Dec 16, 2023
I am remiss to give a series by Kawamoto Homura-san, of Kakegurui's fame, such an utterly low grade. Yet, here we are; after only three miserable chapters, I have dropped this series.
Out of respect for your time, and because I have read so little of this work, I will keep this review succinct. This work's content falls into the emergent "Pseudohistorical Magical Tournament" genre. Perhaps better recognized as the "Fate: Stay/ Night clone"-genre, this genre exists around the idea of a battle tournament-- wherein loosely-historical characters fight out individual, 1-on-1-style magical battles against each other-- and wherein the winner of the tournament will be granted
...
a wish. That is the absolute simplest description for this genre which a person could possibly provide, without assuming prior knowledge of Fate: Stay/ Night of the person being described to. That being said, if this sounds like the description of a single series, rather than a genre description, then you are already beginning to understand the problem, but I will continue.
To further elaborate, a near infinite amount of creative freedom is applied when pouring the lives of these historically-and-mythologically-inspired figures into a mold. Meaning, that any characters of these series, and their respective inspiration, are certain to be unlike each other in all but name, profession, and sex... and sometimes, they don't even have that much in common. This is because the formula of the author working in this genre is as follows: Reduce the 'idea' of real peoples' lives to their basest forms, remake them in the images of current marketing trends, and pit them against each other in "combat" occurring under the rules of an only semi-unique, and deliberately ambiguous magical system. This happens so grossly, and with so little respect paid to historical detail, that I would strongly argue it constitutes desecration of the dead, but I digress. As I am sure the reader can already tell, my main criticism with this series, and others like it, is not at all a moral one, but because the whole enterprise is a creatively-bankrupt cash grab.
Likewise, the magical systems and powers are also highly-stylized. These powers often fall into the category of what we Westerners refer to as "high magic," and are individually stylized so as to reflect some aspect(s) of each character's historical basis in life, or else a rough idea about their inspiration's personality and/ or a deeper-seated interest. The tournament in these series is, without fail, motivated by magic, with a promise being given to the winner of fulfilling some creatively-interpreted desire that the combatant was never able to achieve in their historical life. Besides visual interest, the flavor that each author gives to these powers and motivations is what endears readers to this genre, and here we have another problem: Again, much say is given to current marketing trends when interpreting these items, such that the noticing reader will often find powers overlapping between different series. Unlike the aforementioned issue of intellectual gravedigging, I do take moral umbrage with this practice, as this results in outright plagarism when done in a non-parodical context-- And this genre is, as it exists in 2023, almost entirely comprised of non-parodical works.
This series, in only three chapters, has suffered from every one of the above listed problems, and to a serious degree. It is completely burdened by all of the usual tropes. This is worsened by the fact of its suffering from a total lack of meaningful detail to background art: The absolute hallmark of any soulless cash grab. By the end of chapter one, and certainly midway into chapter two, I was aware that I was not reading a manga, but instead staring at a piece of shit. I was eager to be rid of it, but I decided to read onwards to the end of chapter three before dropping it, as is my rule. By the end of chapter three, the character Elizabeth Bathory uses a power which is a near-exact copy of a very-well known "Noble Phantasm" (ie: 'Ultimate attack') from the series Fate: Stay/ Night. It is such an exact copy, that I decided in that moment that reading this series this was actually worse than staring at a piece of shit. It was so bad, that I decided I had to spend a portion of my adult life, on my single day-off from work each week, complaining on the internet, and warning what I'm sure by now is an empty room not to waste their time reading this title. Do not be taken in by the character art of Shizuoka Makoto-san; you will be betrayed in every other way. It is offensively bad. It is horrible, and therefore I score it a two. Never pay a dime to these parasites, who thrive only upon trends started by greater artists, as a tapeworm survives only upon your own waste. If you do, then you are doing a disservice to all fans of visual media and literature, at large.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
