Feb 6, 2025
I didn't like how most of the twists were presented. It's great when you are given a perspective, and then you see another perspective which gives the situation another meaning. However, the earlier chapters in this manga straight-up lie to the reader. Both main characters do and say things that are completely opposite to what we are shown in the latter chapters, when the truth is discovered.
For instance, it's nice if you show a panel of blood splatter, then you show a character's face getting dirty with blood, and then you show them crying. What you CAN'T do is showing how a character kills
...
someone, straight-up admits they killed them, and then you show the same scene but said character never does any of this. It feels really cheap and non-sensical, it kind of reminded me of the game "Heavy Rain". One may argue "that's because that's what that character told the police, not the actual events", but in a mystery story this kind of story-telling feels just cheap. The same goes for the "dead narrator" device used to tell the actual events of what happened; it may mislead readers, and instead of naturally unraveling an interesting mystery, it feels like the manga doesn't know how to do it and chooses the easy path, which is straight-up telling the readers the truth in a pretty random, simple way. I guess that's in part because of how short the manga is.
It does a good job depicting how miserable the lives of the main characters are, and how their lives were ruined by awful people who didn't give a crap about any of them, although I think it's over-the-top, a little too cartoonish. The manga tried too hard to be edgy and depressing, and in the end it came off as a little unrealistic. For instance, the story revolves around a character who lost their mother when they were a child, who's extremely poor, who has a disabled father, whose uncle abuses them, who gets bullied in school, who doesn't really have friends besides the MC, who hits on a guy who's like the worst person ever... And the list goes on and on, but I don't want to spoil anything. The situation is just so over the top and unsubtle it feels like the manga is telling us the readers: "feel sad, dude, you need to feel sad".
The resolution of the mystery was lacking, as it left plot holes everywhere. The ending itself (or epilogue) was sad, but the lead-up to it felt really forced; I get the author wanted such an ending in order to convey what she intended, but providing what happens right before, such a turn of events makes little sense. That speaks volumes about the third volume (no pun intended), which is the worst of the three and you can tell it was rushed; it needed to wrap up too much stuff in just a few chapters, which is why the last 1/3 of the story feels so rushed, full of plot holes, plot contrivances, and forced developments. It would have benefitted from having 1 or 2 more volumes.
The characters are pretty plain and sometimes even straight-up stupid: there are times when you just want to punch them in the face so they use their brains a little. The MC is supposed to be really smart, but once you realize what her plan was all along, you realize it was really stupid, how much she relied on luck and how some of her actions just don't make sense. The main and secondary villain are particularly bad, they are just so cartoonishly evil you can't take them seriously, and one of them, despite being characterized as a cold and calculating psycho, seems to become braindead during the last 1/3 so the manga can reach the ending it wants to provide. By the way, every men (except for one) in this story is a complete, irremediably evil asshole: they're painted in an appaling light, which adds to the cartoonish elements that hurt it.
Even so, the manga has its strenghts; particularly the awesome art, the suspense and intrigue, the atmosphere, the tone, and the message it tries to convey. The writing could have been way better.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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