B Reaction

So this is your typical ecchi sports romance manga with a martial arts twist. It starts with the MC, a strong guy who wins a Karate competition before getting KO'd by a woman.

This woman turns out to be his teacher. As far as this point, I could see the promise. With all of her high kicks, fan service criteria was met for the ecchi side of things. The fights were also entertaining and also the romance side of things was also pretty funny.

So we continue on this manga, which I was actually enjoying when it just suddenly ended. I thought it was still ongoing, the last 2 chapters were VERY rushed, and very fast paced, but I had given it benefit of the doubt.

But what troubles me the most was it wasnt even an ending. So much needed to be resolved. This manga which had potential had gone to waste. Honestly, unless you're really bored, don't read it.

Could have been the definitive ecchi shounen, too bad it ended prematurely.

You don't have to look far to spot how many in the forums are complaining about the premature ending. Where I would like to provide my alternative view is in the parts that are understated about this manga.

First off, I disagree with Master_M2K when he says:

"What makes the story interesting isn’t really the predictable romance but the exciting fights and hilarious comedy."

The key word that alienated me from his review was: predictable romance; exciting fights. Worse: hilarious comedy

Obviously different people have different tastes but if you merely come in here expecting an ecchi, you'd probably like it but you'll miss out on a lot of the subtle factors that could have made this the Ranma 1/2 of this generation.

First off, the setting. Ring Girl knocking out Street Champ is no typical setting and I avoided all the spoilers after that. Like Rumiko Takahashi's famous manga, this is the type of setting that makes the guy getting beaten up by a girl in a comical manner tolerable: it's all within the rule settings of shounen but transferred unto the female to male interaction.

The fights? They are typical. Maybe exciting to some but like Jackie Chan movies - they're part of a newer style that makes the older ones seem better. It's even worse when the comedy bits come to play. That's when the events are really rushed out and it goes into a more "one shot" type of shounen style.

What makes the combat work though is not only due to the romance but the added elements that are still underrated in combat. Specifically a shounen take on "move prediction" and (finally!) an exciting take on mixed martial arts that contains the heart of a sports manga minus the technicalities - an issue that normally would take away from other sports mangas but in this case allows the situation to explain the complexity of mixed martial arts.

Finally the ending. The ending is a deal breaker, no question about that. It's short and abrupt too. That said if you understand why the manga ending of Hikaru no Go is conclusive enough then the ending shouldn't make you feel like you shouldn't have picked up this manga at all.

For those who haven't read Hikaru No Go, what I mean is that the ending could easily be interpreted as creating a down to earth realistic conclusion of how far the character could actually achieve despite his skills. Clearly most shounen fans would have preferred such endings to be done in the same veins as Ashita no Joe's ending and I doubt you'll hear many who would say they'd rather the manga end this way - however - if you really analyze the situation the characters were in, it's still no mythology breaker.

The characters, considering their skill level and motivation and growth, all could have realistically failed in their universe right after the ending and the manga instead is a culmination of that short golden year.

As of this writing, hardcore MMA fans may get their share of contextual love from this manga too. Currently not only has the Machida Karate Fighter Lyoto Machida proven that karate can excel in MMA if certain Karate values were heeded but he has also been beaten by Shogun Rua in such a manner that many feel Shogun didn't beat Machida because of a gameplan but because Shogun had a "Shogun Rua" gameplan. If you've read both this manga and know who Shogun Rua is, this will make sense.

Not only that, things may change again if Quinton Rampage Jackson beats Lyoto Machida this upcoming UFC 123 and vice versa. Although the skin color of the main antagonist isn't dark like Rampage, the gameplan and mindset he's going to employ would seem similar to what the main antagonist had to have taken. Equally one could say the main protagonist's actions although it caused him to be accepted in being trained by an elite mentor could just as easily stand for an analogical metaphorical loss in which in our reality or in an official combat reality be interpreted as a fighter losing but getting to fight again because of how he fought and how he is employed in a contract.

Nonetheless, I do hope this review convinces you that this manga is worth a check for almost everyone except those offended by how ecchi manga degrades women. Not only does this manga go only as far as panty shots and accidental groping but it is still one of the freshest manga entries in quite a while or at least it could have been if it were continued. There really is no excuse to not check this manga out. I can't guarantee everyone will think it's a 9 but certainly whether you analyze it deeply or see it only for the ecchi scenes there's a quality to this manga that hasn't been done often in a single package in quite a while. The manga world really suffered a loss when this series was discontinued.

Ok, I'm giving this an 8 out of respect to what it could have been

Story (6/10) and Character (8/10):
The plot is good, the characters are great, but... WHAT WAS THAT ENDING?! There was none, zero closure to any of the many interesting plots the manga presented to us, both romance and fighting-wise. It really could have became something on the liking of "Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi" in the sense of a long, pseudo-romance, fighting manga. It's a shame it couldn't do that.


Art: 8/10
Might not be most people's preferred style but I like it a lot, especially the characters, male and female. Where it lacks a bit is in the fight scenes, but still far from bad.

This manga is focused on martial arts, but is just as solid in other aspects as well. The martial arts aspect is reasonably well done, wherein the fights look pretty good and everything seems to flow well, though it doesn't go into that much depth with a couple exceptions. The characters were also super interesting and amusing as well.  Onodera straddles the line between arrogant and confident well, having faith in his own abilities and even showing off sometimes, but he isn't someone that gets overtly angry or pathetic when he actually loses. Rather he accepts it quickly, and goes from there, pushing forward to improve, even if he has to bow his head to do it. Hence, I really liked him. Asato is also quite cool, in that she's a teacher, but as is rare for mangas such as these she isn't a haughty one at all, rather she seems to get along tremendously well with Onodera. Akane on the other hand, was a good amount arrogant I would say, which resulted in a personality clash with the other two, which resulted in things never really going her way, which was amusing and ultimately resulted in some growth towards the end, which was interesting to see, even if it was super rushed. And that's where we get to the biggest issue in the manga, the ending being ridiculously rushed. In terms of character growth and development, it did show some for Onodera in a way that was cool, but still felt far too rushed. On the other hand, in terms of his relationship with Asato, it's even worse, in that it doesn't seem to reach any sort of conclusion at all, which was incredibly unsatisfying. And in terms of plot, the ending is so abrupt, that upon reaching the final page, it gives a very strong feeling of "That's it?", which is rather unfortunate because I really did like where it was going. The art was really great. 

tl;dr: A martial arts focused manga with interesting characters and great art, but a ridiculously rushed ending. 

B Reaction is a Shounen, Action, Comedy about your typical delinquent who loves fighting and seems to be really good at it. Though his life is turned upside down when he encounters a strong but beautiful lady and she turns out to be his new English teacher.

There’s nothing special about this set-up, seeing how any experienced anime/manga fan would be able to see it coming. What makes the story interesting isn’t really the predictable romance but the exciting fights and hilarious comedy. It’s a shame that this manga was cut short at 2 volumes and because of that, we have a terrible ending and the characters just weren’t developed as well as they could have been. They were fairly interesting nonetheless.

The artwork for this manga is pretty great, with an immense amount of detail and creativity put into the fights, whilst managing to slip in as many “panty shots” imaginable. The environments are pretty detailed as well but the overall artwork just lacked something to be given a perfect score.

Overall B Reaction is a really enjoyable manga to read, with plenty of engaging fighting styles used. The whole student teacher relationship did make things interesting but it just wasn’t implemented well enough. I really didn’t like how this manga was cut short at 2 volumes when it could go on for longer, so whoever reads this would have to feel content with what they’ve got.

^_^