Name: Spoiler-free review of Abara. One of the mangas that influenced Chainsawman, but with too many problems.
Item: Abara
Rating: 60
Author: Benkei

Waifra

Spoiler-free review of Abara. One of the mangas that influenced Chainsawman, but with too many problems.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Considerations ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ● This is a spoiler-free review. ● 60+ in my rating means below average. ● This review includes The Digimortal One-Short. ● I've got to read this work on a friend's recommendation. He said it was one of the mangas that inspired Fujimoto to write Chainsawman and I wanted to check it out. I didn't look too much into the synopsis and just started reading.

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The Story ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ In the streets of the city something is preying on the inhabitants, something that moves faster than the human eye can see and leaves unimaginable horror in its wake.

The story of Abara has really bad pacing in my opinion. When you start reading, it feels like someone threw you at an already going story, and for that reason, it took me a lot of time to start to understand the story of the world, and even after I finished the manga, I was still confused. With, believe it or not, Wikipedia being the one helping me at that point.

For a manga without a prequel or sequel, it's just really weird how the author aims to deliver the information about the world he is creating.

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The Art Style ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The art style is mixed; at times it's absurdly good, especially when drawing entities and combat. I felt like reading another work by Fujimoto. If I were to analyze this point alone, I could easily say that the art-style is worthy of a 9.

‎ But when I consider character design, it's really weird. Whenever the panel is detailed and he does proper shadows, you really feel impressed, but in normal panels, the eyes are often too far from each other and without the drawing of the nose bridge. Everyone looks like they have a fish-face. The backgrounds are absurdly well done. Panels are, in their majority, full of dark spots and give a really creepy vibe sometimes. Besides character details, everything else is really pretty.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

The Characters ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ There are a small number of characters in this manga; the main character, agents, and a few others. I don't feel any real depth in their creation and I wasn't fully able to comprehend each character's mentality and motivations. They just seemed to go with the flow.

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Conclusion ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ If you're like me, you skip everything and read only the conclusion because you don't want to get spoiled with other themes. So I will try to be brief on this point:

Maybe read it. If you like Chainsawman or Firepunch, you might find some similar panels in this piece. If you enjoy gruesome manga, you may enjoy this work. If you're looking for characters with depth and a more developed story, I recommend that you look for other works.