Having just written an article called “Taking A Look At Some Anime Based On MAL Score Vs. My Score“, I thought it logical that I should do the same with regards to manga. However, I’ve run into a few issues which necessitate a change compared to the anime article. First, I have a lot more manga that I haven’t completed in their entirety than anime, presumably a byproduct of their different distribution models. Second, I wasn’t satisfied with the selection that MAL chose when it came to my statistics page and have chosen to pick titles from my manga list personally instead. I will include a photo below of the manga statistics but be aware that I’m unlikely to discuss the majority of these titles specifically. Now that I’ve dealt with that, I think it’s worth taking a look at some manga based on their MAL score vs. my personal score.
Ayako – 7.69 vs. 10
While an average score of 7.69 isn’t bad at all, it does stand in high contrast with my own personal score of 10, enough so that I feel it worth discussion. Ayako, written by Osamu Tezuka, takes place after World War II and follows Jiro Tenge who secures his release as a prisoner of war by serving as an agent for the U.S. He returns home only to discover how depraved his family has become in their struggles for power and no character better represents this than a little girl called Ayako whose origins demonstrate the corruption surrounding the Tenge family. I consider Ayako to be a masterpiece and my personal favourite out of all the Osamu Tezuka manga that I’ve read. The artwork is stellar and Osamu Tezuka’s intricate storytelling is masterful but I can see why some may not care for it as much as I do. For one, the manga features quite a bit of sexual content, some of which involves incest, which I could imagine putting some people off while fans of Osamu Tezuka may find the lack of his trademark humour odd and perhaps disorienting. Nonetheless, I think it’s a brilliant work that deserves to be read.
Sailor Moon – 8.20 vs. 5
Sailor Moon is one of the most recognisable and successful manga and anime franchises in the world and has had an enormous impact on both the mediums of anime and manga and the magical girl subgenre. I can appreciate all that but I still think that the original Sailor Moon manga is a very average work at best. While I do love the artwork of Naoko Takeuchi and I think that she executes comedy very well, I don’t think she shows any talent for action sequences, something you’d think would be very important in a battle series. I also find the five arcs of the manga very formulaic, that being that Sailor Moon encounters a new foe, her friends encounter minions of this foe, the minions defeat and/or kidnap the friends, Sailor Moon has a personal crisis, she goes to the enemy’s lair, rescues her friends, the friends fight against the minions again but win this time and then Sailor Moon confronts the evil master and wins. Is it a historically important manga that allows readers to more greatly appreciate other magical girl series, yes, but is it a good read? My personal thought would be no.
Duklyon: CLAMP School Defenders – 6.48 vs. 3
I love Clamp but that doesn’t mean that I love everything they’ve done. No better example exists than Duklyon: CLAMP School Defenders which I can say is one of the worst manga that I’ve ever read. Some may defend the series by noting that it was one of their earliest but I hold two works made prior, RG Veda and Tokyo Babylon, in much higher regard than this travesty. The artwork, while not terrible, is poor by Clamp standards, I found the characters irritating and the story dull. There are moments that do show some level of competency but it’s a series that I look back on with a lot of contempt and I’m honestly surprised that the average score is so high compared to my own.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface – 6.70 vs. 4
Ghost in the Shell is a franchise that I’ve always adored and I remember being excited when I got the Ghost in the Shell manga with Man-Machine Interface being the one I was most curious about. I’d heard that it dealt with some high concepts and that it was one of the few manga that used CGI in its artwork. However, as I finally got around to reading it, I found myself disappointed at how messy and incoherent the story was as well as how ugly the artwork could be with some pages looking like it’d been smeared in oil. I do commend Shirow Masamune for the ambition of the concepts he deals with but it’s ultimately a failure which culminated in an odd, unpleasant and inappropriate scene towards the end and a bad experience overall.
A Devil And Her Love Song – 7.65 vs. 9
When it comes to shojo manga and underrated series, I’d consider A Devil and Her Love Song amongst my top picks. The story follows Maria Kawai, a student who was expelled from her previous school for attacking her teacher, whose sharp and blunt nature quickly makes her unpopular at her new school. However, she’s a genuinely good person who is consistently misunderstood and she does eventually manage to befriend a few students. I think a lot of the potential enjoyment of this series will come from whether you sympathise with Maria who is blunt, speaks her mind and is not afraid to call people out even when it makes herself look bad in the process. I myself can relate to her experience as I would’ve, and to some extent still am, been similar in my youth and find her journey to be one that allows me to participate in some self-reflection.
Taking a look at these manga based on their MAL score vs. my score is an interesting experience that highlights the variety of opinions people have about the media they consume. Let me know your thoughts on this article, what you think about any of the manga in this article, what your own MAL statistic depicts, what you think about this new MAL statistics section and, in particular, the area covering MAL score vs. personal score and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!