Happy World!

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I watched the Happy World OVA some time ago, and although it had potential, I never really considered it to be anything of note, especially given the amount of fanservice in one episode. Imagine my surprise to find it as a 72 chapter manga by Takeshita Kenjirou, and also to find that the series was very different to my first impressions of it from the OVA.

The series revolves around a boy named Oomura Takeshi, and his various trials and tribulations brought on by the fact that he is the only person in the world who will never have any good luck. In order to help ... him through his daily life Heaven sees fit to send him an angel to protect him from his ever increasing bad luck (which can often be fatal). That angel is Elle.

The story initially begins as a simple romantic comedy in the style of Ah! Megami-sama, only with more ecchi and fanservice. It's unusual to find an ecchi series though, that develops it's characters in the way that Happy World does, and to the extent it does too. It's also unusual to find one that has some original plot twists and surprising revelations as ecchi rom-coms, on the whole, tend to be fairly transparent.

The art style used is fairly clean overall, but some areas can be confusing at times. The characters are generally well designed and unique in their own way, although the mangaka does have a tendency to sometimes rush the finished product.

On the whole though, the ecchi and the sometimes uneven art style isn't really that off-putting as the story really starts coming into it's own by chapter 12 (the OVA covers the beginning until the end of chapter 8), but really gets going in chapter 17.

The characters are likeable enough on the whole. Takeshi is as you'd expect a typical bad tempered teenage boy to be, and Elle is extremely innocent in the ways of humans. It's actually quite nice to see some decent character development in what's supposed to be an ecchi romantic comedy, especially as the story starts taking a turn towards darker themes around chapter 17, and continues to add to these themes until the end. In this way it reminded me very much of the anime Kamisama Kazoku, which followed a similar format (but was a lot less graphic in many ways).

The other characters in the series are also pretty good on the whole, and I never really found any of them to be annoying (some of them were downright hilarious to be honest, especially Sanae and Motoko (a.k.a. Ero-nee)).

I'm not really sure how one would rate a series like this in terms of enjoyment, as it has a little bit of everything. There's romance, comedy, fanservice, a little horror, drama, action, tragedy, etc, etc. On the whole it looks as though it has something for everyone, but some people may not like it because of it's art style, or ecchi content, or for some other reason. I think it's one of those series that you either love or hate - a Marmite series as I call them (not to be confused with Mari-Mite, which is something completely different).

If you're just after a series that's enjoyable, and you're not to bothered by fanservice or ecchi, then it's worth giving this a try, although I would even suggest this to haters of fanservice and ecchi on the basis that the story is good enough to warrant reading it.

Yes there's a high ecchi content, but don't let that fool you into thinking that this is a bad series because of it.

This is some weird, but good manga, I don't recomend it to starter in the matter of manga, you will surely will get shocked.

Story:
A good story, it actually contains almost all type, from drama, to action and battles. this story starts whit just two characters, but it increase fast. It starts a little so-so but after you end the first chapter you will be hooked faster than you ever thinked.

Art:
Its clear and good-looking, the special effects, like demons and armours are well designed and original. It's hard to ... lose the idea of the page, also in the battles.

Characters:
They are well designed, they are deep, but not to much, the mangaka taked care of supporting characters too, giving them some chapters to express themself, and not only apearing in some part of the chapter. Most of the characters are enjoyable.

I really enjoyed this manga, and recommend it to anyone who wants to read some good material. Also I don't recomend it to simple minded people, I think is just because it talk about heaven, angels, demons, etc, in a ,maybe, to lose way.

THis series feels like a serious seinen manga with a typical shounen harem up front to bait lonely teenage boys.
...
Well it sure as hell got me.
It starts off with a bit of innocence, then adds a bit of blood then adds a bit of nipple and then blam. dude 's shaggin his secretary. It's practically (basically) hentai. So hey, if you're into that kind thing check chap57pg25, there's a nice picture there for you.

Thing is, this manga looks like a bug that the mangaka couldn't squish. It just went wild until the end. What I mean is it's
SO DISORGANIZED!!But it was good, so yeah.
It goes ... from
Oh hey, normal school life DEMONS ARE FREAKING ATTACKING RARGLEFARGLE
To Cherry blossoms are beautiful AND NOW YOU ALL HAVE SUPAHPOWAHS BOOYEAH
And the ending! was like a cheap copout. Hold on, let me draw everyone happy real fast and only answer 3/4 of your questions.


5 out of 10
because it was that WTF.
If it was more organized, would've been higher.

Art=decent
character=a little bad?
story=qwerty
I don't know how else to describe it.


Beh, I shouldn't be reading so much manga. It sounds like I think I know what I'm doing. I should just keep looking at chap57pg25 until I feel happy with life.

Bless all of you who gave this mangu a chance, if your first exposure to HW! was the OVA. Admitedly the story starts off a bit slow for the first few volumes and finally wanders the better part of a volume before Takeshita brings in the "SRS BIZNIZ" arc.

The art early on is a bit rough and the character design a bit weak. It rapidly becomes clean and sharp, cute when need be and very detailed and a well designed epic when need be.

The characters grow and develop nicely. We see the good and bad and in-between sides of not just the leads ... but of the majority of the entire cast. They also have backstories that surprise and may even shock you. You may find yourself fans of the fully developed side characters! I found myself greatly enjoying the side romance stories almost as much as the fumbling of Elle and Takishita.

The story was, I'll admit, a bit rough and unfocused(except on the ecchi!) early on. The nudity and ecchi-ness may put off some as much as the later focus about humanity and our relationship with the divine and the rest of humanity

It rapidly evolves into a epic spanning heaven and earth, love and death, that may make you wonder a bit about life, eternity and the fragility of the things we hold most dear, love, family and friendship. It is a story of tragedy and redemption, the joy of finding and the agony of loss.

There are a number of excellent blog reviews of HW! and the best review *that completely humbles this brief one* is available on the scanlation groups homepage.

HW! was a manga that actually touched and moved me. I have reccomended it to all my animangu acquaintances. It is doubly a pity that it has not been picked up for distribution in North America.

Happy world is one of the most underrated mangas of all time. For a story with a great main cast and hilarious supporting cast, Happy world's manga is not as well known as it should be. Many people watched the OVA before reading the manga, and if I did this as well, I wouldn't have read the manga either. However, the OVA shouldn't get in your way of picking up this great read.

Story 8/10
The story has an interesting enough plot line, filled with many great arcs. Of course, a long the way there are chapters made for nothing but the reader to be pleased.

Art ... 8/10
The art starts off a bit sketchy, but not enough for you to think about it at all. The art does picks up after few chapters. By the end of the manga, the reader will enjoy the artwork.

Characters 10/10
The characters are a big reason why I loved this manga. The main characters are completely likable, and the supporting cast is amazing. The comedy that these characters work together to provide is nothing less than stellar. The characters with a more serious aspect to them are completely believable and realistic.

Enjoyment 10/10
Though Happy World isn't completely perfect, I enjoyed it perfectly. There is comedy, romance and a bit of drama and action. There is also some fan service but the main pictures of this are not in the story as to deteriorate the plot.

Overall 9/10
Happy world will not let you down. It isn't too famous, but if you haven't read the manga yet and you have read this review, you should pick it up!

It's pretty common for mangas to transition a good deal from how they start to where they are at the end. This manga too goes through such a transition, opening up being very light and comedic without any sort of plot really beyond a basic premise, but ending with something far more serious, though still quite happy, and solid in terms of plot. The first third or so of the manga is the light hearted comedic portion, and it does pretty well in that regard. It introduced the characters and with a slice of life rom com setting which managed to develop them pretty well and establish their relationships. As ... just this felt like it was starting to kind of drag on, the manga moved to something more plot oriented. However, this transition felt a bit off, in that it felt like it didn't want to commit to it. Now, it would be normal for the light hearted comedic aspects to continue to appear even after it begins to get more serious, I'm not talking about that. Rather, in terms of the more solid plot line, it felt like it didn't really want to push towards it fully, with the early serious story lines contributing little to nothing to the overall plot. Hence, it felt somewhat directionless for a bit, like it didn't know what it wanted to be. This wasn't an issue for long however, because once it embraces its more serious aspects, it embraces them hard and things get way more intense. The action heats up. There are a lot of solid emotional moments. There's a good amount of world building and back story. The character and relationship development that began during the light-hearted moments goes up a notch, both for the main couple, but also very notably for the side couple and the side family, and hence the side stories overall felt very worthwhile. All of this comes to an incredibly solid and satisfying conclusion, though one that felt just a bit more convoluted than it had to be. The art and designs overall from the beginning were good, but this is a manga where the art gets a good amount better as it goes on, so during the second half especially in terms of style and especially the color pages the art was incredibly good. 

tl;dr: A manga that starts off pretty light but eventually becomes something pretty amazing.