Zero

How disappointing. It had a relatively interesting story (and attractive women) going for it and it just doesn’t fill out any details. It feels really rushed and could’ve benefitted from more chapters in order to flesh out the story. Sure, people died but it didn’t feel like anything. It just felt meaningless as all hell. Forced, rushed, not enough meat to it. There’s a story I would’ve liked to read it under it all, but it just did not deliver. That said, I would totally love to create my own version of this story, but I don’t think I could design a character nearly as attractive as Mao is. 5/10

Any boxing manga will immediately be compared to the most famous one: Hajime no Ippo. I'm gonna say this once and for all to probably only a few dozen people who will read this review: Hajime no Ippo is ridiculously overrated. But I get it, it's good, it does everything right, and neatly follows the rules and tropes of the sports genre. But it barely manages to get out of the shadow of the one that came before all of them: Ashita no Joe. Ashita no Joe set the bar and made the rules, and frankly, no one has yet managed to get close to dethroning it. It's still more original and better than anything more recent, as addictive as they may be. Hajime no ippo follows the rules, and therefore, loses.

Taiyou Matsumoto on the other hand, doesn't follow the rules. He couldn't care less about conventions of the medium. This is a guy with style. Just like his characters, he likes to do it wrong. The pages are way too cluttered, but if you compare it to another one his works Hanaotoko, you can tell he deliberately changes his style to suit a more serious or comical type of storytelling. The clutter is part of his unique style and he can bend and shape it to enhance everything he tries to convey.

On the other hand, as unique as the art may be, Zero still bares the stamp of the inescapable legacy of Ashita no Joe. But the artist realizes this, and manages to copy what Hajime no ippo, to my eyes, failed at copying: the spirit. The more you get to the end of the story, you can't help but be thrown back to the iconic match between Yabuki Joe and Carlos Mendoza. Readers of both stories will know what I mean. But this is not a copy cat at work. He's paying homage to Joe and by extension, to manga itself. These pages are dripping with love for the sport and for manga as an artform. Master. Excuse me for getting sentimental.

No reviews for this yet? Interesting. Alright, I'll do my best. For those of you who don't know, Zero (or Zero: The Beginning of the Coffin) is a manwha that's apparently based on a video game series. It's done by the amazing people at Infinity Studios, who brought you Blood Alone. A pre-review rundown is basically: there are psychic people in this universe, called ESPers, and there are two companies, something of rivals, called the ECS and LEED, and when Espers fight, their powers are measured in something called G's. Anyway, on with the review!

STORY: For the most part the story is standard Seinen. Once Shuu gets to the highschool, you're almost overwhelmed with cliche'd characters. Thankfully, the main characters hold the spotlight. When things are revolving arond Shuu, his sisters, the ECS, and the 'bad guys' it really is top quality stuff. Shuu fights, isn't strong enough, some dialogue leading to another fight, yeah, it's typical, but for Seinen, it's pretty well done. There are some interesting things, too. There are heavy hints, right from the beginning, of an incestuous relationship between Shuu and Sumire, a forbidden love, which really intrigues me. For some people that's an instant turn-off, but you might like it. It's not all just fight-fight-fight. 7/10

ART: The character designs are alright, the scenery is cool, but the fighting is where it's at. These are psychic powers, and you can see how it's not just colored energy blasts or physical weapons, it's more distortions in the air and internal effects, and the artist does a great job portraying it. You always know who is who, and the environments are pretty good, what you'd expect from a manga, but they're not amazing. Though sometimes it might be hard to see what's going on, the art is pretty good. 8/10

CHARACTER: You've got Shuuichi, you've got Sumire and Katsumi, you've got the kids at the school, and you've got the people working at either organization. The main bad guys, for one, are pretty deep and have personalities- I know, surprising right? The school kids fail the most, as they're stereotypical, but as I said before we don't see enough of them that it matters. Sumire and Katsumi, the latter of which almost never says anything, are great supporting characters. They're realistic people and they just want a good life for Shuu, and it shows in the choices they're always making. And then there's Shuuichi, he's the best. He's the definition of an anti-hero. He has flaws: he's spoiled, he's brash, he's arrogant, he's aggressive. But he has a flip side: he's kind, intense and passionate when he needs to be, though he's mostly shy and naive, which allows for some comedy. He'll do things to people you may or may not like, and he'll kill whoever he has to if it means getting what he wants. He's really dynamic and, by himself, drags the Character rating up. 9/10

ENJOYMENT: Now when you're looking at a Seinen title you're not looking at much, most of the time. This has good character, a nicely flowing and decent story, an interesting premise with Espers. The "G" measuring system makes it feel a little trite, yeah, but the best part about this manwha is that it's easy to overlook its flaws. Give it a try and you won't be disappointed... or you might, in which case that's understandable. 8/10

Overall: AKA tl;dr
Story: 7. Decently written, easy enough to follow, intriguing and gripping, it does its job for action titles.
Art: 8. Well detailed characters, excellent environments, convincing and inspiring battle sequences and effects, and a realistic sense of pace and action.
Character: 9. Shuu is just awesome, his sisters are great, the people at the ECS are mired in mystery and unclear motives, while LEED is more brusque but at the same time even MORE mysterious, and, like the cogs of the clock, the character and story weave a good title.
Enjoyment: 8. You might not like the premise of psychic people fighting, or the insinuations of an incestuous relationship between the main characters, but if you don't hate those, you will like this title.

Zero: The Beginning of the Coffin. 8/10

If you did not find this review helpful, feel free to let me know. I'm more than happy to discuss the titles I review. Cheers.

Wow second review... anyways on to the review. to start off with if you're into the shounen/lighter seinen genres this will probably appeal, don't be turned off by the art at first as it gets better and the fights are veeeeeerry detailed. The story pretty much goes like this on the planet there are people who can control mental energy which is measured in G's(?) and the main character is something special called a zero sample and his whole body was made to use tremendous amounts of G's to the extent that if he becomes unstable he could destroy an entire city. Because of this he and his sisters are on the run dodging Korean ESPer forces, which is where the story begins... As this is Korean manwha I was expecting more story wise but sometimes its like Ive already figured out the next chapter... and to be correct in my assumptions is oh so annoying. Even so there are times when I'm reading this when i need to slow down and go back a few chapters because this manwha seems to pull stuff outta nowhere that have no explanation manwha-wise. Guess that means I should go play the game. Overall this manwha is great even if the characters were mildly shallow in their development.I will be reading this again after playing the game just for the fights and the overall story value which I hope to get a better understanding of. Lol, my grammar sucks. XD

This going to be short and crisp. I loved it. Beautiful concept and even though there are a lot of parts where you're just assuming things, I think that's one of the best parts about this manga. It keeps you guessing and on the edge!
I definitely recommend reading this!! I don't think genres matter that much if you love a good story and have an open mind. You may need to keep an open mind while reading(can't reveal much because of spoilers).
Characters were well rounded and the whole story just kind of fit together perfectly. I loved every single character and the best part was that even though there were the "bad guys", it was as if you couldn't even hate them!
It has a bit of gore and obviously has action and blood, but if you've read Tokyo Ghoul etc. it's not a big deal, really.

READ READ READ!! Guarantee you'll enjoy! :)

tl;dr: A manhwa with good concepts but a pretty bad usage of them.

The world with its various factions and systems involved was quite good. The battle system with the many different types of esper abilities was pretty great as well. However, this is a work designed to be a prequel to a game, and hence I have a pretty strong feeling that most of this was taken from that, because while both of these aspects seem like they're really well designed, it doesn't do much with them. For example, EMC and LEAD are shown in a good amount of detail with characters being shown as sympathetic from each side, but it is never made clear the exact difference between the two or why they're in conflict. The battle system is also pretty great, but there was an issue in that the battles were all kinds of strange in that the main character is supposed to be overpowered but is getting beaten constantly and beyond that just all around the battles didn't feel very fleshed out. In terms of the plot, it was fast moving and engrossing but by the time it gets to the end it feels a lot like it never really had much direction. Part of that is that the characters and the relationship set up established at the beginning was interesting, but it never really did anything with them, just hints that never got expounded on, and hence that part of the plot felt completely absent. The other issue is that in the absence of this the plot was rooted around random other issues centered around the zero sample and the conflict between EMC and LEAD, but that just got sort of confusing. Ultimately, it gets to an ending that's all sorts of a mess. I suppose that this was a prologue that was supposed to set things up for another work in a very specific way, but it just sort of goes off the rails at the end, with complete randomness in terms of character relationships and a bunch of sudden deaths, all in all making an ending that I believe was supposed to be bittersweet, but that instead simply felt bitter, and hence not that satisfying at all. The art was solid. 

The story is pretty decent, though in the beginning it may feel a bit too familiar to some. ESPers? 'Chosen' humans with superpowers who possess telekinesis and clairvoyance may seem too typical a storyline, but the manga itself is actually quite worth the read. However, The Author does pull off too much Deus Ex Machina, and hence sometimes situations seem less threatening than they should be. He DOES pull it off well in most cases though, which mostly makes up for it. Said Author also does some things that pushes a little on cruelty and does things that would probably be morally completely unacceptable. It's a bit hard for me to say it without giving any spoilers though so I'll just leave it at that. However, I WILL say that Yooshin is awesome as hell.

That Is All.