Elena_UwU14

[Spoiler free]
Let's start with some basic about solo leveling.
Solo leveling is our typical MC becomes strong type of manhwa. MC suddenly gains a power, trains hard then becomes better than everybody.But why does it stands out?It has reached the no.1 spot in MyAnimeList's top manhwa tier.I recently found out that it has reached about 120M+ view in an illegal manga reading website which is 2x more than the next popular manga on that specific site.
The main reason for all this hype and popularity is Solo leveling's fantastic story telling,Character development, Goal setting and flamboyant art-style.The character design is next level.Artist Hyoen-Gun & Jang-Sung-Rak used digital painting and gradient which provided a 3D feeling to the characters.They used the web-comic feature as their advantage and utilized it fully.Each fight scene feels dynamic and spellbound.
Solo leveling is an adaption of the Light Novel 'I alone level up/Solo leveling' by the author chu-gong.His story telling is so fulfilling that from very beginning it's more than enough to hold the reader to complete the remaining chapter as soon as possible.'Solo leveling' is like 'One punch man' but here we get to see him getting stronger and gain the recognition our MC deserves.
If you are one of the person who sweats about small stuff and can't wait for a mystery to be revealed then continuing this manhwa will be difficult for you.
'The name of the main character is Jin-Woo who survived a difficult situation and was granted a option to become a player(Nope it's not isekai). He was the sole person to get the opportunity and was awarded with a function called system.What is this system?Why is this system?Who runs this system?This 3 question is shrouded with mystery and will be revealed at the halfway of the manhwa.In order to enjoy the story you will need to stop asking this 3 question to yourself again and again'.
Did you succeed?Good.Now you are ready to read the manhwa.Trust my words you won't regret it.

Rating: 10/10

King of Kings. A juggernaut of manga. Being one of Shonen Jump's 3 Kings, it certainly lives up to its hype. One Piece has enabled me to experience a vast world of adventure, friendship, loyalty, and dreams. With the vast world that Eiichiro Oda has masterfully created, the grippling plots that surprise you when you least expect them, and the lovable characters, it's no wonder One Piece has been the highest selling manga for several consecutive years.

If you haven't started reading it, give it a try. The sheer amount of chapters may seem daunting at first, but once you start, you won't stop. Very soon, you'll run out of chapters. It's that good. It is not the best selling manga in Japan for nothing. If One Piece happens to be your type of manga, then you definitely won't regret starting this series.

Solo leveling is one of the most overrated manga i've ever come across in this platform. Having a staggering 8.97 score, I was hoping its fans were right when everyone claimed it ''wasn't just a generic power fantasy'', and that it would get better over time. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

This was the first manwha I had ever read, and the art was the aspect I liked most about it. Altough the long stripes were a bit hard to get used to, I enjoyed the expressiveness of the characters. It's a shame the character designs were also a bit generic, but that's forgivable if the art is good enough.

The story starts out in the simplest way possible: Sung Jin-Woo is an E-rank hunter, the lowest on the power scaling of this world, and he's also considered the weakest hunter of that class. By chance, while he is participating in a raid with a crew, they end up trapped in a double lair dungeon, wich is way more than they can handle, and after getting their asses handed to them and having a bunch of people killed, the protagonist re-awakens, gaining a kind of power no one has really seen before. If there was a power fantasy automatic generator, this would probably be the default product. Being formulaic and generic isn't a problem when it's done right (if that were the case, 99% of battle shonens would be trash), but Solo Leveling brings nothing new to the table, and is completely predictable as a result. Every arc consists of the main character getting into a new location with powerful monsters, defeating them, leveling up, rinse and repeat. When there's no real goal the story is aiming towards, and the power scaling is done in the most lazy way possible, by just introducing more powerful enemies whenever an arc ends, it's hard to be satisfying or have any kind of stakes, especially when the worldbuilding is seemingly thrown in at random.

In spite of all that, there are times when the manga isn't completly predictable, more specifically, when the main character is forced to kill humans for the first time by the system. Here we get a glimpse of theming, wich wasn't seen before that, but unfortunetly it never gets mentioned or built upon again, just like the protagonist's ''change of personality'', wich stagnates after a few arcs. Even his desire to heal his mother is basically tossed asside for a long time before ending it in a really non-interesting way. The same can be said of most side characters, who barely get any characterization beyond their surface level personalities or any kind of development.

In the end, what's left is a shallow and predictable story that struggles to bring anything new to the table, wich is true for every aspect of this manwha.

I am writing this review because there isn't one for it yet.

Story: This story of this is just not good; even the premise is awful. I had low expectations going in and it managed to not even get over that low bar. So you have a 5th grader (Carol) in love with her "older brother" (Kotarou) because reasons. Now I do agree that her brother is a total chad, however him not having any dialogue doesn't help whatsoever. The taboo thing about this series is the age gap between the 5th grader and her already adult brother. Now from my understanding he isn't related, so it isn't incestuous, it's instead "What are you doing step-brother-kun" even though he isn't a step-siblings either (You get the gist). Kotarou isn't aware of Carol's feelings and already has a baddie of a gal pal trying to get her cheeks clapped by him and he's down. Taboo topics in a manga can be done, but this series just couldn't managed. I believe the absolute downfall of this series is the wacky sci-fi they decided to add. It didn't improve the story in any manner. Carol's "daughter" comes from the future in order to ensure he mother succeeds in getting her cheeks clapped by Kotarou her supposed father. Now if you know how time travel works, this makes absolutely no sense. This story attempted to add something complicated in a simple story and suffered because of it.

Art: The art style given to this is very standard, nothing special, but the characters do have a charm to them. Kotarou looks pretty cool to me personally and I see why this Chad has a barrage of bitches wanting some of that. I do find it rather uncomforting the pervasion of children that is depicted in this series, so morally speaking, I'm gonna have to give that a thumbs down.

Character: The characters in this series suck! Kotarou is the best character because he's an absolute Chad and doesn't have any dialogue to ruin his image in this dumpster fire of a series. Now I wish he had dialogue so we could see what makes him so great and to get a feel of his character more, but it is what it is. Carol bothers me a bit because her reasoning for being in love is rather stupid. What else could I expect of a 10 year old I guess? Her daughter acts way too immature for being an adult that traveled back in time, like what? I don't know why that was a decision, but it was decision made.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed this a little bit, but the only thing I enjoyed were the few funny moments in the manga. Other than that, I did not enjoy this at all. The story is atrocious, the comedy is meh a majority of times, and the perverse moments of little girls is unsettling.

Overall: I was massively disappointed in this series because the author, Yuuji Yuuji, is the same author who created "29 to JK", which is one of my favorite manga. It's a shame, but I should've seen this coming from the jump. I don't like to judge a book from its cover because every time I do, I'm wrong, but my gut was right in knowing this manga was going to be trash.

A great manga with well-think story. Its complex plot and drama makes it a "hard" work. Despite characters, they are complete assholes, the one more mature is Minami, by disgrace; but that's the point. Drama, suspense, psychological, tragedy, family issues, readable… A non-comedy Lolicon.
Its story is deep and I consider it as excellent, very strong for anyone. Why do you react if found your little sister (child) having sex with your "best friend"? This manga have a possible scenario where nobody can does anything and treat to live with that, but time cannot returns, you can not able do something anymore; and your actions in this state may make a catastrophe. Is sad and you can get some of grief and confusion over reading. One more time, is very strong. Actually, you can relay on no one, even family would betray you.
Not knowing about difference between "good" and "bad" you can't do anything.
I recommend you miss the omake, just a lost for good and strong ending. Even I didn't understand nothing of this or recognized its characters. Maybe the first extra is considered a continuation of end as well, making it more deep, and frankly realistic.
I think that characters are most like western culture, where nobody says and/or demand important things [like this] 'cause people [possible] reaction, trying to keep the family even knowing that is impossible, getting out perpetrator and don't accuse yourself (as a stupid blind), where always blame is anyone but you. I really detests this kind of people, always lying and "omit" things for sake «justice, rightness and moral», despite [and "for keep"] stability. All lies!
Lust /fleshly "weakness" and loneliness (and maybe 'friendship'), may justify each other? I think nobody can [nor should] judge no one, though…

Story : 5

The story is pretty cliche`,with the protagonist being protected by someone from evil villains and such. Protagonist gets into trouble,gets saved,teary-eyed moment,and then a happy ending. After I finished reading this manga,I realized that the story seems kinda rushed. Nothing special here. Averagely average.

Art : 5

Nothing special either. The art lacks details in some parts,and looks very plain.

Character : 5

The characters are your run-off the mill characters,e.g. clumsy girl who tries her best but is never good enough & a boy who shows as much expression as the female protagonist from The Twilight Saga.You can almost predict what will happen next in the story after observing the characters` persona.

Enjoyment : 5

Meh. Didn't really enjoy it. Not worth reading in my opinion,but that's just my opinion. If you want to read it,nobody's stopping you.

Well, overall I give it a 4. I feel that this manga has a good potential to be... great. I liked the characters and the art is good. The plot is interesting and well, it's good...
But, it is too rushed! The reveal the 'secret' of the main character too quickly.. The fight are not very well shown and the whole story is not very well presented...
Like i said at the start, this manga really has the potential to be a brilliant manga, but it has to be longer... There needs to be more 'suspense'. I really wished it was longer and that everything was properly planned out.. It feels like they just threw everything they knew on to piece of paper and didn't plan it. The ending was especially bad!
It isn't a really good manga, but I give it a 4 because the plot and characters were great! There was just so much potential!

"Baroque" is a video game originally released on the Sega Saturn in 1998, and it was later ported to the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Only Japan saw this truly unique, and unsettling, rougelike horror RPG. Luckily, North America and Europe did get to see the faithful remake, which was released for the PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo Wii in 2008. This manga, "Baroque: Ketsuraku no Paradigm", or its English translation, "Baroque: Missing Paradigm", was published between 2000 and 2002, which would mean that its source material is the original "Baroque" video game, though the remake's story is almost identical to its predecessor.

Long story short, this manga is based off a video game. Keep that in mind as you read through my review.



Story
"Baroque: Ketsuraku no Paradigm" treats you like a rock, and, yet, at the same time, it expects you to swim. Without any explanation, the story takes you by the sides and hurls you into a swimming pool. It watches you struggle as you sink to the very bottom, likely to never rise back to the surface. Worst of all, it doesn't bother with helping you.
Meet the protagonist, a character whose name is only mentioned once halfway through the manga (which is only 17 chapters long, so don't worry about having to wait a long time to find out what that name would be). He'd tell you his name, but he doesn't seem to remember what it is. In fact, he doesn't remember anything at all. To top it all off with a rotten cherry of sorts, the boy can't speak either. He awakes in a nightmarish world where the sky is red and every living being is distorted into the shape of a frightening monster. Some are friendly, most are not. Early into his desperate attempt to understand what the hell is happening, the protagonist, whose name turns out to be Dextera, runs into a strange man. The man is dressed in a pure white robe with a religious insignia that's just as red as his eyes. What denotes the man the most, however, are the two large wings attached to his back. This man is simply known as the Archangel, and he hands Dextera a weapon named the Angelic Rifle. According to this mysterious Archangel, the world is in such a state of ruin thanks to none other than Dextera himself, who receives the news with bewilderment. Before Dextera can interrogate the man, the man brings attention to a tower that stands in the midst of the wasteland. This tower is called the Neuro Tower, and its very bottom floor holds Dextera's opportunity at salvation. With no other choice, Dextera takes the rifle and pursues the answers he seeks.

Well, that's the very start of this utterly strange tale, but the real meat and potatoes of "Baroque: Ketsuraku no Paradigm" is in the story that is slowly, but surely, revealed to both you and Dextera as things progress. But, before we begin unpacking everything, there is something you must know: this story is confusing. As in, very confusing. Flashbacks come out of nowhere, Dextera repeatedly and randomly ends up at the front of the Neuro Tower for some reason, characters speak cryptically as if they assume you already know what has and what is happening. Many would chalk it all up to poor writing, but this confusing heap of... well, confusion, isn't the result of bad writing; "Baroque", both the video game and the manga, is like this on purpose.

Let me take you back in time for a minute here. The year is 1998, and you're Japanese (you lucky thing; you're in for some great Japan-exclusive manga, anime, and video games) and you've just returned home from your local game store with "Baroque", which you pop into your Sega Saturn. What you experience is something you've never experienced in a game before. It's a story that leaves you completely in the dark, trickling only small drops of information at a time, seldom in chronological order. You're forced to piece the backstory together on your own without GameFAQS or Super Cheats. There are definitely many that do not approve of this unorthodox style of story telling. However, I have to applaud Sting Entertainment for making such a brave and, quite frankly, risky move.

Oh yeah, the manga.

Author Shinshu Ueda clearly has an appreciation and love for the original Sega Saturn video game, as she faithfully retells "Baroque"'s convoluted story through more conventional, and agreeable, means. As someone who played the PlayStation 2 remake before reading the manga, I quite like the 17 chapters it has to offer, as it gave me much-needed clarification to remedy the confusion the cryptic video game had inflicted upon me. In other words, I technically wasn't reading this manga "blind", as many would put it. I believe this fact had a large impact on my enjoyment of the manga. If I had picked up this manga without any foreknowledge of the video game whatsoever, I don't believe I would be forgiving toward its utterly confusing narrative.

"Baroque", as a whole, is widely regarded by many as one big "mind f*ck". Even I, as someone who has spent a lot of time trying to comprehend the story, completely agree with such an assessment. However, there is some degree of satisfaction to triumphantly putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. It certainly brought out the sleuth in me, and I'm apparently not the only one.

TL;DR- If you didn't play and have an appreciation for the video game first, this might not be your cup of tea.



Characters
Since "Baroque"'s story relies heavily on revelations, I cannot talk too much about the characters, or else I will quickly begin treading in spoiler territory. Just trust me on this one... Most of these characters have a lot more to them than I am stating here, as I am grossly simplifying them.

Dextera- our protagonist. Dextera begins the story just as you and I: confused. Very confused. It's written clearly on his face in almost every panel he's a part of (which is a large number, mind you). As a matter of fact, I often found myself comparing him to a poor, lost little puppy dog. Unlike your typical shounen anime hero, though, Dextera seems to adjust sorta well to the crap he's been thrown into. He's a somewhat competent fighter, but there's still an air of relatable uncertainty about him. Personally, I find it quite refreshing.

Part of the story's big mystery is the source of Dextera's awful feeling of guilt, which plagues him from page one. He doesn't know why he feels guilty, nor does he know how he can fix it. This would be a perfect opportunity for the author to deliver a typical "2edgy4u" archetype, following the example of everyone's favorite Shadow the Edgehog. That's not what we get from Dextera, even though the source of his guilt would certainly justify a more brooding personality. Instead, what we get is a very human-like reaction. In some panels, I can genuinely feel the poor boy's grief. That is owed partly to the art, which we'll get to in a bit.

The Archangel- is not really an angel. Actually, he's very much human and the leader of a semi-cultish religious order known as the Malkuth Order. He's down to earth, serious, and determined to have things go his way... even if his face always looks like his mom told him to take his little sister to see the new "Care Bears" movie instead of "Terminator 2: Judgement Day".

Ahem. Anyway. If you couldn't hear the foreshadowing his red eyes were trying to tell you, the Archangel turns out to technically be the villain of this tale. I'm not sure if that should be considered a spoiler because of how (kinda) obvious it is. But... hold on. Though the Archangel is the villain, he's a villain in the sense that he is opposed to the main character's goals. In other words, he's a villain with good intentions, but poor means. I'm not talking about an "Infinity War" Thanos kind of "villain with good intentions". He legitimately wants to help the pitiful state of the world. I can't say I've seen too many villains that are as nuanced as the Archangel.

There are more characters, but I can't even get past a few sentences without spoiling things if I discussed them here. Remember what I said before; this story relies a lot on revelations, meaning that very basic information doesn't even scratch the surface of what this story and characters are actually about.

TL;DR- The characters in this manga are surprisingly well developed for a 17 chapter long manga, and they don't easily fall in your typical anime archetypes (probably because this manga was written in 2000, back when archetypes weren't as big as a problem as they are now). Keep in mind that lots of characters and their purpose are revealed gradually.



Art
To put it simply, I really like the art style of this manga. Being published in 2000, it retains that "90s manga" feel. Characters like Dextera and Alice have sweet, lovable faces that provide plenty of solace in such a dark, gloomy story. Perhaps one of my favorite parts of this manga are the very expressive faces the characters wear in various situations. The best, I believe, are Dextera's poor, lost puppy-dog faces. They certainly help the reader garner sympathy for him. Alice, who shows some hints of the tsundere archetype, tells us plenty of her character just by looking at her, and she's easy to read. The Archangel's staunch frowns reflect his intensity, but occasionally, especially in flashbacks, you can tell when he's confident- snarky, even. All in all, the way the characters are drawn are quite appealing, and they intrigue the reader to learn more about them.

The monsters that inhabit the Neuro Tower, the once-human "Meta-Beings" (also called "Grotesques"), have unique designs that are both unsettling and curious. The credit for this ought to be less directed toward Ueda and more toward the creative people at Sting Entertainment, as Ueda is merely taking the Meta-Beings from the game and implementing them in the manga (as she should). Nonetheless, Ueda puts these creepy, Silent Hill-esque creatures onto paper quite nicely. As a matter of fact, one chapter's gory scene involving a Meta-Being captivated me with both disgust and morbid fascination. I stared at the page for a couple of minutes or so just so I can take in how utterly... disgusting... the scene looked. I don't think that's ever happened to me while reading manga, even in stories like "Elfen Lied" and "Deadman Wonderland".

That's my praise, but now, onto my criticisms of the art.

While the drawings can be quite good most of the time, some scenes, mostly consisting of fast action, are quite confusing to look at. A few times, I spent a good while staring at one page, attempting to figure out what the hell was happening in it. The most I see are a bunch of lines all over the page, maybe with another character's face buried somewhere in the midst of all the chaos. This is a problem I encounter with almost every action manga, though, so perhaps this is an issue unique to me.

Another beef I have with the art is how character's faces are constantly eaten by panels. By that, I mean one panel may only consist of half a face or half a body, which doesn't give me a full picture of what's happening in the moment. There are also a lack of full pages that help establish a character's environment and location. For the most part, though, the important details are easy enough to fill in with inference. It's nothing to discourage someone from reading the manga.

TL;DR- characters, especially their facial expressions, are expressive and appealing. The monsters that fill the Neuro Tower are curiously disturbing, as to be expected from a horror manga. Sometimes the action scenes are a bit hard to follow, and the lack of establishing shots makes an already confusing story all the more confusing.



Conclusion
Just like the video game, both the remake and the original, "Baroque: Ketsuraku no Paradigm" appeals to a very slender audience. With its story being told in a confusing, vague manner, many will be driven away from it. And, really, that's fine, because this isn't a manga you should read if you're unfamiliar with the video game it's based off of, otherwise you'll find yourself lost pretty quickly. Heck, even someone who has played the games like me might still find it hard to follow. Not only that, but I also doubt you would appreciate it as much as you would if you had played the game. Long story short, this manga is meant to be a companion to the video game, and it'll provide plenty of much needed clarification... or maybe it'll just leave you with more questions! Who knows? That's one of the things I love about "Baroque"!

I normally don't write reviews it really isn't my thing but this manga hasn't gotten any reviews yet so that's why.

Well don't expect too much from this manga because it has only two chapters. Usually that wouldn't be a problem if the synopsis didn't tell pretty much the whole story.

Story is good however nothing you wouldn't expect because of the synopsis. The story ending isn't really an ending at all in my opinion but you will have to see for yourself.

If you're interested or have doubts the manga is only 2 chapters in less than 10 minutes you're done with it. Just read it maybe you will like it.

The best thing about this manga is definitely its art. While I wouldn't say it's amazing, it is certainly aesthetically pleasing and unique. Although, where the art can fall a little short is in the story's depictions of violence, the lack of detail in the style being unable to create an image that is too graphic. This is also in part because these moments are not sold on the narrative end, which I will get into.
Where this manga is really lacking is its story. Most of the time it just comes off as trying to be edgy. It just seems to go down a checklist of taboos for the sake of shock value. A lot of these moments that are supposed to be scary come off as cheap because they just took it in a very obvious direction. This is paired with some very surface level social commentary, going no deeper than saying "society is bad".
So, while the art may be nice, it fails to save its lackluster story, resulting in an ultimately lukewarm experience.