Thanks, both of you. Bonnouji is indeed a good manga, if you appreciate the kind. The lack of any even moderately serious conflicts could be considered a problem, but it's a good read that always brings a smile on my face. I'd rate it 4/5 stars.
Now, let me present you an excellent manhwa I found a couple of days ago:
Noblesse by Son Je-Ho and Lee Gwang-Su
http://www.batoto.net/comic/_/comics/noblesse-r11I'm glad I didn't find Noblesse earlier. Or, well, start reading it. I honestly didn't expect much, but reading 307 chapters in 2-3 days (289 practically in one sitting, the rest the next day) was a memorable experience. It did take me a while to
really get into it (about 2 out of the 5 long arcs that are currently complete), but it was good from the start.
Noblesse is one of those stories where it's difficult to pinpoint the real main character. Raizel, the mysterious, quiet, elegant, seemingly all-powerful vampire who wakes up from a coffin at the start of the story (apparently having slept the last 820 years) is clearly an option. He undeniably the heart of his group. However, he's a bit colourless for a protagonist. I don't mean he's a bad character: he has mystery, depth and plenty of interesting scenes. He's just too quiet, too powerful in battle, and hides his emotions too well to be an engaging main character.
Fortunately, the authors realise this. That's why, instead of flooding the story with his internal monologue, they choose to keep his mystery, rarely allowing us a peek inside his head. Instead, they divert attention to the other characters around him. Interesting, deep characters such as Raizel's servant, Frankenstein, an enemy agent who switches sides, M-21, and our main window to the antagonists' side, Dr. Crombell. Frankenstein in particular is no doubt one of my top favourite characters ever. By far the deepest and most multi-dimensional character in the story, he's badass as fuck in battle, has an incredibly interesting past, and he's of course cool-looking (as almost every single character in the story). I especially love it when his sadistic side surfaces, and when he taunts his opponents in battle.
The storytelling has its weaknesses. It's unfortunately repetitive with its jokes (doesn't mean they aren't funny most of the time) character introductions and kidnappings. I'm also not happy with how the story after the first couple of arcs breaks its balance between the light-hearted school life and all the epic stuff. I'm fine with the ordinary students always playing the helpless victim parts, but after the first couple of arcs they quickly started to lose their screentime. I feel like it's been ages since I last saw Shinwoo kicking some punk's ass. Nevertheless, it is an engaging, thematically rich story with an interesting plot and a lot of good characters.
At first, the battles are somewhat repetitive, with the ordinary students always getting in trouble and Raizel and Frankenstain always coming to the rescue and utterly curb stomping the arrogant enemies. Not that I don't enjoy over-powered protagonists and seeing arrogant, evil enemies getting their due, but too much is too much. Fortunately, the battles keep getting better and more characters join the group, providing more moderately powered good guys to battle the increasingly powerful enemies, who are eventually able to give Frankenstein and even Raizel a run for their money. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the battles in the last three arcs are among the best I've ever seen. This'd make one hell of an action anime, I'm sure of it.
The comic is fully coloured, and I'd say that the art is very good. All character designs are individual and easy to differentiate. In the best tradition of manhwa, this story is filled with beautiful and elegant people, both men and women. Well, I never say no to eye-candy when it doesn't harm the story: there's little to no actual fanservice (which is actually a pity, Seira in particular is really hot). The action scenes are very well drawn, there's great motion and fluidity to the pictures, especially lately. Regarding the quality of backgrounds, I can't say great things about the BG art, but given that this is a fully coloured weekly webtoon and has decently long chapters, it's understandable that not a lot of attention can be paid on the backgrounds. At least there are rarely any white panels with just characters.
All in all, I'd definitely recommend this one to any friends of action and supernatural battles. This far outstrips the likes of Bleach and Naruto in terms of plot and depth, yet it still manages to provide at least as much action and entertainment.
Edit: After some deliberation and a few new chapters, I decided that 4½ stars is just a little too generous.
4/5 stars.Music: Blue Stahli mostly. Again, because I found it recently and don't really feel like listening to anything else. For battle scenes in particular, it fits well.
Throw Away is good for moodier scenes, I'd even say it's a perfect fit as M-21's theme. I also listened to Position Music's
Production Music Vol. 141 – Damned Anthem when the action got too heavy for the likes of
The Destroyer of All Things.