 * Your list is public by default. Alternative TitlesJapanese: スピリットサークルMore titlesInformation Volumes: 6 Chapters: 45 Status: Finished Published: May 30, 2012 to Mar 30, 2016 Demographic: Seinen Seinen StatisticsScore: 8.481 (scored by 1898818,988 users) Ranked: #16322 based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.Popularity: #378 Members: 46,298 Favorites: 2,350Resources |
Details Characters Stats Reviews Recommendations Interest Stacks News Forum Clubs Pictures Ranked #163Popularity #378Members 46,298SynopsisFuuta Okeya, a 14-year-old student, can see ghosts and wears a bandage on his left cheek to hide his striking birthmark. One day, a girl with a scar on her forehead named Kouko Ishigami, accompanied by a ghost of a tall and friendly man, transfers into his class.Fuuta quickly takes a liking to Kouko, wondering if it might be love at first sight. After waking up crying from a strange dream involving her, he feels a nostalgic connection to Kouko and becomes determined to befriend her. However, a chain of events forces Fuuta to reveal his birthmark to Kouko, to which she declares him to be the enemy of her life. A furious Kouko explains that the two are bound by reincarnation, and that Fuuta's birthmark is a curse she engraved on him in one of their past lives to recognize and eventually defeat him.Kouko brings out a circular object made of flames known as the "spirit circle" and attacks Fuuta, pushing him off a flight of stairs. As he falls, Fuuta is thrown back into the insight of one of his previous lives. Spirit Circle chronicles Fuuta's journey back and forth his several past lives as he gradually unravels the mysteries behind his apparent bad blood with Kouko.[Written by MAL Rewrite]Background_Spirit Circle_ was nominated in the Best Comic category for the 48th Seiun Award in 2017.The series was published digitally as an English simulpub by Crunchyroll Manga, and in print by Seven Seas Entertainment from October 10, 2017 to January 8, 2019. MALxJapan -More than just anime- Characters Reviews  Mar 30, 2016 I'm afraid Spirit Circle, by Mizukami Satoshi, will like the excellent but often forgotten Hoishi no Samidare, become only a shadow hit, a read for the people who dig deeper and want different kinds of shonen. So let me try to convince you with this review to grab a book and read this very interesting story.Art : 6/10Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first : yes, compared to tenors of the shonen manga, the art is...Meh. Although this is an artstyle that feels really distinctive, and works quite well for expressions and faces overall, the real weakness lies in the background, who... most of the time, are generic, or just like detail. If you want your manga to be only eye candy, like Blame or Berserk, this won't be one for you. Story : 8/10The story will let us follow Fuuta Okeya, a 14-year-old boy who can see ghosts. And this ability is absolutely not the focus of the story. To try and not spoil too much, his encounter with a young girl who just transferred in his neighborhood will lead him into reliving his past lives, to try and understand why the girl wants to kill him so bad.I found the premise quite original and refreshing. After each past life, it's not like the protagonist gains a new skill, or becomes better at fighting : the real heroes of this story are all of the past lifes of Fuuta, but more on that later. But Spirit Circle isn't just about those past lives : there's an overarching plot, with completely bonkers consequences like only Mizukami Satoshi can think of (let us remember, he's the one who thought of a biscuit hammer that would destroy the world.) And delving deeper in the mystery of the relation between Fuuta and the girl who wants to kill him, Kouko, is really compelling and interesting.Characters : 8/10The character design is pretty redundant, as most of the characters with which Fuuta and Joujo interacts, even in their other lives, have the face of everyone they know (implying they are not the only one reincarnating). But each of these characters have a different personnality, a different goal. In each of his past lives, Fuuta often doesn't act like he does in the present, and he did some pretty horrible things in some lives, even. Watching his present self come to terms with that is really interesting.Kouko is also a great character, even if her past lives are mostly seen through Fuuta's eyes. She is as well fleshed out as Fuuta in that regard, and her motivations for trying to slay Fuuta are also understandable.Sadly, the rest of the supporting cast, like Fuuta's friends, aren't very interesting in the present. The only exceptions are for East and Rune, spirits that accompany Kouko and Fuuta in the present, but sadly they play quite a lacking role before the end of the manga. It would have been nice to see a bit more character interaction.Overall : 8/10Spirit Circle is a compelling manga that will make you think about afterlife, reincarnation, and responsability. Can you be held accountable for a really horrible thing you did in a past life ? By asking that question, the author takes us on a journey through time to try and discover the worth of a human soul, and ultimately, the worth of who we are, today. Reviewer’s Rating: 8 What did you think of this review? Nice 0 Love it 0 Funny 0 Confusing 0 Informative 0 Well-written 0 Creative 0Show all  Jan 13, 2017 Satoshi Mizukami is a great storyteller with a clear vision of what he's creating. Maybe you're already familiar with his other works (like Samidare and Sengoku Youko) before you read Spirit Circle, so you probably noticed that already, but if that's not the case, you'll certainly like them and recognize this aspect. It's really cool when all the dots in the plot connects in a convincing way, because you can feel how everything presented was, to some degree, an important part of the overall structure of the story. You can tell that he has a goal in mind from the beginning and even likes to... mess around with the reader and plainly tell what’s gonna to happen in the future.Spirit Circle is not a complex story, but somehow you’ll feel that way. It’s about souls and reincarnation. It's about vengeance, but it's also about making up for past mistakes. There's a mixing of emotions in every arc, which goes from something very comic to something very dramatic. Mizukami can play something serious in a very silly way, which can be anti-climatic, but it can work better this way because of how it can break your expectation, and it’s supported with his skills of portraying emotions so good and with a lot of impact. Otherwise, it would be a more parodic manga without any weight. Mizukami knows how to handle both his comedic and emotion side very well and creates a very charming, comic and yet dramatic story. And that's how I felt for the most part of the story, except for the Fortuna's story arc, which is unfortunately the most anticipated and important one. It's really the Achilles' heel of the manga and show how the author's style can be a dual-edged sword. I didn't feel any of the dramatic curves because everything seemed more comic when they should be tragic.That said, everything else still works great. The relationship between all the characters is something that it’s developed in a clever way, as everything is a result of a past interaction. What it’s being told is not just the past tales of Fuuta and Koko, the main characters, and their circle of mutual destruction, but how their relationship with everyone around them is being shaped with every interaction and choice.Even though the last story arc is not a winner, the overall story is still great and can cover any flaws that it has near the end. Mizukami knows how to evoke a lot of emotions from his readers and his characters are very likeable. Spirit Circle is a epic journey of self-discovery, but also of forgiveness and friendship. It’s beautifully presented and, for the most part, well executed. Reviewer’s Rating: 8 What did you think of this review? Nice0 Love it0 Funny0 Confusing0 Informative0 Well-written0 Creative0Show all  Dec 27, 2017 If you like story that is told in a none-linear fashion where stuff from the beginning is relevant or symbolic to the stuff that's going to happen later on, I would highly recommend Spirit Circle for you. Spirit Circle is quite clever in that it is able to crunch in multiple stories into one coherent story. We're basically getting five to six different stories with different backgrounds and genre in just one story. And despite the cast being small and there really being only one hero and heroine, due to the nature of the story, we're in fact getting a huge casts of characters.... What's even more amazing is that these intertwine stories makes up the character's growth and development so we don't need to get into the nitty and griddy details of every character's life to be able to sympathize and empathize with them at a personal level.Going into a little bit of the story content, I'd say Spirit Circle goes beyond your typical Reincarnation manga in that the story is told in a fashion where time is not linear. Sometimes, the future comes first and the past comes later. And reading the story, you can gradually and significantly feel the change in each character. The way you view them at the beginning is totally different by the time you finish the story. And this happens in a way that is least expected because you know the characters not through their present self but their past selves. It really gives the idea of how people are shape by their past and alter by their future.One thing that I am particularly negative about when it comes to Spirit Circle is that it is told from a male perspective. In that it's probably a story mainly for a male rather than a female despite the content of the story. Don't get me wrong. Although Spirit Circle is told from a predominantly male point of view, it is definitely different from the mediocre and redundant Shounen manga that you see nowadays. It may not be a manga for everyone but it is a manga that's unlike any. Reviewer’s Rating: 6 What did you think of this review? Nice0 Love it0 Funny0 Confusing0 Informative0 Well-written0 Creative0Show all Interest Stacks     50 Entries · 114 Restacks   Recommendations Recent News Recent Forum Discussion Poll: Spirit Circle Chapter 45 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Nuvi - Mar 29, 2016 61 repliesby KanYeeT »»Mar 26, 3:30 AM Poll: Spirit Circle Chapter 39 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 1, 2015 9 repliesby KanYeeT »»Mar 26, 2:27 AM Poll: Spirit Circle Chapter 33 Discussion Stark700 - Mar 8, 2015 8 repliesby KanYeeT »»Mar 26, 1:14 AM Poll: Spirit Circle Chapter 30 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 30, 2014 12 repliesby KanYeeT »»Mar 26, 12:32 AM Poll: Spirit Circle Chapter 8 Discussion VitaX - Jan 13, 2013 13 repliesby KanYeeT »»Mar 25, 8:50 PM |