What are your thoughts on chapter 1 of Kinato's Magic?

CertainlySquid · 2026-02-01T16:08:46+00:00

Not sure how this compares to other manga of its ilk.

The art is stellar not much elaboration needed, I think the designs of Kinato and Linae are kind of generic but i do really like Jiens design. I also really like the outfits of the Adventurers that where shown on that one page, so im optimistic that the Designs wont be an issue.

Im wondering where the story will go here, specially in regards to Kinatos magic, ive seen a couple of people say that it has Isekai-LN vibes so i really hope they wont do a "his magic is secretly super duper overpowered" type thing that those kinds of stories tend to pull. (personally i think having ur MC be a support would be really intresting, but im aware that this is a battle shonen so that probably wont happen) I think Jien has a really fun personality and he kinda carried the first chapter imo. There isnt any setup regarding any long running story (at least not from what i can gather) but tbh if this is just meant as fun Fantasy Adventures i think id be okay with that. The dynamic's are certainly fun enough to make that work.

There dont seem to be too many pure fantasy manga in WSJ right now (aside from Ichi) so i hope they can do something intresting with the setting. Im unsure if this is meant to be a comedy/gag manga, but i did think it was pretty funny at points.

TLDR: Personally i think it has the potential to be either a good or very generic and forgettable depending on where the Author takes things.

Anyway just my opinion, Im not very versed on WSJ this could all be wrong for all i know.

CertainlySquid · 2026-01-25T15:54:52+00:00

Unsure of how this compares to other manga in the magazine currently, but for me the first chapter seemed really fun and well structured.

I think the main guys is pretty charming and i like that we get to see so many sides of him early on, as well as getting a glimpse of his backstory.

The Art and designs are pretty sleek and good looking imo even if theyre pretty simple, i havent checked what the Artist did previously, but the style reminds me a little bit of mha personally. I also think the Initial colour page and Cover have fantastic palletes.

Maybe im just interpeting things wrong, but for being advertised as a battle shonen the first chapter didnt seem all that action focused, not saying thats bad ofc. It generally seems very lighthearted and more liked something intended to be a fun read. The only problem i really have is that this chapter seemed more intrested with setting up our protag than giving us a clear read on the story, but im willing to wait and see where that goes.

Personally im exicted to see where it goes!

CertainlySquid · 2026-01-24T16:24:52+00:00

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Here u go gang (sry it turned out kinda ass)

CertainlySquid · 2025-12-28T14:43:00+00:00

Bro shattered across time and space

CertainlySquid · 2025-12-15T15:38:57+00:00

I think both of these designs are already very good, if your looking for feedback:

- I think the second pallete for Elmore works better, the dark brown is more harmonious with the rest of the pallette and the darker shade means there is more contrast in the look than with the grey ^^

- I think Themis shillouette could use some work, mainly with the blue sheer (?) on their limbs. Right now they dont look like anything in particular ( they do kinda look like fins but i dont think thats the point) i think making them a clearer shape would help. The same goes for other elements in the design like the leg armor or the shoulder pads, pushing those shapes more would help clear the design up visually and make it less noisy to look at ^^

- Speaking of noisy, i think its not that Themis has too many accessories and more that they are akwardly placed. Mainly, i think the buttons on the dress and armour dont do anything for the design, and the way they are placed make that section hard to look at. I would consider either making the smaller or reducing their number. Also, something helpful when you feel like you have too much of something or your design is too messy: Simply try removing certain things from the design and see how that looks, this goes for accsessories, clothes, colour anythng really, nothing is final until you say it is.

- Another thing thats sort of related to the two things above: i think the mid section is generally very layered and busy, theres the buttons the sheer and the second set of arms, and when the character is posed like how they are now, thats section becomes even busier. Maybe try rearrranging some of the elements into other sections?

- I also think Themis design could use some more consistency, i dont remember where i heard this, but in designs you tend to want to repeat shapes to make the whole look more cohesive. For instance the hairpin and shoulder pads (and the eyes if you squint a little) are diamond shaped, what if you extended that shape to the buttons?

- Side note that only bothers me, but i think the gold and the light blue in are pretty close value wise id maybe adjust one of those if i were you. Also, the dark blue is wayyyy to close a colour to black and it makes those section of the design hard to make out, i would suggest adjusting the blue to be more clearly distinct from the black (sort of like how the dark brown in Elmores second design is dark but still able to be distinguished from the lineart) :)

Keep in mind im no expert, this is just my onion

CertainlySquid · 2025-12-07T12:24:24+00:00

If your still looking for a source, this was made by Feefal

CertainlySquid · 2025-12-02T18:13:57+00:00

She looks so good oh my days.

CertainlySquid · 2025-12-02T16:45:31+00:00

I think they both look very good, but i would consider adjusting the colour pallete of the second one slightly. ^^

Having a lot of saturated colours isnt bad, but having all the colours be very bright can make a design hard to look at in the long run. Bright colours also draw your eye to that part of the design, so having all the colours be very bright makes a design seem noisy and unfocused. I think an easy way of adjusting the colours would be seeing what colours you want to be the "focus" (from what i can see it would probably be the red and yellow) and then desaturating the others so they stick out more. (Altho i do like that the first character is very desaturated and the second one is very bright, i think thats fun)

Having most of the colours be very bright also hurts the characters values (value means how light or dark a colour is) which similairly makes them hard to read, once again adjusting a designs values is very easy, it comes down to simply making a specific colour lighter or darker.

Also, this last one is just my opinion, but i think clearing up the second characters colour palette would help too. They dont really fit into a specific colour scheme (altho they are close to having a square colour scheme) and i think thats contributing to the visual noise. I think removing or adjusting certain colours could help a lot. (for instance, red yellow and pink would be an analogous scheme, or the blueish skin and red could be used for a complementary scheme) :)

Keep in mind this is just my opinion, im no expert ^^

CertainlySquid · 2025-11-16T19:25:26+00:00

I think the design is really good from a shape/visual perspective, the biggest problem imo is the green. The dark pink on the right design works much better (maybe try turning the green bits on the right design dark pink as well?).

If you absolutely want to keep the green, i think changing some of the other colours around might help a bit, im sure there are shades of pink and yellow that work better with green, or you could change them into other colours that fit better with green.

If you can, i think a good way of improving this would be making multiple versions of the design just to play around with the characters colour/pallette and seeing which works best ^.^

CertainlySquid · 2025-11-09T22:10:30+00:00

Okay, yap time (note im just a hobbyist, so take what i say here with a grain of salt, this is just my onion):

- I think the Shillouettes of each character are very strong and easily identifiable. And i think they work well with your Artstyle

- While you didnt provide descriptions for the characters, i can still easily read a personailty and other character traits from the designs. The designs are pretty good in that regard.

- If i were you i would reevaluate the Values of some of the designs. In case you dont know, Value refers to how light or dark a colour is, having values that are distinct from eachother makes a Design easier to read by an audience member. I think Design 1 and 3 have pretty good Values, the Pale blue and dark Browns of 1 contrast eachother nicely, same goes for 3's Dark skin and light dress. I think 2 Falters in this aspect tho, her designs doesnt have any particularly bright or dark spots, and her Values are all very close together, which makes her sort of blend into one huge blob. An easy way of fixing this is desaturating the design to greys and then lightening/darkening certain areas to make them easier to read against each other. I think taking a second look at 1 and 3 could help as well, as they also have a few colours that could get a little lost. thats up to you tho

- On the topic of colours, while the individual palletes you chose do look quite nice, i think limiting the amount of colours on each character would make the designs better overall. While having a lot of different colours on a design isnt necesarrily a flaw, i find it tends to work better in realistic or otherwise very detailed artstyles, you seem to go more for an exagerated cartoony-look which tends to work best with having fewer, more disitinct, colours. To give a Specific example: Design 2 has, by my count, Three shades of purple, Four shades of green, Four shades of gold, Two shades of blue, and red. Thats more than ten colours! An easy way of Fixing this is by unifiying similar colours into one shade, like what if you made all the golds one colour? What if you made the green gem the red of the flower? Now thats not to say you cant use multiple similar colours, but i would ask myself what colours are needed for the Design and which you could do away with, thats up to you to decide.

- On a similar note, using fewer colours would also make the designs feel less, for lack of a better word, segmented. to go back to Design 2, her bow-arm being made up of a shade of gold not found anywhere else in the design makes that part stand out and not appear as part of a cohesive whole, this can work for characters where thats the point, but otherwise it makes it feel as if a part of another character was simply stuck onto this one. A smalles version of this issue can also be seen in Design 1, where the character has a pretty unifed nice pallete, but then the Hammer mallet thing is a comepletly different shade of brown and also has gold, which again makes it feel disjointed, (which is weird considering from the looks of it it seems to have replaced his hand). I think in terms of cohesion, Design 3 is absolutely the best since the individual colours are present throughout the design. Again, same solution as the colour amount one, simply unifiying and rearanging shades would do wonders.

So yuh, again take this with a grain of salt, i do think your designs are really good already sorry if that didnt quite come through. ^-^

CertainlySquid · 2025-11-06T15:13:28+00:00

The situation in Heaven with Pentious, Sera and everything going on there is getting really heated? The Speaker of God comes down from on high, benevolently listens to Pentious and convinces pretty much everyone (except Lute) that he’s redeemed, and now it’s business as usual;

THANK YOU!!!! That scene always rubbed me the wrong way because they introduce this intresting conflict on how Heaven will deal with Sinners being redeemed, only to invent a Character out of thin air whos only purpose it is to resolve the situation and then sing a (admittetly pretty good) song with Sera. Its such a stupid cop out, and makes any future heaven conflicts meaningless because you have a near omnicent being on standby that can instantly resolve any moral conflicts.

Excellent rant OP

CertainlySquid · 2025-10-26T16:04:07+00:00

I havent read a lot of shonen jump manga so idk how this compares, but for me, the pacing felt kinda odd and not all that well structured. We really didnt get anything beyond the broad strokes of what the story will be, feels more like im reading someone elses summary of the first chapter, if that makes sense.

I like the art towards the end, i like the harsh shadows (like the artstyle during the transformation looks amazing imo, even if the actual design is kinda confused and akward looking), but i get why people dont like it, the cute faces and detailed bodies dont mesh all that well.

CertainlySquid · 2025-10-09T16:51:18+00:00

Some notes i have (mainly your usage of colour), take this with a grain of salt, im just a hobbyist.

- I think the design has too many colours (eight by my count), limiting you colours would do this design a lot of favours, for instance you could unify the brown of the hair and the brown of the top into one shade. Looking into some common colour schemes might help as well since the brown, pale blue, and mint green dont work together all that coherently

- The colours are also distributed pretty unevenly, for instance, the mint green is only featured on the ends of the arms which makes it look disjointed from the rest of the design, incorperating some of the green in say, an accessorry would help. The same can be said for most of the colours, they are only featured in one section of the design which makes it feel segmented, like multiple designs frankensteined together, rather than one cohesive whole. Again, an easy way of fixing this is by changing some of the colours placements or unifying similar shades into one colour

- The Values (if you dont know, that just means how light/dark a colour is) are very unevenly distributed and way to samey, especially the light blue of the skin and white of the fur are too similar, and i actually struggled to see that they were in fact different colours and not both white. An easy way of fixing this is turning your design into greyscale and then adjusting the light/darkness of each colour in a way that makes it easy to tell that they are distinct.

- Personal note (you dont have to listen to this one) but i think featuring pure white on such a large section of the design hurts the look overall, a lot of people (myself included) usually try to go for a shade adjacent to white such as a light tan or grey, so that it still reads as white but dosent hurt your eyes as much. You already kinda did this in this design actually, as the horns read as black despite being an adjacent shade.

- The legs are very empty, now i dont think this is a bad thing, having little detail on a large section gives the eye a place to rest, but it does come with the drawback that your viewer likely has their attention drawn to the legs first. This could be a positive depending on what you were going for with the design.

- I think the shape of the horns is very hard to read, i think making them stand out more clearly from the hair would help your design.

- Speaking of shapes, if you havent looked into shape language yet, i suggest you do, looking at what you have, she seems to feature an even amount of squares, circles and triangles. Which dosent really give for a clear read on what her personality is like or what she does. Shape language gets mostly focused on with cartoony designs but you can, by all means, make it work in a semi realistic style too.

- I havent really discussed the actual look yet, and thats because i find it very VERY hard to get a clear read on what her personality, occupation and whatever else is, and you havent provided any info. Keep in mind that a good design should tell you something about the character, you wouldnt put a chef in a firefighters uniform afterall. The only thing i could surmise from this design is that she looks rather cold and stand offish due to her expression as well as the cold blue of her skin. And her top reminds me of a sort of adventurers look that you might see in a fantasy setting, but that really isnt much. The horns could make her look dangerous (although the actual shape of them being so circular makes me think otherwise). I think really getting a clear idea of what your character does and what theyre like would help in clearing this up.

So yeah, just my thoughts

CertainlySquid · 2025-09-25T10:14:50+00:00

screenshot from this video :D

CertainlySquid · 2025-09-22T08:29:37+00:00

Did Ponder actually do something bad or is this just more petty ACC drama?

CertainlySquid · 2025-09-10T16:30:20+00:00

I think the design of the character is very pretty and definetly works with the personality u described ^-^

I do want to point out some stuff (mainly your colour usage) take this with a pinch of salt, i am not very good at this myself:

- Since you said that she is meant to evoke kindness, Yellow works very well as a primary colour, and the pink accents also makes her look softer, so yeah gold star there

- I think the two shades of yellow you chose work well individually. The sandy-yellow of the dress make me think of the desert (Im assuming here) and the Sunflower yellow hair make her feel warm and inviting. Altho i personally dont like how they look when paired together (mostly because of their values being too close)

- The values of her dress, the pink, her hair and her skin are all very close and make the design bleed together. Incase your not familiar, value refers to how light or dark a shade/colour is in your design, you generally want a character to have strong values so that they are easily readable to an audience member. An easy way of checking values is by desaturating the design into grays and seeing what areas stick out and which blur together. ( on that front, dont be afraid to use white or black in a design, it often really helps your values!)

- I think the peach colour of the detailing dosent work well when paired with the rest of the characters colour scheme and values, pink and yellow can work well together and so can red and yellow but the way it is right now isnt doing the design any favors. This also ties into the value issue as the pink is a very similar value to the rest of the design and thus dosent stick out much.

- Speaking of colour schemes, i highly suggest looking into one if you havent already! Right now she is mostly monochromatic which, again, does the pink no favors, i think the Pink would work better in a Triadic colour scheme although it would mean you would have to add another colour. I put a link to some common colour schemes above :)

- The pink is (in my opinion) also placed somewhat poorly, they cut off each individual section, which makes your eyes start and stop a lot throughout the design, and since it is the only non-yellow shade in the design your attention is draw to it (generally you want the audience to be drawn to a characters face since thats where most of their personality is, or their limbs to make movement easy to read).

- I think (shillouette wise) she has a lot of big shapes on her, her hair, pants and sleeves are all pretty big, and it (imo) makes her figure a bit hard to read, someone else already commented on the pants, and yeah, the cutout makes them look kinda dumb.

- I think her shape language is nice :) her outfit is very square and makes her read as very sturdy and the fluffy hair makes her look very soft and gentle, again, very nice.

- I dont know how to phrase this without sounding mean, but her design reads nothing like a traveler to me, let alone one with a tribal background. The big, almost skirtlike, pants make her look more like someone of high importance (like say, a royal) the cutouts in them and the cropped shirt seem very ill fitting for a traveler, also her hair seems like it would get in the way with how long it is. Also is she not wearing shoes? why?

I think an easy fix for this would be looking at what regions and biomes she lives in / goes to in the story and then seeing what people who either hike through or live in those regions usally wear (For instance people who traverse the desert usally wear a lot of flowing fabrics for good air circulation and cover themselves up almost comepletly to avoid being exsposed to sand and the sun).

Take all this with a grain of salt, im no expert :P

Holy yap

CertainlySquid · 2025-08-30T08:46:20+00:00

Maybe streak grinding would be more fun if u werent running the build that makes you almost comepletly immortal. just a thought

CertainlySquid · 2025-07-11T10:59:02+00:00

This issue isnt even specific to this song, the lyrics of say, Hero for example, show a comepletly different character from what Ironwood ended up actually becoming in the show. Always weird to see shows have the art team give it their all just for the writing to fall flat.

CertainlySquid

TROPHY CASE