Sensei no Bulge

Author: Horikoshi Kouhei

Alternative title: Barrage, Bulge of the Battle Star, Bulge of the War Planet, 戦星のバルジ

Type: Manga

Chapters: 16

Tags: action, shounen, fantasy, sci-fi

Living in Industria which is under constant attack of aliens isn't easy, not for a poor boy Astro who needs to feed a whole bunch of orphan kids because they are his only family. But one day change everything. He meet prince Bulge who looks exactly like him and offers him to became prince instead because he wants freedom.

This story might have a very non-original base (prince and poor boy are swapped) but the thing is that it was done somehow originaly. It was full of nice ideas, like that one about alien invasion in the world which is not so developed was pretty unique. I haven't read much manga with this theme (only Gintama) so this was definately a nice plus and I was trully interested where it will go. Sadly story is just too short for any much deepness or good conclusion but still I enjoyed it so potential was definately there.

Art was very nice, I mean I love art in Boku no Hero Academia and this is from the same author so no surprise. He really does nice smooth lines, characters expressions or designs for clothing and weapons, well he just hit my shounen taste I guess =)

Characters, well as in other shorts which I enjoyed they are pretty good. The main duo Astro and Tiamat had very good chemistry which was nice to watch and I would really love to be with them longer. Astro for a shounen character was very typical but his motivation was something new, sometimes it get bit frustrating that he was all about family here and there but in the end it was still good. Tiamat was great supporting/teaching character, actually I wish Horikoshi will use him somewhere again because he was strong but his awkwardness around women was really funny XD Tico is only main girl here and she too has a lot of interesting traits which was sadly not used fully because of shortness. So yeah characters were done good.

Overall. Very nice story which had a lot of good ideas and interesting characters but sadly wasn't able to pull everything out of it.

Rating: 8/10 

(if the ending wasn't rushed and this was longer I'm sure I would give it better rating)