Overall Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimarus first volume gets off to a very dull start. Masashi Kishimoto has come up with a very strange new world, but instead of letting his audiences imagination run wild, he takes up countless pages explaining everything in explicit detail, to the point where it felt like he was pitching his idea of a story to me. Its safe to say I dont see this being a runaway hit like his previous work, though I suppose with all the exposition out of the way, maybe future chapters will actually focus on fun things. Maybe?

So, overall, this volume does move the story along a bit, unlike the last few battle-heavy volumes, and features some great artwork. It has a few, shorter fight scenes and ends with a great cliffhanger. Can't argue with that!

All is not lost, but this volume does have some issues that can make it feel unsatisfactory.

It goes without saying that Bleach Volume 69 isnt a good book to pick up if youre not already following the series, but it is a good example of Kubos writing in amongst volumes that have displayed some of his worst. The use of comedic exchanges and black-paged flashback stories feels nostalgic after multiple volumes of neither, and a nice final return to the more familiar Kubo style before we dive head first into the grand finale.

So Volume 70 moves the story into the final characters paired off in order to show new abilities or reveal new facts against new foes scenario, and it is nice to have one last Mayuri crazy-off. Plus the Quincy backstory is a nice way to start, and it has the beginning of a big flashback reveal so basically if youve been following Bleach for a good length of time, this is worth picking up, but if you havent well, dont start with Volume 70! Should go without saying

So Volume 71 contains some long-awaited abilities and backstory of a beloved character and has some good fight scenes, and thats about all you can expect as the series draws to its conclusion. Its all about those last few things you want to know, as well as a good final battle obviously, so this is what you want four volumes away from the finale.

So Volume 72 is, in reality, is not much. Its the pay-off to the fight from Vol 71, the disappointing reveal of what Uryu has been doing with the Quincy all along, and two starts to new battles that arent resolved in this volume. The calm before the final storm? I guess we wont have long to find out

Bleach Volume 73 does what its been doing for a couple of volumes now: show some yet-to-be-revealed Bankai, give some long-standing and popular characters one last hurrah, and build towards the final fight against Yhwach. Its fine, quite fun in places, but entirely lacking in story. With Volume 74 being the final one, I guess it wont be doing that next time though!

Bleach Volume 74 ends the 1,000 Year Blood War Arc in spectacularly unsatisfying and rushed fashion, but does at least give us a basic, but quite enjoyable epilogue to the series as a whole. If youve been collecting all the volumes up to now then there isnt a need to convince you, if you should pick it up, but otherwise its not a very satisfying read if you were thinking of buying this volume on its own for some reason. A bad ending to an arc and an average end to the series as a whole is a sad way for a once great story to end

So do I recommend That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha? That depends entirely on how familiar you are with Dragon Ball as a whole. It's a comedy story solely for fans of the story to get the references and to know how absurd some of the panels are, so if you have no idea about, it then you won't get it! It's that simple. So I do recommend it for a funny half hour read, but for diehard fans only"

DRAGON BALL GAIDEN: TENSEI SHITARA YAMCHA DATTA KEN 2017 by BIRD STUDIO, dragongarow LEE/SHUEISHA Inc.

TRANSFORMERS THE COMICS MASUMI KANEDA BAN MAGAMI Originally released in Japan by HERO-X 2020 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.

Overall the first half feels like someone in the corner of your eye is doing the hurry it up hand motion, but once we get to the Champa arc things start to get to a reasonable pace, with well drawn action and some fun light hearted scenes. This arc is more heavy on the Dragon Ball comedy than the Z fighting, which is good because it flips the other way in the following arc. Its a fun read for fans of the show, and it gets even more fun when the two adaptations of Toriyamas work begin to really split from each other down the line

So Dragon Ball Super Volume 2 is at least more steadily paced than when it rocketed (and skipped) through the first two arcs of the series in Volume 1, though it still cuts out all dialogue and scenes that dont give the chapters wall-to-wall action. Probably best viewed as a side dish to the animes main course, rather than the sole way to experience these new story arcs from Akira Toriyama. Either way though, the great artwork deserves praise, and its fun to read, so long as you dont want much story in your fight scenes!

So Dragon Ball Super Volume 3 is a good book, full of story twists and plenty of action at the end, leading into Volume 4. It comes recommended if you want some Dragon Ball action, but maybe not so much if youre looking for a thought-provoking page turner

Dragon Ball Super Volume 4 pushes on with the Future Trunks arc, and were nearly at its end. In some ways it has less story than the anime, but in others it's added a lot more to it, so its actually very interesting to read the manga now Im fully familiar with the anime version. All these different timelines and versions of characters might get confusing for some, but in reality its a rough backdrop for a bunch of action, and the action is well drawn and often quite innovative. Recommended, if thats all youre looking for!

So overall the volume contains the final chapters of one story arc and the beginnings of the next, so you get your big action spreads at the start, but then its mostly talking to end a story, and then talking to set up the next, which is rare for a manga series that normally only focuses on action and very little else. For fans only, though, I feel, as the two story lines featured are rather bizarre and just exist mostly to get to more fights and transformations…

So Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network is a great read. It starts off quite slow, the first two stories feel a bit like someone writing their own Stand Alone Complex episode, but the latter two are properly top notch stories: one that feels like its own really interesting tale, and the other getting close to touching the original classic. Highly recommended to fans of Ghost in the Shell, or just fans of cyberpunk in general.

So Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network is a great read. It starts off quite slow, the first two stories feel a bit like someone writing their own Stand Alone Complex episode, but the latter two are properly top notch stories: one that feels like its own really interesting tale, and the other getting close to touching the original classic. Highly recommended to fans of Ghost in the Shell, or just fans of cyberpunk in general.