Billy Bat: le epic Manga review

good morning good evening good night here i am to all my friends, pals, and fans for my first ever: spacehey manga review.

Im not new to reviewing things; ive dabbled here and there within discord servers and within echo chambers but IT IS however... the first review ive made for the public eye. So i guess i should just put it out there now that these are my own opinions and if you disagree i dont give a fuck!!!!!!!!

For the first subject of my review: here is the latest series ive finished: Billy Bat by Takashi Nagasaki and Naoki Urusawa. Naoki is also the author of another popular series, Monster! Which I feel most people have heard about. (If you havent, you should look into it.)

Billy Bat ran for a long while frm 2008 to 2016, and i would say is a sort of mystery story if your into that sort of thing. It follows the main character Kevin Yamagata, a comic artist trying to make an honest living in the midst of the cold war (1949) as he finally reaches a sort of success with the character and comic "Billy Bat". (title drop?!?!) Upon creating the comic, Kevin Yamagata learns that he might have unconsciously copied the character as he was serving in an occupied Japan. Obsessed with getting permission to monetize and to keep drawing the character, he travels to Japan again to track down the original creator. While on his search for the author, he learns that the character and comic he drew isnt a character at all, but the representation of a thousand year old prophecy/legend. (maybe even god???? its complicated) 

It gets weird after that and without going into crazy amounts of spoilers....it gets reaaally weird. But its like, cool. 

plot: 9/10

The characters themselves are also very interesting and i found myself attached to some of them, namely the series' main antagonist, Kurusu. The manga uses real world historical figures and people a lot in the series so it gets kind of surreal when you know that somewhere out there there is a person whos favorite character in the Billy Bat manga series is Lee Harvey Oswald, which wouldn't even be that weird when you see how they characterize him. My only gripe with the characters is how many are introduced only to be sidelined or killed off in a few chapters. Its a common criticism amongst any media with an abundance of characters but i feel as though my feelings are still valid. Not a fan of the Women in Refrigerators trope, and there's a few if i remember correctly. Despite a lot of characters being thrown away to tie up loose ends that the author fucking created, none of them are bad at all, just kind of easily forgettable if you arent paying attention. The takes on historical figures are exceptionally hilarious, hitler is in it BTW. its kind of insane. 

characters: 6/10

As for the ARTE and VISUALZ. Its really good.... Character designs are top notch and arent your run of the mill animay art style. Theres a lot of funky shapes and silhouettes, and i particularly enjoy when theres an older character on the page. The design for the character of Billy Bat is also very cute! Hes kind of just a boy and i enjoy him. I think hes supposed to be a sort of in universe Mickey Mouse and in that regard i think Urusawa knocked it out of the park. Me personally, i can really see how Billy Bat would have been a popular character in the real world. So if that is what he was going for, then i think it was executed very well. Theres some awkward looking parts in the series, like when hes depicting real world people such as JOHN F. KENNEDY, where the stylization is completely lost in comparison to the rest of the characters and settings, but they were never anything that made me lose interest immediately. It was just kind of jarring. 

art: 8/10

On MyAnimeList, i rated the manga a 10 but i think looking back on it now id probably be more comfortable saying that Billy Bat deserves a good comfortable 8. Which looking at the MAL page right now, i think most people agree with that. Its really good... like, really good, and if mysterious convoluted plot lines tickle your fancy then i think you would really enjoy this manga. There were just a lot of small things that botheedr me that ended up piling up as i finished the series. At the start, I think both authors really knew what they wanted Billy Bat to be and how they were going to go about creating the character, but towards the end i feel as though they lost sight of that. They ended up making the Billy Bat character wayyy bigger than i think they both thought he was gonna be. So when it came to ending it i just felt a bit like there were supposed to be more. That aside, I did heavily enjoy reading it, and yes... i cried. multiple times. If i had the time i would definitely reread it as well. For now, however. It is a solid 8/10. 

My favorite manga to read are in the romance genre. Not sure how i got to reading JFK assassination (ILLUSTRATED) but it was an interesting and fun read nonetheless. 

8/10