Sengoku Youko

Dont get me wrong. This manga is by no means bad, it is in fact very well-made. But I need to admit that I was greatly disappointed by, in my opinion, how much the author fucked up what could be a much better story. Alert: This is may be a bit spoiler-y, but I needed to vent my opinion on this manga. The first part was my favourite. It rounded up well and the characters were developing. I specially loved her who was supposed to be one of the four protagonists, if not the main one: Tama. I thought she, a cunning fox demon in the bodyof a little girl, was the most interesting out of the four protags. Apparently the author was interested in developing her and Jinka as the main characters, judging by how the first part ended. But I think somewhere in the middle of the story, after the part one, the author started worrying about what would his readers think of his work. As this manga is Shounen, in Japan its majority of readers are supposed to be guys. In my vision, the author began searching for a boy character to turn into a (relatable?) main character; he maybe thought Tama wasn't a good enough protagonist for a story facing the male audience, as there wasn't even fanservice from her part (for fuck's sake, she looked like a freaking child). The story could have turned up very similarly if the author chose any other random male character to turn into the protagonist. Seriously, in the first part, Senya was an extremely minor character. I liked to see him grow in the second part; but I thought his arc would last until like, the part where he and Tsukiko showed all grown up in front of Tama. From there on, the author could have focused again in her, and seriously, could have given her some fighting abilities at last. She didn't have a single real battle scene. Tama and Shinsuke turned into minor characters and I hadn't even noticed, as I was anxiously waiting for the author to focus on them again. Jinka and Shaku had vanished (though I understand the author needed to do that *for the plot*). The ending was so incredibly frustrating that, though I cried at Shaku's return and the reunion of Tama and Jinka, I skipped through all the tiring and unnecessarily long battle scenes that only served, in my opinion obviously, to emphazise overpowered, minor characters before and now main characters. I was specially frustrated since I had been postponing this reading for a long time, and really looked foward to Tama and Jinka's development. The artwork was extremely good and clearly evolved through the series, and the battle scenes, though a bit tiring for me to read, were well-drawn. The character designs were unique and recognizable, and the world was quite well-developed. For these reasons, it was extremely frustrating to see what could have been one of my favorite manga, be turned into a simply "good shounen" like many other good shounen out there. TL;DR, without spoilers: If you're reading for Tama, Jinka, Shinsuke, Shaku, don't expect much. If you're just looking for a good shounen manga, maybe to pass the time, try this one out, I guess.

To start this review, I will state that I am still EXTREMELY mad about the Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer adaptation. I will also preface that this is not my favorite of Mizukami's works, with Biscuit Hammer and Spirit Circle being superior in my eyes. However, this is still a top 10 manga of mine for excellent reason. It is ambitious and has a storytelling prowess not seen in his other works. While Spirit Circle is a layered story, and Biscuit Hammer is a spoof on the Sentai genre, Sengoku Youko is just Mizukami showing he can do a traditional Shonen while still maintaining histrademark untraditional style of fluid plot progression, nuanced character writing, and the beautiful emotional core at the heart of all his works. The plot starts rather simply for a Mizukami story, following a pair of brother and sister (at least they call each other that) "Youko", or demons, named Jinka and Tama. They traverse the lands, with the younger sister being a proclaimer of absolute peace to misdoers, pleading with them to reconsider their actions. When this proclamation fails, Jinka goes beast mode and beats the meanies up easily. There is also a random guy that joins along with them named Shinsuke, and they kind of just let him. The start of the story isn't perfect, but it makes sense as it emulates many of its other shonen counterparts, then tears apart these traditional storytelling values in a unique way. I like to see the first 1/3 of Sengoku Youko similar to Hunter X Hunter, with our main characters all rather simple at the beginning, but showing both explicit and implicit growth with every scene that comes, making their growth immensely satisfying. I won't go any further into the plot, as the next 2/3 of the story is spoiler-heavy, but I will say that Sengoku Youko never stays stagnant, always growing as a narrative and making daring choices. Some work, some fail, but none of them are meaningless. Now it's time to talk about the cast. A strength that all of Mizukami's manga have is that every plot point grows every member of the cast in some way, and that is no different for Sengoku Youko. My personal favorite character is Shinsuke, a character who starts out as your stereotypical shonen "I'm a normal guy stuck in a crazy world!" MC, but slowly grows into something far grander. He experiences the greatest character writing out of any manga I've ever read, consistently adapting in every scene, so much so that the Shinsuke from the beginning, middle, and end are all completely different characters. If nothing else, read Sengoku Youko for the absolute writing masterclass that is Shinsuke's character. The rest of the class ranges from great to serviceable, with characters like Senya, Jinka, and Douren being the other highlights. Senya has a really unique power and how it relates to his psyche creates polarizing dynamics, Jinka is a great foil to Shinsuke and would be higher if not for a questionable plot decision, and Douren is just so fucking cool. The only flaw with the characters is Tsukiko, who in my opinion does not receive a sufficient amount of development to justify her screentime. I felt that she was honestly quite expendable as a character in most of her scenes, and brings little impact to the overall narrative. She isn't actively bad, just a rather dull point in a non dull series. And this final section will be spent on me GUSHING about Mizukami's art style and how much he has grown from his early days. Unfortunately, the site is bugging for me and won't let me post any pictures on this review, but I implore you to look up some of his art. At first glance, the art is almost mediocre, with a simple, shonen-like design lacks a lot of difference comapred to older mid-2000s manga with the same style. But Mizukami has absolutely perfected the art of expression, and his shading is some of the best of any mangaka I've seen. Admittedly, Biscuit Hammer is rather shoddy, with some scenes looking out of place and the art a bit wonky, but Sengoku Youko has not a single part that is flawed in any manner. It is excruciatingly beautiful, an example being Shinsuke's art style during the narrative. His change in design and character is so poignant to the points in the story that he's in, from jubilant, to fulfilled, to despaired, to content, every level of his character is only accentuated by the art. This review might seem like a bit of a Shinsuke dickride, but he's not the only one with outstanding artistic design. In fact, every character has such a fun unique design, and Mizukami uses the fighting techniques these characters have with a great scale yet never seems to falter in terms of quality. Overall, this is the peak of Mizukami's art, and seeing his progression throughout his career makes it an even more satisfying read. Overall, I give Sengoku Youko a 9/10. It's gripping, unique, and nuanced in many regards. The only flaws are a few drawn-out plot points and questionable decisions (specifically with Jinka) that hold it back from Mizukami's other manga. I am so hyped for the anime and I pray to the gods in heaven above that they don't massacre another one of Mizukami's creations, otherwise I will riot.

This manga is gold in my eyes. This manga has been out for so long but only 1 review? Come on guys! This manga might seem a bit plain for some people but I honestly think it's one of the best "friendship wins over everything" manga. The story actually surprised me with the main character changing all of a sudden. The character development is actually great as it shows them aging from a young brat into a great adult and it's great to see the characters powering up. Better than Dragon Ball Z,to be honest lmao. Honestly,this is one of the better mangas I've read.Would recommend to everyone :)

Sengoku Youko is a manga that I might never really understand the appeal of to most fans. The plot is actually split up into two different parts, with the first half focusing on the journey of these two demon siblings and this human samurai that has no talent and they fight an evil organization, but one of the siblings ends up getting super overpowered, and the second half focusing on an already overpowered villain turned hero as he fights to gain the power to defeat the one sibling in the first half. It's pretty standard shounen at this point, with the majority of the plotcoming from different fights. I will say that the change in main character halfway through the story is pretty jarring, as it feels like all the time you spent learning about the first few characters is wasted, since they either show up very rarely in the second half or are completely different, asking you to believe that they made a complete change in the time you don't see. The characters are pretty standard too, with no one exhibiting too many characteristics that make them stand out from the rest of the characters you might find in a typical shounen. I honestly wish a lot of the female characters did more in the story, as they pretty much only had minor roles in supporting the mains, even though they had potential to do much more. The only character that I found interesting and wanted to see more of were the tiger and dragon villains since their intertwining storyline was actually decently thought out and were both compelling in their own rights. I also find it funny how the author makes this one character that we spend like 10 chapters with (in which we don't really get to know too much about her), really important to the story and a pivotal plot point for the main characters. Any types of feelings that the author wanted the audience to feel near the end of the story concerning this one character honestly just feels really unearned. The art is alright I guess, though I didn't really like it all that much. Overall, Sengoku Youko was just average at best when compared to all the other manga out there. It doesn't do anything particularly well, it doesn't explore deep themes any more than anything else, it doesn't have super interesting and memorable characters, etc. The constant thought that I had while reading this was, "So when does this start to get as good as people say it is?" At most I'll give that it didn't do anything particularly poorly, but that's about it.