So I remember reading this when it first was being released by Mixini Studios. Was freaking hilarious, couldn't wait for more. But mixini stopped TLing at chapter 5 and the other group was pretty dodgy in quality.
Now almost 10 years later I decide to go back to it reading the inferior TL. And it turns out from chapter 6 onwards it dropped in quality, anyway. Ratman, that is. Though the translation is probably a factor as well, but there are some few good chapters in it for a bit.
There's a couple of chapters that are just a waste of space, like the second chapter with Fatman, and the kidnapping chapter and....man I just read it and I already can't remember what the other waste of time chapters were.
Now I'm at volume 7, and volume 6 introduced a guy who seemed like he signalled an interesting story development but volume 7 is just really [b]really[/] bad...

I'm not sure how to rate this as I haven't finished the series and i loved the first volume...
I guess I'll leave it unrate for now and rate it if I finish it later or otherwise change my mind.


EDIT: ok so i skim read some later volumes and the last volume looks decent. I'll leave it unrated though as I didn't read it properly

... Last updated on August 11th, 2021, 5:42am

The best way to read this series:
Read chapters 1-19. Then quit.

Ratman is a hilarious series that was ahead of both Tiger and Bunny and MHA in depicting superheroes in a non-traditional fashion. The premise is a hero nerd is tricked into being a villain, and while he is on the other side of his heroes, he discovers that the superheroes aren't as virtuous as he thought they were. Add to the fact that his evil organization is utterly hilarious, and that he has to hide his villain identity from one of his closest female friends, this series ends up being a lot of fun.

The series at the beginning excelled with both comedy and with building an interesting world. Chapters 18 and 19 are the best of this series, and deal with personal growth, which you don't often see in a shonen manga.

I'm not really sure what happened to the series after that, it almost seems different writing altogether. The series became bogged down with endless filler chapters, and the chapters that did pertain to the plot were just pointless action sequences. I'm currently at chapter 40, and struggling. I'm not sure I can or will finish the series.

Chapter 24, Shiki's intro, was the last good chapter of the series, but it's kind of out of order so I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you want to. I was just amazed by how they took a great character introduction and just threw away all the info they gave us.. but that became the standard for all following chapters.

If you're looking for a fun and creative superhero series, I would definitely recommend the first 19 chapters. But please, save yourself the struggle and quit there, you won't regret it.

... Last updated on January 6th, 2021, 4:23pm

It feels like Zetman mixed with Naruto.
There is a lot of filler.
Also charachters thrown in out of nowhere. Like the eyepatch girl.

It was an aggressively mediocre manga.

O ya I forgot. I instinctively thought I would hate the Jackies, cuz there shounen tropes and stupid, but they ended up being my favorite part of the whole thing.

... Last updated on May 8th, 2018, 11:07am

This manga is nice, pretty enjoyable for a light read, I wish it had shown a better development between the MCs but well, no matter at least it ends quite ok.

Read it if you want a light and entertaining time.

By the way, the Jackies are the best characters of the manga XD

... Last updated on February 26th, 2016, 9:46pm

At the beginning, this looked like a fun deconstruction of the genre of American superhero comics. But while it was usually fun chapter for chapter, it eventually lost the plot: many details of the initial setup (mentioned in the blurb) - that the protagonist is tricked into joining a villain organisation, or that he hides this secret identity - are, sooner or later, unceremoniously dropped. At which point the story becomes less of a deconstruction of the genre, and instead something of a rehash of its tropes instead. The sorry excuse of a resolution to Crea's revenge plot merits special mention.

The story also seemed to have had a somewhat troubled serialisation: chapters 20 and 34-36 were utterly pointless filler, with no connection to the main story whatsoever. The manga even briefly ventured into similarly pointless ecchi mode (a quote from chapter 23: "what you and this manga lack is 'sexiness'").

All that said, the manga's ultimate resolution was still pretty satisfying, and as I mentioned, it was pretty fun chapter for chapter. But there are better, more well-rounded manga about genuine heroes out there. I'll recommend my favorite here: Hoshi no Samidare

... Last updated on September 30th, 2015, 12:03am

Ratman is a fun story with a good amount of comedy that incorporates and sometimes parodies superhero tropes from both east and west. The protagonist is a typical shonen protagonist, but the series is self aware enough that he doesn't come off as stupid, just a little naive. I enjoyed how often the manga shares the spotlight with the other characters right up to the very end. It is consistent throughout and while there were some chapters that were worse than others, I'd recommend you read it all the way through.

well nothing much to say. It was really in unusual manga to begin with which Is all about heroes. Nothing really big news but it really was not a big surprise most of the routes will always lead to a heroes style. But still the manga was worth the little change and so I give it q 8. Because the character could have been better.

I totally recommend this to those American heroes fan since the manga author was obviously referencing American comics for this. There is of course the cliche of all those stories which won't come to a surprise.

... Last updated on June 21st, 2015, 1:01am

Glad it finally finished being scanned, had to wait 8 months for the ending to actually be scanned in english

overall a good series, but its more comedy than deep

What a nice phrase there, the world's tiniest hero. Japanese hero media seems to be rather popular; my favorite is Ratman~ Seems the English official releases got cancelled(as they usually do sheesh), but the original JPN volumes are still out there to read~

I like the summary they gave for this series. Suits it perfectly. And it was fun all they way to the end. A large portion of parody and humor, some good amount of action and intrigue, some nice warm fuzzies, and who cares if it's got a few cliches and stupid humor here and there. It's self aware enough that doesn't bother me.

The setting is a lot like Tiger and Bunny, where you have commercial "heroes" who are pretty much a mixed bag of those who work for the fame and glory and those who do for justice. And those who are just there to sell stuff. The "villains" are not so villainous as they appear... OR ARE THEY? The "evil" minion Jackies... are hilarious. The protagonist Shooto is just a kid who reeeaaally wants to be a hero and somehow or other gets contracted to be the opposite. He's cute, stubborn, determined to carry out justice at any cost, powerful (and kind of scary) when it counts, pretty much your typical shounen protagonist.

The story is funny, it's got good art, there's some mystery to it all and a bit of romance. It's overall a very upbeat series with a strong moral backbone that realizes that there can be both good and evil in everyone and things are not always what they seem.

... Last updated on June 23rd, 2015, 1:51pm