Kamichama Karin

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After the wonderful time I had reading Pita Ten, I was compelled to seek out more of Koge Donbo's original work, so naturally moving down the line, I picked up Kamichama Karin. It started with all the best intentions; a comedically off-beat magical girl adventure... and then, dear reader, it slowly fell apart until there was nothing left to enjoy.

Kamichama's biggest flaws come mostly from the story. While the offbeat humor fits in well in the first volumes, it becomes increasing inappropriate as a more serious plot is built upon. Most notably, the cast's antics and the slapstick humor feel severely out of place throughout ... the climactic volume, so much that I began to wonder if it was in Donbo-san's contract to write jokes for every chapter.

But that's small peanuts compared to where they really dropped the ball. Koge Donbo forgot how to write a plot twist. More to the point, Koge Donbo forgot how to write a plot twist until the final chapter and crammed 20 of them into 4 pages without any consequences or significance to the story. Now I can swallow a lot, but this was just too much. It defied the laws of realism established by the storyline. Because the manga had good buildup and was intriguing for it's longevity, I won't rate the story too poorly, but the last chapter was definitely enough to give it a 4.

The characters were not much better. Karin was a fun ditz for a few chapters, but she never... and I mean, NEVER grew past that stage. She is constantly irritating, has an annoying way of speaking, and generally has nothing that redeems herself of her flaws. Rather than a main character, she is toted around by the manga-ka as a love interest whose only ability is to be ditzy, cute, and eventually nab her man. I'm serious she does nothing else.

Other characters were either incredibly flat, completely unbelievable, or demanded more time be spent on them. Villains are sometimes treated with gravitas but most the conflicts are jokes. The characters are supposed to be in mortal danger but there is never a sense of that in their fighting. The only redeemable character in this mahou shoujo farce was Kirika, if only for offering a slight bit of depth and a generally compassionate role for the reader; a drastic change from the rest of the cut-and-dry cast

At this point, one would assume at least Koge Donbo's laudably adorable artwork would save this. From the first volume alone, you would guess right. Her trademark style leaves fits phenomenally with the story she's providing, even though her SD-drawing hasn't improved a scratch from her previous work. All goes well, but as the series hits its final stretch, the quality of the art takes a drastic nosedive and looks like that of an amateur dojinshi artist attempting to copy the manga-ka's style. It's downright embarrassing that a manga could provide such consistently wonderful A-ranked art for several chapters and then just bomb.

Now finally, I didn't hate Kamichama Karin in its entirety. The ending was horrible, and apparently there's a sequel but after all it pulled in the final chapters, I doubt I can bring myself to give it a look. For what it's worth, Koge Donbo sets up a fantastic story. It's not too dark, has a good amount of humor, and falls together quite nicely, but the rushjob finale and lack of gravitas to moments of drama bring the whole thing down more than I would have liked it to. If you're a fan of anything mahou shoujo, I'd recommend trying it, but don't expect too much from it, and don't expect anything from the ending.

Overall, I give Kamichama Karin a 5 out of 10.

I just couldn't help but love this manga. It's just too cute.

The story itself is an interesting original one, and also has greek mythology in it which makes it even more interesting. I didn't love the art at the beginning but after I got used to it, I found the art to be a beautiful one.
The characters are one of the best things in the manga. Karin develops so much during those 32 chapters and as well the others.

Overall I enjoyed it very much. Recommended to the people who love cute romance and fantasy manga, and even to the people who love ... different geners.

This is my very first review so go ahead.
Kamichama Karin is probably one of the cutest manga ever. Whenever I read it, I went "oh my, how kawaii!!!".
The strength of this manga is, obviously, the cuteness of the character design. Koge Donbo did a superb art for this. My favourite character in this manga is, of course, Karin Hanazono. She's energetic but then, one more time, cute.
The weakness of this manga is, well, not that many so I wouldn't touch on that.
I've managed to understand the storyline which turned out to be a shocking truth that I cannot reveal unless you read the manga ... itself.
Overall, this manga is enjoyable and ends up being one of the best magical girl manga.

Kamichama Karin does one thing perfectly-Making you read it again and again even though you know the story isn't that great.


The story revolves around a young girl named Karin Hanazono.In the beginning she is a girl who is no good at sports or school,lives with her mean auntie,and has really no talents except for self pity.Both her parents died and her cat Shi-chan just passed away.Then she meets a handsome boy while visiting her cat at her grave. His words to her are:"what are you doing stupid?Stop crying.You'll catch a cold if you stay out her stupid girl.Girls are so stupid..."What does little miss ... Karin do? *punches boy repeatedly"
Then she meets a lovely young lady named Himeka Kojou.She hangs around with her,gets her make-up done by Himeka,and then a handsome young boy comes by. Himeka states that this boy is Kazune Kojou-her cousin- and the very same boy that called her stupid a while back. Later,Karin finds out that the ring on her hand that her dead mother gave her as a present,can make her transform into a....GODDESS!

And our story begins.

The thing with Kamichama Karin is that it is extremely confusing and not very well planned. Koge-Donbo* has a bunch of ideas there in the story-but none of the questions get answered.Some in CHU (the second series of kamikarin)but other than that none others.Also,it could be very serious and then come to a seriously un serious note,such as a joke or guy-guy kiss that gets all the girls startled.

The art is perfection-much to expect from Koge-donbo*'s brilliant artwork.and the characters are nicely laid out too. Sometimes they also are not what they seem AT ALL. And you'll be saying WTF about every five minutes with this one.The enjoyment is...well i enjoyed this one a lot,being one of the first manga i ever read.Who couldn't resist?A little girl who turns into a goddess,saying I AM GOD!!! every time she transforms,yaoi-ness once in a while,comedy,romance,even genderbending.Kamichama karin has something for everyone.

Kamichama Karin is one of the manga series wherein most of my opinions contradict.
There were downsides to this series, although it was good enough to keep me reading until the last few chapters.
Firstly, I read the translated version of the manga, though it still seemed quite raw. There were certain sentences I didn't understand, and I had to read them more than twice to finally get the idea.
Second, there were certain glitches. An example of that was when Kazune destroyed the ring of Kirio , and Kirio had to attempt to kidnap Yuki to obtain the power of Zeus' ring, when in fact, he ... was able to wear it himself without having to cause himself the trouble of proposing to Karin when it wasn't even meant for her.
Third, the fight scenes seemed to end too quickly. It felt as if both only had to deal one swift blow, and then the opponent would fall to the ground. However, it could also be that Kazune was just too weak to keep the fights up much longer.
My fourth and last criticism is that both Kazune and Karin look too young to be kissing in dark places.
However, there are also good points to it, like all manga do. It was exciting, and I finished it in something less than a week, in all my anticipation to find out what happened next when each chapter concluded. The ending was pretty good too, and the whole manga seemed well thought-out. Overall, it still passes for my taste, so all of you who are interested in reading about a female Kami-sama, I recommend you read it, too.

an amazingly cute anime..no harsh language and adorable illustations. i like how the charcaters feelings arent hidden from the reader. It is a hurricane of fun to read this silly manga. and even funner to watch "mr. glasses-guy" get his butt kicked.

While the humor was great and i thoroughly enjoyed it, the story was confusing at some parts, and the main goal of the story was never accomplished. Nothing happened to the Himekas. Are they still apart? Are they sick still?? Also, the plot was a bit too mature for the art and age group that it was addressed to. There were some characters that had no means of being introduced, like, micchi, ami, adn kazusa, along with the butler and the cat (shi).
THe art was good and great, however, the art style did not meet the age group of the maturity in certain ... scenes and did not come across as romantic, but kinda creepy or perverted.