Ranked #1700

Junketsu + Kareshi (Manga)

This manga is a classic example of a promising plot with amiable characters gone wrong in the hands of unsophisticated imagination.

Story:

The manga starts off with a pleasant introduction of the female protagonist, Kana Takachiho, a normal teenage girl leading her normal school and home lives. As predictable as it could get, her life was turned upside down when she was injured in an accident, saved by a pureblood vampire , Aki, (who was introduced as her childhood friend) and obtain immortality as a result of him sucking her blood. However in exchange of immortality, the female protagonist belongs to a “possession” of the pure blood vampire who sucks her blood every now and then.

In addition, a werewolf bishonen was introduced into the story and the trio sets off in an adventure in search of the 7 stigmas (also loosely referred to as the 7 sins/desires in the Christianity Bible) as part of a quest to revive another childhood friend (supposedly another attractive pure blood vampire) from his inexplicable comatose.

Then, just think Twilight – as expected, the pureblood vampire and werewolf fell in love with the female protagonist. While Kana (the female protagonist) is not as annoying as Bella of the Twilight fame, what made this manga intolerable was the subsequent weak development of the storyline and loose focus on irrelevant events.

While not entirely original, I always believe that even an unoriginal plot can prove to be an entertaining read if executed aptly. Although the first couple of chapters were engaging and made sense, with the passing of time, it seems as though the author has lost focus on what she was supposed to be doing and as a reader, I find myself going around in circles with the characters, pondering in puzzlement at the brow-frowning turn of events. While reading the subsequent chapters, my mind was often bombarded with tons of “WTHs” and “WTFs” and then I realized, it’s time to stop for a while.

Normally when I read manga, I don’t expect the heroes/heroines to be perfect. They can come with flaws but the important thing is that with each chapter there must be some sort of progress / development in the plot or the characters. Sadly, here, there has hardly been any substantial development after Volume 3. What’s the use of throwing in scenes of handsome-vampire-sucking-girl’s-blood from various positions when there is no point in doing that? (it seems like a deliberate act just to fulfil the raging hormones of fan girls).

Art:

Despite the weak development in the storyline, the art is fantastic, as expected of Aya Shouoto. Perhaps the only redeeming factor that kept me from dropping the manga (until now) is the artwork that is so handsomely executed.

Having read other works of Aya Shouoto, this manga gotta be one of her worst.
read more

Okay, so before I get any of you fangirls sending me hate mail like, "OMG WAI DO U H8 DIS SERIS!!!!! D:< AKI IS SO HAWT!!!!!! :DDDDD" allow me to clarify some things for you.

1) I've never read an Aya Shouoto work before. That's right, this is my first. No Barajou no Kiss, no SLH, none of that. This is the first.
2) I LOVE vampire stories. No matter what the genre, I'm game for any.
3) I HATE cliche shoujo heroines and story scenarios.

So with this in mind, try and hear me out, all right? For any fans of this series, I apologize for being so harsh, but everyone has their own opinions, no?

(Spoilers to follow.)

First we have the story. When I read the first few chapters of Junketsu+Kareshi (is this copying Rosario+Vampire maybe?), I wasn't really impressed. So from the get-go, basically, I found this series to be...unappealing. The story revolves around Kana, who gets hit by a bus in the first chapter and then gets saved by a vampire named Aki who is actually a childhood friend of hers. The story at first seems to revolve around their relationship and such, but a bunch of side characters and a love rival and a "compelling" (*insert sarcasm*) mystery gets thrown in there and just jumbles everything up and makes it hard to understand (whoo, was that a run-on sentence or what?). Some stigma thingies that hold powers, Aki's twin brother Eriya, Aki's whore-ish looking fiancée, and a bunch of other really strange and confusing crap are just a few other things in the mix. By the sixth or seventh chapter (I believe), Kana, Aki, and the love rival, Jin, form a club at their school...called the "Extraordinary Club." Okay, what? Seriously...a club. How much more cliche and dumb can you get with a story like this? Wow...so epically random.

Alright; characters. The characters of J+K are pathetic. Aki is supposed to be this "dark, handsome, blood-sucking" vampire, but he's really just some arrogant brat who's supposed to be Kana's love interest, I presume. Then Kana, our cliche shoujo herione, is flat-chested, sweet, somewhat (but not really) tough, and relies on Jin and Aki to save her...what a suprise. Did I mention that she's now immortal, strong, (but not a vampire) and that she's Aki's new food? Yeah, go figure on that one. Then Jin, who's the baddie in the first few chapters, but then becomes Kana's new BFF, is actually a cheeky werewolf who obviously has the hots for Kana. Oh, and there's also those other people, like Kana's friend Rie, a random tengu/penguin/I'm-not-sure dude, and the student council people, all who are just really there and make like one appearance in the most random times. What're these characters' purposes? Why are they so unappealing, boring, and cliche? The world may never know. Heck, we'll probably know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop before we know that.

The art is annoyingly bad. I will admit that it was the original cover art that got me interested in reading this series, and I was interested in reading Aya Shouto's other series, too, at one point, but I have become very disappointed. "Don't judge a book by it's cover." Exactly. Now if you're about to do what I did, and only read this series because of the cover art, kindly set the manga down and step away from it calmly. Trust me on this one. The art is really strange and annoying, overall. The proportions are off in many, many places (a lot of the side profiles, I noticed), and the characters, who're supposed to be beautiful, handsome, etc., are really not. I was very disgusted in the way that Aki's "vampire fangs" were drawn, if you can even call them that. They looked round and had no definite shape, really. The backgrounds were also heavily lacking in detail and such, and all of the "dramatic/romantic" scenes between Aki and Kana were way too exaggerated and not romantic at all. After seeing that this is the way that she draws her manga strips, I'm not so sure that I like Aya Shouoto's overall art style very much. Kana also looks like a boy! Just throwin' that out there...

So overall? This manga is absolutely pitiful. Spare yourself by not even looking twice at this. If you want some real vampire romance/action/etc., look somewhere else, not here. Heck, if you don't believe me on how terrible this is, consider the fact that the only person (at the time that I am writing this) on the net who was translating this series just announced that she was dropping it because, "I've grown tired of the random and amateurish plot." She also apologized, "I'm very sorry to all the fans out there who love this series, but this is for the best -- at least for my sanity." Believe me now? read more

To review this story I'd like to say that at the beginning it was very interesting. The art was spectacular, as always with Shouoto, and the story line started of so great that i couldn't sand waiting for chapter 2. Then chapter 2 comes out and its okay but the story continues. Its around I'd say maybe chapter 4 or 5 i don't really remember, that it started straying from mysterious vampires and stuff to a cheesy school life thing. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against the school life stories they are very interesting at times but with this story it was very disappointing because i was expecting action packed mysterious type of story. That's not what I got. So what I'm trying to say, and no one hurt me for this, is that though the artwork is beautiful the story line isnt that great. So if you appreciate the art more then then the actual story behind it its perfect for you but if you don't then i suggest something else. That's just my honest opinion. So don't hurt me fangirls because i have a race on Monday and cant afford injury. read more

it is really briliant!.The art is very good
there is a very cute looking character called aki(vampire),and his childhood friend(human) kana reunit and she finds out he is a vampire and he makes her,her servant,aki has a younger twin brother who likes kana and kissed her.They haven't seen eachother in 7 years and they both say they have changed in looks but not in personality.It is so cute and romantic and funny at the same time and i just wanna read more but there isn't any more chapters i have to wait for the next chapters to come TT^TT. it is really good and is already one of my favourites. I would recomend this to anyone who likes bishin guys/vampires/romance/comedy and mystery >. read more

Okay at first I thought how interesting and was excited then I was like ugh... Warning minor SPOILERS! First off the plot the plot seems kinda wishy washy for example I read to chapter 12 Kana's friend disappears from the book after one chapter wth? or what happened to her part time job? While the idea could be interesting there are several points where they could deepen the story line but instead I'm plagued by questions... Now maybe they are answered later on but I can't force myself on any longer so I may never know. I wish I could tell the author you can deepen the story from the beginning spreading the plot out through the book it seems like she wanted to spring it all on you at the end. I was going to try to suffer through it because I hate leaving a book unfinished but there where translation issues and just had to call it quites... The artwork could be better but at least not everyone looks like the same person with different hair and clothes. Again the characters could use more depth and a little more personality. Overall I don't recommend it though I did my best not to spoil anything for those who want to try.(sorry if this review seems off its 2 am here and I have no idea what I'm writing lol) read more