Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy
About the Mangaka
Okubo Atsushi is better known for his more recent work, Soul Eater. However he also assisted on the older series, Get Backers. B.Ichi is his first independent work where he did both the art and story.
About the Manga
While I enjoyed reading this in the Anthology, I couldn’t really get into it fully. Oddly, reading it in the tank format had the opposite effect, I got into it straight away 
The biggest difference between the anthology and the tank format is the paper, well, and the size hehe. The paper in the tank is near white which really does make a huge difference in a series like Soul Eater.
This males the designs stand out all the more and look a lot more vivid, it looks awesome truthfully.
I’m still not keen on the designs for a couple of the characters, and I find Atsushi’s prevalence to make the girls babes and guys geeky or ugly a bit annoying. In fact the only normal looking girl in the entire volume is Maka, the heroine. All the rest tend to be babes who get into a lot of fanservice positions hehe.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with this, but I feel that it does get overused a bit.
That said though I do like the character designs of the girls, and a lot of effort clearly went into coming up with them. Mt favourite has got to be the Blair Witch, and personally out of all of the chapters in this volume I preferred hers the most, since it was bloody funny.
Death’s son is the one character design, and character in general, I just hate. The design looks freaky and bizarre, but his personality is even worse. The other characters have their little quirks that make them funny, and add a bit of life to their personalities, he doesn’t. In fact he’s so flat he’s a piece of paper. I do like Patty and Liz Thompson, his weapons. And I found they had more personality and presence than him. Which makes reading chapters with him in more palatable. Naturally they’re babes who get into some rather ecchi situations hehe.
Story wise, there is no story…..yet, though I’m hoping this will change. This volume seems to have been about introducing the characters, showing their idiosyncrasies and personalities.
Yen Press did a good job on this release, and was glad to see no guttering issues. The translation was smooth and consistent with a good flow to it. I didn’t spot anything that felt out out of place. In fact the one section I was expecting them to change wasn’t, the name Shinigami-sama was left in, which gets big bonus from me. Most other publishers would have changed that (as they have in similar titles). The fonts and editing used in this volume are easy to read and follow as well, which is another good thing.
Overall I really enjoyed this volume, and I’m looking forward to future volumes. I’ll give it a few more volumes before I decide whether to add it to my Essential Read list or not.
Where to Buy
