Here's some more from Shonen Jump! (Note: Reviews for Naruto and Shaman King are coming! Naruto starts in Issue #2 or SJ and Shaman King in Issue #3)
Yu-Gi-Oh
By: Kazuki Takahashi
Parts Reviewed: Duel One: The Puzzle of the Gods
Grade: B+ (maybe higher if you're into the card games/anime/video games)
Genre: Gaming/Adventure/Sappy Friendship
Plot: Young Yugi owns special Egyptian puzzle called the Millenium Puzzle. Only thing is, he's been working on it for eight years and hasn't ever been able to complete it. That is, until a hall monitor bully at school orders Yugi to pay him 200,000 yen to be his bodyguard (and beat up Yugi's friends!) Yugi solves the puzzle (guess he works well under stress...) Yugi solves the problem with a spooky game involving a knife and lots of money. The manga starts a long time before the anime, so that might give you a good reason to read this (heck, you don't even need to listen to the crappy dubbed voices) The first few pages are also in color (the only ones in this first issue of Shonen Jump!)
Artwork: Most of the artwork is good, and the character expressions are absolutely the best and funniest I've seen in a manga in the longest time. Still, Yugi's nose has a bad habit of disappearing and some of the character designs are pretty dumb, if not downright scary (namely Yugi and his horribly-worst-drawn-manga-character-ever Grandpa)
The Good: Its actually pretty cute, while still rather spooky what with the whole Egyptian-evil stuff going on. And even if the friendship is sappy as hell, I like it.
The Bad: The aforementioned character designs really do take away from it. Plus, if you're older than 13, you are probably to old for this manga (and I'm 15, so...)
Yu-Yu Hakusho
By: Yoshihiro Togashi
Parts Reviewed: Chapter 1: Goodbye, Material World!
Grade: A-
Genre: Humor/Fighting/Action/Adventure/Ghosty stuff (not really horror...)
Plot: You might be familiar with the show on Adult Swim, and the manga follows right along with the show (although the show does leave out Yusuke's nasty little smoking habit) Anyway, the story follows Yusuke Urameshi, a delinquint (sp?) who has just recently died having pushed a little kid out of the way of an uncoming car. Unfortunately for him, he is informed by Botan, the cheery and happy Grim Reaper, that his death was totally unecessary and pretty much pointless, as the kid would have miraculously escaped unharmed. Since Yusuke's death wasn't expected, he is given the chance to take a test to come back to life. After attending his wake, and seeing how really upset the people who he knows are, Yusuke decides to take the test.
Artwork: Probably my biggest gripe...In the show, all of the male characters are animated really well, while the girls aren't...however, in the manga the girls (especially Keiko and Botan) have much nicer character designs than the guys! Yusuke also kinda goes "monkey-faced" every once in awhile, which is a popular style for shonen manga, but I really don't like it...oh well...
The Good: still just as funny as the show!
The Bad: the artwork, like i said, isn't the best...plus i am eternally saddened because the manga is going to take FOREVER to get to my very favorite character, the cute lil' three eyed demon Hiei. Maybe once he comes in the grade'll pop up to and A or an A+
