Anime & Manga Class Blog

 I have actually never heard of this manga before. I feel like most of the time I'll at least recognize the name but in this case, I didn't. I even tried to ignore the summary of this manga series. In general, I pick a manga that I have either watched the anime of or one that knows the anime isn't good. In this case, it's neither but it did seem like an interesting read. Despite it being the manga to read for this week. I was only able to read a few chapters but so far it seems pretty comedic and random. Simply going off the title I had no guess what this manga could possibly be about. However, once I started actually getting into it, I became absorbed with its humor. In just a few short chapters I have read, the series seems to be a light-hearted comedy that I plan on adding to my 'to-read list".

For this week I read chapter 64 which was the "A Doll's Hellish Burial" short story. To me, Junji's art style is one of the most recognizable styles in the industry. Almost immediately I am able to tell when something is his work or inspired by his work. I picked a random story to read knowing all of Junji Itou's are amazing and don't connect (at least that I'm aware of). This story, in particular, is almost a fear of mine. Not necessarily during into a real doll, but creepy dolls in general or possessed dolls. I think that's something this author captures quite well. The sense of fear not only through storytelling but also the plot of each story. He also seemingly creates fears. For example, some of the stories I've seen, whether it was simple pictures or actually read them, the monsters are terrifying in themselves.

I was only able to read a few chapters of "That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" but I really enjoyed what I was able to read. I always saw this manga in bookstores like Books-A-Million and Barnes and Noble but always laughed at the title. Recently, I've been seeing a lot of humor based anime/manga, though they aren't necessarily new. Immediately in the first chapter, I already loved the humor in it once the character was reincarnated. I also really like how the author plays around with the use of panels. For example, him depicting an all-black panel with white lineart. I haven't seen many manga artists do something similar to this but it is very interesting. I also loved how even though the character is a literal blob, there is such livelihood to this character. Despite the state, the character is in, you can get an almost full read on them simply based on the simple expressions. I actually have never heard of the term "Isekai" before so it was int