First couple volumes are amazing with a great setup, great characters, and then it turns into the most generic battle shounen possible. Seriously, if you were to swap out volumes with Bleach you wouldn't even notice. It's the exact same mix of light comedy, light romance, and 90% splitting into teams to power up and fight monsters. The end.

... Last updated on April 10th, 2023, 9:29pm

This was a perfect shounen manga (for me). The motive of gabimaru fuel the main story, the mysteriousness of the unknown places ahead, the growth of every character, the struggle and complex emotion of sagiri.

The story also does not drag, does not filled with useless cliche nor does it repeat a tired formulation like some other (Samurai Deeper Kyo, Kenshin etc). The story too gets exponentially better towards the climax and every character had their satisfying conclusion (done well because usually it would be lame if execute improperly like some shoujo or shounen that goes full happy mode in the end).

The shinobi girl that looked up to gabimaru is among the best written albeit within short appearance time. A girl living her life in strife, falling in love with her companion (or her competitor though she forfeit her chance for him to be the only candidate). She and him both are destine to had no chance of loving each other (though she love him but sadly does not know how). In the end, the love is wrapped up in an abstract motive of (if i would not be able to get your heart while you are living, i would get it when you are dead)

This is symbolize by her eternal longing of to either want gabimaru to be the icy cold gabimaru, or to kill him of he strayed off. That twisted love is also concluded with the action of her stabbing him towards the heart (touching his heart, both literally and metaphor), him grabbing her hand, hug her and she finally reach the end of her life.

Despite she does not have gabimaru all the way to the end. She managed to receive it in a semblence form of an abstract love. She conclude it with a wish towards gabimaru to please let granted her this if she were to see him in another life, to which gabimaru fervently granted. She smiles happily (despite dying) and wishes him well for his future. Who knows perhaps in another life she would have the chance to get the normal love, if both turns out to live a normal life.

The final conclusion too do ended up rather well (some may say plot armor and so on but these people does not see it all to well).

The reason being, Rien is just another gabimaru. A person lost her one whole meaning of life, frantically searching for ways to get it back at whatever the cost.

The only difference being, rien held back the issue and lashing out at everyone else that is concern (Mei). Gabimaru on the other hand had a fervent companion that keeps his head straight while he move himself forward.

This is why Gabimaru is able to understand Rien in the end, and this is also why Rien finally understand and accept. They are both the same albeit walking in the opposite direction, she wishes to have hers while sacrificing everything while he wishes to have his while keeping his humanity intact. Hence, she decided to finally stop, reverting the injury she inflict on the present battle, and finally decide to join her dear husband in the afterlife.

A good twist, cliched done well, gary stu done well, and all. Deserving of the 10/10.

They did well of developing every character into the best ending they deserved. Nothing was inconsistent and had a beautiful art. A review here said it was edgy, you can blame that on the scanlator. The start was a bit slow but has an unique concept. Theres no romance here. Just a guy struggling to go back foro his wife

... Last updated on March 25th, 2022, 4:54am

i thought they've forgotten how to do proper Shonen like this by 2020, turns out they didn't. Jigokuraku proved to be a nice reading experience with all appropriate Shonen attributes and a twist of uniqueness. I personally enjoyed the darker elements which can be found in it, but for some it might be the aspect that makes them consider this manga "Seinen-esque". Haven't noticed any Seinen-esque ambition in it, aside from a few more mature details, like erotica references and naked female torsos. All in all, it would be nice to see a sequel some time in the future

Jigokuraku carries many traditional battle shounen archetypes and plot points. Thankfully it's short so it doesn't overstay its welcome. It has great art and a wholesome ending. Overall, a nicely executed shounen manga.

lots of meaningless fluff and meandering and nothing felt like it matter "lol let's just tao punch this bad guy group member A and then group member B here is another new secondary character whose personality can be described in one sentence"

except the art and battle choreography and composition was pretty and the character design was cool and there were a few cool moments so I'll give it a 6

I've been following this manga on and off since there were some 4 chapters, and by that I mean I can't judge the story as a whole properly. But for now, I honestly feel like I didn't feel let down by that ending arc, despite having felt somewhat jarred at some of the concepts/narrative paths being drawn so close to the end. Gladly, those feelings were washed away after just seeing those character epilogues.

Perhaps before that ending chapter I could say the author didn't quite stick the landing, but I'm just glad he stuck to the overarching plot that he laid out on the start: convicts and executioners go to an island, come back with an elixir and then the story ends. Maybe I felt jarred back then because I thought he'd be incorporating these elements in an attempt to draw this manga out, but thinking back - nope, that didn't happen and we have such a neat epilogue chapter.

Definitely a lot of room to improve though, and I am gonna be keeping a close eye on this mangaka's future works!

It becomes too hideous to read after 2,3 chapters. The story concept is good, the world building is really not bad and very original, steampunk samurai, western magic sound very unique because I don't see much work like this, but the way the authour develop it just can't be right. The pacing, it's is over the place, plot keep jumping from one scene to another, fighting a monster, yes, every 4 pages, excuse me insert a flash back, ok no problem, wait what, I read 10 chapter I still don't get what is the plot about, it's a horrible mess of plot writting.

Even the characters is so bad in this one, cant even stay in their character, this one time they act cool and cold, then after that they become all emo, and suddenly become all wacky and awkward, they have no real personality, nothing to seperate them from each other. As the story carry on, new characters get introduced and leave as quickly as how they jump into the story, and as I said before, same mold, nothing distinguised, most are very bland like white paper bland, I can hardly imagine them than anything but some brush strokes, some character concept fast sketched, or some old rpg npc with a few lines, stand there, do their role, leave. Not only that, the lines is just pissing me off imo, it's really really feel like reading some angsty poetry made by some 13 years old, each time they open their mouth, they're all aiming for a shock value, to be overly edgy, to show that they're fierce I just can't swallow any of it.

The art is pretty good although it's hard to make out what's really going on at some situation, there're some traditional artistic technique I see here and there, the character doesn't get swallowed by the rich and very detailed background, which I really like about it, overall it's a very beautiful artstyle. But sadly it's not enough to make up for the shallow story and characters. This is a very disappointing manga, one of the kind that get give a very long run above the quality it gives, it's a shame really, it have good art work and all the potential to be original.

... Last updated on December 28th, 2020, 8:10pm

Its getting better and better as the story develops
Especially the point where after reading you wonder if Gabimaru's peaceful life was really just an illusion or was it real.

The story is just amazing. I never get bored of it. I love the world building and characters. The gore and drama is just on point. Its a real dark tale that I just want more and more. This series is just too great, hats off to the writer and this manga.