It's rare to have stuff that's quasi-good to read let alone two of them, though in sense being good just makes the part lacking even worse... not that this stuff isn't good (relatively).
Erementar Gerad Red
If you're not into this series's style then it's not for you. It's slightly shojo but not overbearing so, and heavy on the fan service but not gratitous. There's supposed to be some kind of story of good versus evil or something like that but it's actually not that important. It's more or less about a bunch of relatively good looking guys beating each other up with these girls that transforms into weapons of massive destruction. So there's like 7 of the legendary weapons and the bad guys, Orga Night, obviously has one of them. From about volume 3 or so you've been seeing this girl locked in a cage singing songs and she's always saying like how she's waiting for another one of the 7 to sing with her. Now the protagonist obviously has one of the 7 too (Rei). Around volume 8 or so, if you follow the side story you'll notice that they mentioned the songbird girl (her name was never given in the story) left her cage one day and buried an entire nation with the frigid claws of death and that nation even had one of the 7 weapons too, so she's like obviously super duper powerful and clearly the final boss character. So as our heroes make their way to the heart of Orga Night they fight ever increasing powerful minions but for the most part there isn't much in the sense of power up since Rei just woke up for a 300 year sleep so she's just taking time to get used to her power again.
After defeating Cia, your obligatory 'your best friend turned evil so you have to kill him' fight, Rei goes berserk and starts blowing everything up, so the guy-before-the-final-guy shows up, wielding the girl who was always seen by the songbird's side. So first thing you'll notice is that she freeze's Rei's wind blade, which implies she's ice elemental. What the heck? There are 18 elements in Erementar Gerad and none of the major girls have overlapped in element since you'd need at least 18 major characters and there just aren't that many, even including the side story. Okay so maybe the final boss's most trusted servent should be the same element so whatever. So the fight continues and our hero was losing, but then Rei gets angry and blows away the enemy with some super move, but she got held back since doing stuff in anger would be like turning to the dark side or something like that. At this point the hero's friends arrive and gets all beaten up like your generic final fight. So far so good (or good enough). Then, the scenes cut to the tower above and you see the songbird girl finally left cage, saying that it is a sin against their race for TWO of the legendary 7 to fight each other. So 2 out of the legendary 7 weapons are the same element (ice)! So does she drop some final boss super power to interrupt the fight? Nope, the mysterious masked man (Mr. President) says that it is the destiny of the legendary 7 weapons to fight since that's why they exist, so she went back to her cage.
So on the battlefield Rei calms down and then proceeds to clownstomp her opponent using the power of love (there's some serious power level difference between the legendary 7). Time for the final boss to appear? Nope, the buliding blows up and Rei of the WIND falls to the ground while everyone else escapes and is presumed dead. Five seconds later they realized that Rei probably didn't die from falling because she's like... the WIND... so they set out to look for again and the story ends.
Now the story isn't all that great and like I said that's not what it's about. How on earth do you have someone who is unmistakeably the final boss and then never even enter battle? I like how the songbird girl's abilities are just hinted, but never said outright. For example you've to see the side story to see her element (she froze the sun, basically). You can infer that her powerup condition probably has to do with the cage she is always in, or singing, or both, which is probably why she never leaves the cage and never stops singing. Now the side story takes place 3 years in the future compared to Red so you know there's no way she can die at this point, but then it was pretty clear that Orga Night wasn't going to be defeated by 3 teenagers unlike most organization of pure evil. I'd assume her weakness would be something like she can't leave the cage for very long or whatever, and they'll fight to a draw but retreat or something. But nope that never happened, and you still don't know her name at the end of the series. I'm guessing this manga turned out to be too overwhelming for the author to handle but come on, you don't have to kill off the character you spend 18 volumes building. It'd be appropriate to at least she go into weapon form and do a cool move or two. For that matter, the light-elemental girl whose weapon form is two gigantic wing (user uses them instead of their hands) is seriously cool too, and literally got removed from combat because she's too cool and would've easily annihliated all the good guys. The whole series is a bunch of wasted awesomeness.
Legend of the Tiger (Hong Kong, loose translation)
Standard beat-em-up manga featuring a guy who is like the Robin Hood of his world. He fights evil and saves the poor and just as he is about to confront some bad guy who has been making things miserable for everyone, the story ends. Was it because the story sucks and had poor sales? Nope, especially when you consider no manga in Hong Kong has ever been canceled just because it sucks and/or sold poorly. No apparently the guy got hit by some cease & desist order since the character was based on a well-known character in fiction. There's like at least 15 different manga based on the characters from the same series of books but apparently only this guy got hit with a C&D, and I can assure you the most derivatives are far worse. Maybe the author didn't pay enough money, and it's kind of ironic that you'd see a manga stopped by a C&D in Hong Kong of all places. But copyright wins here so the story ends.
Erementar Gerad Red
If you're not into this series's style then it's not for you. It's slightly shojo but not overbearing so, and heavy on the fan service but not gratitous. There's supposed to be some kind of story of good versus evil or something like that but it's actually not that important. It's more or less about a bunch of relatively good looking guys beating each other up with these girls that transforms into weapons of massive destruction. So there's like 7 of the legendary weapons and the bad guys, Orga Night, obviously has one of them. From about volume 3 or so you've been seeing this girl locked in a cage singing songs and she's always saying like how she's waiting for another one of the 7 to sing with her. Now the protagonist obviously has one of the 7 too (Rei). Around volume 8 or so, if you follow the side story you'll notice that they mentioned the songbird girl (her name was never given in the story) left her cage one day and buried an entire nation with the frigid claws of death and that nation even had one of the 7 weapons too, so she's like obviously super duper powerful and clearly the final boss character. So as our heroes make their way to the heart of Orga Night they fight ever increasing powerful minions but for the most part there isn't much in the sense of power up since Rei just woke up for a 300 year sleep so she's just taking time to get used to her power again.
After defeating Cia, your obligatory 'your best friend turned evil so you have to kill him' fight, Rei goes berserk and starts blowing everything up, so the guy-before-the-final-guy shows up, wielding the girl who was always seen by the songbird's side. So first thing you'll notice is that she freeze's Rei's wind blade, which implies she's ice elemental. What the heck? There are 18 elements in Erementar Gerad and none of the major girls have overlapped in element since you'd need at least 18 major characters and there just aren't that many, even including the side story. Okay so maybe the final boss's most trusted servent should be the same element so whatever. So the fight continues and our hero was losing, but then Rei gets angry and blows away the enemy with some super move, but she got held back since doing stuff in anger would be like turning to the dark side or something like that. At this point the hero's friends arrive and gets all beaten up like your generic final fight. So far so good (or good enough). Then, the scenes cut to the tower above and you see the songbird girl finally left cage, saying that it is a sin against their race for TWO of the legendary 7 to fight each other. So 2 out of the legendary 7 weapons are the same element (ice)! So does she drop some final boss super power to interrupt the fight? Nope, the mysterious masked man (Mr. President) says that it is the destiny of the legendary 7 weapons to fight since that's why they exist, so she went back to her cage.
So on the battlefield Rei calms down and then proceeds to clownstomp her opponent using the power of love (there's some serious power level difference between the legendary 7). Time for the final boss to appear? Nope, the buliding blows up and Rei of the WIND falls to the ground while everyone else escapes and is presumed dead. Five seconds later they realized that Rei probably didn't die from falling because she's like... the WIND... so they set out to look for again and the story ends.
Now the story isn't all that great and like I said that's not what it's about. How on earth do you have someone who is unmistakeably the final boss and then never even enter battle? I like how the songbird girl's abilities are just hinted, but never said outright. For example you've to see the side story to see her element (she froze the sun, basically). You can infer that her powerup condition probably has to do with the cage she is always in, or singing, or both, which is probably why she never leaves the cage and never stops singing. Now the side story takes place 3 years in the future compared to Red so you know there's no way she can die at this point, but then it was pretty clear that Orga Night wasn't going to be defeated by 3 teenagers unlike most organization of pure evil. I'd assume her weakness would be something like she can't leave the cage for very long or whatever, and they'll fight to a draw but retreat or something. But nope that never happened, and you still don't know her name at the end of the series. I'm guessing this manga turned out to be too overwhelming for the author to handle but come on, you don't have to kill off the character you spend 18 volumes building. It'd be appropriate to at least she go into weapon form and do a cool move or two. For that matter, the light-elemental girl whose weapon form is two gigantic wing (user uses them instead of their hands) is seriously cool too, and literally got removed from combat because she's too cool and would've easily annihliated all the good guys. The whole series is a bunch of wasted awesomeness.
Legend of the Tiger (Hong Kong, loose translation)
Standard beat-em-up manga featuring a guy who is like the Robin Hood of his world. He fights evil and saves the poor and just as he is about to confront some bad guy who has been making things miserable for everyone, the story ends. Was it because the story sucks and had poor sales? Nope, especially when you consider no manga in Hong Kong has ever been canceled just because it sucks and/or sold poorly. No apparently the guy got hit by some cease & desist order since the character was based on a well-known character in fiction. There's like at least 15 different manga based on the characters from the same series of books but apparently only this guy got hit with a C&D, and I can assure you the most derivatives are far worse. Maybe the author didn't pay enough money, and it's kind of ironic that you'd see a manga stopped by a C&D in Hong Kong of all places. But copyright wins here so the story ends.
