Taboo Tattoo

In the beginning, the story seems pretty cool. Essentially a kid get mysterious powers from a stranger as a thank you. A pretty cool hero origin. But once the story picks up, and you meet more characters, the story begins to get muddied by an over-the top amount of characters you have to remember, which gets difficult when characters change their appearance or "side" or reveal themselves as a double agent.... But the "powers" are cool none the less. The idea was cool, but it just got too confusing and complicated in terms of the story, so I dropped it. But if you can keep a flow chart of characters in your mind, all the power to you lol. Also the fact the main "bad guy" which is the princess is a pervert makes is so dumb. Anyways, that's about it lol.

tl;dr: A manga with some potential to the action and some good comedy but that fails at everything surrounding that.

This manga gets better as it goes on, but it’s still kind of a mess. The first third or so of the manga is simply complete nonsense where it feels like it has no clue what it wants to be or what it wants to do with characters being incredibly inconsistent, the tone shifting randomly in very jarring ways, and the pacing being awful. After that it seems to settle into what it wants to be, which is a fairly standard battle series with characters with extreme powers. It’s not all that great there either though, as most of the characters are pretty awful, with the majority being flat and the ones that are fleshed out not being all that great either. The action has potential at times, but it never feels like it really lives up to that due to the characters and plot not feeling like they’re that worth getting invested in.

The plot is also straightforward to the point of not being interesting. The villain with a tragic past wants to destroy humanity and needs to get a bunch of things in order to do so. The heroes want to stop that. Anything beyond that feels tangential and doesn’t really add to the narrative. The plot, especially the ending, is the kind that thinks it’s being deep, but is actually really boring in how standard it is at this point. In terms of themes it deals with pretty standard ones such as human nature being evil or how to stop violence, but it doesn’t do a really go into them properly and it just feels kind of braindead and superficial. This is especially annoying as it seems like it’s constantly going into exposition about random things for no reason. This manga is also really edgy. I have a very high tolerance for cheesy dumb edginess, even of the disgusting or vulgar kind, but this series had me constantly groaning over how stupid it was.

The comedy I think was kind of good, but it was kind of strange in that it was pretty constant throughout, even randomly in the middle of serious sequences. So it felt like the manga was the type that shouldn’t be taking itself seriously, but it also felt like was taking itself overtly seriously, so tonally it was off. I will note though, that a lot of the manga has to do with America, and the comedy relating to that from the point of view of an American was surprisingly relevant to current American society, though I don’t know if that was added in the translation or the original work.

The art I think had a good sense of style with a lot of really unique and good looking character designs. Thus it did manage to look good at times, especially with the covers and simple color pages. However, beyond that overall it felt pretty low quality and amateurish, especially when it came to the more detailed portions that just looked overtly busy most of the time.

This manga is ok, but nothing special. I don't regret buying it, but I will be selling it now, as don't feel I need to hold on to it, I won't be re-reading it.

I would tag this with:
- Action
- Dark
- Super Powers

Story: 6/10
To be honest, I liked the story up the point where the anime ended (same story as in the anime, the anime covered about half the manga), and slightly afterwards too. It was interesting, there are some real setbacks, and I like when some of the main characters don't have plot armor. The ending however, was just so bad in my opinion... The main character suddenly becomes capable of doing something super complex after being depicted as your average guy (specifically not being super smart) for the whole manga. Not only that, all his friends all allies decide to bet on that too. I don't want to spoil too much, so I will remain vague, but that was a weird ending... And it wasn't satisfying for me.

Art: 7/10
The art is consistent and good, not great. The backgrounds aren't always very detailed. I honestly don't have much else to say about the art. It doesn't stand out, but it's not bad.

Characters: 7/10
There are a few likeable characters, most notably the female main character and one of her friends, as well as the muscle guy. The main character is cool in that is your typical dumb protagonist, but he doesn't fit the stereotype you expect either. He knows he's not the smartest, nor the greatest, he doesn't have the "never give up and yell about it" attitude and feels very real. I had a positive impression of the characters overall. Some of the villains also had interesting personalities.

Enjoyment: 6/10
I really liked it up to slightly after the anime ends (slightly past halfway through the manga). I like a few of the characters, even felt kind of empathic for some of the villains. The final arc and ending really ruined it for me though.

Minor spoilers ahead. Just skip to enjoyment if you want it completely spoiler free, although the amount isn't really that much to begin with.

Ecchi and action: a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, that's only the case if the proper set up and balance are created, which Taboo Tattoo does not accomplish. What it does do is it creates a visually sound action adventure of pervs, sadists, heroes and homosexuals.

Story: Right off the bat, the classic set up of "boy gets dragged into secret war between two sides" comes into play. Battles are not in short supply but are instead brief albeit brutal affairs with lots of blood and guts, which was somewhat surprising considering the manga can sometimes come across as juvenile with its copious amounts of fan service done is ways that disrupt the flow of the scenes and plot. That's not to say the use of sexual imagery is completely for fan-boners. Rape, suggested and not so, is used a source of shock value, as if the series is trying to prove its grittiness.

As for the series' pacing and tone, the first parts seem inconsistent, as breast fondles and sexual comedy happen while hearing exposition dumps and sometimes the manga goes out of its way to give more fanservice, changing entire characters just to pander to the readers.

Characters: On the subject of characters, almost everyone, from the protagonist, to the antagonist, fits into some sort of archetype, albeit some more snugly than other. That being said, some characters, like B.B, do a great job at fulfilling their roles, making the audience care about their struggles and pasts, while others, like the enemy Princess (who seems to be a kind of hyper-genius girl with OP powers), fail by letting the fanservice affect them. The antagonist especially actually has a decent reason for her objectives, but she loses credibility when she surrounds herself with a same-sex harem just for kicks and playfully molests the childhood friend of the protagonist after the later loses to her in a game of table tennis... As a whole, the characters are unremarkable except for a select few like B.B and Lurker.

Art: Art is meant to supplement the story and for the most part the artwork of the manga succeeds in this respect. Illustrations can have a sketch like quality on a few occasions, but the well-paced battles exhibit the artistic chops of the illustrator. The character designs and backgrounds are a tad on the generic and unremarkable side, made painfully obvious by the characters themselves.

Enjoyment: If the fanservice was dialed down or at least integrated more naturally, I probably would have enjoyed the series a lot more. Fanservice is not a pet peeve of mine, but if it interrupts the tone and pacing of the story completely, then it can turn a decent series into a lacking one. Characters are defined by their actions, not just their motivations, and this is where characters like the antagonist and other characters fall victim to the manga's immaturity. Those who like typical action manga's with guns and superpowers may find something to enjoy, but beware of the awkward tone and sluggish pacing of the first part. The series has some highs and I intend to finish it, but so far, it's below average.

Let's hope that the next few chapters fix the sins of its predecessors.

Im re-doing this review because of how much i regret what i said the last time and im going to make this short and as least painful as possible.

The plot is about your average high school kid in japan (not very popular in school, female childhood friend, you know the type) named seigi, who saves an old man from some thugs. After saving him, this mysterious old man then gives seigi a crest, which burns a tattoo onto his hand, giving him special powers.

After this happens, the government gets involved. Seigi begins to learn to control his powers, fights random thugs/villains (there are some really awesome ones by the way) and gets deeper and deeper into this government world.

If you like the shounen genre, good battles, and the "main character gets powers and conquers his problems" types, then you will get an enjoyably good read out of this


Story 7, Art 8, Character 7, Enjoyment 9, Overall 8

Taboo Tattoois a manga that basically built itself by recycling elements from previous similar adaptations plus the extra fan-service to appease the thirsty readers.


Story:

Akatsuka Seigi is your average Japanese High School boy who got a tattoo from a mysterious guy which resulted him being dragged in a secret warfor those tattoos. If i had a shot of whisky each time i saw this kind of plot, i would die from alcohol poisoning.

Art:

The only good thing in this manga. The characters are well drawn, the character design is nice, the details, emotions, etc...The artist did a good job in that.

Characters:

Here is the worst part of the manga. The characters are painfully generic, the spineless hero who suddenly becomes ultra strong when he gets angry, the big titted childhood friend, the badass warrior girl, and other plethora of generic characters that make you question which year did this manga start.

Enjoyment:

The fighting is good for a while, but the shitty fan-service that is always there at the wrong moment break the pace. The events are so predictable that i get the feeling of Deja Vu whenever i read a new chapter.

Overall:

Generic. That is the best way to decribe it. If you like fanservice, girl fighting and serious/violent atmosphere, then this manga is for you. Personally, the sheer lack of originality in this manga kills it for me.

3/10