 Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. G.O. here and we're doing another first impressions on two particular Maga series that I'm really interested in and hopefully I can entice you to read them as well. These two series have something in common which I really love and that is the usage of Yo-kai and Urban Legends and monsters and creepy stuff like that. Of course the execution for both series are wildly different, but still it's exciting to have show-and-jump, current show-and-jump material involving Yo-kai. That is something that I'm very passionate about and one of my favorite things to read up on when it comes to Japanese folklore and history and all that stuff. So let's begin with Doron Dororon. So essentially the story involves the character of Dora Sasaki, this young kid who is not necessarily the smartest in town but he has a lot of courage and a lot of heart and wants to do good in the world. This is a alternate reality where Samurai are still rolling around and they're protecting modern-day Japan from Mononoke or Evil Spirits. Yo-kai are more neutral, if you will, to kind of vaguely summarize things for this video and Mononoke are typically classified as Evil Spirits. So the Samurai are tasked with eradicating these Evil Spirits and they are seen in a positive light throughout the city. Our main protagonist wants to keep a promise to his departed mother about becoming a Samurai because he's not necessarily the smartest and he figures he's not going to get into college or doesn't want to continue that line and she is actually supportive of that idea when she was alive and was excited because he would do something awesome like that and use his ferocious strength to protect the people of Japan and stuff like that. So it's a really heartwarming scene between the two even though it's said in the past it does shape the protagonist towards the future. He fails the entrance exam to become a Samurai, so other hijinks ensue where he is able to meet a particular character in the series Mononoke that is not evil and actually wants to protect people as well called Kusanagi. If you know your lore there's a lot of name puns here with swords and all that stuff so you can probably imagine where the story is headed after that. I don't necessarily want to ruin everything because as of this video there's only one chapter for me to talk about but I do think this series has potential. It has a really cool premise and wonderful art. I really enjoyed the art and the usage of heavy inks to depict the Mononoke or evil spirits. At one point you see this monstrous version of a Tengu and he just looks super intimidating and the way the art is depicted to highlight that is a real treat. There's also visual aspects of the swords abilities and stuff like that that remind me of sort of like cel-shaded look to it. Some of that is really visually striking. Now the main character is interesting enough, of course, there's only one chapter so I can't really tell you overall what his arc is going to be. It could go so many ways. I just hope that he becomes a worthy character for people to cheer and root for. One thing about the series that I hope doesn't that it doesn't fall into is the trappings of tournament arcs and exams and training arcs and stuff like that. Maybe they could do things a little bit differently. I hope there's no mandatory training arc with several students and you meet other teammates and I don't need that. Hopefully it's a more simpler story of Samurai-esque cops fighting against monsters. That's all I need. And obviously the partnership that is going to form between the character of Kusunagi and our main lead, Dora, I'm very much looking forward to that. It does have tropes here and there and it's nothing we haven't seen before in many shows and manga and stuff like that, but it's still nice to have a concept like that and you have the different viewpoints of the world, right? Coming together and forming this team to set out and try and change things and bring happiness to people. So I look forward to that cool action, interesting premise. Hopefully it doesn't get canceled. Next up is Ayashimon. Now, this is really different from what I just talked about. In Ayashimon, we follow the character of Maruo as he is looking for a way to use his strength in a positive manner. He is freakishly strong. He's an abomination. Nobody can explain how strong this character is. And eventually he gets turned down from other stuff that he wanted to work at and it doesn't really work his way. He's kind of a knucklehead and isn't really the smartest kid in the block, but he's tough and he's got the will of iron. As the story progresses, we meet the character of Udara and she is being pursued by these evil Yakuza type characters and Maruo soon finds out that they're not exactly what he thinks they are. They're not human and are actually yokai-esque monsters. Now, this takes some liberties. They're not referred to as yokai at first. They are obviously based on the famous spirits and folklore and urban legend, but there's a twist to them. And they even reference that with gegege no kitaro easter eggs, which I really appreciate it. And Maruo saves the character of Udara and proceeds to make a pact with her and protect her as her subordinate in this crazy world. Now, the interesting thing is that yes, this is a mob-esque story with supernatural elements. That's fantastic. The character of Maruo has a deep fascination with manga and he's a huge fan of manga and he's read Dragon Ball and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Fist of the North Star and stuff like that. So he admires characters like Jotaro Goku and he constantly makes reference to the different manga that he's read. And while that seems cool at first, I was a little bit put off by it because everything else about the series is awesome and really serious and cool. And it just, like I said, it just took me out of the experience and I'm like, oh, I get it. You want to be funny towards the audience and make references to other manga from Shonen Jump and the library and then their catalog, I guess. That's fine. But I don't think the story needs that. You could just say he wants to be like his favorite manga heroes and that's it. I don't need the name drop of Goku and him trying to do a Kamehameha wave and stuff like that. It just it makes me realize that, yes, I am reading a Shonen Jump title and he's making weird random references while he's fighting deadly yokai monsters. But regardless, they team up the two characters of Maruo and Uradda and she turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of the previous mob leader of the different clans and all that stuff. Now, supposedly he passed away, but there's a conspiracy that he died and she's trying to prove it and take back something from her dad. As a result, there's sort of a coup and then disarray between the different clans and everything. They all split up into four main factions and they control behind the scenes what happens in Tokyo and all the different cities and all that stuff. And that's where our main character is going into. He's going to protect Uradda while also finding new fights to be a part of because that's what he wants to do. He wants to use his strength for something and he has a code of honor. He has manners when it comes to fighting, which is really interesting and nice to see of a character like that. He's not just this dumb-witted knucklehead character that just wants to brawl and, you know, have the time of his life in a fight. There's more to him. The art is really good. The fights are dynamic and interesting to look at, not hard to follow at all. There are some really cool splash pages and panels of the fights and the fluidity of his attacks have been just punching these monsters. There's also really cool panels where you see the actual look of the monsters and the yokai spirits. Really awesome stuff. Cool protagonist that hopefully gets to evolve as the series progresses in the character of Uradda. She's out for blood. And one of my favorite scenes came in the second chapter where she was just a badass. I'd love that so much. So between the two, Ayashimon has the better premise overall. But there's something interesting about Dororon that I want to see more of. So yeah, overall those are my first impressions. I'm really enjoying the two new series that I'm reading and hopefully they don't get canceled. But what about you guys? Have you read Ayashimon or Doron Dororon? I hope I said those two names right. A little bit of a tongue twister there. Let me know in the comment section down below what you thought. And if you haven't, what are some of your favorite supernatural themed manga? Very interested in checking that out as well. Thank you everybody for liking, commenting, subscribing. If you want to see more content like this, I talk about anime and manga on this channel. Hope you can subscribe and help the channel grow. Thank you everybody for tuning in. God bless. Stay safe out there. I will catch all of you on our next video.