main story is about a sempai/kohei who are in love. That's it. No plot whatsoever. cardboard characters. Really dated, crude looking art. On the plus side, it isn't offensive. Just painfully bland.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey Darling (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This one volumes story is about a shiftless young guy who takes a job as a live in housekeeper/assistant at a vet clinic. He discovers he really likes the work while he falls for the vet. Its a pretty standard romance and I enjoyed it. What made this one stand out for me was the art. The characters are drawn in a much more masculine way than I'm used to seeing an a BL manga, which i appreciated. Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than seeing grown men depicted like pretty young girls. I also liked the heavy focus on Shiro, the cat. Norizaku even mentions in her notes that she didn't mean to draw a cat manga, but I thought it was fun.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey Colored Pancakes (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a short story collection by Keiko Kinishita. Kiss Blue is one of my favorites, so I was expecting better from this book.The stories were just too short and underdeveloped. I'd say the blandest of the bunch was the title story, about the pastry chef and the guy he picks up who likes sweets. The two student/friend romances had to most potential, but they were just cut too short. If either had been expanded to fill a whole book, it could have been pretty good. In the end though, the collection was just barely average.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Honey and Clover (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Honey and Clover is a slice of life drama about a group of friends at an art college in Tokyo. The characters are just so well written and nuanced, they came across as very human and real, definitely not shallow archtypes. The story features not one, but two love triangles. The first one features the childlike art prodigy Hagu, and her two admirers, Takemoto and Morita. The second features Mayama, his employer Rika, who he is in love with and also his friend Yamada, who is in love with him. Neither of these goes in a direction one would expect. Umino wrote them both in a realistic manner with some characters finding their paths together and some heading off alone. I really wanted to whack that Yamada upside the head. She clung to her hopeless feelings for Mayama for far too long. He made it clear that he didn't have any feelings for her early on, but she refused to move on. I alternated with feeling sorry for her and getting frustrated with her. I credit it to Umino's writing skill that I was able to invest so much into these characters. I cried at the end. This is a truely excellent series.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hissing (manhwa) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a fairly typical sunjeong manhwa, with it's overly melodramatic plot and androgynous art. The art did strike me as awkward at times. Yelling characters in particular often looked like big mouthed bass. Also, Da-Eh's nose was so small she looked like Micheal Jackson's long lost twin. I did like Da-Eh though, she was not like the leads in Japanese shoujo manga. She was no doormat and stood up for herself just fine. I seem to run across these types of heroines much more often in the Korean manhwa. As for the plot, I mostly found it to be underdeveloped and lacking explanation. For example, the situation with Da-Eh's little brother, nor Ta-Jun's relationship with his sister/cousin are really delved into. A lot of the melodrantic stuff lacked impact because of that. The central romance between Da-Eh and Sun-Nam was nice. Other than that, much of the plot and character development was tossed by the wayside. That's too bad because while I was entertained by "Hissing", it could have been better.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] His Arrogance (manga) [Rating▲▼] Weak [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a fairly typical cliche sort of BL manga that doesn't leave much of an impression. Ryo's father owns a modeling agency and his brother is a famous model. Ryo lives in the company dorm with all the models and starts a relationship with one of them. That's the premise, and its a pretty cliche one. Just an excuse to draw pretty boys. Yawn. Ryo also has a brother complex, although his older brother's brocon is even creepier. I found that relationship to be a bit offputting. The characters were pretty much cardboard cutouts, able to be summed up in a couple of words. Ryo was your standard submissive "cute" type, which is common in bad BL and I find really out of place in a BL manga. He was basically your standard shoujo heroine. He did not pass my "is this a believable male" test. Why not just make him a girl and have done with it? There was also not a single woman in the whole book. It's like that half of the species went extinct. No wonder everyone is gay. =D

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Input: [Read all▲▼] High School Girls (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Rarely has a series made me laugh so loudly. Volume after volume, it stays funny and never feels stale. High School Girls is set in an all girls school and follows a group of friends. Instead of going the cutesy slice of life route, it depicts high school girls as they really are, gross out humor and all. Seriously, girls are not made of sugar and spice and everything nice. They are just as slovenly and dumb as teenage boys. It's refreshing to see girls depicted that way instead of perfect little fetish objects. I really enjoyed this series.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hey, Sensei? (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This student/teacher romance is my favorite by Yaya Sakuragi that I've read so far. The premise is cliche, but the execution is not. Both characters are portrayed as men and the relationship feels equal. Sakuragi doesn't resort to "girlifying" one of the characters to fit into traditional gender roles and for that I'm grateful. There isn't much to the story, it is a simple romance, but it succeeds at what it's trying to do and I like it.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hero Heel (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I admit that initially I didn't understand the fuss over Makoto Tateno's work. That could be because my first experience was with her one-shots, which IMO aren't the greatest. Although, I did like Yellow and now Hero Heel has also come along to cement my opinion as a fan. I must say her series are much better than the one-shots. Plots are more intricate and the characters and emotions are better developed. In Hero Heel, the relationship was a complicated and drama filled thing, playing out over all three volumes. I appreciated reading about a romance that had complications, it's more entertaining for me and the ending was ultimately more satisfying than if the couple had gotten together in the first volume. This is another reason I prefer a longer series format. I thought the setting was fun in Hero Heel as well. The characters were actors in a "Power Rangers" sort of action show and it felt authentic and not merely window dressing. Tateno's art is a plus overall, with my only peeve being that sometimes the characters tend to all look alike. Since I havn't read a whole lot of her work yet, this isn't so much of a problem. However, I did enjoy Hero Heel very much and look forward to checking out more of her series in the future.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Here is Greenwood (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: This one was a dissapointment. The good: I liked the 80's style art and some of the humor was really funny. The bad: The rest of the humor and such flew right by me because I kept getting confused. The art and/or dialog didn't always make it clear exactly what was going on. I had to re-read the bathroom scene in volume 1 three times and I still didn't get it. I don't think I'll continue with this one. So, I gave this one another chance. I liked it better this time around, and I was able to get through all 9 volumes, but it will never be a favorite. The series reminds me a bit of "School Rumble" with its absurd humor, yet I don't find "Greenwood" to be nearly as funny. I liked it best when it stuck to the slice-of-life humor and the boys' everyday hijinks. When it ventured into alternate fantasy realms, I had trouble maintaining interest. The character designs were sometimes difficult to tell apart too, Shinobu and the other blonde one (Ikeda?) especially, which probably accounted for some of my confusion when I first picked up this series many moons ago. Despite its flaws, it really is a good series, if not to my tastes in regards to humor.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Her Majesty’s Dog (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Overall, I thougth it was mediocre. I'm having a hard time coming up with things to say because it wasn't bad, it just didn't leave much of an impression. I thought the characters were underdeveloped and the plot kinda meandered until the last two volumes where it picked up a bit and came together with a pretty good ending. In this case, the ending dragged up the rating from "so-so" to "decent".

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Helter Skelter (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This manga is about a model and her obsession with being the most beautiful to her detriment and eventual downfall. It really portrays how harmful obsession with youth can be and the sad fact that there is no escaping it. It's everywhere. Whether you turn on the TV, read the internet, or open a magazine, those messages are inescapable. Okazaki's art compliments the book beautifully, with very bold lines and exaggerated proportions its almost "ugly", mirroring the characters themselves. The end gave a "to be continued", but I felt that it ended just fine as is. I don't see what else Liliko has to tell really. I'm really interested in reading other work by the mangaka though.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Heaven!! (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I found Heaven!! to be a very good romantic comedy with spot on (for me) humor. I even laughed out loud a few times. Seino's expressive art is also well suited to comedy. After enjoying this and a couple of her other works (Girl Got Game and Love Attack) I'll pretty much buy anything of hers that is printed in English.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Hate to Love You (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a BL one shot about sons form two rival rich families. They both attend the same private school and while at odds with each other, are in love with each other. Honestly, it's pretty "meh". This is a standard Romeo and Juliet style story, and just to beat on e over the head further with it, one of the dads drop a "just like Romeo and Juliet" line in the story. Gag me. Since this is a one shot, characters are stick figures, and plot? what plot? In the end, this book wasn't actively terrible, but it wasn't good either.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hard Rock (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: I liked this slice of life/romance story about four guys in a band. The relationships appeared somewhat realistic and natural, unlike a lot of BL manga. Also, I quite liked Akane Abe's art as well. Each of the characters had a distinctive look and personality, far from generic. I can't stand manga where everyone looks alike except for varying hair colors. It's lazy art. Hard Rock definitely is above average in the character art department.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Happy Mania (manga) [Rating▲▼] Excellent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Happy Mania is about a 20-something, Kayoko, and her search for a boyfriend. I thought the story was excellent. The characterization was especially good. Each character was three dimentional and human, flaws and all. My only wish is that it had ended a bit more conclusively, but it makes sense that it didn't as that's just the way life is. Overall, an A+!

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Happy Hustle High (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: At first glance, this is just another run of the mill high school shoujo romance. Rie Takada's writing and knack for comedy and expression make this one out to be a cut above the rest though. I laughed out loud several times during the reading of this. Hanabi was an absolutely adorable and hilarious main character, definitely not a typical shoujo doormat. The romance was cute and well written. I could "feel the love" between the two and I wasn't left scratching my head as to why they liked each other. After finishing this and reading "Wild Act", I have become a serious fan of Takeda's work and am looking forward to tracking down the rest of her manga published in English.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Happiness Recommended (manga) [Rating▲▼] Decent [Comment▲▼]

Output: Here, Yukiharu was raised by his grandfather who dies and he moves in with his 6 younger brothers. Both parents have skipped town and the household is poor and slovenly. Haru has to learn to fit into his new life and also reaquaint himself with his childhood friend, Makoto. This is boy's love, so Haru and Makoto's friendship is more than it seems. My main problem with the book is that is felt like it need a sequel. This book was the set up, but lacked much of an ending. Overall, I liked the book. There was just enough to the characters that I wanted to know how they got along with their new living arrangement.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] Hanky Panky (manga) [Rating▲▼] So-so [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is the kind of forgettable dreck that disappoints me the most when I pick up a new-to-me mangaka. Let start with the art, which was ametureish. There were minimal backgrounds, faces were weirdly proportioned, and all the characters had this same face with similiar hair. This was a short story anthology, but the couples in each looked exactly alike. The stories themselves were super shallow and disposable. It was entertaining enough I guess, but I will not remember it after an hour.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network


Input: [Read all▲▼] Hanako and the Terror of Allegory (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a fun little short series based on the premise that urban legends become real when people believe in them. Aso is an "allegory detective" who investigates paranormal mysteries. He is assisted by Hanako, an allegory herself, and Kanae, the subject of chapter one's case that helps out at the office. The stories are mostly episodic, with a few offering hints as to Aso's special powers and a larger story. One was pretty comedic, in which Kanae makes a deal with the mirror demon in order to become an idol. The series was pretty entertaining and a lot lighter than Esuno's other series, Future Diary. I enjoyed it.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] GTO: The Early Years (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: Based on reading GTO, I was expecting a hilariously crude comedy series. The first volume was exactly that, with Ryuji and Onizuka going to a resort and lying about their ages/school to pick up chicks. It was hilarious. After that the series settled down into a typical shounen fighting manga, with the pair encountering one new foe after another that they must beat up to preserve their reputations as bad-asses. This started to drag after awhile as the formula was getting a bit stale. Fortunately, during the last third of the series the mangaka must have realized this, the comedy picked back up and it was great. The art saw a marked improvement as well over the course of the series, with the early volumes looking a bit crude and old-school and the later volumes looking more like GTO, with Onizuka's trademark over-exaggerated expressions. Overall, I enjoyed this series, if not as much as it's sequel. Those last few volumes in particular were awesome.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] GTO: 14 Days in Shonan (manga) [Rating▲▼] Good [Comment▲▼]

Output: This is a GTO side story in which Onizuka spends 14 days in his hometown shacked up in a group home with a bunch of troubled kids and a couple of hot chicks. Of course Onizuka helps all the kids solve their personal problems and he's still a virgin. Yep, all of the typical gags are reused in this series. Onizuka is pretty much a blatant Gary Stu, good at everything and can solve any problem with just his sheer awesomeness. Still, I found the series entertaining on the whole, but not quite as good as the main series.

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Input: [Read all▲▼] GTO (manga) [Rating▲▼] Very good [Comment▲▼]

Output: At times, I thought this read like a cheesy after school special. Some kid always has a problem and Onizuka always shows up to fix it. It was eye-rollingly over the top at some points. On the other hand the moralizing was injected with a shot of great humor. Despite the ocasional corniness, GTO is a pretty entertaining manga. I liked it overall.

PrettyKitty20034's Manga [Read all] - Anime News Network