Masamune-kun no Revenge
Masamune-kun's Revenge

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Masamune-kun suffers from an interesting phenomenon, something I like to call the "Guilty Crown Effect". At the beginning, we start with a very unique plot with tons of potential, and several different characters with what looks like room for development. However, after a short feeling of general oddness it takes an absolute dive into the abyss.

In the beginning, there are several very interesting characters. Our hero is very handsome, but also extremely narcissistic. Our heroine is beautiful, but a terrible tsundere. As they draw closer together, we see that there is some depth to these characters that is making their interactions more interesting. The side ... characters are slowly introduced, most of them contributing an interesting and unique something to the plot.

The first few chapters are quite good, and set it up for an excellent story. As the manga continues, there begins to be a slight air of indecision, as if the author doesn't know where to go from the beginning. Characters will have important dialogue or realizations, that will then be completely forgotten by the next chapter. In spite of this I foolishly kept reading.

There was an important reveal about one of the characters, and the manga looked like within a few chapters it would reach a very satisfactory ending. And that is where everything went to absolute hell. For absolutely NO reason, new characters and a terrible plot began to be introduced. The only possible reason for this that I can think of is that the author realized he wasn't quite ready to butcher this cash milking machine.

I, being young and naive, continued to read, still holding on to that desperate hope that somehow this would all fix itself. Alas, I just got to watch my heart be broken further as the story continued to sink into the dregs of manga that exists as some sort of capitalistic, never-ending hell. Like someone in an abusive relationship, I just kept thinking that maybe next time it will be different. Spoilers: it wasn't. I eventually dropped it.

I rated this a 2. Some people may think that this is harsh, but stories like this are far worse to me than any "Mars of Destruction" catastrophe. I can easily detect poor writing, but I can't detect good writing that becomes terrible. Maybe some lucky souls are capable of sensing this sort of thing before it comes to pass, but this review is for everyone else. I implore you, in the name of good stories everywhere, do not read this manga. If you're so desperate to read something, read the first five chapters or so and then make up your own ending. Literally anything would be better.

TL;DR Starts promising, goes to shite.

There aren't great many routes a romance series can take. Especially the high school settings are limited and suffering from unoriginal content where most series are more or less the same thing. Masamune-kun no Revenge introduces something fresh as like the title implies - the plot of the series centers around a revenge.... kind of.

Our main dude, Piggy, got his nickname from a beautiful girl who ended up bullying him for his outlooks. This happened at a very young age. Good for him, the handsome boy genes kicked in after the childhood phase and he turned into a nice teenager. Just so happens to be, ... Piggy and mrs. Revenge target are now in the same high school, so naturally, it's time for the payback! .... kind of.

Piggy comes up with a masterful plan -- that was clearly inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo -- to make mrs. Revenge target fall in love with him just so he can turn her down and break her heart for good! Muahahaha. *evil laugh* Unfortunately this proves to be impossible because the girl is a literally evil biatch..... kind of.

This starts off a rather bumpy ride centering around soap opera level writing stuff and side characters who all seem to serve less meaning in the story as it advances. Once the not-exactly-an-epic journey ends, we get the conclusion that anyone was expecting after seeing the romance tag in the series genres.... exactly and literally.

In case the story wasn't problematic enough: the characters are pretty much full of nonsense as well. Piggy and mrs. Revenge target are pretty much the exact same thing: the opposing party is the villain to them both, yet this is just a contradiction caused by fear of nothing less than... being happy.

In one way, the whole point of the series are teenage insecurities and growing over them. Dealing with regret and anger. This is pretty cool and genuine idea, but the characters and story aren't exactly doing a good job on making it meaningful... or interesting.... or really anything else either.

As a conclusion, if this series had been 30% of its current length, didn't contain harem and the characters had spend their time accepting themselves instead of pondering in self-pity, Masamune-kun could have been an average romance story. Now it's clearly below the typical quality of high school romances which isn't that high in the first place.

all those 40+ chapter leading up into a mess 7 chapter of ending....

pain point:
1. Irrelevant / gimmick side character that really does nothing to add into the ending of the story
2. Later, the series extremely into shoujo romance
3. They drag the series way too long with hollow, meaningless chapters
4. All character feeling and logic are nonsense / stupid that you can figure it out in the first chapter
5. Predictable and hollow ending, left the rest of the character with no proper ending / the author want a good ending for all character but fail miserably
6. The series want to be "light and entertaining to read" ... but fail and become an extreme shoujo romance manga *BUT* afraid to spice things up and become boring, dull and predictable

**TO ANYONE WANTING TO READ PLEASE READ THIS***

**COPY PASTED MY ANIME REVIEW, BUT THIS APPLIES TO BOTH**

You may be wondering why I gave this pretty high scores for all categories but a 4 overall? Well that's because the show starts off amazing has a fun premise and looks to be fun. As it moves on the characters are shown to be deeper than we thought, some really good storytelling is made and it turns the show into more than a silly revenge rom com.

Here's where it gets bad, after it started getting so good the show takes a COMPLETE 180 and ruins everything they've ... built up to that point (This happens in the manga as well which is 20 chapters ahead of the final episode as of righting this and it's still an absolute shithole and mess)

I can only count on one hand the amount of times a show has left me with such a sour taste in my mouth after finishing it (So much so that i'm writing my first review because it's pissed me off so much)

TL;DR Show goes from amazing to a shitfest in the last few episodes, and don't bother reading the manga as the shitfest just keeps on going..

Masamune-kun no Revenge is... well, let me put it this way: you ever put your hand in a blender? Yeah, that sums up how I feel about this manga.

Long story short: good art, bad everything else. Go on the wiki, enjoy the cute girls and Masamune and Kojuro's designs, and go do something else with your finite, beautiful, valuable lives. And if that isn't enough reason to stop you from reading this manga, allow me to explain why I immensely dislike Masamune-kun no Revenge.

Imagine you've got a cool, relatable story of self-betterment and learning, a story which shows how a person can evolve and become ... something they can be proud of. Add in a nice lil' gimmick about how they're going to get revenge and force the antagonist to realise their own flaws and better themselves, cute girls, and some comedy, and you've got a nice time. But that isn't Masamune-kun.

No, Masamune-kun is a boring, weird story filled with wish fulfilment and tropes. The story starts off... okay? It's realistic enough at least, with character development and has a bit of internal struggle. But, here's where we see inherent flaw with the series: the author is shit. Hazuki has no clue what he's doing or where he's going except for a few key points in the narrative - everything else is free fall until they reach these specific points.

And, let me say, these points are, dare I say, enjoyable. They're not "good" due to their writing (although the art does help pick up the slack), but they're like beating a hard boss in a video game. And that's not a bloody good thing to have in a manga, as failing to beat a boss is YOUR fault. YOU didn't do it good enough, so you have to try again because YOU weren't good enough, didn't learn enough, weren't fast enough, etc. But this is a piece of literature, where such a feeling can be created through two ways: (1) masterful storytelling and manipulation of the characters and audience to create tension and pull at your heartstrings or (2) doing a poor job at writing, forcing the audience to sit through it and endure your writing.

All that being said, sometimes it's fine, you barely notice it - but these times are severely lacking. Most of the time it's painfully noticeable just how bad and just plain strange points of the story are; character arcs and plot points are discarded, their purpose in pushing the narrative on fulfilled. That leads me onto another important thing: the characters.

First of all, we have the eponymous Masamune. He's... alright, I guess. Pretty stock-standard borderline-wish fulfilment character, has a few "quirks" which make up his personality. Then we have Aki, the tsundere-hime who is... more of collection of tropes than a real character (although she does have a nice moment at one point, even though Hazuki's writing rears its head again). After her, we have Yoshino, pretty much loli-big boobs-fanservice-quiet school shooter type. Following her, we have Kojuuro, your generic trap girly boy.

You getting a feel for the characters yet? Did you guess that the next one would be Futaba, the class president? Maybe not, but you got the feeling that these are all tropes and archetypes which barely fill out their roles as archetypes. That being said, I do like three character in this: Kojuuro (he showed some nice character development for the series), Futaba (so much wasted potential, you shall forever be #2 girl to me), and Muriel (only in a small arc and not part of the main cast, but god damn do I love her design).

Now, the second last thing to talk about is the art: I fucking love it. Tiv is a godsend, she can do no wrong (except her questionable colour palette). She is the only reason the story and characters are soft 3s and not a hard 2s, as her art is able to drag the characterisation and emotions up. While the designs and style aren't anything to write home about (being fairly generic for manga and anime), she does them damn well, and consistently for that matter.

So, here I stand, with only one thing to talk about: enjoyment. Why is it a 2 if everything else was a 3 or an 8? Because I fucking sat through 40 chapters of this crap. By the end of the Ch. 18 I was ticked, my score was a 5 or 4, my enjoyment was a solid 5 though. It had been a ride, but I didn't quite regret it. But then... It happened. It is something you will learn of if you don't heed my warning and turn back now. It makes no sense and made my blood run in reverse, almost ending the suffering which It brought onto my existence. While I can't say what It is due to It being a massive spoiler, It ruins everything. "Nothing good could possibly come after It," I thought to myself.

And I was right. Excluding the time with Muriel in it, It does mark the end of everything good in this manga to me. It destroys the past, present, and future of this manga; the past is soured, the present is corrupted, and the future is made bleak, all by It. Don't even get me started on Its big bad older brother, That, which I just witnessed recently. That is like biting into sandwich and biting into a Holocaust. It and That ruined everything good about this (sans the art and the few good moments) of this series for me. It and That did not impact upon my perception of the story nor characters too greatly, just enjoyment.

In conclusion, here are my scores:
Story: 3, a piece of shit. Author has no idea what they're doing except for a few key points.
Art: 8, beautiful and well done.
Character: 3, see Story for reasons.
Enjoyment: 2, hahahahahhahano. No enjoyment here, save a few moments.

Overall: 3. I don't reccomend reading this at all. It's tropey garbage which you shouldn't waste your time reading. Hell, the whole "revenge" thing it has going for it dies off pretty quickly as well.

All that being said, I will keep reading it. Why? Because I'm curious how bad it will get.

Great Premise Horribly botched execution.

As of now I've read the entirety of the series. It starts off good. All of the characters are pretty interesting. Then plot developments beyond the initial romance and branching storylines start to pop up. They are completely ignored or given a half thought. Themes aren't explored, questions never really answered, relationships not really cultivated, most hard conversations that are necessary are never had or at best glossed over. The absolute worst part is the story takes on a case of Shamalamadingdong syndrome and the necessity to put twists and subvert expectations just for the sake of subverting expectations. This ... caused the second half of the story as well as the ending to be horrid.

The art is fine but my enjoyment the farther I got into this series was not. 3 out of 10. A good first draft for a story but next time get an editor that knows what the hell they are doing.

I'm disappointed, really disappointed considering the fact that I read this whole manga in a few days just to have everything leading up to one of the worst endings ever lmao.
Story (4): I read the synopsis and I expected a really good story out of this. The thing is though, I put this manga off for a whole year, but that ending made me envy the me before where this manga was still being put off. So let me tell you something, the first chapter gives out a good story, fat dude loses weight and becomes handsome in order to get revenge on the girl ... who called him piggy. So far so good, as the chapters kept on presuming on, questions are being asked, questions were answered, but the last ten chapters (38-48, not counting 49 and 50 is just a collage of pictures.) were some of the best chapters I've ever read, for me atleast. It was basically a plot twist, a good one for once! So the last ten chapters build up on this plot twist and I can't tell you enough, I was hoping to God that the author won't screw this up.... Incoming chapter 49, the biggest plot twist of them all shows up and fucks up everything, all the questions that we thought were answered became meaningless, because all of those questions came back for the last chapter and ended up being multiplied! So yes, this manga ended up predictable, confusing, fast paced which I'll touch on later, rushed, and that plot twist in those ten chapters?!?! Erased lmao, good job on you author, way to make the manga longer than it should have been, should've just erased those 10 chapters. One more thing before I make this longer than it should have, but it doesn't even come to ships at this point, if you supported the main girl then skip the ten chapters and don't even waste your time and read the last few pages of chapter 49 and enjoy your predictable trash, if you picked the other girl... you'll see what I mean, then the last ten chapters will make so much fucken sense and it becomes the first time where a predictable manga had the side chick win in a harem.... then don't read chapter 49. If it would've been a 7 or 8 either way if it wasn't for that last chapter.

Art (7): It's decent, the art atleast serviceable and the best thing about this manga....

Character (5): It would've been a 8 if it wasn't for the last chapter, all the side characters that needed some questioning just becomes mysteries in the last chapter. We never get good development on them which is sad and none of them left an impact where I can remember their name sadly. I want to get invested into them but nothing leaves a mark and don't get me started with the minor characters... What about the main characters? Everything was good development til the last chapter, everything seemed really force, both of them threw all of that character development out the window in the favor of one more god awful and predictable plot twist.

Enjoyment (1): I can't tell you how fast paced this manga was to the fact that it did none of its characters justice. Think of it this way, the side characters never get any development whatsoever except the main characters, so how am I supposed to care about One-Dimensional characters? Every arc seemed so rushed but I didn't mind that all, it was enough to keep me enjoying the manga and trust me, the plot twist in the beginning of the last ten chapters were so enjoyable to the point where I have to get to the end of it! Only to get pranked, all the author did was toy with your feelings and retcon all of those ten chapters lmao.

Overall: 4 I'm not reading it again, til Thanos snapped the last chapter and replaces it with a good chapter, then maybe this manga would've been an 8.

Side Note: I know all about the 'Side girl' and I know she's not everyone favorite because certain circumstances, but those last ten chapters either need to balls up and go with her or just don't have those last ten chapters begin with and have the last chapter just be good for once, it's that simple. And I give you a novel on why she's the best girl compared to the other ones too, and make complete sense while doing it, so fight me lol.

I originally wanted to type "what" and be done with this review, but since there's apparently guidelines to follow, I suppose I'll elaborate.

I'm a big fan of romantic comedies. Dish them with an original concept, cute art, and a side of enemies to lovers; I'm sold. Masamune-kun had all of these factors, but after reading the first few chapters, I didn't feel particularly satisfied. The stars were closely aligned, but outside metaphoric language, all that spells is an astronomical disaster. The first sign of warning was the cast. Each is fueled by their own enigmatic and conflicting motivations, with potential for development and overlapping histories. ... However, the author never seems to know what to do with them. In an attempt to create a multifaceted lineup, the author routinely creates miniature twists in the place of character development. This isn't necessarily an issue in itself, but the constant resets between chapters and anticlimatic plotlines leave the cast feeling inconsistently depicted. Although I left with a sigh of disappointment, I begrudgingly continued on. At the very least, I was enjoying the upbeat art design, and I still held partial hope that my favourite tropes would become realised. Unfortunately, these inconsistencies were only a sign of the overarching direction that followed.

It's difficult to explain why the narrative is frustratingly poor while avoiding spoilers, but I'll begin by noting that all of those minor criticisms become larger and more prominent as the series progresses. The author never seems to be able to make up his mind on where the plot and cast will progress. Characters with hidden identities and mysterious motives are introduced one by one; each exchanging references to dark pasts soon to be revealed. But amongst those that aren't immediately sidelined or removed entirely, rarely do these threads add up to anything. The main 'antagonist' has their ploys unraveled by the lead in a two-page gag; the rivals immediately give up; and most commonly, the manga pulls a double twist. Credit to the writer, some of these narrative turns are both unexpected and exciting, but almost all of them are followed by a character denouncing their truth. As soon as a plot point is introduced, it is immediately invalidated. Perhaps most egregiously, the final few arcs retcon development in exchange for longevity.

Towards the conclusion of the manga, there are four points where one might expect the story to stop. The 'defeat' of the rival antagonist, the confession, the twist, and the retcon double twist. The story continues on. When I opened my review with "what" I was referring to the experience of reading past the logical ending. What was the point? Each of the final arcs leads to the exact same conclusion, so the story effectively meanders around for 15-20 chapters. The exception here is in the character twist prior to the conclusion, which for what it's worth, at-least justifies the hesitation. Unfortunately, as per previous examples, it is immediately and groundlessly ignored - this time, off-screen. By the time the final arc arrives, there is little payoff or excitement; just repetition and confusion: a single "what," if you will. For whatever reason, whether it be indecision; magazine influence; popularity; or minor loose-ends, the manga continues on. Even after the narrative has technically concluded, extra chapters are thrown in with last-second gags, side-character 'arcs,' and a minor time-skip where the heroine's personality 180s.

I didn't enjoy Masamune-kun. After initial disappointment, I expected to eat popcorn and blush to a pretty trope bag of mediocrity. Instead, I was left confused as the story plot threads consistently led no-where, weekly retcons muddled an almost entirely linear arc, characters were introduced and immediately sidelined; and the narrative refused to end. The question of why I felt so inclined to write my first MAL review at 5AM was then because I was baffled and disappointed. The writer has genuinely interesting ideas, but a lack of will or ability to follow-through with them. I'm optimistically excited to read their other work, if only in the hope that those ideas shine through more thoroughly.