Dolls Code

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Ah yes, a manga I stumbled upon years ago. Heavily disappointing as my first review on here...
Doll's code at first glance of the synopsis and peaks is an interesting manga and not for the easy faint of heart due to some of its subject matters it fails to do mostly anything about if it's not murder to say at the least.
[story: 6/10]
With a basic yet still boring plot forcing them to "bond" to understand each, and you know, get your body parts back from Frankenstein .JR.
The mystery is interesting having most viewers on their feet, even keeping the identity of the puppet for ... most readers or those who don't put too much thought of it hidden well for most and obvious for some others.
However, this is where its problems arise. They have it too mysterious without pushing us in the right direction. Oku always gets the finger pointed at him as the puppet. It's like they never give you a chance to say think "[name] might be the puppet!" Making those in the manga suspicious of Oku with no reason/ Literally one chapter they don't trust him, the next they do, after that they don't again, and repeat! It Results in making the "bonding experience" of the characters useless and pointless to show these sides of characters if it's not the twins.
In most parts of the manga I never got the slightest bit disturbed at scenes.  The only time I felt frightened was through two backstories, and only because to the sudden graphic content without saying "Hey here's backstory, LOL!"
[characters: 3/10]
Easily forgettable and almost useless outside the "actual main two" and three others. Featuring awful backstories for everyone but one. This made minor character development hard to create with the exception of one, and even then it's for the most "complex" of the bunch. While he's the worse compared to the rest of the cast for a variety of reasons, I don't know how I can explain how stupid that was without risking spoilers.
[Art: 9/10] [Enjoyment: 5/10]
Probably for most the only charm point of this of course is that beautiful art and character design! I only found myself continuing to read it just to see more of the style, being as that's where I found most of the "enjoyment" (if I can really call it that) from.

TL;DR: dolls code is just boring with typical trope characters you'd find in most early shounen animes but trying to be dark and gritty like watered down dangan ronpa and sucks at trying to make you feel sympathy for characters.
However, Dolls Code is worth enough a skim in your spare time or a quick midnight peak if you want a chapter or two. In all honesty too; you could stop reading this for a year and suddenly remember and go straight back to where you were since you're not really forgetting or missing much, lets be honest here.

I haven't seen any very in-depth review of this manga, so I might as well try. Also, I feel this needs to be said because I don't see it anywhere, but trigger warning for rape mentions, an implied rape scene and implied incest in this manga. There's a few minor spoilers, but they're very very minor. There's an spoiler-free final veredict which sums up everything I said though.

Story: 4

The story is Dolls Code's absolutely weakest point. Let's go over it for a bit: the story is about a group of highschool students who have committed crimes and are now captured inside an evil school ... where they have to solve a variety of "Saw"-like challenges; the one who collects the most points during these challenges will be the only one allowed to leave and the rest will be left to die, basically. They also need to identify the fake "puppet" student to make sure he isn't the one win.
It has a very interesting premise that's enough to lure anyone into at the very least checking it out, and the writing does a very good job in immersing the reader into the story and keeping you curious, but the serious flaws cannot be ignored. Firstly, the premise itself has no justification at all in the world of this manga, the intent behind the main villain shaping the school in this "Saw" dynamic is never explained, and in fact, the more the story progresses the more you begin to realize it doesn't make sense for him to proceed this way to achieve his objective! At the same time, it is not explained why the villain had any knowledge about these kids and their crimes without having connections to the police, and the list goes of inconsistencies on. Secondly, although I completely get that this is just a two-shot, I must say the pacing feels incredibly rushed. The manga goes from plot-event to plot-event, without leaving any time for the reader to breathe. At first, this is enjoyable as it allows to read the manga faster, but after a while it gets a bit annoying. Due to this fast pacing and the already plot-centric rather than character-centric focus this story has, every friendship bond formed between the characters feel forced.

Characters: 5

The characters are, for the most part, likeable. They all have their own set of traits distinguish them from the rest of the cast, which is a very positive point. However, they remain at this: just a handful of certain traits, mashed together in a mediocre attempt of giving them personalities. Everyone in this manga is just an archetype. We have the typical good-guy anime protagonist, the mischievous twins, the smart hacker, the shy shota and the happy-go-lucky bishie who flirts with everyone giving some homoerotic subtext. The only character that I found unique was the no-organs dude with trust issues. Each character is given a backstory that explains why they did what they did, and these actually do work and make the viewer feel sympathetic for them. But character development doesn't exist in this manga, even if it wants to make you believe it does. Allow me to explain: during the course of this 10 chapter manga, the attitudes and behaviors of the characters do indeed change... but its sudden and mainly "off-camera" (meaning that they act a certain way in a chapter, and the next one they're suddenly a different person). Despite being static, none of the characters are annoying and they're enough to carry the plot. I WILL say that I find it incredibly disturbing to add a rapist character to the mix, and try to make the viewer sympathetic of him as well, like, geez... I get everyone is a criminal but in the end they had a, if not justifiable, at the very least understandable reason for their crime, (even the guy who committed a murder did it in self defense after being threatened), except for the rapist guy (which is good, as rape is so far the only crime I know which I find t be never justifiable). The fact that he is shown as "redeemed" in the end without ever explictly regretting what he did is pretty messed up.

Art: 6

I will admit that the art is good in this manga. The character designs are indeed generic, but given that the other aspects of this manga is pretty mediocre, they do stand out. Since that this was serialized with the shoujo demographic in mind, all the characters have a pretty face. And in fact, they don't suffer from same-face syndrome, something very common in anime aimed towards a female audience, which is a point to its favor. The art can also appropiately create a darker and creepier mood when it is required. The background design is nothing special, but since this manga occurs with the interior of an school as the only setting it is understandable.

Enjoyment: 6

Given that this manga has a very simple story that you don't really need to wrap your head around, and that the characters are indeed likeable like I mentioned, the negative aspects of this manga didn't really bother me as I was reading it, and I only noticed them when I thought about afterwards from a more analytical point of view. It is enjoyable as long as one has the mentality of this being just a "reading it to kill time" type of manga.

Final veredict (spoiler free):

For a two-shot, it really feels like this manga was severely biting more than it could chew. The premise itself might be interesting, but the character development is non-existent, the story lacks depth, and the pacing feels completely rushed. However, it features decent art and you will find the character backstories sentimental enough to walk out having developed a bond with at the very least one of them. I am confident that this manga would have worked way better if its focus was not in the plot, which is weak from the very beginning as it is never explained to the audience, but in the characters, who had way more potential to be fully fleshed. Although not 'good' per se, this is a pretty harmless read as long as you approach it without above average expectations.

When I first read it's synopsis, I was extremely hyped, 7 student's trapped in a school, they commited crimes, now have to participate in a death game, their body parts are missing and one of them is a doll made out of those body parts. Like even thinking about it now, it sounds really great, but what did we get, it was not a death game.. challenes in this manga were, go find a key, go find a doll but it's okay if you don't find it, the mystery about one of them being a secret doll was forgotten up until the last chapter which ... was not bad, but still. I gotta say that characters had potential, like their backstories were interesting but it was definitely not a horror manga survival.

Chracters (6/10)
As I said characters were not bad, they had interesting backstories and all of them had personalities, except of course the main guy who was still enjoyable and..Kanda.. man.. I hate that dude I rarely like that kind of characters, there are some expections but most of the times they are annoying and they always get in the way, so yeah still decent.

Story (3/10)
If the story was what I thought it would be, I would score it muuuch higher, but it was not so yeah, pretty bad.

Art (8/10)
The art was good, the style itself was not special but mastery of an artist is visible and some panels are great.

Enjoyment (4/10)
At start when I had some expectations, I was reading it pretty qucik, but then after realising what the story actually is, my interest dissapeared.

Overall (4/10)
Eventhough 4 is really not a good rating, I wouldn't say that this manga is bad, I guess I just anticipated something more, there were also some details that I didn't really get like the shape game, I think it was simple but I didn't really care about it, and also what did Yuuki do.. we don't get an answer

QUESTION TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THE MANGA (SPOILERS)
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So if Kanda was a puppet why did Yuuki have the twin's arms, is it something I didn't catch?