Count_Zero

Here the manga gets a little more serialized, and drops the “Demon Of The Chapter” aspect of the story. For that matter, it also fleshes out the characters a little more - so while the villain of this volume, The Count, is certainly monstrous, he does have his humanizing elements.

This volume covers the “Butler's Tiger Pit” arc, which is, I think, one of the anime and manga's funniest arcs thus far.

Well, straight-up, the manga has some notable differences between from the anime, from very early on. It's still absolutely gorgeous, but I would say that a few of the changes are for the worse (not by much, but just a little bit for the worse).

This volume doesn't answer all the questions. However, it also doesn't give me the impression of being lead along by the nose that I got from volume 2. My faith is somewhat restored in the series, and I look forward to reading volume 4.

This volume makes things more interesting by putting some shades of grey in the motivations of the villains, while still making their acts incredibly monstrous.

Better than volume 1, though I do find myself wondering which way the writers are going to take their subtext on imagination. Is imagination power and something to be preserved, or something to be quelled - because one thing is clear - the authors' take is definitely black or white - with no grey in sight.

This book is incredibly dark, and violent. At this point in the series, I'd say that Guts is an incredibly unlikable protagonist - unless you had seen the anime or otherwise knew what happened in the Golden Age arc - which would inform your opinion of Guts' actions a little more.

This is a very fun, very good manga, though one that's exceptionally violent.

A very good, very faithful adaptation of much of the first book.

This was a decent manga, but it's really not my thing.

Very well done book, covering how historical China's border-wall building was fueled by (and recursively lead to), their imperialist ambitions and isolationist attitudes, and how that would effect the country in the future. That said, some of the other elements that effect these attitudes (the unpredictability of the Yangtze river requiring any centralized government to focus it's attention inward on that in order to make sure everyone gets fed, is only given brief mention, which is kind of unfortunate.

Still, it's a good book, and you should check it out.

Very educational and entertaining book, though I wish the author had spent more time on the Sega CD and TurboGrafx-CD (and Game Boy games). Some screen shots would also have been nice.

I wouldn't call this exactly a story with a conflict. It's much closer to a travelogue of a group of people's explorations through the interior of Science Fiction's greatest Big Dumb Object.

This was a book that, in the beginning, I didn't expect to like. I anticipated this book being a pot shot at Harry Potter and its fandom. A deconstruction of the series (and YA fiction) by someone who doesn't appreciate the genre.

Instead, I enjoyed this volume and definitely am going to read subsequent volumes. My concerns about subsequent books have shifted to something else though. As it stands, I am somewhat concerned that importance the series' universe has on literary convention could end up turning into dueling TV Tropes users.

Hopefully, as with my preconceptions, I'll be wrong.

This, currently, is my favorite of this year's Hugo Award nominees.

I'm a little disappointed that SpoilerDoctor Voodoo was killed off before having much time to be the Sorcerer Supreme. However, the story itself is very well written, and Bendis does an excellent job of making the reformation of the New Avengers interesting and fun, with all of these characters having chemistry to them. I look forward to reading of the future adventures of this team.

Note - Technically, I read this trade as individual issues.

I read this in the individual issues, as opposed to in the trade.

As the New Avengers entered into the Heroic Age with a magical story, so the Secret Avengers started out with a Cosmic story, and a well written one. Brubaker is very good at writing Steve Rogers, and I was pleased with how well he handled Beast and Valkyrie as well (though it would have been nice if he'd gotten an “Oh my Stars” or two). I'd have preferred Scott Lang as Ant Man over Eric O'Grady, but he still works out well.

Why in the Nine Hells didn't this book get a Hugo Award nomination? This is a fantastic SF novel! The characters are well written, the world is masterfully crafted, and the ideas inside the book are gloriously presented. I'm definitely going to read the next book in the series.

This is as much a Moebius work as it is a Stan Lee work, and it is fantastic. Anyone who wants to call themselves a fan of Moebius needs to read this. Period.

The book is okay. It does a decent job of setting up its characters, and establishing the technologies that will appear in future books in the series. However, always skates on the edge of turning into the Exciting Adventures Of Nothing Happening.

Another fun installment of the series. I do empathize with the main characters' response to going to the beach - I generally tend to do the same thing. Then again - I live in Oregon, so generally at the beach it's too cold to swim. Also, if there are sea lions in the water, there are also sharks.

Very good start to the series, and I'm definitely looking forward to starting volume 2.

The “Inside Baseball” segments - about the creation of the story and how manga gets made and published are still some of the best parts of this series. However, I really don't feel like Ohba's particularly good at writing female characters.

I'll try to get a review of this up in two weeks. But god was this a spectacularly dumb book.

This is probably the longest arc in the manga thus far - not that it's a bad thing. I really enjoy this arc and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Look for a longer review on Bureau42.