Sundome

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Sundome is a touching, if very sexually depraved manga. It tells you about the power of love and how it can motivate us to becomes a better person. At least that’s what response to it led to me to believe. In reality, it’s just a brain dead ecchi comedy manga tells a terrible romance story, with a few tweaks could’ve passed off as satire.

Be warned as this review will be full of spoilers. I actually don’t want anyone to read it so I’ll spoil a fair bit of it to explain why.

If you’re already familiar with the setup of the story then skip ahead ... to the next segment.

One day a mysterious girl (Kurumi Sahana) transfers in the same class as our protagonist (Hideo Aiba), and he immediately falls in love with her. Luckily she is seated right next to him and they move their desks together to share a textbook. That alone makes him hard as a diamond. Unfortunately Kurumi drops her eraser and it lands right between his legs, next to a raging boner. She reaches down and picks it up while accidentally touching his penis yet she doesn’t seem to notice for now.

Later we are introduced to a roman club, it doesn’t have anything to do with the ancient empire or language. Roman alludes to romanticism of young boys and their desire to uncovered mysteries and chase after their dreams. The rumour has it that if you graduate without losing virginity or getting a girlfriend, the alumni of the roman club will fund your dreams. With high reward comes high risk in form of tests from the alums and assassins, women who are sent after the club members to rid them of their virginity. In this club there are 4 members: Hideo, who joined on a whim cause he didn’t think he’d ever date anyone while in school anyway; Ex-president, he has an anal fetish and mostly exists to make asshole jokes; Katsu Toshitsuku, a pervert with a peeping fetish who wants to become a lawyer and lastly; Tatsuya Yatsu, a cowardly otaku with a leg fetish who wants to becomes a politician.

Suddenly Kurumi comes to the club to check it out and joins them. When she’s left alone with Aiba she tells him to masturbate to which he replies that this is something people do in private but fearing to lose interest of a girl he likes he eagerly agrees and puts a nail inside his penis. After the attempt at masturbation with a nail failed Kurumi tells him that she will never have sex with him, she might do it casually with someone else but not with him, even if they were last two people on Earth, even he begged. Aiba doesn’t mind though, to him as long as she’s in close proximity of him. From there on the story is a slow trickle of what hardly qualifies of plot and character progression with and a lot of repetitive and forced comedy as well as very embarrassing ecchi.


What Sundome tries to be?

Now on to what this manga attempts to do, according to the writing and the presentation. The way story’s handled, I believe Sundome tries to be a tragedy centred around Kurumi. She seems to have some fatal disease and what little time she has left in the world she spends trying to make a better man out of Hideo in the most nonsensical and roundabout way possible. This all seems to be a part of the plan for alums or OBs as manga occasionally calls them, but it’s never made clear cause the whole thing about wish granting and evil assassins is nothing more than a plot device to explain some random coincidences. Most of Kurumi’s actions revolve around either setting up challenges for Hideo, for which he gets various erotic rewards or simply using him for her own enjoyment. Most of that ends up with Hideo being rewarded in way or the other, sometimes it’s the ability to touch or lick Kurumi, other times he gets a permission to masturbate or get pissed on. Kurumi’s challenges meanwhile can vary from something simple like fetching water or dragging furniture around to something life/health threatening like having to interact with a violent thug or enduring 20 second in an arm lock with a risk of his arms getting broken.

In the process of all this it becomes clear that Hideo will do absolutely anything, be it dangerous or humiliating, just for the opportunity to be close to Kurumi, let alone do anything more involved. For example there is a moment when he briefly gets an opportunity to live with Kurumi as her pet as long as he never touches his penis. Aiba eagerly agrees and comes to her house with a cardboard box to live inside of and as Kurumi leaves the house he promises to not set foot outside his box. Keeping his promise, he doesn’t even leave for a toilet break and pisses himself. Kurumi’s not mad though, she’s happy cause he’s such a good boy and Aiba is delighted by the result of his obedience.

To be ready for more dangerous or demanding tasks he starts to train and gets a bit stronger. He finds a job to get money he’d spend on Kurumi. His jealousy also makes him a bit more confrontational as he wants to have Kurumi all to himself. Generally all of his improvements centre around being able to make Kurumi happy and service her. In the end that leads to a weird development as author tries to show the payoff in a rather creepy way. The three instances of Hideo actually initiating something is when he forcibly steals a kiss from Kurumi, holds her down to suck mucus out of her nose and one time when lifts her slightly by the shorts to somehow make going uphill easier. That’s supposed to be his big character development and all it just comes off as his lust taking over.

Manga ends with Kurumi suddenly being hospitalized and Hideo breaking her out of it to make her see some special place which ends up being some boring beach. She gets inside a sleeping back and so does Hideo. Her final moments are spent looking at Hideo jerking himself off on top of her. Time goes by, Hideo becomes a doctor and is happily married while keeping Kurumi around as a happy memory.

What it actually is and why it fails?

The concept of their relationship by itself is good. I could be down with a romance story where the goal is to lure protagonist into improving himself as a person, but the way Sundome goes about it doesn’t make sense and is outright disgusting. How can anyone claim Hideo ever truly becomes a better person when up until the very end he is driven forward by nothing but lust? He loves Kurumi unconditionally with slavish devotion. He’s fine with whatever she might do to him even if it kills him, that’s literally one of the things that gets established at a point. Kurumi stops chocking him cause if it was up to him he’d never want her to let go. He didn’t even have a dream to asks OBs about until he met her and decided to be a doctor “so that even if they are last two people on Earth she wouldn’t be in trouble”. So, main theme of their relationship is a complete flop.

The way it’s achieved thought is by far the worst. I have no idea who thought that a flat out abusive relationship can be painted as something good yet Sundome tries real hard. Whenever Hideo gets his reward after being hurt or humiliated is shown as some moment of romantic privacy and unity between the two main characters while in reality it can be Hideo drinking piss as thanks for servicing Kurumi. It’s almost as far from being a healthy relationship as it can be cause Hideo is such an unreasonable person. He shows doubt about his relationship multiple times but it all comes down to him living for the sake of Kurumi and her happiness without ever considering himself. There is even a subplot about Kurumi sleeping with some older man, he’s later revealed to be her doctor and even though it’s not actually said that he didn’t sleep with her it’s what reader will most likely assume. Either way Hideo never actually does anything to change the situation, he never asks Kurumi about him and two times he actually talks to the guy he tells him that Kurumi pisses on him and only him and allows him to drink her piss. So we have this protagonist who’s a massive pushover and constantly gets used in his uneven relationship. He will risk everything to gain very little yet this process is framed as him growing into a better person? That makes about as much sense as clobbering some nerd into a mental breakdown and then saying “well I only wanted to help him become stronger and more confident”. It’s ridiculous but in Sundome it works for no damn reason other than the writer trying to assign some depth to a shitty fan service manga.

And it’s not even good at that either. None of the fetishes in the manga really intersect with mine, so it’s not surprising I didn’t find the erotic part of it all that arousing. But at least I was willing to give it credit for variety. At first it seemed like the author put effort into creating a wide variety of different situations that are both interesting and capitalize on some of the taboos Sundome flaunts, but after a while the scenarios and actions start repeating. Aiba keeps trying to lick some part of Kurumi, he keeps trying to touch a different place or licking her wide variety of body fluids. It all starts to wear off and blend together rather quirk.

With all of this I didn’t expect Kazuto Okada to try and cram in a separate gag manga in all of this. The comedy largely revolves around roman club activities and character interactions that usually awkwardly flow into Aiba and Kurumi doing something perverted before everything is reset back to normal. Personally there were maybe 2 or 3 times Sundome made me laugh across the whole thing. Too many of the jokes just rely on terrible running gags that usually coincides with single defining feature of each character. Kyouko is a gyaru who asks money from people for anything she can, that’s hilarious cause instead of reacting normally she tries to extort money. Ex-president is fascinated with anuses, that’s funny cause haha anus. Aiba is excited about any opportunity to get pissed on by Kurumi and that’s funny cause haha ain’t that weird.

Worth mentioning that there’s also a completely pointless romance subplot between Kyouko and Katsu. Kyouko who used to be an easy lay starts hanging out with nerds at the roman club and eventually starts dating Katsu instead of asshole jocks cause Katsu is just such a nice guy. Their entire relationship could’ve been torn out of the manga and it wouldn’t impact the narrative in any way. If anything it would improve it cause the faster it ends the lighter the torture.

Lastly, the art.

The style is an inconsistent mishmash of SD and stylized but more or less realistic designs that are usually switched up depending on the tone of the scene. Except for ex-president, Katsu and Tatsuya, who are permanently stuck in joke mode even when they’re involved in serious scene, which is jarring as hell.

The general quality of drawing is way below average. At times the proportions are so out of whack that it made me think that any half-decent looking panels in the manga were heavily references and I still think that the author wouldn’t be capable of drawing them without that. There’s also a ridiculous amount of reused expressions and perspectives, it’s pretty obvious that Okada is not a very versatile artist and it really shows when all his emotional scenes usually just feature two or three same faces over and over. It doesn’t help the dramatic impact of those scenes and it looks terrible. There’s also a weird reluctance to draw one of the eyes in many of the shots, sometimes it’s common enough to think that the characters are actual cyclops.

When it comes to ecchi shows the art can make or break it and Sundome breaks fast. Despite all the feedback about this manga talking about how perverted and ecchi heavy this manga is, it’s gonna be one of the tamest I’ve seen. Okada rarely draws characters fully unclothed and when he does I start to understand why. He’s anatomy is not bad enough to be laughable but it’s nowhere near good enough to be titillating either. Erotic drawings are usually about realistic anatomy meeting halfway with exaggerated style and proportions to make the erotic parts stand out more than figuratively and neither is present here.

In conclusion you get Sundome, a terrible romance manga with not a single fleshed out character and a tragic story that makes about as much sense as cutting off your legs to run faster. As if it wasn’t bad enough it’s a comedy without wit and a manga without art worth looking at. I sincerely hope nobody reads this trash.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. READ SOMETHING ELSE LIKE YOUR LIE IN APRIL. For more detail keep read if you wish. I had to write a review about this manga after seeing how popular it was and the praise it received from a bunch of people who truly seem to enjoy this manga.

Story: The story makes no sense. It starts out with a group of boys go to high school and have fun together in some sort of mystery/folklore/alien finder club that they formed. However the ridiculous thing is they are tied to some organization/scholarship/society that will basically make sure they're life after high school ... is filled with opportunities to go whether they want in college, life etc IF and only IF they remain virgins to any form of sexual intercourse. It opens with one of the members/friends returning to his friends having given up his innocence when "the organization" sent a spy over to offer him anal sex (his fetish) to which he agreed (all this retold by the friend). In comes the main female lead, a transfer student or something, who joins they're club and without any explanation tells the main character whose in the club that she will never have sex with him or let him cum ever. The whole manga is the club + one other girl whose kinda the dumb school slut who joins the club going on random adventures while the main character who is in love with the transfer student becomes her bitch and does whatever she wants and is basically her slave out of his love for her and she cockteases him and only gives him permission to cum when she feels like it. All the while there is forshadowing of her having some sort of illness that progresses of the course of the book.
Its total non-sense in the way the information I told is presented to the reader and the fact that you don't even realize just how real/serious the organization somehow is or how it can tell when a guy has sex. like... honestly its just total nonsense.

Art: Horrible. Bland. The other draws every girl with a massive vagina/camel toe that is so visable even in jean shorts that it looks like it was just painted on them after they were kicked in the pus and now its swollen to all hell.

Character: There is zero character building or development other than maybe the slut girl and one of the guys as their relationship sort of forms? The main girl (transfer student) is a total sadistic bitch and yes, you know that she can't have sex with him b/c she wants him to get that scholarship/acceptance/support of the organization but god I just don't understand why they made her so cruel for no reason.

Enjoyment: Did not enjoy at all. I kept waiting to be grasped and fall in love with this like all the high praise reviewers but just like our main hero, I had blue balls for enjoyment the whole time.

Overall: It is honestly aggravating to me when I read that people rate this garbage a 10 and say that they cried so hard and this and that at the end. Maybe they are 14 years old and this manga was deep to them or something but honestly I'd be insulting 14 year old's by saying that. DO NOT READ THIS MANGA. I understand what they were trying to go for but this is complete and utter trash. I've read a lot of manga was looking for something emotional and gripping after reading Oyasumi PunPun (read that!) and came across this. BIG mistake.

Go read Your Lie in April. It has all the emotions that this story attempts to bring about (according to what the readers say I guess b/c how the author thought this book would elicit those emotions is beyond me) and so much more, minus all the poorly drawn vaginas, camel toes and boobs (Your Lie in April is not an ecchi).

we have pathetic male protagonist, those the japanese love so much, who submits himself to some random female that someday is transferred into his school, and from that point on the manga revolves around the sexual adventures of pathetic man a generic bland anime girl, where the former does everything the latter demands because yes, apparently the author believes men are pathetic creatures without brains that act solely on the possibility of sexual reward, this shits borders in Misandry. Besides the shitty plot there is little, mediocre drawing in both characters and backgrounds and cast of characters just as forgettable as the main character, there ... are better ways to waste your time, spend some hours watching paint dry, it will be more enjoyable than this shit

I saw this mentioned in the same breath as Oyasumi Punpun in a few online circles, and that made me want to check this out. Those people speaking so highly of this manga are completely mistaken.

This manga has weird kinks throughout (pissing, mostly. drinking piss. anal. degradation.) but I overlooked how much dissatisfaction the portrayal of these kinks gave me. I was assured that the initial ecchi content would become more complex as the story progressed and it would become more than simple baseless hentai. But that never happened.

I see what the story was going for, showcasing the bonding of these two characters. But ... the impact of this manga would have been stronger if the two main characters bonded in ways that didn't involve weird sexual acts. Any time the two characters became closer, something sexual immediately followed. It was aggravating. It was unnecessary.

Some of the characters were endearing and would have made a cute friend group if not for the overbearing perversion that overtook everything about this manga. You couldn't go 3 panels without something grotesque or unnecessary being shown.

Would not recommend.

Good manga, 4/10, but if you're the type to be curious about a manga like this, like I was, you should still read it.

This is one of those ecchi that you read where the story is decent but it gets fucked up by all the sexual stuff. Despite that, and my rating of 4, I'm going to recommend that anyone who is curious read it anyway.

None of my ratings for the individual aspects of the manga reflect how I actually think about it as a whole. I somehow like they story, the characters are serviceable and can be funny, the art is decent, and ... it managed to keep me engaged in what was going on so that all counts for something.

The 2 reasons why I won't give this anything higher than a 4, even with recommendations, are the lack of explanation for some of the plot and the ending.

Without spoiling, there are a few things in this manga that are never directly explained and you kind of have to make assumptions about, which makes the story less fulfilling than it could be, but the things it won't explain doesn't hinder the story of the relationship between the two MCs so they get light passes. The ending is something you will have to see for yourself to know why I won't give it a higher score.

Good manga, 4/10, read it.

STORY: 3

The supposed power of a unique intense relationship that sees characters change and progress until the dramatic ending falls short all along. The review of Gundroog already explains everything, it's sick, repetitive and boring.

ART: 2

Art is quite weak and strangely it's at its worst on the main characters.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 3

... Jokes center around anus, nothing beyond.

FEMINISM: 3

Some will see the main female character as leading a fight against her curse but I just see the usual sexual-object/love-interest, that the male protagonist loves so much (but cannot even communicate with to understand her circumstances).

CONCLUSION: 3

Sundome is neither funny, sexy or romantic, don't waste your time.