Ask yourself this question. Do I really need a new series to read? Do I really want another series about people with powers and some mild ecchi scenes? If you said yes, then this is for you. Sayabito is fun and drops you right in the middle of this confusing world complete with a grip of new terms and new powers to have to understand. It takes a few chapters to understand what's going on but once you do, this takes off. It's fun and has some good battles in it. Unfortunately for me, this does nothing to stand out and because of that I don't feel the need to continue. So it's good, but not so good I need to know what's going on.

This is a very intriguing concept. I really like the different characters you met. It was giving full metal alchemist in the beginning where u meet different people and see how different areas they visit live and then the main characters having to clean up messes. I really want to see how this series goes because it’s a bit different the the usual manga I read that set it a similar time/universe.
I’m excited to see how the main characters handle future situations and issues. I think I would want to read the next books.

I had issues with the manga not loading on the app, so it was a technical struggle to read, but once I managed to fix it, it was worth it. The story, overall, is not revolutionary. But I enjoyed the characters and the dynamic between them, and look forward to seeing what happens in volume 2.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

I really enjoyed this, would definitely like to continue the story. Personally feel like anyone who likes Soul Eater would enjoy!

I enjoyed the art style in this manga. It's a cross between a fighting manga and a fairytale style one. The story seemes to start up like it was picking up from a previous volume. But this was the first volume, so I'm not sure if that was by design and it gets figured out later. The story wasn't bad but it wasn't my favorite either. The winner for me with this manga was definitely the art.

Overall I would say this was an enjoyable story.

Here’s what I liked:
- the main characters and their unique situation (not saying anything else as to not spoil this)
- the side characters all had emotional and interesting stories
- the pace of each arc, we go through two story arcs in just this one manga volume so they go by pretty fast, which is nice because you really don’t need to spend any extra time on them in my opinion

What I didn’t like:
- the nudity of the main female character and the weird panty-shot during one of the fights
- some of the magic fighting (regular combat fighting was fine though) scenes were hard to understand what was happening, it wasn’t explained in words and the images were a bit confusing.
- not quite sure how the story is supposed to continue. So far we’ve established two main characters but besides their government job I don’t really have any story or motivation that will carry them through the series. This makes me not as interested in reading the next volume.

Overall it was an enjoyable read but I had a couple of problems and I’m not super interested in continuing the story.

Thank you to netgalley, the publishers, and the author/artist for the ARC I read.

Really enjoyed this one.

Loved the art work.

I also love the front cover to this.

Hope to get a physical copy one day.

I enjoy a good manga story and this was an imaginative one. I thought the artwork was good and the story was engaging. Sayabito are human weapons like swords and they bond with their users. If they lose the person they are bonded to they might wither away. Rivia is a Sayabito and travels with her partner Kuifa to find Sayabito who have lost their wielders. As they hunt and find the Sayabito they encounter adventures and this is a story of their travels. This was enjoyable and engaging. Good graphics too.

Copy provided via Netgalley

My thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for an eARC of this book to read and review.

This didn't overly wow me. The world was definitely not ours, nor at a time I could put my finger on. It seems to be a magic or science system that is more advanced than our own. I wasn't sure if the Sayabito were cyborgs or what exactly they were. They definitely could pass as human, so I guess a cyborg/hybrid creation made to fight?

The world building was...not enough for me. The artwork was good, but I either need the read book or a larger screen, because the action scenes were not overly comprehensible to me sometimes. The storyline didn't grab me either. Very black/white, good/bad. Good guys win, bad guys are apprehended with some damage but no killing, HEAs all around.

One thing I didn't really appreciate is that the "ownerless" Sayabito were female and they both lost it after their male master died. Can we see a female Sayabito who doesn't immediately try to die or latch onto someone else to feel fulfilled and non-suicidal? Maybe show a male one going through the same thing or a female one who doesn't lose her mind and will to live? So that was annoying. Yes, we females, all we do is follow our male master blindly and lose our minds when he dies and we have no one around to tell us what to do!

I was waffling between two and three stars, but after recalling that rather sexist rendering of female characters, I decided to round down from my 2.5. Not a bad book and I'm touchier than most when it comes to how females are portrayed in fiction, so YMMV with this one.

2, not bad but not what I was expecting, stars.

This is a concept that works exceedingly well in the manga format. Complex characters with personalities and motivations unexpected based on their appearance. It has plenty of action and a plot centered on corruption and power. Violence of course, but used to proper affect.

This manga had No Right to do the things it did to my heart. I wasn't sure I would like this in the beginning, it seemed like a typical Shonen Manga. But by the end of this Manga I was nearly in tears with the heart wrenching story Uta Isaki was portraying.
Like I'm overall kinda meh on the overall premise, but also after that last "episode"/Story arc. I desperately need to know what other stories Isaki will include in their story going forward.
SO I will probably continue, at least one more volume because I can see myself becoming attached to the Protagonists and the going-ons in their world.

3.5 stars

Rivia and Kuifa are addo (wielder) and sayabito (sword) who travel the land searching for unregistered sayabito, human weapons tightly bonded to their wielders. Their goal is to register and protect vulnerable sayabito who lost their wielders in a great war. Though they have different approaches, they share the common goal of carving out a life in peacetime.

Human-looking weapons? Sign me up. As with most first volumes, there is a lot of setup in this volume but the chapters are longer and I enjoyed learning what a sayabito and addo are. There is a surprise twist with Rivia and Kuifa that I didn't see coming and that surprise really made me happy. Obviously, there was going to be something special about these two but I didn't guess what that specialness was. As the story continued, I really enjoyed it. I liked seeing what happens when a sayabito loses their addo and how it affects them. Rivia and Kuifa are complete opposites but they manage to work together in harmony.

The colored pages are really well done and I love it when that gets added to a manga. It brings it to life a little bit. I did have some conflicting feelings about the drawings. Some scenes are well thought out and others feel like very little time was put into the page or panel.

The reason I didn't give this four stars is because I had a hard time with the speech bubbles. It is really hard to tell who is talking sometimes. There are a lot of speech bubbles just floating instead of being attached to the person talking. I think that needs to be fixed in order to make the manga more readable.

Overall, I like the manga and want to continue, I just hope the artist improves as we go along and the speech bubbles are more clear about the speaker.

Summary:

The world is at war. As one might expect, this has forced humanity to create new ways to battle. For example, some people were specifically crafted to become weapons on the battlefield. That term is more literal than you might expect.

Rivia is a weapon in human form. When needed, she can turn into a weapon that only Kuifa can wield. The two are fiercely bonded by necessity as much as anything else. And together, they must face astonishing odds.

Review:

Sayabito: Swords of Destiny Vol. 1 is the first in a new fantasy series, and I'll confess that it was totally that bright and happy cover that originally caught my attention. Still, it seemed like it was worth the read!

So, I imagine most readers have seen this sort of concept before. There have been several series where people have turned to weapons (my favorite being Soul Eater). That's good and bad. Good, because the subject matter can feel more comfortable, letting us focus more on the characters and story. Bad, because it has a lot to live up to.

Ultimately, I found Sayabito: Swords of Destiny Vol. 1 to be okay. Not bad, not great. I'm hoping it'll improve in future volumes – though I can't promise I'll be checking them out.

Highlights:
Manga
Magical War
Human-Turned-Weapons

Will I continue the series? No

Thanks to Kodansha Comics and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

In a post-war era there is no greater weapon than the sword… except maybe the sword people. In this tale special weapons called Sayabito are actual real living (and voraciously eating in some cases) beings. Although not quite human, the Sayabito are sentient beings who work under the control of their Addo. An Addo is responsible for caring and protecting their Sayabito, while the Sayabito protects and serves their Addo’s every command.
The story follows a Sayabito and Addo pair who are government agents that specialize in tracking rouge Sayabito. After the war there were so few Sayabito that the government decided to enlist them in a registry both to protect the Sayabito but also to have them serve and keep the peace. Rogue Sayabito are those who have not yet registered with the government.
Kuifa and Rivia are an amusing pair. Their dynamic is very interesting. It has me intrigued and already wanting to pick up the next volume. Especially since the first doesn’t delve into their backstory very much. The two play off of each other very well but both have their strengths when it comes to connecting with the people they encounter on their missions. This seems to end in the exasperation of their boss who is always trying to find loopholes to explain their shenanigans.
Overall this was a very fast paced read and kept you moving through the story. I really enjoyed this tale and look forward to where it will go to next!

Rating: 3.61 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 3/5
-Cover (+art): 3.75/5
-Story: 3/5
-Writing: 5/5
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
-Action: 5/5
-Adventure: 3/5
-Sci-Fi: 2.5/5
Type: Manga
Worth?: I suppose

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

I won't lie, I was very confused on who was suppose to be what. The adventure in this manga is soso and the action is, well, action. There wasn't much that stood out in this one besides the fact that I was confused for a good majority of the time.

**ARC provided by NetGalley for honest review**

Sayabito: Swords of Destiny, Volume 1 by Uta Isaki takes place in a post-war fantasy world in which two partners, a young human weapon and her wielder are working for the government to find, rescue, and protect other sayabitos (human weapons) across the country. The pair come across several cases in need of help just in this first volume, which leads to a lot of good action scenes and varying characters.

I thought the concept of this story was really cool, two military partners bonded for life and trying to restore their world after a horrible war, with the semi-magical twist of one of them being able to turn into a weapon (think soul eater vibes but more serious). I also really enjoyed what I learned of the main two characters. The thing I had a little bit of trouble with was some of the action scenes were so fast paced(?) or drawn(?) in such a way that it was hard to tell quite what was happening in some panels. Also, we kept moving from character to character so quickly that I felt there was a lack of explanation to the worldbuilding and you never really got to know anyone too much, even the main characters were still pretty unknown by the end of the volume.

This all could be a first volume problem, with more to come and expand in further volumes, but it didn't really give me enough to make me want to continue reading more. All in all, it was a solid read, but maybe would fare better in anime form?

This was a really nice manga! I loved the concept of Addo and Sayabito. The drawings were really nice too and I’m excited for part 2!!

Cute story. A world with living swords and their wielders, addos. A pair of them travels the country, registering the swords that have lost their wielders. It was a tad unclear at first which of the pair was which, and then it was something else entirely. In three chapters, the pair help two swords to find new addos. Both cases have heartwarming solutions. There’s some gratuituous nudity, which is a bit annoying, but otherwise the illustrations are lovely.

Thank you netgalley for an advanced ARC of this manga

Rhis was a very fun read and I look forward ro reading more and seeing where rhe story goes

Nice artwork and the story was just "ok". I would have preferred to have less confusing verbiage. Wouldn't read again but definitely don't feel like reading was a waste of time. Everyone should give it a chance.