Well I love the anime, so I figured "Why the hell not check out the manga?" So I did.
I read volume one awhile back and I must say that people are far too harsh on it. Yes, I did enjoy it (most of it) and it was a fun way to spend 1 hour 20 so minutes. The art at first took awhile to get used to, but I soon found no problems. Kazuma, Kanami, Ryuhou, Sheris, Urizane, Cougar, Jigmar, Tachibana, and Kimishima all look good enough. I must say though I thought Tatsunami was really badly drawn.
I thought the highlight of this volume was the whole 3 chapters with Ririri the Mantis Queen and how Kazuma and Ryuhou both interfered and that's how they ended up meeting. I really enjoyed that, it would have been good animated in my opinion. In a few parts though, Kazuma's glove and spikes on his Shell Bullet kept disappearing, which was a tad annoying, but not TOO bad.
The weakest part of this volume in my opinion though was most of Kazuma vs. Tatsunami and the whole little HOLY meeting and stuff. Cougar and Tachibana's intros were very weak when compared to how they were introduced in the anime.
I can get used to this also, but I didn't like how Kazuma attacks in the manga. He uses feelings for his bullets or something, and the three spikes on his back serve no purpose what so ever in the manga. But, he can still kick a lot of ass so it's all good.
I must say though in chapter 1, Kazuma seemed almost….gay. Tight leather, curley hair, a lot of his poses....yeah he didn't look REALLY straight to me...but a few chapters later, that disappeared which was a good thing.
There is one thing that's fairly obvious though, the artist Yasunari Toda is a huge pervert. Almost every single female I saw (even Kanami) most of the time was drawn in a very sexual pose. Sherice's butt was always sticking out and etc...
All in all, I enjoy the manga and I look forward to reading volume 2 tomorrow.
I think that if you watch the anime first (and enjoy it) you will have some respect for the manga, since you will know the characters, powers, etc...but if you just pick up the manga first you will not be impressed. I don't think I would have liked it if I hadn't seen the anime first.
Volume 2 was even BETTER and so on. The plot heated up, new characters not in the anime appeared, I don't want to spoil anything, but if you like the anime you should check out the manga. It's not as bad as some people say. It's short too, just 5 volumes.