Sundome

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So on the Richter scale of humanity, if 1 is the antithesis of emotion and 10 is bawling my fucking eyes out, this is probably a 9.9 because it's physically impossible to bawl your fucking eyes out. I've never read a graphic novel that made me so sad. Like, come *on*, industry. This is only porn.

That brings me to my first warning - Sundome is for all you deviants out there. If you can't deal with piss, snot, saliva, and post-climactic messes, then don't read because that makes up at least half of all the sexual content in this manga. The other 49% of it ... involves self-stimulation of some kind. And yes, I left out 1% on purpose...

Story - 8

Sundome means "stopping the moment before" (according to Wikipedia). This is the main, and only, solid plot device. The rest of it revolves around an amalgam of school clubs, ghost hunting, virginity, and one-sided breast popularity contests. Yeah, it gets kind of bizarre. It's a bit confusing and scattered. Some of the sideplot is rather lighthearted, involving UFO summoning and voodoo doll catfights, some of it is very moralistic and dark. But the crankshaft in this whole story - Kurumi's relationship with Hideo Aiba - is beautifully executed. It's hilarious and depressing and wonderful and deliciously multi-layered like a chocolate cheesecake.

Art - 7

Maybe I'm being generous here. This is obviously the weakest point of Sundome. The art is very, very cartoonish, and sometimes it almost feels sloppy. It works for our Roman Club neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies, but it kind of makes the MCs less attractive than they should be. And it makes the sexy scenes... well, less sexy. But - before I sound any more elitist - I'd like to say that, for me personally, it worked. It's not commercialized-ecchi grade, but it gives a very edgy, underground feeling to the story. Kurumi isn't like your conventional purple-haired talking tits hentai girl. She's almost sickly-thin, long-legged, and blue-eyed. On the other end of the spectrum, there's Kyouko, a self-proclaimed "masturbation idol," whose nips are permahard. Corny, but it fits. She also sports a cheap fake tan and a limp, blonde mop for hair; none of that ridiculous Lady Oscar weave crap. One guy has lips twice the size of Lana del Rey's. It's actually great.

Characters - 10

So good. Soooo good. At first glance, Aiba seems to be your prototype horny loser. Kurumi is the A-cup goddess of thirst. Coming here from Onani Master Kurosawa and Watamote, you know I already love flat-chested MCs and loners, but these two flip the whole tired setup on its head. For me, the girls + Aiba rule the show, but the male Roman club members (who serve as comic relief throughout the whole emotional ordeal), have their own multi-dimensional charms. Every single member of our main cast is fleshed out and easy to sympathize with, possibly excepting that one candyass motherfucker with the doll waifu.

Enjoyment - 10

What else am I supposed to say? I love Sundome. It made me laugh and cry. Like, physically. The ending is ambiguous, and it kind of leaves you with an empty hole in your heart yearning to be filled by... something. Something beautiful. Something life-changing. Go outside for a run. Donate to charity. Fall in love. Have a baby. Invent the next LSD. I dunno, do something amazing. You owe it to this manga.

Synopsis: standard pathetic male character becomes non-pathetic due to obsession, fetish, submission, pain, abstinence, masturbation, various acts of indecency, piss play, jealousy, and many similar things all in service to mysterious female character whose lack of exposition or interiority leaves us with many questions and very few answers.

I get that a lot of people will relate to this, I've read reviews hailing this as a godsend, I've seen people disgusted about the first few acts the male lead engages in, people dropping the story and people saying just get through the fetishy bits to get to the heard. I've seen how polarizing this manga ... gets. But I think with a lot of these "pathetic lad gets better" style of story, this isn't the most relatable thing for me on that front. However, the story is a bit more than that growth which always seems to come at the expense of the female lead they obsess over. In a sense, maybe the journey of self-discovery IS enough (even if it comes in twisted ways such as puncturing your penis with a nail or tying your hands behind your back while your pants are falling in public). Abstractly, the object of getting better is external (in this case, it's the yearning for the female lead), a lot of people have that, as long as it doesn't get problematic, why not aim to be better because you want to be romantically involved with or praised by someone you like? PLUS this story's object of getting better is into the same freaky shit you're into, I can understand people being weirdos when growing up, finding they have similar fetishes or interests. But notice I keep saying "object" of getting better. the Female Lead even calls it out at a few points that the ML is only doing things for rewards from her and she is aloof mysterious until the ML apologizes profusely and she goes back to her usual mysterious yet dominant ways.

Most of the story, the FL is hidden behind walls of defense, and we learn that she is without parents, she lives alone, she has some form of debilitating sickness since she's often out of school and bleeding from her nose, she has a strange relationship with a doctor at the local hospital who visits her at home, and she likes the dominant-submissive relationship she has with the Male Lead, she's a little laissez-faire and naive at school, a little uncaring about how she's perceived. Her character growth is that she opens herself up to friends and potentially to love but the end of the character arc is a bit of a spoiler. Most of the things outside of that are created in the ML's own thoughts, there's a lot of things she says that are lies, and many things that seem one way and are invented by the ML's insecurities. I want to highlight that the FL does also change in this, it's not unilateral, but it is often overshadowed by continuous references to the ML's growth. The few instances of change pointed out by people is by the doctor's wife and by the ML saying things like "today I was able to see into her heart more than usual" things of that nature.

But a lot of speculation about that doctor and that's really what drove my curiosity with this story, this unknowable presence and his relationship with the FL. The narrative, the images, the interactions present that something is off, something is not normal with the relationship between the FL and doctor, I wanted to know anything about the medical condition she suffered, why the home visits, why the doctor's wife knew about the condition, why the reaction between the doctor and the ML are twisted to the point where the ML has to brag about the nasty stuff FL gets to do to him. And well dear reader... is any of that answered? :) we shall leave that to you.

The friends are often one-note and the same trope about their obsession with different body parts and fetishes, they get into wacky situations. The gyaru and fishface nerd characters were probably the best aspect outside the central premise, they are two of the members of this school club that also undergo growth and it was nice to see them get better with understanding themselves. Whoa look at that, the seemingly one-note character for comedy gets a character arc. One of the more touching moments was when the gyaru, whose delinquent ex asks her back so she can give him a blowjob on the roof, gets to have a moment of sad intimacy with the FL and cries, breaking her usual facade of everything is fine. Things really take a turn for the better after that.

So yeah, all this ink spilled and a lower than surprising rating, it's probably my own subjective feeling that the premise was interesting enough and the growth of characters is pleasing but it is just solid and because I'm not the age range this might appeal to, it makes me feel as though it misses the mark of greatness WITH ME, your mileage may vary.

Sundome is a touching, if very sexually depraved manga. It tells you about the power of love and how it can motivate us to becomes a better person. At least that’s what response to it led to me to believe. In reality, it’s just a brain dead ecchi comedy manga tells a terrible romance story, with a few tweaks could’ve passed off as satire.

Be warned as this review will be full of spoilers. I actually don’t want anyone to read it so I’ll spoil a fair bit of it to explain why.

If you’re already familiar with the setup of the story then skip ahead ... to the next segment.

One day a mysterious girl (Kurumi Sahana) transfers in the same class as our protagonist (Hideo Aiba), and he immediately falls in love with her. Luckily she is seated right next to him and they move their desks together to share a textbook. That alone makes him hard as a diamond. Unfortunately Kurumi drops her eraser and it lands right between his legs, next to a raging boner. She reaches down and picks it up while accidentally touching his penis yet she doesn’t seem to notice for now.

Later we are introduced to a roman club, it doesn’t have anything to do with the ancient empire or language. Roman alludes to romanticism of young boys and their desire to uncovered mysteries and chase after their dreams. The rumour has it that if you graduate without losing virginity or getting a girlfriend, the alumni of the roman club will fund your dreams. With high reward comes high risk in form of tests from the alums and assassins, women who are sent after the club members to rid them of their virginity. In this club there are 4 members: Hideo, who joined on a whim cause he didn’t think he’d ever date anyone while in school anyway; Ex-president, he has an anal fetish and mostly exists to make asshole jokes; Katsu Toshitsuku, a pervert with a peeping fetish who wants to become a lawyer and lastly; Tatsuya Yatsu, a cowardly otaku with a leg fetish who wants to becomes a politician.

Suddenly Kurumi comes to the club to check it out and joins them. When she’s left alone with Aiba she tells him to masturbate to which he replies that this is something people do in private but fearing to lose interest of a girl he likes he eagerly agrees and puts a nail inside his penis. After the attempt at masturbation with a nail failed Kurumi tells him that she will never have sex with him, she might do it casually with someone else but not with him, even if they were last two people on Earth, even he begged. Aiba doesn’t mind though, to him as long as she’s in close proximity of him. From there on the story is a slow trickle of what hardly qualifies of plot and character progression with and a lot of repetitive and forced comedy as well as very embarrassing ecchi.


What Sundome tries to be?

Now on to what this manga attempts to do, according to the writing and the presentation. The way story’s handled, I believe Sundome tries to be a tragedy centred around Kurumi. She seems to have some fatal disease and what little time she has left in the world she spends trying to make a better man out of Hideo in the most nonsensical and roundabout way possible. This all seems to be a part of the plan for alums or OBs as manga occasionally calls them, but it’s never made clear cause the whole thing about wish granting and evil assassins is nothing more than a plot device to explain some random coincidences. Most of Kurumi’s actions revolve around either setting up challenges for Hideo, for which he gets various erotic rewards or simply using him for her own enjoyment. Most of that ends up with Hideo being rewarded in way or the other, sometimes it’s the ability to touch or lick Kurumi, other times he gets a permission to masturbate or get pissed on. Kurumi’s challenges meanwhile can vary from something simple like fetching water or dragging furniture around to something life/health threatening like having to interact with a violent thug or enduring 20 second in an arm lock with a risk of his arms getting broken.

In the process of all this it becomes clear that Hideo will do absolutely anything, be it dangerous or humiliating, just for the opportunity to be close to Kurumi, let alone do anything more involved. For example there is a moment when he briefly gets an opportunity to live with Kurumi as her pet as long as he never touches his penis. Aiba eagerly agrees and comes to her house with a cardboard box to live inside of and as Kurumi leaves the house he promises to not set foot outside his box. Keeping his promise, he doesn’t even leave for a toilet break and pisses himself. Kurumi’s not mad though, she’s happy cause he’s such a good boy and Aiba is delighted by the result of his obedience.

To be ready for more dangerous or demanding tasks he starts to train and gets a bit stronger. He finds a job to get money he’d spend on Kurumi. His jealousy also makes him a bit more confrontational as he wants to have Kurumi all to himself. Generally all of his improvements centre around being able to make Kurumi happy and service her. In the end that leads to a weird development as author tries to show the payoff in a rather creepy way. The three instances of Hideo actually initiating something is when he forcibly steals a kiss from Kurumi, holds her down to suck mucus out of her nose and one time when lifts her slightly by the shorts to somehow make going uphill easier. That’s supposed to be his big character development and all it just comes off as his lust taking over.

Manga ends with Kurumi suddenly being hospitalized and Hideo breaking her out of it to make her see some special place which ends up being some boring beach. She gets inside a sleeping back and so does Hideo. Her final moments are spent looking at Hideo jerking himself off on top of her. Time goes by, Hideo becomes a doctor and is happily married while keeping Kurumi around as a happy memory.

What it actually is and why it fails?

The concept of their relationship by itself is good. I could be down with a romance story where the goal is to lure protagonist into improving himself as a person, but the way Sundome goes about it doesn’t make sense and is outright disgusting. How can anyone claim Hideo ever truly becomes a better person when up until the very end he is driven forward by nothing but lust? He loves Kurumi unconditionally with slavish devotion. He’s fine with whatever she might do to him even if it kills him, that’s literally one of the things that gets established at a point. Kurumi stops chocking him cause if it was up to him he’d never want her to let go. He didn’t even have a dream to asks OBs about until he met her and decided to be a doctor “so that even if they are last two people on Earth she wouldn’t be in trouble”. So, main theme of their relationship is a complete flop.

The way it’s achieved thought is by far the worst. I have no idea who thought that a flat out abusive relationship can be painted as something good yet Sundome tries real hard. Whenever Hideo gets his reward after being hurt or humiliated is shown as some moment of romantic privacy and unity between the two main characters while in reality it can be Hideo drinking piss as thanks for servicing Kurumi. It’s almost as far from being a healthy relationship as it can be cause Hideo is such an unreasonable person. He shows doubt about his relationship multiple times but it all comes down to him living for the sake of Kurumi and her happiness without ever considering himself. There is even a subplot about Kurumi sleeping with some older man, he’s later revealed to be her doctor and even though it’s not actually said that he didn’t sleep with her it’s what reader will most likely assume. Either way Hideo never actually does anything to change the situation, he never asks Kurumi about him and two times he actually talks to the guy he tells him that Kurumi pisses on him and only him and allows him to drink her piss. So we have this protagonist who’s a massive pushover and constantly gets used in his uneven relationship. He will risk everything to gain very little yet this process is framed as him growing into a better person? That makes about as much sense as clobbering some nerd into a mental breakdown and then saying “well I only wanted to help him become stronger and more confident”. It’s ridiculous but in Sundome it works for no damn reason other than the writer trying to assign some depth to a shitty fan service manga.

And it’s not even good at that either. None of the fetishes in the manga really intersect with mine, so it’s not surprising I didn’t find the erotic part of it all that arousing. But at least I was willing to give it credit for variety. At first it seemed like the author put effort into creating a wide variety of different situations that are both interesting and capitalize on some of the taboos Sundome flaunts, but after a while the scenarios and actions start repeating. Aiba keeps trying to lick some part of Kurumi, he keeps trying to touch a different place or licking her wide variety of body fluids. It all starts to wear off and blend together rather quirk.

With all of this I didn’t expect Kazuto Okada to try and cram in a separate gag manga in all of this. The comedy largely revolves around roman club activities and character interactions that usually awkwardly flow into Aiba and Kurumi doing something perverted before everything is reset back to normal. Personally there were maybe 2 or 3 times Sundome made me laugh across the whole thing. Too many of the jokes just rely on terrible running gags that usually coincides with single defining feature of each character. Kyouko is a gyaru who asks money from people for anything she can, that’s hilarious cause instead of reacting normally she tries to extort money. Ex-president is fascinated with anuses, that’s funny cause haha anus. Aiba is excited about any opportunity to get pissed on by Kurumi and that’s funny cause haha ain’t that weird.

Worth mentioning that there’s also a completely pointless romance subplot between Kyouko and Katsu. Kyouko who used to be an easy lay starts hanging out with nerds at the roman club and eventually starts dating Katsu instead of asshole jocks cause Katsu is just such a nice guy. Their entire relationship could’ve been torn out of the manga and it wouldn’t impact the narrative in any way. If anything it would improve it cause the faster it ends the lighter the torture.

Lastly, the art.

The style is an inconsistent mishmash of SD and stylized but more or less realistic designs that are usually switched up depending on the tone of the scene. Except for ex-president, Katsu and Tatsuya, who are permanently stuck in joke mode even when they’re involved in serious scene, which is jarring as hell.

The general quality of drawing is way below average. At times the proportions are so out of whack that it made me think that any half-decent looking panels in the manga were heavily references and I still think that the author wouldn’t be capable of drawing them without that. There’s also a ridiculous amount of reused expressions and perspectives, it’s pretty obvious that Okada is not a very versatile artist and it really shows when all his emotional scenes usually just feature two or three same faces over and over. It doesn’t help the dramatic impact of those scenes and it looks terrible. There’s also a weird reluctance to draw one of the eyes in many of the shots, sometimes it’s common enough to think that the characters are actual cyclops.

When it comes to ecchi shows the art can make or break it and Sundome breaks fast. Despite all the feedback about this manga talking about how perverted and ecchi heavy this manga is, it’s gonna be one of the tamest I’ve seen. Okada rarely draws characters fully unclothed and when he does I start to understand why. He’s anatomy is not bad enough to be laughable but it’s nowhere near good enough to be titillating either. Erotic drawings are usually about realistic anatomy meeting halfway with exaggerated style and proportions to make the erotic parts stand out more than figuratively and neither is present here.

In conclusion you get Sundome, a terrible romance manga with not a single fleshed out character and a tragic story that makes about as much sense as cutting off your legs to run faster. As if it wasn’t bad enough it’s a comedy without wit and a manga without art worth looking at. I sincerely hope nobody reads this trash.