Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince

I had not watched anime for nearly a year, and somehow the series I had to end up with is Majestic Prince. If you want a visually decent mecha anime with almost nothing memorable about it, Majestic Prince does the job. At its core, it feels like a less edgy version of Valvrave the Liberator with Hisashi Hirai’s trademark same-face character designs slapped onto the cast.

The premise is as generic as they come: a group of teenagers pilot advanced robots to fight alien invaders led by an ancient humanoid race suspiciously similar to humans. The series plays every mecha trope completely straight and never really attempts to do anything interesting with them. Among the many anime featuring Hisashi Hirai’s character designs, Majestic Prince is easily one of the weaker entries.

The production itself feels like an anime created simply to occupy a seasonal slot so the studio could keep itself running. The ingredients for something better are technically there, but the show constantly gives the impression that only the bare minimum effort was invested into it. The animation is competent enough, especially during action scenes, but there is no real ambition behind the storytelling, themes, or characters. The result is an anime that looks polished on the surface yet feels completely hollow underneath.

What makes Majestic Prince frustrating is not that it is terrible, but that it is aggressively forgettable. It is the exact type of seasonal anime people watch for three months and then never think about again. The only thing that left any impression on me was the main antagonist, who basically looks like Griffith if he piloted a mecha. Even some of the enemy mech aesthetics oddly resemble Gundam Bael from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.

In the end, Majestic Prince is watchable if all you want is lightweight mecha action with decent visuals. But if you are looking for a series that actually pushes the genre forward or reminds people why mecha used to dominate anime culture, this is not it. Unfortunately, that applies to a huge portion of post-2008 mecha anime: technically competent productions made with so little ambition that they disappear from memory almost immediately after airing.

Blame!

Twenty years ago, I came across a particular manga called Blame!, a work that offered an unusual yet deeply fascinating reading experience. Fast forward to the present, I revisited the manga and finally finished the series that would go on to define Tsutomu Nihei’s career. In short, Blame! is a post-human dystopian adventure that exists at the farthest edge of the sci-fi spectrum, a place very few manga have ever managed to reach.

The Alexis Empire Chronicle

 

A low-fantasy manga I started a few years ago and only recently managed to finish, Alexis Empire Chronicle ultimately turned out to be a relatively weak entry in the genre,  unfortunately one that was also cut short before it could fully develop, in a manner similar to Hinowa ga Crush!.

The story follows a fairly standard premise: a young noble rises through the ranks of an empire through virtue, skill, and determination. As the narrative progresses, he begins to carve out his own domain, ultimately seeking to reclaim the lands once held by his mentor and establish a dominion of his own.

Much of the manga revolves around low-fantasy political and military conflicts between noble houses within the empire. This culminates in a confrontation with the protagonist’s estranged half-sibling, who becomes corrupted by jealousy and unchecked ambition.

Unfortunately, the series was ultimately discontinued, and its narrative shortcomings likely contributed to that outcome. The story feels underdeveloped and somewhat conflicted in its genre direction, resulting in a half-baked execution that weakens its identity as a fantasy work. While the artwork remains consistently strong and is arguably the series’ main highlight, it is ultimately not enough to compensate for the lack of narrative depth.

The character writing is especially lacking. Most of the cast is forgettable, and the heroine’s design feels overly reliant on generic fanservice tropes commonly seen in other fantasy manga. The antagonists are similarly one-dimensional, which is a significant weakness for a story that attempts to build itself around political and noble conflicts.

Overall, Alexis Empire Chronicle feels like a simplified version of series such as Suikoden or Fire Emblem, but without the narrative depth or character complexity that makes those works memorable. Even compared to stronger entries in the genre, such as Realist Hero.

Ultimately, the series demonstrates that high-quality illustration alone is not enough to sustain a compelling long-running fantasy narrative. While it is based on a light novel that continued slightly longer than the manga adaptation, it is difficult to imagine the source material delivering a significantly more satisfying conclusion.

My Home Hero

One of the long-overdue manga I recently brought to proper closure is My Home Hero. It is a crime thriller that resists easy classification among its peers. At its core, the story follows a seemingly ordinary middle-aged salaryman who finds himself entangled with the underbelly of society, all for the sake of his family even if it means committing heinous crimes.

Saikyou Ansatsusha, Class Ten'i de Isekai e

 

Japanese manga isn’t particularly known for webtoon-style storytelling like its Korean counterparts, but every now and then, a series comes along that feels fresh within familiar territory. One such example is Saikyou Ansatsusha, Class Ten’i de Isekai e or The Strongest Assassin Transported to Another World with His Class.

By now, the isekai genre is saturated. Assassin protagonists aren’t exactly rare either. Yet Saikyou Ansatsusha manages to carve out something engaging from a niche that many would consider overused.

The story follows a high school student living a double life as a professional assassin, think a younger Golgo 13 in the making who is suddenly transported to a fantasy world along with his classmates. In this new world, the summoned students are essentially forced into the role of heroes tasked with defeating a Demon Lord. From there, the assassin’s journey begins.

Kurogane no Linebarrel (manga)

I’m finally settling another long-standing reading debt by rereading the complete run of Kurogane no Linebarrels in one go. Linebarrels was one of the mecha manga I followed during my college years, but I never picked it back up after losing track of the serialization. The series eventually concluded at 25 volumes, and this reread was my first time experiencing the story in its entirety.

MAR Heaven

 

Finally got around to reading this major series by Anzai Nobuyuki, MAR Heaven, and while it was enjoyable, Flame of Recca still remains the stronger of the two. MAR Heaven is one of those early-2000s isekai series set in a fantasy world filled with magical weapon artifacts called ARMs. The story follows a high school boy named Ginta, who is transported into the MAR world and embarks on an epic adventure to save it from evil organizations, accompanied by allies and a sentient Ball and Hammer ARM, with quite a personality.

Since the MAR Heaven manga run is essentially half the length of Flame of Recca, the peak satisfaction from the series isn’t as high, and it can get formulaic at times. In contrast, Flame of Recca feels more original. Nobuyuki-sensei definitely recycled several elements from Flame of Recca in MAR Heaven, for better or worse; you’ll notice some character designs feel familiar, and the ARMs are essentially a fantasy version of Madougu.

Personally, I really like the ARMs concept; it’s like taking Doraemon’s gadgets and expanding them into a fantasy framework. Unfortunately, MAR Heaven never fully realized that potential. Its shorter run and weekly serialization forced it into monotonous tournament-style battles, often neglecting character development and leading to a climax that feels overall very weak than it could have been.

Even so, MAR Heaven is still better than most mass-produced isekai of the present. It was successful enough to spawn several multimedia adaptations, including a Nintendo DS game that I personally encountered.

On a closing note, it turns out that Anzai Nobuyuki-sensei was an assistant to Kazuhiro Fujita-sensei, the author of Ushio and Tora, which explains the similar dynamics between Ginta and Babbo. 

Cyborg Kurochan

A particular shonen action manga that enjoyed brief popularity in the late ’90s to early 2000s, Cyborg Kurochan was one of the works that sparked my love for the mecha genre. The story follows Kuro, a cat who, after a freak accident, is turned into a gatling gun–wielding cat-cyborg by a homeless, eccentric scientist. It’s a wild, mecha-themed misadventure full of fun, chaos, and mayhem!

Looking back, Cyborg Kurochan might seem like a quirky, somewhat mismatched relic compared to other popular manga of its era. Yet, it remains a solid example of the mecha genre done with humor and energy. In many ways, it serves as a spiritual predecessor to Keroro Gunsou, another Japanese mecha parody featuring anthropomorphic animal characters. The chaotic fun and slapstick misadventures of Kurochan evoke a simpler, more carefree era of manga storytelling.

Interestingly, Cyborg Kurochan was successful enough to inspire multimedia adaptations, including a shooting platformer game on the PSX by Konami. I might explore that game in a future post, as it’s an interesting piece of the series’ legacy.

+Anima

Revisiting an old fantasy manga from my middle-school years, +Anima! It’s not necessarily a standout in its genre, but +Anima captures an atmosphere that feels uniquely early-2000s: earnest, imaginative, and open-hearted.

+Anima tells a lighthearted yet thoughtful fantasy story set in a world where some humans can transform parts of their bodies into animal features called “+Anima.” Because society generally fears or shuns anything “different,” +Anima must hide their powers lest they be persecuted. The main plot follows a boy with Crow +Anima powers, Cooro, who travels across continents with several fellow +Anima friends in search of a place where they truly belong.

Though +Anima may not break new ground in every aspect, it remains a compelling example of what the manga industry could do in the early 2000s; carefree creativity, original ideas, and a willingness to explore both dark and hopeful themes. Unfortunately such worldview were no longer possible after 2008 where +Anima essentially serve as Canary that cannot survive the manga environment after this period where fantasy genre are slowly filled with mass produced isekai series.

+Anima might not have much to offer but you want to see what an early 2000s series could do, this is a decent candidate to look at.

Saint Seiya

Took me about 15 years after Saint Seiya: Lost Canvas before finally diving into the original classic, but I’m proud to announce that I’ve completed my run of the Saint Seiya manga! One of the great late-80s manga classics by Kurumada-sensei, it shaped the Japanese shonen industry with its iconic armor-clad Zodiac knights, the Saints.

Being a millennial, my exposure to Saint Seiya was mostly through the anime with fragmented memories of arcs and battles. Finishing the manga finally gave me the complete picture. The storyline is actually quite simple, structured around four major arcs. My earliest memories are tied to the Sanctuary arc, and I never expected the earlier arcs to last as long as they did.

By today’s standards, Saint Seiya may not have aged perfectly. But for its time, it was innovative, with mystical armor and special tropes that inspired later works like Shurato and Yoroiden.

Beyond its novel concepts, Saint Seiya stood out for delivering a laser-focused shonen experience. It follows the adventures of the five Bronze Saints as they fight to save the world and protect their patron Goddess, Athena. This clear, action-driven structure made it a household name in Japan. That said, in the original series, other characters like the Gold Saints and Hades Specters often ended up as fodder for the Bronze Saints’ battles. At least later spin-offs, like Lost Canvas, attempted to address this flaw.

For me, the biggest issue was the breakneck pacing in the final arc. The climactic showdown against Thanatos, Hypnos, and Hades is squeezed into less than two volumes, giving the Bronze Saints’ God Cloth forms very little screen time.

Despite these flaws, I still admire Saint Seiya for its innovation and impact on shonen manga. Its anime adaptations have also played a huge role in popularizing the series, and I might explore that massive library someday.

Return of the Disaster Class Hero

Another promising fantasy manhwa I recently stumbled upon… if not for its biggest flaw.
If One Punch Man received a full Korean manhwa makeover with a Zodiac-themed twist, you’d pretty much get Return of the Disaster-Class Hero.

The story follows Geon Lee, an exceptionally powerful man who stood alongside the Twelve Zodiac Saints as the unofficial thirteenth wild card. After a brutal betrayal leaves him for dead inside a tower dungeon, Geon Lee miraculously survives, returns stronger than ever, and begins a relentless quest for vengeance against the comrades who betrayed him.

Return of the Disaster-Class Hero feels like a Korean take on One Punch Man, with Geon Lee playing the role of an unstoppable force while the Zodiac Saints serve as this world’s equivalent of S-Class heroes. The series delivers the flashy, high-quality visuals expected from top-tier Korean power fantasies, and at first glance it seems poised to be another heavy-hitter in the genre.

However, the series suffers from a fundamental character issue. If you thought Tomb Raider King had a problematic main character, Geon Lee takes the “Mary Sue” trope to another level. Korean power fantasies often rely on a familiar character template; tall, muscular, dark-haired, and overwhelmingly arrogant and Geon Lee embodies that formula to an extreme.

Because of this, the story, which begins with a solid premise, becomes stale surprisingly fast. Geon Lee bulldozes through every obstacle or trap with sheer brute force, effortlessly overcoming challenges that should, at least narratively, push him to his limits. With no real struggle or tension, the plot quickly loses its weight, and the stakes never feel genuine.

In the end, Return of the Disaster-Class Hero may have the potential to reach mainstream popularity, but without meaningful character development, it remains a second-rate power fantasy, entertaining on the surface, yet ultimately shallow.