Back to Shukrin's Profile Shukrin's Profile

At first the premise seems like something that I would enjoy especially when it was recommended by a popular youtuber. However, upon reading only first few couple of chapter, it was really obvious to me that this is just another manga where the author tries to tackle a genre which he is not very good at. As a result, all you get is a story that tried to be psychological but only ended up being just surface level and predictable. There's no such thing as uniqueness or identity to it, it's just plain. To make it worse, there is a typical character who are created ... just to explain everything in the story without leaving any subtlety or mystery to it.

However, what really cause me to drop the manga is due to author silly decision to write backstory too early. Remember when you were reading an amazing manga and turned to a black page, you realized that was the time for an epic flashback backstory for the favourite character your love. In this manga, the author did that at chapter 4. You are still not attached to any of the character to care about them, but you already got their flashback and it was a whole chapter of it. I realized that I start skimming through the pages, just from drawings alone I can tell that its a basic backstory for that character trope. I decided to not waste time on it anymore.

Came for the games, but stayed for the plot.

Before starting the show, i never even thought that I will be heavily invested in this show and gave it solid 10/10. People barely talked about it, it has only about 30,000 user on MAL currently but yet I loved every moment of it and finished it in a day.

This show has so many charms but mainly there are 2 that I would like to talked about.

For the game part, rather than the competive storytelling style that usually used in a sport/game genre, This show just took what’s fun about it and show the audience why. There ... are lots of interesting information thrown out about the games , game references and jokes that are still enjoyable to see for someone who’s not into it. This show proves how much knowledgeable the creator about the generation and seeing how the game evolve over the year is quite satisfying.

However, the love story between the characters are the one that surprised me the most. Mainly, when its romance, mostly is about goofy lovey-dovey moments between the mains but in this story is just about two outcasts that are passionate toward doing the same thing so much that they ended up hanging out together that it's so nice to see. Rather than becoming those typical love story full of moe and cringey over dramatic moments with some ecchi in between, this show does not try to take it too far but instead became a very comfy love story that are so pure and innnocent that make it so heart warming to watch. This is one of the show that, no matter which generation you came from, it will give those nostalgic feeling even if the moment doesn’t exist.

Also I’ll like to mention the OP, ED and sountrack are superb and really fit the tone and theme of the series.

In conclusion, this is a really underrated show. A very comfy love story with games in it where both are done very well in each aspect.

Made in Abyss is a really good show but it’s major problem is that it is quite unsatisfying.

Early on, the show introduces a very interesting lore and so many mysteries around it. Seriously its nothing you ever seen, only for the lore itself will get you hooked. The world design is awesome as well as the characters. As the show progress, a lot more mysteries came and so as a viewer you’ll want to know what will happen, and want those mysteries answered. But after going past all those 13 episodes (which is still good) I realised that barely anything answered, and they show me ... nothing after all of that build up. Those 13 episode is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wanna know how it feels?

It is like you watching a 50 episode series but suddenly stop at episode 13. If this is a video game, this 13 episodes is like the tutorial part of the game. If this Death note, the show finished when L was introduced. While watching, you will be like “this is good, can’t wait to see what happen next” then you will be like “ohh it get better” and then the show be like “stop! thats it for now!”.

40% of pointless talking
40% of flashback
10% of actual plot
9% of emotional scene
1% of action

The show started okay but become worst especially in the second half. It went from “fairly interesting” to “it’s hard to stay awake” quick. It has good concept but done very poorly.

To sum up everything, other than the few early episodes, this show is mostly talking. Now, I am perfectly fine if the show is full of interesting stuff to talk about but this is far from interesting. They tried to be philosophical but failed at it.

Of all the talkings in the episode, most of them are pointless. Characters spends 5 minutes ... mentioning something very obvious to the viewer from the beginning. They had one thing to deliver and I got it already but they just kept on repeating it using different lines and dragged it for so long. Most of the time i was screaming inside “ Can we move on please ”. Seriously, they spend so much talking over one thing that after finishing the episodes, i realised that there is really few content that they presented.

Disclaimer: this is not in the show, but my own example of why it’s boring.
Camera shows a person running. The dialogue of the person “I am running”. “I liked running” “I ran with my legs” “my legs make me run” “I ran forward”. This goes on for about 5 minutes. That is what happened every episodes. Everything is very obvious but the character couldn’t stop talking about it.

The worst part of talking in the episodes is that the main characters barely talks, the long dragged out talking came from side characters that viewers does not really care about. They come and go only in one episodes but when they open their mouth, here we go... 15 minutes flashback of his entire life. And then the episode is padded with emotional dialogues which at first is fine but 10 episodes in, it started to get repetetive.

And... of course to make up for all of this they had to add 30 seconds of action scenes which they thought that is what viewer are waiting for. But actually the action scene is nothing special and I don’t think viewer really care about it at all. In my opinion, this adaption fell to bad direction problem because it really felt very amateur-ish.

If you are interested with the premise of psychological game, then turn away.

I’ll be honest in this review, the enjoyment you get from reading this depends on what you look for and expect from the manga.

If you’re looking for psychological drama about the concept of living and friendship then you are at the right place. There’s a lot of that here. Wall of text with sentimental monologue and backstory. Sometimes, I admit it was too much and thinking it was made with the reason to drag the chapters.

If you’re reading for the game, then you will be very very very disappointed. The Game design is ... quite good, it starts with a great premise and making the reader hyped but the games always ended in a really unsatisfying way. From the hype, the reader will expect something brilliant from the MC, but it never really lived up to it

My theory is that unlike any other similar manga, the author did not plan everything from the start but instead he/she created the game first, and decide later how to end the game in later chapters. This is supported by how the author drags the game plot by putting backstories and recaps in the chapters, while the MC keep repeating “I know how to win the game” in every last page for few chapters straight. This is to maintain the hype while thinking about ways to ending the game. Also, side stories within main story as plot dragging medium.

Besides, the game mostly ended in a convenient way. If you are from Liar Game, these here will look really dumb. The manga shows that the MC is a genius and think of a masterplan but in the end it always won due to luck, coincidence, enemy doing something stupid or something that was never there suddenly appear as a convenient way to end the game. So after every game, instead of “wow! never thought of that”, you just go “what? thats it?”.

I don’t know maybe others like the game but to me as a manga where its main selling point is about the game, the game to me is the weakest part of the aspects in the manga