Goth

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Goth - short, mystery, psychological, horror manga. The title alone sounds pretty intriguing.

Goth is a story about two students who are basically obsessed with death and murder cases. These students, Yoru Morino and Itsuki Kamiyama, don't initially talk to each other in school. After a brief encounter, they realize how much they have in common. Yoru usually ends up getting involved with some murderer and Kamiyama ends up either solving the case or making a fool of the criminal.

Art - I actually really liked the art. It was straight-forward and very easy to interpret, and I think that type of style was a ... good choice for this type of series. Some of the artwork for the more "horror" scenes were pretty interesting to see as well. Overall, I think the style of drawing fit well with the concept.

Character - Well, you only have the two main characters. In such a short length, we do get background on one of them (Yoru). As the manga reaches it's end, Yoru's background could become confusing if you don't pay attention, but overall it was good.

Enjoyment - 9/10. I'm typically a fan of mystery cases and considering Goth was about a bunch of murder mysteries, I really enjoyed it. If you enjoy a series that'll get you to think, then this series would be a good pick for you. Overall, Goth was a good manga series. ^_^

I'll admit that I was pretty disappointed by this. The premise started fairly interestingly, but then we are presented with different vignettes featuring the same main characters and the initial chapter's premise is completely forgotten about. Each story features a different crime and criminal. Each has some interesting elements, and furthers the actually pretty great characterization of the main character. I say main character, singular, because I felt that the girl Yoru Morino was shallow by comparison despite getting the only backstory in the book. Instead, she is used over and over as the damsel in distress (the writer even compared her to Princess Peach ... in the afterword). The guy (whose name I forget since it is only mentioned once or twice) was one of the only good things about the book. I could actually feel his obsession with crimes and his willingness to commit them, and his sociopathic tendencies were depicted well.

The problems with this book stem in part from the small amount of chapters they have to resolve the story as a whole, and the fact that the authors only have so many pages to elaborate on each vignette. However, I do feel that there were ways to effectively create a cohesive story within that space, and that there were plenty of wasted pages.

The major root of the problems in this manga is the over-reliance in contrivances to further the plot. First of which is the huge amount of criminals the MCs run into in such a short time. Sure, they are looking for crime, but they are essentially crime magnets, especially Yoru who seems to always be the target, or presumed target. Even in the afterword, the author admits that this is a nonsensical series and that he must be stupid. He also admits that it is strange that the characters keep getting involved with a murder case, but that unless he wrote it like that, there would be nothing to write about, which I find to be a pretty poor excuse. It is a severe lack of imagination on the writer's part, and it shows his inability as a writer to have to rely on such a contrivance. I don't know if the original novel suffers from the same problems, but this is a review of the manga anyway. There are plenty of other contrivances in the plot, from small to huge leaps in disbelief. I would be more tolerant of this if the story was portrayed as surreal, or satirical, or silly; but the story is presented in a very serious manner, to the point where it could even be called edgy. There are some decent twists and concepts here and there, but they always fall flat due to the contrivances they rely upon and the lack of clarity in which they are presented.

As for the art, it ranges from great to mediocre. Some panels were phoned in, with a few even looking like preliminary sketches. The background art specifically looks pretty bad in general. The depictions of the crime scenes tend to look pretty damn great though, with a couple of scenes actually being pretty elaborate. So it's a mixed bag, but I do like it as a whole.

All in all, this was okay. I didn't hate it. It feels like the author only wanted to write about subtly eccentric characters with an obsession about murder, and wanted to implement some interesting concepts he had for said murderers' modi operandi. In that, I think he succeeds. That is the appeal of this book, at least to someone like me who does like sociopathic characters and creative criminals in my stories. However, the over-reliance in contrivances, pacing issues, forgotten plot threads, and occasional lack of clarity brings this down to a 6/10 for me. Overall positive experience, but I would not ever call this a good manga.

Story:
What a snooze fest. No, actually, it's worse than that. It's so linear and boring that I can't help but wonder what in the world the author was thinking when he outlined (IF he outlined) this story. Things just happen and you just accept it because reasons. Because publication. Because money. Because (insert ANYTHING other than /reason/ here.)

I mean, holy cow, dude. The author legitimately thinks you can write a main character who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants without any real foundation for doing so. I have to get into characters here before I even jump into the character segment because the ... whole story is just

I mean

I'm having difficulty ARTICULATING what I want to say here. That's how barren this work is.

I seriously have nothing good to say about the story itself. I don't even think I can say it's like anything, and if it is it might be like the western show Dexter. Even so, that's like the lightest comparison in that this narrative is just a dark tone filled with nonsense. Goodness gracious. Let's move on.


Art:
Perhaps the only good thing about this manga is the art. I enjoyed how graphic it could get but also respectful to the despicable events. i wouldn't mind a full-fledged narrative that pushed for this artwork. I wouldn't even mind it if it went even further and tried to shock me more than once. That said, it falls flat on a story that doesn't deserve such care and love. It's just a waste to even grade this 7/10 since the surrounding content is such crap.

Despite being the highest score, it doesn't go without fault. Proportions are off, and in the first chapter there's a scene where a woman is holding a book but in the next immediate panel it's in her other hand. She doesn't switch hands, and you'll see what I mean if you actually read it, but I'm almost positive she didn't have 8 fingers and 2 thumbs on one hand so whatever. Probably just nitpicking at that point, but it's still something so simple that shouldn't be missed.


Character:
There is not a single ounce of character development in this story. The characters are already established, and by established I mean they are just placeholders to help the story progress. I couldn't tell you anything about the characters in this work. "Oh, the protagonist can just figure things out but we never see him figuring it out. Also, he's a little coo-coo." and, "Oh, his sidekick is a girl. That's it. She's just a girl."

Like, for the love of quality, there are traits in characters that are forsaken immediately upon their mention. The female sidekick has a scar on her arm. Why was this mentioned? Why did this get like 4 panels? Why was a whole page dedicated to it? What in the hell?


Enjoyment:
You can imagine my frustration when I open this manga up reading that it's won an award and I get to the end and realize how much of a waste this read was.


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