Rapid Review - Takuhai, er, Manga Online

Takuhai Online, for October 2005. Here's July, August and September.

I'm not going to review chapters that are continuations of ones I reviewed already and disliked. Retired from reviewing because I didn't like 'em: I Luv Halloween, MBQ, Princess Ai, Van Von Hunter, and War on Flesh. I have already reviewed the currently showing chapter of Mail Order Ninja as well, so I'll skip that this month. Even taking six away, there's still plenty of features to review. I'm going to separate new features from continuing features.

Previously Reviewed Titles:

• A Midnight Opera, V1Ch3: A long fight scene through a hospital and streets, with a lot of morbid humor. Still only mildly interested.
  
• Bizenghast, V1Ch4: A break in the action, with the two main characters talking the entire time. The artwork is still very beautiful, and the story is turning a little unpredictable.
  
• Dramacon, V1Ch4: I WANT THIS BOOK! This month showed us a very realistic critique from an established writer to a new writer. And it also gave us a bit more of the artist's attitude. I want this book.
  
• Juror 13, V1Ch4: Oh, the main character just took a turn for the worse, in my opinion, back to cluelessness. But the set-up is done well, you almost understand why even as you berate him for being foolish.
  
• Off*Beat, V1Ch3: This one continued to be just confusing. I'm sure there's a good story there, but it's almost too hard to read the preview thanks to the resolution, and I feel like I missed something really important in the first chapter.
  
• Psy-Comm, V1Ch4: Some sort of infiltration mission... only I can't figure out who the bad guys are supposed to be. Very odd.
  
• Shutterbox, V3Ch3: Still confusing, still odd. I'm not sure I'll keep reading this one.
  
• Sokora Refugees, V1Ch4: I think I'll stop reading this one, as well. Still can't figure out what's happening after four chapters, it's probably not worth my time.
  
• Sorcerers & Secretaries, V1Ch4: Really liking this one. It's not quite on my buy list, but it's almost there.

New Titles:

• Ark Angels, V1Ch1: A clumsy mix of humor and elegance. The storyline is goofy enough to be intriguing, but the book just isn't good enough to lure me in.
  
• @Large, V3Ch1: Hip hop wannabes using annoying language with minimal artwork and apparently no plot except "everybody yell and point guns at everybody else". No thanks.
  
• Mark of the Succubus, V1Ch1: Decent art, but much of the text is impossible to read, so I couldn't get into it.
  
• Re:Play, V1Ch1: Intriguing. Again, either my eyes are going or they need to scan these at a higher resolution because I could barely read some of the text. But the story is good, so I'll keep with it a bit.
  
• Roadsong, V1Ch1: This appears to be two stories mixed into one. I'm curious enough to keep reading until I find out how the two combine, but I'm not sure it'll hold my interest.
  
• Steady Beat, V1Ch1: A bit of soccer Manga with a strange twist. I'm going to keep reading this one to see just what is up with it.
  
• The Abandoned, V1Ch1: Zombie people doing zombie things. Not enough there to grab me.
  
• The Dreaming, V1Ch1: Ok, this one had me hooked from almost the first page. Why can't they tell people that they are twins? Why is their aunt leaving? And what happened to Amber that shocked her so much?

In conclusion, there's some good Manga there, and stuff that other folks will love that I don't, I'm sure. The biggest problem for me is that a lot of the text is hard to read because of the screen resolution. Some of the stories suffer more than others from the problem. More next month.