Blust!

mangaislife Dec 21, 2010

7.5

Story: An interesting, original story of a terrorist organization and their prey. Art: It's Yusuke Murata, it's fantastic. Characters: Well, they're not Eyeshield 21-level characters, but they are mostly well thought out, interesting characters. Pacing: It's a bit speedy at times or infodumpy at others, but it's not bad. Humor: Not hysterical, but reaches moments of hilarity. Action: Well drawn, concise, awesome. Last Word: WHY DON'T PEOPLE LIKE THIS? I mean, yeah, it's not as good as Eyeshield 21, but it's not written by Riichiro Inagaki! This is original, interesting and definitely the most underrated manga I've ever seen. More underrated than - than Kekkaishi!

nathandouglasdavis Jan 9, 2020

3

This just feels horribly generic. The protagonist is given a somewhat tragic backstory which gave fem special abilities (in this case, cyborgial arms). There's an evil organization that is constantly trying to destroy fem and fe has to watch out for. There's an old man mentor-type and a girl that fe chooses to help out even at the risk of feir own safety. Fe gets into a fight and struggles at first, but through willpower and whatever comes out victorious. None of the characters stuck out as interesting and the heist-ish plot just seemed like a vehicle to get to the fight scene. The art is good, but even so, doesn't make this manga worth reading. I considered rating it lower, but I don't think that'd be fair since I didn't actively get annoyed or frustrated with it. It's just so....meh.

AnimeJunkee May 6, 2020

4

Story The plot itself is fine. The main character, Kai Hokazono, is a mercenary who has powerful mechanical arms and is sent off to India to do a job. While there he gets attacked by the people who had captured and turned him into a cyborg five years ago. It flowed fairly well for a one shot, though I do wish it had at least one more chapter so that we could see more of what happened when Kai was captured and escaped. We learn a little bit of it through flashbacks and a short exposition dump but even those don’t reveal much and are very brief. The main gripe I have with this manga is what powers up Kai’s cyborg arms: curry. Eating curry somehow gives him strength, and near the end of the one-shot he eats some in order to defeat the bad guy. Felt very jarring and made the end of the final fight scene feel dumb. Characters Kai feels like so many other anime/manga protagonists and doesn’t bring much personality to the overall story. The female lead, Chimuh, felt more interesting and actually has a strong reason for being a part of this dangerous mission. I personally think that Blust! would have been much better if she was the main character instead of Kai. Mou Bah, who is the main antagonist, is the weakest of all the characters. He’s made up to be this big evil dude but isn’t given much personality. Along with that, his motives are very confusing and conflict with each other. "Boo hoo, You escaped five years ago so they used me for their experiments instead and I hate you for it!...But give me your cyborg arms so that I can be physically torn apart AGAIN but I'll have badass arms!!" Are we supposed to feel bad that they turned him into a guinea pig and that he's always in pain? How can we though if he wants to be experimented on further to become stronger? Art The artwork is the best part of Blust! in my opinion. Is very detailed and helps the world feel real and gritty. Overall This manga feels like one of those B-movies that had a cool idea but was not executed well. Could have been a lot better if the curry bit was removed, had more time to explore what happened five years ago, and if the villain was better written. Overall it felt very disappointing.