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Sep 23, 2011
So, I really, REALLY disliked the only other work I read by Hwang Mi Ri, He Dedicated to Roses. But my friend said I didn't understand her work because I didn't read any of her other works. So I caved and I picked another one to read... this manhwa. But can I just say that Hwang Mi Ri's titles make me want to vomit? Ugh. Hate.
But just so you know a little about the mindset from which this review stems, I don't normally want to read romance stuff-- I just do what people say in the hopes that one day I too will become popular--
...
and so normally I go for romance things that also include fighting... which is why I chose He Dedicated to Roses. This is better and honestly? It surprised me that this was better than He Dedicated to Roses. After all, that one is more like something that I'd want to read than this one is and I wrote a pretty scathing review of that manhwa right after I finished it. (This is pretty long, because I like to say words and stuff. Sorry.)
Story: 4. Decent.
To explain the story, I feel like I sort of have to explain the characters. So here's a short summary of the two leads.
So this is about a guy who wants a motorcycle, but his dad won't buy one. So then his cousin (apparently) is like, "Oh, well... why don't you become a prostitute?" Well, he doesn't REALLY say that, but I mean... the dude IS selling his body. That's prostitution, am I right? But yeah, so the male lead is like, "OH SNAP, GREAT IDEA" and starts charging 5000 won, which is $5 US, for a kiss. Seems pretty expensive, but what would I know? (All of this takes place in the first two pages of the first chapter, so I don't know if this is really a spoiler.) The guy is Un Soo Hyun and he's called the "Kiss Prince". And he has addicting kisses that apparently work like Unbreakable Gobstobbers. You know, the Willy Wonka candy that changes flavor after you suck on them for a while? That's this guy. Only he's not a candy. Pretty sure that's not how kissing works. But whatever. It's a manhwa and stranger things have happened.
The female lead is Min Soo Yung. She has this super annoying friend who spends most of her time trying to get Soo Yung to pay $5 for a kiss/make her accept her feelings and confess or something. Great friendship, right? Surprisingly, Soo Yung is actually level-headed, as far as lead females go. kind of expected her to be just as stupid as the main female from He Dedicated to Roses. In a way she has the same "What is this thing that you call 'liking someone'? I have never done such a thing in my life and never will" attitude that I swear every female lead in every romance manga/manhwa has had.
So I suppose the whole plot is pretty much "How long will it take for these two to get together," which is *pretty* weak. I've read Fruits Basket, which I considered to be this same kind of thing but with a love triangle, and I've got to say... for something that's sounds like it could be full of exciting cliffhangers, romance novels with this plot are all usually pretty lacking. So I guess I'm saying that this really isn't very different from most romance manga/manhwas even if the set-up for it is something new... although I don't think it's all that new. Whatever, the point is that the story isn't something so novel that you HAVE to read this. I read all the chapters on Mangafox (8 chapters at the time of this review) and I got pretty bored about halfway through the third chapter (or the second... or the first? They're like 57 pages long each). So, meh. I guess I'm saying that the story is alright, if a little bland.
Art: 6. Fair.
Okay... I'll admit it. I didn't find fault with the art in the chapters I read. Argh, my insides are churning just from me saying that!
Look, her art style for fighting is REALLY, REALLY bad (this being based completely off of HDR). But as far as regular people walking around and being regular, it's pretty good.Well... it is NOW, anyway. I didn't notice any of the melting weird faces I saw in HDR, so I guess she improved slightly. Some of her characters are samey looking, but... whatever, I'll give her that one. I'm just so impressed with how... NORMAL this manhwa looks in comparison to HDR. Also, her style of drawing is more mature than Japanese counterparts (or at least the other romance mangas I've read) whose style is to draw characters as if they're elementary school students. So I suppose the art is alright.
Character: 4. Decent.
Both of these characters are forgettable. The leads, I mean... they're forgettable. There are more than two characters, it's just that a good portion of them don't have names that are repeated in such a way that I would commit them to memory. EVEN THE MAIN CHARACTERS don't repeat their names often enough that I remembered them. Weak.
Furthermore, I don't actually feel for the characters. If something bad happens, I'm like, "Well, yeah, c'mon, are you serious? Of course that would happen; Why don't you try not being stupid?" This *is* a romance manhwa so I assume I'm supposed to feel something for the characters. Maybe anger when one of the leads gets shunned? Or embarrassment when one gets into an awkward situation? But I didn't really feel anything other than "Well, I guess I'll turn the page then."
Also sometimes they say some weird stuff that I don't really understand. I guess you could chalk that up to translation issues (I doubt this) or maybe it's just that their dialogue is completely contrived (I'd bet on this) so just be aware that this is not Pulitzer Prize work. Haha, not like it really could be, but I'm just saying this manhwa won't blow you out of the water with it's dialogue.
Despite all of this, they aren't BAD characters. Neither of them are unrelate-able and for the most part I'd say that the things that they do are sensible, although sometimes kind of stupid, given their backgrounds.
Enjoyment: 4. Decent.
Romance is not for me. However, I DID read 8 chapters and I wasn't like, "Man, I'm just about ready to punch a hole in my monitor" while I was doing it. So, I suppose that this manhwa was sort of enjoyable. Not outstanding, but... just... okay. I'd say it's mediocre, but for some reason that's higher than decent on the rating system here. So I'll just go with bland. It's not boring and it's not exciting. It's nothing new, but you can't really read it and be like, "I've read this story HUNDREDS of times already." It's just bland.
Overall: 4. Decent.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Dec 31, 2009
Do you like Cinderella? Do you like gender swap? Do you like drama? Do you like relationship angst everywhere? Do you like jokes?
You probably like at least one of those things. This story has all of those. But it's executed terribly. So don't read it. (By the way, this is going to be a long review because I find a lot of fault with this.)
Story: Poor. 3.
The IDEA is that the main character is a plain girl. But when she's dressed as a boy, she's cute. And guess what she does from time to time (I mean other than has feminine problems)!
Right, she dresses
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as a boy. Apparently, by just reading the summary, that also gives her amazing fighting skills, which is more the translators fault than it is the manga's fault, except that it's true that she only fights when she's dressed as a male. Which is silly. Also stupid.
Our poor plain main character is the slave to this chick who everyone calls Princess Mimi because she is the complete opposite of plain and I don't know if this is supposed to be dramatic or funny, but it's neither. The back story between Mimi and our plain female character isn't even really dramatic. All you need to know is Mimi is a stereotypical bad character for this kind of story. All the males like her, all the females envy her and only a few characters see her as terrible. Oh, and the main character's name is Choi Ida, she's so plain I almost forgot. I should also mention that ANY TWIST YOU CAN THINK OF IS IN THIS STORY. So yeah, the back story between these two has to do with Choi Ida's unfortunate family and Mimi's rich one and how one of Choi Ida's parents died and the other is in debt to Mimi's and OMG WHO CARES WHEN WILL THIS END.
Okay! So Choi Ida dresses as a boy to vent her anger because apparently it's impossible to do that as a girl. I think she tells you at some point, but it's probably something very silly. Anyway, she chooses the inventive name Choi Yodah, because her last name is just so unoriginal and EVERYONE has that last name, so no one will assume that they are related at all, except everyone with eyes and a functioning brain. Story ho! The rest of this is really uninteresting. Girl/boy meets boys, boys are awed at girl/boy's fighting skill, girls fall in love with girl/boy, girl/boy can't date who she wants because of bully/mistress, mistress is a bitch, mistress gets other boys and some girls to tease/prank/make life difficult for girl/boy-- I know it sounds interesting (to some of you) but this story is executed SO BADLY. Mostly because the author just did not know what she wanted to do with it.
Art: Pathetic. 1.
You may (or may not) notice the lack of backgrounds in the manhwa. I believe this was on purpose. You do get a lot of gradients, though. And shadows. Every time you switch places, the author TRIES to show you a background, but then is like, 'well, they know where we are, let's not draw that again,' and then we have characters floating around in midair. Sometimes you think you're somewhere, but then the author draws a background that doesn't match. Then you're like, "How did I get here?! How am I here now? Who did this?" For on of the earlier fight scenes, Choi Yodah SAYS you're at the river bank. But you never see the river. Maybe once. But then you see like buildings and grass. That's not a river. Can we have a river please?
Also, Fighting? In my Manhwa? It's less likely than you think. The fight scenes are complete with facial expressions that don't match the actions that are going on, awesome attacks that could also not be attacks, and action lines that are too afraid to get close to the action. Yes, this is a prime example of a true fighting manhwa, but only if a true fighting manhwa is synonymous with terrible. Sometimes the action lines are going in directions that don't make sense with the positioning of a character being attacked. Hint: Believable fight scenes are more than just the attacker looking like they're attacking. In the earliest fight in the book, this is seen once when Choi Yodah kicks some grunt. You don't know where, because there's no marking on the guy. I would say it's the face, but he's not bruised there. And his position is still weird, but he wasn't kicked in the gut or the leg or anything like that either. It's just really bad. And the action lines on Choi Yodah's leg is definitely supposed to be as if he kicked upwards, but is he really kicking upwards, or is he just being retarded? You decide!
Anatomy is important when drawing human figures. That way faces are on heads and not like, partially off. This manhwa is queen of having faces that aren't on right or fight positions that aren't correct because anatomy dictates it. It is important to have those. We readers appreciate it. Also, facial expressions are kind of helter-skelter in this manhwa, it's KIND of like there's there's a light on upstairs, but it's MOSTLY like everyone has a mental illness and hasn't been diagnosed yet. Like some characters I think want to look introspective, but that comes off looking stupid, and some want to be badass, but that comes off looking stupid and some want to be normal and that works out okay until it looks stupid.
Character: Pathetic. 1.
Where do I begin.
For STARTERS, Choi Ida is the most passive aggressive girl EVER. If it is obvious that she is stronger than Mimi I don't understand why she won't stand up for herself. Seriously, if the story was like: "Mimi says: Do my work for me. Ida says: no. Mimi says: Guys, beat her up. Ida beats the crap out of those guys and tells Mimi to shove it," then the story would be OVER IN ONE CHAPTER. ONE CHAPTER. Instead Ida is spineless. Except she's not because SHE BEATS PEOPLE UP ALL THE TIME. This character is so WEIRD. Now if you HAVE read it, you'll probably bring up the back story thing. But that does really MATTER, does it? If Ida beats up five or six boys and then Mimi decides to tell her mother, that still doesn't change the fact that Ida can beat up five or six guys on her own without help. I mean technically that means that she could threaten to kill Mimi and it would be totally believable. Absolutely believable! WHAT PART OF THIS ESCAPED IDA? Did she think Mimi was going to go tell her mother when Ida is around her all the time?
Oh, and then there's Mimi. The girl is an airhead and a bully. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THERE WAS AN AIRHEAD BULLY? Maybe it's just because she's rich... OH WAIT NO, THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. Even if you're rich, you still have to come up with better plans than 'Let's make the poor girl suffer' in order to make yourself the party with the least amount of blame. that means you can't be an airhead. Even if the author DIDN'T KEEP PANDERING TO THE READERS by telling us Mimi's plans, we would've still known Mimi is behind everything. Because she's always behind everything. World hunger is Mimi's fault. Child abuse is Mimi's fault. And also anything that has ever happened to Choi Ida that is bad is Mimi's fault. Because she's a bitch. But why is she a bitch? Why does she hat Ida so much? Your guess is as good as mine. Because she's poor? Yeah, that's a good reason. Moving on.
Every male character in this series is stupid for reason that can be explained by the following:
-Is in love with Choi Ida, but can't admit it because she's average looking
-Is in love with Choi Yodah, but can't admit it because he's a guy or something.
-Is in love with Mimi and swarms her
-Is not in love with Mimi, but doesn't have an explanation for it.
-Has no character, no real motives
-Is fat, which therefore makes them stupid? Somehow?
The ONLY FAT CHARACTER in this series is the one that's creepy, socially outcast, and placed with the plain Choi Ida. I understand that being obese is a liability, but this is a high school setting so there is no liability for being grossly overweight AND this character isn't grossly overweight. Fat people are not all creepy or socially outcast. So why exactly is this manhwa treating this one like that's how it really is?
Enjoyment: Dreadful. 2.
There are some things that are unique and interesting and new. This is not one of them. It TRIES to be, but honestly with the terrible mix of terrible story + awful characters + that's not art, how could one enjoy reading? I feel like the editor for this manhwa was just like, "this weed is great, also publish this thing in front of me, the covers are colorful and remind me of spaceships." Do. Not. Want.
Overall: Pathetic. 1.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Dec 31, 2009
If you, like many other people on this website, are a fan of psychological drama, then I think this is the right manga for you. Really! It's a great choice for anyone into this genre.
Story: 7/10
In my humble opinion, when you see the chapter start splash for the first chapter, you pretty much have a clear example of what this manga is about. The children are like the people of Japan in this series-- they're afraid. Some of them don't really seem to be afraid, some seem angry or maybe just slightly concerned or perhaps just questioning. But for the most part, they're afraid. And
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the government-- the nurses and the doctors, even if they are afraid, they can't show it, so they're pretty much all smiles. But they're not exempt either. From what you ask? from the device that keeps the story moving forwards. And what keeps this story moving forwards is that shot you see.
The shot in that picture is the turning point in the children's lives, in Japan's life. The shot is indicator of life, and for some, death. And because you don't know what the shot holds for you, eat, drink, and be merry, because what happens tomorrow? You might die.
Basically, in this story, you follow those who have been condemned to or are close to those condemned to death. The people whose shots have rendered fatal, who have to deal with the terror of imminent termination. And I think that the author has done a really good job painting fear into each of these characters, and manifesting that fear into other emotions as well, like sadness and anger. I guess I'll talk more about this later. This story is supposed to be cut and dry after the first chapter. You know people are going to die and you know it's going to be sad. But following these people around, learning about some important event or person in their lives, watching them suffer and then watching them die-- that's why this story isn't cut and dry.
Art: 10/10
I think most people are used to the 'we're all 12 year olds that are really cute all the time everywhere' aspect of manga and anime, mostly because popular anime happens to be like Bleach/Naruto, and I think you can say most characters don't look their age. But this is a very realistic manga, with a lot of realistic issues and characters, therefore the art is quite realistic. The children look like children, the adults look like a adults. And they're not all varying shades of beautiful, but all very... average. Yes, once in a while, a beautiful character comes along. But more often than not, the characters are average looking average people. And that, I think, makes this manga all the more pleasing. For using a style that matches the tone of the manga, I give this a 10 out of 10!
Character: 6/10
I have to say that while I really do enjoy this manga, I noticed that there isn't really a main character that you can identify with and at the same time that that's cool, it's kind of... lonely. If you decide that the government official that you often see as you go through this manga is the main character, then you'll be surprised to note that you don't strictly follow him around. And that would be the point of making him the main character, I think, to follow him and survey his cases. But the thing is that not only do you not always follow him around, but you usually don't even focus on him-- he's just a person who delivers Ikigami-- you follow the receivers of the Ikigami. And you might not follow them to the extent to which you might think-- you don't really know anything about who they are, you only have a snapshot of something important to them, something that makes them special. And that paints them as good in your eyes, even when the character is trying to get revenge on other (unfortunate) people. But they die. They're not main characters either. They're not backgrounds, but they aren't characters- you don't learn anymore about them after their death (save a few sentences or so for some characters). It's nice to be able to get to know so many different characters, and I guess the government official is your only real reoccurring character which would make him the main character, but seeing as the reader only reads about death the entire time and all the characters you get to know die, it's kind of lonely to be reading this story. You're not really familiar with any one character-- even the government official is kind of vague. However, all the characters have differing and often extreme displays of emotion when they hear about their Ikigami, and that is always interesting.
Enjoyment and Overall:
I think this is a pretty enjoyable manga. I'd say that it at least gets a 7. I can't really say people will agree with me on that, but I think that this is readable. Definitely something worth reading again, just to have it in mind. Dealing with death is difficult and this book doesn't really make it seem easy, but by only having snapshots of a character, you don't actually feel bad. I mean, you feel bad that they've died, but it's not the same as if the author built up a character only to kill him. You only know a snapshot of their life, barely anything about them-- I can't say it's really dramatic because you never follow around someone who doesn't die, but I can't say it isn't dramatic because after recieving an ikigami, the story gets intense. The political aspect of ikigamis is also really interesting. The story doesn't lack in interest.
So over all, I would give this an 7. It is a good story with believable characters, even if the characters themselves are short lived, with humanitarian and political aspects to Randomized Controlled Human Death. From the time that a child receives a shot onwards, tomorrow could be their last day. You get to see how each character lives in their own environment, for the final day of their life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 26, 2009
There's something to be said when a Sonic fan hates a Sonic show so much that they have to write a review on a public website so that other people can see it and (most likely) disagree. But let me say this clearly: I am a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan and I hate this show.
Why do I hate this show so much? Well, let's compare it to the best Sonic TV Show ever, Sonic SatAM.
Story:
Sonic X: well... maybe like, 5 out of 10.
Sonic SatAM: 9/10
Any of you who remember Sonic SatAM know that the storyline was pretty intense while still at the same
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time being humorous. It could balance seriousness and comedy and that was something that made the show so good. I mean, the show was about pollution for the most part, but Sonic and the others DID talk about other things AND created comedy out of the situation. You might not have realized you were learning about the environment, and you probably weren't really. But I'm sure that you saw Robotnik's home and thought 'Ew gross, jeez, I hope this doesn't happen where I'm from' or something like that.
Sonic X, I have to say starts off with a decent plot but only if you know the characters already. If you just come in, they show you all the characters, but you don't really know them. I think that the original two arcs for this series is chronicled in the two games Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (SADX and SA2B for Gamecube players). Well, the games are better than the series itself, but for the most part, the stories are the same. But the characters do play a part in the plot, so I can't say that I can put the plot up high, like I would if we were just talking about the game.
Art:
Sonic SatAM: For me 8/10
Sonic X: For me, 6/10
This really depends on which Sonic you like better, honestly. They're drawn in two different styles and I prefer the older Sonic to the newer one. The art is pretty clean in Sonic X. It's also pretty good in Sonic SatAM. I think the backdrops in both are really good, and the character design again, really depends on which Sonic you like. Same with all the other characters. The only character that would make any real difference is probably Robotnik, as known as Eggman (Why?). I think his design was the most radical change ever (since he went from pointy headed with small, red eyes to... well, Eggman). Honestly, I like the newer Robotnik (Eggman) better. The Older one just was creepy. Although hilarious.
Sound:
Sonic SatAM: 10/10
Sonic X: skklfjklsadjfkjdakkkkkk
Opening themes:
Sonic SatAM has THE BEST OPENING EVER. Like seriously, how could you not get pumped for the show when you heard it? If you weren't thrilled by the theme itself, you could get excited watching the opening animation itself. So there you go.
While Sonic X's animation is pretty intense for reasons I can't explain other than running everywhere all the time, I can also say that the theme song is pretty meh. It reminds me of the Yu-Gi-Oh one or the Digimon one, only not executed well. The premise behind these themes is just to repeat the name of the show over and over again in the hopes that you'll remember the show with only a few other words that aren't like "Digimon' or whatever. Sonic X tries to do that, but it's not really well executed. I moreso got annoyed. There's only so many times I can here "gotta go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster" before I want to skip to the commercials for relief. But sometimes I'm really stoked when I hear it, like, "AW MAN I LOVE THIS" and sometimes I'm just like "Eh." And I really can't say that it's because the song is bad. I can't say that it's because it's good. So I don't know how to rate this. I just know that I'm a fan of the opening theme for the most part.
Voice Acting:
Both series have their pitfalls, but I will give them both a pretty high score for voice acting, even if I don't think some characters matched their voices. As always, Knuckles is a favorite character and most people AGREE with his voice actor. Big sucks, but his voice did match his absolute suckiness. Amy's voice actor was good too. Rouge also. Only one voice would grate at my nerves for hours on end, CHRIS. And since he was in PRETTY MUCH EVERY EPISODE, everyone sounded okay in comparison, as long as he shut up.
Character:
Sonic SatAM: 7/10
Sonic X: 2/10
This is where Sonic SatAm can dull a little bit. Sonic SatAM consists of a wide range of characters, in what I call Sonic Syndrome. SEGA shows that they can't leave Sonic well enough alone by constantly adding new characters to the games without any real reason and then dropping them forever afterwards. Granted, all the characters in Sonic SatAM are in the comic series... but it's still sort of like "Do any of these guys do anything but wait around for Sonic?" And everyone always hates on Tails, but he's one of the only characters who is CONSISTENT in the series. Props, Tails. Props.
Sonic X has the biggest case of Pretentious Sonic Syndrome-- adding characters to the series and then acting like those characters are so totally canon. Prime Example: CHRIS AND HIS ENTIRE FAMILY. If you played the games, when you watch the show, you're like, "What the fuck is this? Who thought this was a good idea? Why? Why?" Yes, we get that Sonic enters 'our world', but he never befriends a human to the point of living with him. I guess you could say that a hole in the plot of the games is that everything seems to take place in just about one or two days... but that's the entire point. Sonic is fast. When he saves the world, he does it quickly. He doesn't need Chris or Chuck or any of that stuff. And Chris isn't even well written, in my opinion. I don't know, I would just play the game at that point.
Overall:
Sonic SatAM: 10/10
Sonic x: 1/10
No, I'm not going to be nice. I hate Sonic X. HATE. I went in thinking it would be good and, like any good Sonic fan, I defended the hell out of this show. But I blame 4Kids for the lack of creative process put into the show, and I honestly hope no one watches this because holy crap, it is terrible. It's not even that the premise is bad, it's that it was executed terribly despite 4Kids having the thing set up in front of them. Seriously. The series was RIGHT THERE, already written out in all of it's fantastic gaming glory but no one thought to themselves, "Hey, the people who watch this because they like Sonic are gonna get really pissed off." On the other hand, if you like Sonic and old cartoons, you'll probably like Sonic SatAM (and probably think Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is hilarious/deplorable and that Sonic Underground shouldn't even exist). In other words, play the game or watch something else Sonic related. Like the straight-to-VHS movie, Sonic the Hedgehog. DEFINITELY WATCH THAT. Not this. This should be placed in the bowels of hell and forgotten about.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 23, 2009
There's something to be said about school dramas. In my opinion, a school drama must be connected to the real for the most part-- anything that is supposed to be imitating, and not mocking, reality should be connected to the real. Reality, where things are not black and white, requires that an author look at their characters and make judgments based on the characters they meet on a day to day basis.
That's why I can't give this a good review. I just can't.
Story: 2/10
I give this a 2 because this type of story is dry and uninteresting. A shy girl needs to pick between two
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boys... that kind of thing is used everywhere. As a plot, I guess I could understand, a school romance could be said to be like this. however, when you look at the real, lonely characters don't often get this sort of lucky chance that the girl in this story gets. And maybe I'm just biased, after reading so many of these sort of tales, but the fact that there are so many of these has proven that this approach is old and tired. A good author can take something that's old and weave from it something new... I feel like nothing new has come out of this story. I can't give this more than a two... it isn't on par with other stories of it's nature.
Art: 10/10
This manga is aesthetically pleasing. I think that this fact can draw in many, many readers. If you think the art is cute, you might think that the characters too are cute so on and so forth.
Character:
There are a couple of characters that I don't really like.
Firstly, Sumino herself is kind of a faulty character in my opinion. I think that in an effort to make the reader feel bad for her, the author chose to make her pitiful. It's just not real... Even the shiest of people get angry, angrier than she ever does. Furthermore, her ascent into the sunlight did not seem like it took very long or took very much effort on her part. For someone who has the background her character had, I feel like it should've taken longer for her to be able to talk with other people in her class naturally. Truthfully, throughout the entire series she is ever growing, but I feel like that transformation takes longer.
The bully, Ayu, is also kind of out of the real. She's not really cunning, but can make an entire school believe her with a few words. I actually don't like this about a lot of manga of this general ilk-- the bully character riles an entire school on the unsuspecting heroine, and she feels smothered. Truly, it can't be so. Because of how people are, not everyone will blindly follow a bully where she leads.
Enjoyment: 5/10
I know that some people enjoyed this series... and for the most part, I can agree that it's alright. But I don't really enjoy the story that doesn't add anything to this age old formula: girl is alone, girl meets boy, boy has friends/enemies who also loves girl, girl must choose, girl is bullied for boy liking her, blah blah. As long as the story is interesting, I can keep reading in suspense. But I'm not really getting that feeling of mystery here. The only thing that is mysterious is we don't know what guy Sumino will pick. That's it. In my opinion, that's not really interesting. If she's going to come from the shadows into the light, why can't we learn more about her hardships? Why is the only mystery 'Which will Sumino choose?' Why isn't there like, 'How does Sumino deal with trouble between the friends she has who are girls?' or 'how will Sumino deal with a classmate who has been put into her previous position?' I mean, there's so much that could have been done, and nothing was done in this story. And so, I am forced to say that overall, I give this story...
Overall: 5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 20, 2009
Story: 9/10
I will say that when you start reading it you will realize that this is one of those never ending stories. The kind where there's no cap on the enemy in the beginning of the manga, so the story can drag on forever. These stories also usually happen to be the ones with fillers in the manga. But it makes up for it with an interesting story and interesting characters!
Art: 10/10
This is definitely my style of anime! For one thing, even though Keima is a boy, he has feminine features but he wasn't drawn as a girl without boobs. Which I guess is sort
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of confusing, but there are so many stories that are good, but the main male character is just a girl tweaked so that she looks like a man... Besides that, most of the characters are cute.
Character: 10/10
To have a male character that is so into games that he doesn't really enjoy the real world is the opposite of *most* things that I read. Usually the guy loves girls both outside and inside the virtual world. This is the first I've read where the boy is looking for perfection that can't be achieved unless the girl is a program-- and the program doesn't come to life. The demon character is a standard demon character, but being paired with this type of main character makes her special.
Enjoyment: 10/10
It doesn't take much for me to enjoy a manga. Something that is interesting and will keep me reading is good, but if I really don't like the art style, then I get annoyed and will eventually stop. Even though the story can be lacking a little at times, I still enjoy this for the most part because it's funny and interesting and cute all at once!
Overall: 10/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Nov 13, 2009
If you're the kind of person who appreciates a good story about demons, fighting, friendship, and growing up, then Konjiki no Gash Bell could be right for you. The characters are believable, the logic is easy to follow, there are no long random deviations from the main plot of the story that don't somehow tie in, and most importantly, it ends.
I think that for the most part the characters in this series are those that could be conceivable in the real world. Obviously not all aspects of each character could be perceived as true in our reality, but I do believe that most, if not
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all of the characteristics for Kiyomaro as he grows as a character in this series are those that would follow if someone in his same situation was given a chance to grow as he was.
There are some stories where the storyline can become really complex because of logical errors or logical complexity. Sometimes it's just how the publisher/editors have chosen to rewrite the Japanese text, and other times it is just that the author chooses confusing and winding logic instead of simple, easy-to-follow logic. I personally get annoyed when there is a simple efficient answer to a problem, but the characters in a series take the roundabout route, even though they are smart enough to realize that the choice that they've made, though it achieves the same end, is too difficult for a slower member of their group to understand. One of the best things about this series is that whenever a strategic move is used, there is no difficult, hard-to-grasp strategy-- just the most simple and efficient, as if the reader had also been in mind.
In anime, tangents to the plot are called fillers. Fillers are annoying because the characters in fillers are usually never to be seen again characters who don't advance the story at all. Every character in this story advances the plot even by a little bit. This means that most of the tangential things in this book end up not actually being tangential. But this only applies to certain characters within the manga itself-- like most manga that has also been adapted into anime, there is a movie, and those characters have no bearing on anything.
Finally, this series ends. I know it seems stupid to mention this, but there is a saying that all good things must come to an end, but sometimes authors don't seem to realize when a story must end. When you understand what the idea of the story is, what the goal of all the characters are, then you understand that once that goal is met, the story must terminate, and it does. The author does not throw a wrench into the works and add another plot to a story that's dying down-- he just allows the story to end. It's wonderful and sad all at once, especially if you end up enjoying the series.
I thought the story was great-- but I had the chance to watch the anime while reading the manga and I don't really enjoy the fillers as much, so I give it a 9. I do like the art work a lot as well, it's really well done in both the anime and the manga. The characters were wonderful, and I enjoyed being able to watch and read their stories. Overall, this series gets a 10 from me!
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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