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I’ll eventually write a longer review, but I’ll just write this for now.
This manga is wasted potential. What ruins this manga is the actions of the two main characters and the excessive amount of ecchi content that gets overbearing at times. There will be some impactful scene, then the bottom of a female character will be shown straight after. Ridiculous. The female main character gets on my nerves quite a bit, especially with the cheating-baiting nonsense that happens more than once. Quite frustrating, considering, the manga is meant to be all heartfelt moments with a bit of drama, but then the female main character ... talks good about another man, explaining how he is her “type”. Seriously? Was that all necessary? The flow of the manga is constantly ruined, such a sad state.

This manga is what you get when you have an artist who thinks they can write too.
This manga is like throwing marbles on the floor and then collecting them not in the order you threw them but at random. How can Keyaru go from revenge-hungry to the sympathetic gentleman and then back to the revenge-hungry psycho in like 3 chapters alone? If people had the capability to change that drastically in that short amount of time, life would be great. Just be in a world written by an incompetent author and there you go. Oh? You want to bring your ex-lover back to life? Actually, ... I believe you want to be friends with a random witch you just met... Wait! You can't do that, what about revenge? Yeah! She is not your friend anymore. She is your enemy. Okay, Imagine Dragons. Everybody wants to be my enemy... main character is written as well as musically talented Imagine Dragons is. Complete and utter garbage.

The art is amazing...
everything else is horrible.
Redo of a Ted Kaczynski.



INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE
Introduction

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

Spoilers for the following episodes: episode 1, 2, & 3

‘My Stepsiter Is My Ex-Girlfriend’ is good, not perfect by any means, but simply good.

Two people in middle school fell in love, later breaking up to follow their own seperate paths. Yet, somehow they meet each other once again in strange circumstances. They are now stepsiblings, due to the Male Mc’s father marrying the Female Mc’s mother. This shouldn’t be a good plot, not at all, like most ‘sibling’ romance related media, it starts off as unwatchable garbage with no sense of direction. Originally I thought the same for this, a stepsister as an ex-girlfriend? No ... way that’d work. I was mistaken by the first episode, a brilliant one for a matter of fact. ‘My Stepsiter Is My Ex-Girlfriend’ starts with the two main characters in the kitchen cooking, you immediately know something is off by how the interact with each other, but not what it is. It then cuts to a series of scenes explaining why this tension is there: they’ve dated in the past, but are now stepsiblings. I would’ve preferred it if they explained the ‘why’ sooner, as the scene drags on for some time, but that is a mere nitpick. Episode 1 also sees the romance aspects be pushed very far, for a first episode I didn’t expect it. The Female Mc took a shower, then proceeded to bathe herself. Thinking of a utmost genius plan, she gets out of the bath, puts on a towel, and comes out right in front of the Male Mc in the lounge room. I immediately expected that the towel would come off, the Male Mc would blush, so on and on, the usual. What I didn’t expect was: the Female Mc falling onto the couch with the Male Mc on her, then the Male Mc beginning to go in for a kiss. Reversal of expectations done well. The whole episode was entertaining and had its moments. Episode 2 was somewhat the same, but with the inclusion of new characters: Minami and Kawanami. Both characters are similar to what we’ve seen before in other anime, Minami is the popular, bubbly, and nice girl, Kawanami is the chill best friend. It’s the usual, although usual doesn’t always mean bad. Which is what's happening here, even if you have seen these character types before, they have more to them then meets the eye. Episode 3, the most recent to come out. It’s not as good as the episodes before it but still has something. The relationship between the two main leads has definitely developed. Even if they are ‘stepsiblings’, it begins to look less like that, it’s obvious that the other side characters have realised this too. Overall, the three episodes are good, why?
Expeditions being reversed, the charm of the story, and how the director has decided to animate the vision of the author. I was smiling throughout all 3 episodes, even if the premise is out there, and that there are a couple cringeworthy moments, it’s entertaining.


Art wise, it’s decent. There were no errors throughout the three episodes, mostly fluid. Character designs were the best thing about the art, at first glance the two main characters look basic, then after a while, you begin to recognise features that become recognisable, quite remarkable. Nothing about the art was mind blowing, just fine.


The soundtrack was good, I liked the ending especially. Throughout the episodes, the sound is used effectively to express importance of particular scenes, an example of this: romantic tension. The opening and ending are packed full of soul. Not meant to be taken seriously, just fun songs to groove with. If I had to describe it: “Chika Dance-like.” Nothing to really complain about. Perhaps usage of certain sounds should’ve been used more often to empathise particular events in the story. Although, what we have now is fine.


Characters is what makes this story work so well. Male Mc and Female Mc have good personalities even if we’ve seen their personality types before in other media. Repetition isn’t a bad thing, it has worked in many Shounen media, so it should be acceptable here. Side characters too, even if they have been seen in other works before, doesn’t make them bad. People should realised that majority of fiction is repeated in someway or another, you can never be truly ‘original’. The relationships that these characters have developed so far are quite great, it won’t be to some peoples’ liking although that is expected of something with a ‘stepsibling romance’ being the main focus. If you are weirded out by the idea of being romantically interested in your ‘stepsister’ who once was your girlfriend, then this isn’t the show for you.


I enjoyed this piece of fiction, but that doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it too. Many people have left their take on this piece of media. Most being negative and not forgiving. Respectfully I understand why someone wouldn’t like this. So, if you haven’t given it a try I’d recommend it.