Dear Anemone

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Junji Ito meets Animorphs. And its pretty fucking cool.

I agree with the public fanfare about Dear Anenome being both trope heavy and not that scary. But it's worth a read for the sheer thrill of the artstyle alone. Harkening back to Junji, a lot of his stories rely more on coolness factor rather than creep factor, which is exemplified through each page flip here too. Its unique monster designs and real life biology lessons are also a treat. The animal biology is based on real life biology, so this is a great manga for zoology enthusiasts as well. I'm curious to see where this manga ... goes and will continue to support it as time goes on.

How the mangaka is able to draw a full chapter a week with this level of art is absolutely beyond me.
The story, however, still needs a hook.

Since there are only 3 chapters out by now, it's normal to not really care for the cast and story. But so far, the main character is just your average horror protagonist and in the first chapter alone did they kill off the most likeable character. But I'm keeping a positive outlook on it. For now, I would recommend it to people for the art alone, if you want to learn about evolution & strange animals, and to answer ... the question "What makes us human?".

Dear Anemone feels a lot like the movie Annihalation; as in a bunch of people go to a mysterious place where weird things happen, and they're attacked by beings that shouldn't exist. If that sounds interesting to you, I would definitely give it a read. But beware that this isn't a romance manga nor a battle manga. I first thought this would be like Beauty and the Beast, but it's far from it.

I will continue to check out this manga for now, but so far I've yet to catch the hook. The art is rough but gorgeous, and the double spreads are breathtaking. But it really needs to do something story-wise that makes it stand out.
For now I'm looking forward to the answers to
- Why did this place turn out like this?
- What horrors will they find along the line?
- What are the creatures and why do they look like the missing humans?
- What will become of the anemone(?) that is attached to our protagonist?
- What terrible ways will people die in?

I always try to respect the work of a mangaka because a manga takes an incredible amount of work and effort. I definitely respect this manga attempt, but I have to be honest in a review. Dear Anemone's art is certainly of quality... and that's it. The thing is, one can be a fantastic artist and have no writing ability. In fact, someone can be a great artist yet have difficulty coming up with original ideas and designs. Someone who is the sole author of a manga needs all of these abilities, which is tough, but true.

This series is simply unremarkable in areas other than ... artwork. Even as far as visuals go, there are issues. In every action scene in the manga's run, it's hard to figure out what's going on and what the mangaka is trying to depict. I also got tired of the art style, which always maintains a sort of gritty look. It was interesting at first, it's like the panels all look the same, with that gritty, dirty look no matter what's happening. Also, the series introduces a new major character about 10 chapters in or so, and she looks very similar to another major female character introduced prior. This is never mentioned, so I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

This manga takes a liking to shock gore, and it's just boring violence that you could find in much more well-rounded competent series. It tries to be all dark and edgy but turns out uninteresting. The series preaches pretentiously about evolution, which was basically the theme, but it doesn't use the concept meaningfully. It's another series that rushed to its planned ending after getting canceled and shoves a bunch of random slop into the final chapter, so it's not worth a short read even if the previous chapters were decent. Sorry, but I don't blame Weekly Shonen Jump for axing this, though I do hope the creator can improve and make a better series in the future.