I received an arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

So I came in to this manga super intrigued in how this would adapt my favorite light novel series of all time. What makes the Monogatari series so great is how wonderfully timed, humorous, and quick-witted the banter between characters seems, as well as the super interesting characters and supernatural events.

So is the manga able to maintain what makes the light novel so good? Sadly it loses a lot from this adaptation. The witter banter is scaled back significantly, even more so than the anime, which at least left in enough to not feel as empty. Don't get me wrong here, as the manga has some really good sequences, and nails jokes at a decent pace. It's just due to the structure of manga and panels, if you've delved in to this world before, you know it has sacrificed a lot. Due to said structure it has no choice, but to edit out so much of the conversations, which left it feeling not quite whole.

Thankfully the plot itself doesn't suffer in the manga, so if you prefer a more straight forward nature in this style, it does its job. The artwork is fantastic, and I really enjoyed the effort the artist put in here. Characters look, act, and feel as they should. Another nice thing the artist has done, is give their own touch to the characters. The characters of course follow the original designs, but it is done without looking like straight copies of the light novel art, or the anime.

I think in the end, this manga may please some who may not have checked out the light novels or the anime first. It's not a terrible starting point in that regard, yet even then I recommend people consume this in either of its other media forms as to not miss out on what truly makes this series amazing in the first place. As for anyone that has consumed this series in another format, there isn't any reason I can recommend needing to check this out, unless you want it for your collection.

I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5 if I could, but rounding it up to a 3 since it isn't an option.

To be honest, I feel like the way the craziness is portrayed, I would enjoy this in fast paced anime episodes. Same feeling I had with Nichijou. The manga format just isn't doing it for me. Would be nice to see an anime adaptation

Tough rating here. I've been a fan of Dirty Pair series, especially the anime since I was a teenager. The stories in this book are written well by Haruka Takachiho the original creator, and it features that classic Dirty Pair humor. I just wasn't a huge fan of Hisao Tamaki's character designs for Kei and Yuri, and the ridiculous proportions he gave the girls. It was a huge departure from the original character designs and was quite a bit off-putting.

This is another of those times I wish Goodreads had a .5 rating system, and a 4 star review is just too high for this manga, so it's getting a 3 from me.

This book is very good at teaching you the information, but not so good at getting you ready for the exam. Especially the practice test stuff on the included CD-Rom. The questions are too basic, and don't break down in to scenarios. I receommend this book as part of your studying, but it is not a complete package. Definitely look for better written scenario driven questions and interactive performance based to help prepare for the test after reading this.

As someone who passed on the first time, I would never have done it with this book alone.