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I have a strange relationship with "edgy" anime. By edgy I mean, anime full of gore, violence and mature themes like rape, death and abuse. And by "strange relationship" I mean, I don't really like watching them, but I do have a morbid curiosity for it. Anime for me is a form of escapism, I watch it to forget about my shitty life and problems, so I like to watch lighthearted, fun shows, but I can't deny that anime and manga like Mahou Shoujo Site pick my interest by their premise alone.

Still, I rarely watch them to completion, finding their content too much for my ... delicate sensibilities. That's what I thought it was gonna happen when I started reading MSS. I just wanted to see what the story was all about and didn't plan to read too much. It was late anyway. But once I started, I didn't stop until almost 60 chapters later.

Violence and gore are predominant, but what really gripped me was the plot. It's full of mystery, twists and turns. I'm not sure why this isn't tagged as a Thriller here in MyAnimeList because MSS it's an incredibly effective one. Once you start, it's very hard to stop, each chapter being well-paced and feeding you enough questions and answers to keep you satisfied but still craving for more.

That aside, one of my favorite things about it, it's how they implemented the special powers. Each girl is given a different object which grant them distinctive powers. I can't explain exactly why, but I just love it when a series does that. Sakura Card Captors did something similar with each card giving her a different power-up, as did several other shows, it's not exactly original but it never stops being entertaining to me. Each time a new one is introduced I'm filled with wonder about their capabilities and techniques which enhances the entire experience of reading this manga.

I have read all the current released chapters, and it seems to be close to the end, which is great because I don't think they would manage to stretch this one much longer. Now I'm just hoping for a satisfying conclusion, and this will be a manga I'll recommend for years to come.

Watching Kobayashi-san's Dragon Maid reminded me a lot of Manabi Straight!. They are both "moe anime" who try to do something different. Manabi Straight tried really hard to shoe-in some sort of environmental drama which just made the "cute girls doing cute things" not that fun to watch.

Meanwhile, Dragon Maid tries a lot of different things. At it's core its a slice-of-life, but it tries to do romance, ecchi, comedy and even some drama. At least for me, it was too much. This is not really a objective look into the series, more of my personal feelings about it.

So, you have this dragon who becomes ... the house maid of a lonely programmer. Then, hijinks ensues, right? Well, not really. Life stays pretty much the same, except the maid is always trying to make her master eat her tail. Some more dragons show up, but none feel right. Kanna is cute! So cute, I almost died of cuteness every time she showed up. But that's it. That's the entire depth of her characther. In a moe anime, this should be enough, but somehow it doesn't. Lucky Star's Tsukasa, Azumanga Daioh's Chiyo and more were all cute, but they also had a great deal of personality which made them great to watch for hours which Kanna lacks. Then you have the serious attractive male dragon who just decides he wants to be an otaku for the rest of the series and not much else. I'll always be greateful for Lucoa's because I'm sure she will be great on doujins, but in the series she felt out of place almost the entire time.

So you can see the pattern here, the series has a bunch of characters they can never make truly great. Their designs and voices are top notch(Where did Kyoto Animation ever let us down in this department) but the personalities are just not there.

If not for the amazing animation, music and character design I would have probably dropped before the end, which I did for Manabi Straight.