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People seem inclined to write long rants about this anime. I wasn't aware of that when I binge-watched it. In fact, I wasn't remotely aware of anything about this anime or I wouldn't have watched it. Consider this a warning.

The Lost Village starts with an enormous cast and some serious Lost (the famous TV series) vibes. It ends abruptly, with very few answers and everyone alive*. Between these two points, the character basically argue and manipulate each other in childish ways, instead of actually paying attention to their surroundings and wondering how come this place had anything they could possibly need to survive, besides some ... serious infrastructure, which implies it was accessible by train and bus, which means it was, at some point, on a map.
I point out this nitpicky bit of information because it is the least spoilery thing I can use in order to say the obvious thing about this series: everyone in it is dumb. Some are dumber than others, but you couldn't make a single smart person by pooling all 30 of them together. And do you know what kind of stories have a large cast of dumb people? B horror movies.

And that is how you should treat this anime, if you intend to watch it at all. As a B horror movie filled with dumb people, unintended humor and moments in which said people make The Worse Decision. Sadly, unlike B horror movie people, the cast's bad decisions hardly ever hurt them or anyone near them. It just makes them argue some more.


* Is it wrong that I longed for the death of half the cast?

I'm surprised this little gem has no reviews. A soft, healing manga about witches and cats like this one should get some love, so let me tell you why you should read it:
It's a series of interconnected shorts about young witches, their ambitions and their familiar cats. You could accuse it of not developing a plot, but as a single volume series, the objective here was definitely sketching a setting through some characters and their lives, leaving the reader with a lighter heart, and the author excels at that. The stories are simple, but emotional and incredibly well executed (short fiction is a hard mistress; ... short comics with an emotional punch even more so). The art is just beautiful, specially the cats, which are characters on their own and, as such, have each their distinct character design.
I just wished there was more of it, and I'm pretty sure you'll wish that too after you read it.

There is a running joke among my friends, you put a "warning: adult content" image in a post and then talk about your work, children, spouse, health or about the lack of any of those things. The joke being that most actual adult themes are not that thrilling, just the kinds of things that happen in a normal life after the adventures of the 20's pass.
This manga is an adult manga.
The story can be read either as a work-related or as romance, but either way, it's an adult story, its worries are not easy to understand for someone young and the plot is ... not of the mind-blowing sort. Someone is looking for a job and gets a job, someone is trying to find love and love finds them. All very normal and extremely exciting for someone that never sees that kind of story in the wild (most josei and seinen manga that I have access to are either about children and teens or set in fantastic, science fictional places. Even the adult romances are usually unrealistic).

Other than the blatant realism, what actually makes the series are the characters: all multifaceted people with opinions, lives and interests. Their conversations, their relationships and the way their lives intertwine are extremely compelling.

I also enjoyed the art, because its simplicity serves the story so well, without overshadowing or short-selling anything. I specially like how each character has a wardrobe (not the same clothes all the time, but a handful of clothes that they switch around) and how people look different when they've just woken up.
Those little details, coupled with an extremely tight narrative and paneling* made me actually miss this manga after I finished it. It's like missing talking to your last job's coworkers, a strange kind of nostalgy.

So I really recommend this story. That is, if you're an adult and interested in other people.


* I actually feel nostalgic for good storytelling in manga because so many mangaka take 160 pages in a single fight scene, date or impact event.

I'm not against melodramatic gothic fairytales with impossible premises, but this series is just dumb. Also, it's not horror, if you're wondering. It's a badly plotted political intrigue with dark, kinky overtones and a lot of plot-required dumbness, like:
* A deposed prince kept alive but not imprisoned or exiled, because Plot Needed It.
* A stupid, contrived and really dumb plan involving identity change that convinced me the author has never heard about regents, because I'm sure the characters would have.
* The water gate, which has half a dozen problems that don't really need to be explained to any person that has ever seen a barrage ... and the amount of work involved in keeping it. And let's not talk about irrigation, canals and the engineering problems of sending water out.
* The sincere lack of mothers, queens and consorts for all those men, and the absurd lack of nobility in a giant castle (maybe the nobles didn't support the new king and were mass-murdered, but this would mean their jobs would be taken by raised up commoner aides. And, yes, nobles have jobs, because running a country is hard work.), and let's not mention Where Does The Food Comes From, because that's such a common grievance with fantasy manga that I don't even feel like complaining anymore.

And then there is the extremely powerful trained assassin that sweats poison but never considers spitting on some guards and getting the hell away from everything. She's a doormat, which is expected from the way she was raised, but she's not even an interesting doormat, you know, with a cool pattern. I'm not talking about redeeming qualities. This story happens in an yandere nightmare of a setting, no one has redeeming qualities. I'm talking about doing anything besides existing. She thinks about doing things but stops at the first obstacle (which is usually one of the ikemen princes), does not react even when threatened, humiliated or tortured and calls that never giving up (which should throw away any possible interpretation of her passiveness as depression). In truth, it feels more like she's a gothic lolita doll, which is a shame for someone with such a cool power, but a mortal sin for a main character.

To be fair, though, the story (such as it is) is efficiently told, the narrative is fluid and the art is expressive, though stylized to the point characters seem to be posing for a photo half the time. It's just that nothing seemed thought all the way through, like the author was too invest on making things look cool to actually work the dense, dark, corrupt story she promises.


PS: Why was she wearing a corset to her sickbed?
PS2: I really recommend boiling water from natural sources before drinking, it kills most bacteria and parasites as well as evaporates several contaminants. It's ancient wisdom! (but not on this series)
PS3: The author coded power evil, which is a normal thing in manga, but I wonder if she noticed how she coded women-with-power as evil-without-redemption. This is some troublesome stuff to have inside when you are a woman.

All ghost stories are about grief and the past, for what else is a ghost besides a sad memory, the remnant of something that should be already gone?
I open with this line because this manga is more of a ghost story than romance, even if it is terribly romantic. It's like the author set out to meditate about love, loss and growth, and this manga is what came out of it, a story not really of the living or the living world, set in silent, beautiful places.

I liked it, but I can see how someone else might not, for its dreamy fairytale narrative, heavy on ... conversations and short on story. If you only care about the things you could fill a story sheet with - snappy elevator pitch, character as a motivation/flaw/learning engine, setting and its million moving pieces, all the crafty hollywood script things with which a story can be made - then I can tell you shouldn't read this manga right now. Maybe later.
This is a story you should read for its beauty.

I'm a pastry cook so I usually take a look at any anime with pastry in it, even if only to get some ideas for my shop (anime pastry is cute AF. Otomen was a real inspiration for me). I thought that at 5 minutes an episode I could watch this whole anime really fast, that it couldn't be so bad I would get sick of hearing the main character's voice.
Reader, I dropped it.

The problem is that the episodes are so short that there is no time to set up any kind of real plot or character development. It's just a series of slightly connected ... events that happen to an extremely generic main character. There isn't even enough sweets in it to compensate.

Also, I must say that those sensei animations, you know them, when they were supposed to do any real work. That is *exactly* how I do pastry. Yes, sir. I got myself a proper magical transformation and the cakes just turn up decorated, there is no messing with tips and bags, no endless smoothing with a spatula, no praying the weather doesn't turn and melts everything before the costumer picks it up. *sighs*

Since this manga has no reviews, I'll leave some preliminary words here. Take note, though, that as I write this I've only read the first 13 chapters, so there wasn't even time for the plot to really kick in.

This manga seems a bit silly when you read the summary, a portal fantasy featuring a video game setting. I dreaded it might be some fanservice-filled comedy, with no real story beyond the game parody, so I decided to try reading it if only to get it out of my PTR list. I was pleasently surprised to find out that not only this isn't a parody, but ... that this is actually a good manga. Some reasons to read it:

* The heroine is smart and resourceful, but that doesn't stops her from commiting blunders and just getting things wrong, since she's in a completely new world. Also, she's a mage. I like mages.
* The supporting characters seem well rounded. There hasn't been enough time to explore those characters, but they all seem to have their own agenda.
* The world, videogamey as it is, is treated as a real world by the protagonist; its people are considered real people.
* While the "need to go home" plot is a portal fantasy classic, the fact that the protagonist could, maybe, with luck, find her way back herself through _her own research_ is marvelous.
* The magical tech is very interesting.
* There are bishies. Always a plus.

I'm not sure this review can convince anyone, but one weird review is better than none, right? Give Reene a chance!

Hello there, are you feeling under the weather? Recovering from illness, perhaps? Or maybe you just need a smile? Then Ookami-heika no Hanayome is what you need!
This series is 80% fluff/20% plot, but it's very good fluff and the plot makes absolute sense in a court politics sense. It just takes very long to take off, so you're left with the quality fluff for about 40 chapters. But, hey, people that can't take 40 chapters of pure romance have no business reading shoujo manga.
The premise is a classic shoujo story-type, even if some of the characters are more modern (the tsundere prince is not that ... common of a character), the setting is a generic feudal east-asia type of country which is very slowly fleshed out and the stories aren't anything very original, but, goddess, they're sweet and entertaining. It gets progressively sweeter and more original, as time (and chapters) passes and then it hits you with the plot. But talking about that would be spoiling.
As for the characters, Yuurin (Yuu Lin?) is all I dislike about a lead: naive, hard-working, innocent, no idea what it means when you get the hots near a guy, even less idea of what it means to be a consort. Yet, somehow, her ways are endearing instead of ennerving. I root for her.
Reishou, the Wolf King, is a very special kind of romantic hero. He's a guy that keeps an incredibly complex facade going all the time, regardless of who is with him. A complex character, slightly dark, very intelligent and absolutely conscious of how much his relationship with Yuurin ("acting" or not) is a whole bunch of indulgence.
The art starts as regular shoujo fare, but gains genuine style after some 20 chapters. By chapter 40 the narrative is fluid enough you won't feel the pages turning. Also, the men are pretty, which is *required* for this kind of story.

Recommended for shoujo fans and people that need to smile. ^^

I really shouldn't trust MAL ratings for manga. As I'm writing this, Youko x Boku SS has a solid 8 rating, meaning a lot of people considered it really good, even though it has vapid, one dimensional characters, not very good art and actually very bad visual storytelling. It's entertaining and inoffensive, but that is a 6, not an 8, so of course I read it just to be sure this wasn't another BDSM manga with inflated reviews due to a niche audience.
It isn't, I swear. There is nothing overtly ecchi or kinky going on, despite the fact that most character seem to be ... kinky in one or other ways (it's just never really show, only suggested. You hardly get the main couple kissing, let alone anything else).
What happens is: this story has a major tone-shift after chapter 18. I liked it, someone else might have gotten furious, it depends on the reader. The thing is, twists apart, there is very little change to the characters. No one develops new depths to their character and any lessons that seem to have been learned don't really change the way they act. None of the unsaid things about the setting are told. It's not a bad story, but it's told in a very roundabout way, with way too much filler and fan service.

Not really recommended, unless you have a lot of time in your hands (like, for an instance, if you're at home because of an illness, like I was).

This is a good manga, even though the story is a pretty straightforward ghost story, mixing some eastern and western ideas about ghosts with a touch of urban legends and creepypastas. Nothing special about the romance element as well, there are plenty of books about otherworldly romances out there (they're usually called paranormal romance, if you're interested in the genre) and this story does nothing different on that aspect.
No, Tasogare Otome has no groundbreaking story, new ideas or original approaches. What it has is efficient storytelling, good characters and outstanding art. Maybe has a beautiful style, with a good grasp of narrative and a knack ... for keeping the delicate balance of a romcom/horror story, which require completely different art styles and narrative choices. This is one good artist.
So, should you read it? Well, if you enjoy ghost stories, as I do, you'll like it. Same thing if you enjoy romances or school-related stories with a touch of mystery. But, honestly, it's not something you'll regret missing, so, if you're short on time, go for other manga.