Its good but after chapter 58 or something, i decidded to drop the manga because i was finding much more simularities with average battle shounen manga, the first 50 caught my attention but after that, the pacing feels extrememly slow and the battles seem to follow the same formula of person about to die, and then chapter ends, then next chapter begins with person surviving and doing a deadilier attack. I personally hate manga chapter cliffhangers, but if you are ok with it, you should read it.

Ovwrall, if you crave a battle shounen manga that is not on super powers, with rarely any harems, read this manga

Gama is a great shounen protagonist. He's straightforward and fun to root for, and best of all he's serious; he doesn't act like a cute but retarded toddler, or an arrogant angsty teenager, or a 40-year-old skeezeball, which is more than I can say for most shounen heroes. The shounen hero archetype doesn't need a surprising, deep human character to succeed. You don't need a human at all. They're almost always combat geniuses who eat a lot and never give up; the _supporting characters_ are supposed to be the fun, dynamic people with unusual traits.

Gamaran flies light with very few supporting characters. I think this was a measured gamble and it pays off for the author. This is a shounen reduced to its skeleton, a shounen that immediately sets up its main character and his sidekick/boss and then puts them through a tournament-style fight sequence without any breaks.

The character and environment art is quite appealing. The biggest weakness is that many of the characters look very similar to one another.

The realistic setting is a serious challenge for shounen artists - they're depicting a real archaic age where people often wore similar clothes and cut their hair in specific patterns, so they've got to go above and beyond to make people look distinctive, and unfortunately the author achieves that only sparingly. This is yet another series that would've been well served by throwing in some more women. The endless sausage party in shapeless robes really strains the author's ability to come up with unique looks. After the first few chapters, you've seen "long-haired pretty guy", "tall butch guy", and "weaselly guy", and these looks will just keep coming back again and again and again. I'm surprised that I didn't see the shounen classic, "rotund guy". Everyone has a pretty average build.

A secondary weakness of the art is in depicting blood. Characters are frequently cut, but it rarely feels visceral or naturalistic. Blood drips down things in a paper thin strip; it doesn't have any solidity or fluidity, it's more like a painted line that appears on top of people midway through a fight. Characters often completely ignore wounds in a way that feels less tough and more like they weren't really hurt at all. This is a common problem in shounen, and it creates fights where the hits don't have real impacts. Gamaran's best fights are when people lose the ability to use their limbs; it feels like they're actually sustaining damage and have to build a strategy around it. The author seemed to realize this, and the hero is often partially disabled by grievous injuries. This was a brilliant move; it's much better to see shounen heroes overcome weakness in their own bodies, not merely strength in others. That's the benefit of having a so-called "generic" hero - we already know they'll summon the determination to fight and survive; the interesting part is _how_ can they possibly achieve it?

Unfortunately, the villains frequently fall victim to "Shounen Villain Ego Syndrome" where they could definitely win if they fought carefully, but since they're villains they'd rather be cruel and overconfident, ruining their advantage or giving their opponents openings. Some shounen series acknowledge this and find a way to make it feel fresh. Gamaran does not. You almost feel bad for some of these guys, who'd be winning handily if only they weren't so easily insulted.

Overall, Gamaran doesn't have a lot of standout moments, but oddly enough I found myself reading it far past when I thought I would give up. Every time I thought I was done, I decided to keep reading. I think its greatest skill is being "not annoying". It's not distastefully perverted, it's not insultingly stupid, it doesn't waste time with putrid mishandled drama, it's just an honest, barebones shounen with a shitload of fights. After years of reading awful comics made by maniacs, I'm satisfied with a series that doesn't put its socks on after its shoes.

For shounen fans: I recommend at least checking it out for the first couple of fights. Don't feel obliged to read it too carefully; the author doesn't do subtle details or long-term foreshadowing. If it doesn't grab you, don't feel bad about not continuing. But if you like shounen swordfights... This series _works_, plain and simple!

I pretty much picked up this manga because I needed something to do during my flight to Hawaii and back.

Its 194 chapters and a pretty decent shounen action manga. The main character is what you expect from a shounen action mc. Initially strong, but with the potential to grow even stronger. The supporting cast seemed a little weak, and they usually had a couple of interesting moments, but I was hardly interested in them throughout the manga besides one character named Iori. And that is mostly because Iori is a super badass and I'd say that most people would love him.

The villains seemed pretty generic. I hardly remember any of them. Sure they all had their unique fighting styles and some backstory to them, but I never had enough time to grow attached to them, because in this series a lot of characters WILL die. Actually, they'll usually just die 3 chapters after they're introduced, and then the author will just insert another villain or dude for the main characters to fight.

The goal of the story is for Gama to eventually confront his father. And without spoiling anything, lets just say that the ending was pretty disappointing. I was expecting something a little bit more grand and satisfying, but it seemed like the author made a rushed ending (?). Not really sure, but as a reader, it just seemed a little rushed and abrupt.

Overall though, I like it as a shounen martial arts manga, but its definitely not as good as some other ones that I've read.

the story is good, the characters are fine.
the fights are nice. I read it like 2 times (at first i stopped because i got a little bit bored and then read another manga, but then i read it again and now i can't stop reading!) so its a good manga, you'll like the characters and the story, the characters are not annoying, you feel the drama in the story and not just the funny stuff.

so read it! give it a chance!

There isn't a single interesting character or plot development in Gamaran that held my attention. It certainly wasn't awful but the story is nothing but a vehicle to move the audience from one fight to the next. You won't care about who wins a fight or why they are fighting because the author isn't good at conveying emotions. There are too many characters with very similar personalities. When the main character is such a generic and boring character like Gama, the onus on the villain to carry the show but those characters are underdeveloped and fail to live up to the hype that the author attempts to create. A hilarious example of the author's poor writing is his most frequently used battle quip was "Die!' "No, you die!"

Luckily, Gamaran's art and action is pretty well executed, at least to enough to make up for the writing flaws. Every action is clearly drawn and (over)explained and the author clearly enjoyed inventing a lot of fictitious sword moves. Its not on the level of Rurouni Kenshin, but the clash of different weapons and styles is fun to read.

Gamaran is a mildly entertaining time waster that I'll forget easily but it never offended me with its poor writing so I'd recommend reading it for its action on a lazy weekend. Just to prepared for a lot of shounen fighting cliches and a million and one "secret, ultimate, sure kill, final techniques!."

... Last updated on December 4th, 2013, 10:38pm

I'm on chapter 103 right now and I'm a bit surprised at myself for continuing so long. Its a good manga. It's just sooooo long.

I really like martial art manga. This one has lots and lots and lots of sword plays. I'm telling you, there's not one chapter that doesn't have it. If you don't like lots of this kind of things, don't read it.

There's no romance, not even a mentionable romantic subplot. Doesn't matter too much to me though.

The art is typical shounen. Quite artful and strong. Strong contrast, lines. I really like it.

It's set some times...in the past. Not sure what era it is exactly. It's when the shogunate was still around. But definitely not a legit historical manga.

As I'm reading this, this manga increasingly reminds me of Bleach. Because of all the battle scenes, the blood, but also the development of the main characters. They weren't super powerful to begin with, but they have strong underlying potential. So they train like heck to better themselves. And they eventually become stronger and stronger. They don't always win. There are a lot of cool scenes. Haha. There's nothing supernatural though. Purely martial art and sword plays!! The protagonist, a 15 (at the beginning) years old boy named Gama, is already better than average at sword plays at the beginning because he belongs to an infamous martial art school. He's something of a genius. So he learns super fast. That means that the manga is fairly fast paced.

... Last updated on October 25th, 2013, 12:25am

I'm usually not one to like or read martial arts mangas, but this one I really like. There's a bunch of different moves I've never seen, especially from Ogame style. And the Ofame style always seems to become #1. I mean, Gama defeated three really styles that had other members all on his own. He always seems to be getting stronger, so I look forward to when he fights. I love how the he always has this aura of confidence also. It tells me that no matter what, Gama will pull through.

this manga is really worth watching, it has great techniques used and great action, plus even though the story was a bit simple, its starting to improve rather well also the art style is real unique but still nice ,there really shouldn't be any complains in that department, although some of the female need to look more feminine cause there are angles where they look like a guy ( some examples of this are Naoyoshi's mom and Yumeji) but all in all a great manga that deserves an anime version more than some of the crappy animes that came out this year. the only suggestion i have for this manga is there should be a little more girl characters, im just saying

I just recently started reading this manga and I enjoyed it enough to read it. But for me it was pretty much always Action and it seemed like there was nothing else to the story. I won't lie, it has it's funny moments and such. But I would most likely recommend this story to someone who would be leaning more to action side to manga. The art is fair and after getting into the story, for me, it got better and more enjoyable. It's also easy to understand and is not one of those confusing mangas where you have no idea what's going on.

... Last updated on July 19th, 2012, 2:55pm

Having been reading manga for over ten years, I find the "Tournament arc" in any battle manga as one of the laziest ways of coming up with a story line.

This manga starts with a tournament arc right off the bat. Frankly, I was immediately turned off reading the series. Basically it's like this: "Introduce main character, tell him there is a tournament for strong people, protagonist goes to fight because he wants to become stronger". Not an ounce of originality plot wise.
Moving on, the art is pretty good and the action is nice and gives off the feeling of excitement battle mangas should provide. The flashbacks for characters introduced in one chapter and killed in the next one are completely pointless and they don't really make the manga any deeper(I ended up skipping through some of them).
Currently I've put this series on stand by to read when I have nothing interesting to read. I'll say that this is above the average shonnen manga because of the art, action and the fact that people actually die.

... Last updated on July 13th, 2012, 1:35pm