- Last Online58 minutes ago
- GenderMale
- JoinedMar 14, 2010
Also Available at
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
Sep 17, 2024
Tohru is a high school student that has so little presence that even his family sometimes forgets that he exists. This invisibility results in him accidentally seeing a witch transform. See, when a witch’s magic is exposed to a human, the witch gets hit with a curse that greatly limits her magical powers. The only way to lift that curse, is to grant a heartfelt wish from the human that saw her magic. Thus, in order for the witch, Raza, to get her power back, she must grant Tohru’s wish. Unfortunately for her, his wish isn’t something that magic can easily grant. He wishes to
...
become someone that is no longer invisible so he can confess his feelings to his crush, Tsumugi. Raza finds this an enormous pain in the ass, but she’s got to do what she’s got to do so she decides to help him.
This manga starts off as exactly as you would expect, full of rom-com fluff. Raza’s wild and arrogant personality is a lot of fun. Tohru on the other hand is much more passive and earnest, so the two make a really amusing combo that have really good chemistry. Though the initial premise is centered around Tohru’s crush on Raza, it’s pretty clear from the start that things will eventually progress to Raza being in love with him too. After all, one of the core mechanics of this manga is Raza having to absorb magic powers from Tohru through kissing him. The two have pretty great relationship development and Tohru has some pretty solid character development too.
What surprised me was how plot oriented this manga became as it progressed. Things got much more complicated than I thought. Tohru, Raza, and Tsumugi get pulled into a conspiracy involving the magic world, and a considerable amount of the manga is focused on them trying to get to the bottom of it. A number of side characters are introduced as a part of this, and though none of them are fleshed out all that well they definitely do make things more interesting. There’s also some pretty interesting world building, with things like ‘Uselesses’, magic users who can only use one type of magic and are thus discriminated against, and some hidden aspects to witches granting wishes. There’s also ‘L’s magic’, which is supposed to be a sort of legendary impossible magic, though to be honest the explanation was convoluted and just confused me. Still, overall the plot was well written and paced and worked incredibly well alongside the slowly progressing relationship/character arcs.
Unfortunately, all of this comes to naught because the manga was axed and ends with nothing resolved. Tohru’s character arc was very much still in the middle of things. The love triangle surrounding him involving Raza and Tsumugi was also just getting to the point where things really got moving. The identity of the big bad is revealed to the reader, but they haven’t even close to have been dealt with yet. There are loads of mysteries that are left unsolved and lots of foreshadowing that went nowhere. The ending was immensely dissatisfying. This isn’t the sort of manga where a non-ending makes the entire manga feel pointless, but it’s still incredibly disappointing.
The art in the manga was great. The style is eye pleasing and fits the story well and the quality overall is pretty good too. There are also lots of great character designs, mainly on the witches. The translation was pretty rough. There are loads of small but clear mistakes throughout and some parts have really strange wording.
tl;dr: A manga with good romance, good comedy, and a surprisingly good plot, but one that just straight up does not have an ending.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Sep 16, 2024
Princess Resurrection Nightmare is listed as a sequel, but that’s not really a good description. When things come to a close, it becomes clear that it is technically a sequel, but in a pretty convoluted way. This manga begins with the cast of the main series waking up without any memories of who they are or of their relationships to one another. They gain what memories they need as they go, but a full recovery of memories doesn’t occur until the end of the manga. Thus, for all intents and purposes all character development and relationship development has been reset to what it was at
...
the beginning of the original manga. Furthermore, the battle for the throne is seemingly ongoing so the overarching plot has been reset as well. Thus, I think it’s probably better to think of this as an alternate story or side story, though neither of those fit quite right either. Still, this is definitely a series you should only read after having read the main series and thus this review will heavily use comparisons to the main series.
The cast was one of the highlights of the main series but unfortunately, the cast of this sequel just isn’t as good. They’re the same characters for the most part so it’s not like they’re terrible, but the writing is noticeably worse. Hime doesn’t pull off her regal air as well as in the main series. Riza and Reiri don’t pull off their frenemies relationship as well as in the main series. Hiro is even more useless and unlike the main series, doesn’t grow at all into becoming useful. And Sherwood got replaced by someone who isn’t anywhere near as fun or likable. Another area the writing is weak is the overarching plot, which this time is ultimately complete nonsense. The plot in the main story had issues as well and left a lot unresolved, but it was nowhere near as bad as this. It’s overtly convoluted and ties things together in an incredibly forced way. And the ending made it all feel completely pointless, resulting in it being incredibly unsatisfying.
As with the main series, this too is mostly composed of unrelated episodes of Hime and company dealing with supernatural incidents. The writing on the mini-episodes was fine, but they still didn’t work as well as in the main series. They just aren’t able to capture the atmosphere as well. I think this largely comes down to the art. The art is better in some ways and worse in some ways, but for the story that the manga is trying to tell overall I’d say it’s worse. It looks more sanitized and cleaner, which doesn’t really work well with the somewhat horrific and mysterious atmosphere it’s going for.
tl;dr: A sequel that’s more of the same but not as good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Sep 12, 2024
This anime is about Princess Hime and her entourage as they deal with various supernatural phenomena. Her followers include the werewolf Riza, the vampire Reiri, and android Flandre, her younger sister Sherwood, and her blood-servant Hiro. Hime has a very cold demeaner, but she’s pretty smart and has a very commanding presence. Riza is incredibly prideful and somewhat battle crazy. Reiri on the other hand is mischievous and pretty lazy. Werewolves and vampires are sworn enemies that are fated to never get along, but despite constantly being at each other’s throats they seem to actually get along quite well. Flandre is part of an overpowered
...
android series that can only say hooba (fooga in the Japanese version). Sherwood is super enthusiastic about their family’s noble duty, keeping track of supernatural wildlife, and is constantly going on expeditions to research new or unknown beings. Almost all of them are interesting enough characters that they’re enough to make the story engaging.
The big exception was the arguable protagonist is Hiro. I think it’s very arguable because he is technically the one from whose perspective the story is primarily told. However, he really doesn’t do much. A blood warrior is someone that dies but is brough back through the blood of a royal, in Hiro’s case Hime. He’s immortal now so long as he continues drinking Hime’s blood. However, the only other ability he gets is the ability to detect when Hime is in danger. Other than that, for the vast majority of the story he’s a completely normal human. As such, his contribution to things is simply taking hits for Hime, which is important as he’s saving her life in these cases. But also, pretty boring.
His personality is also really flat with essentially no development so that doesn’t help him much either. This manga is listed in places as having a harem or romance, but it really isn’t at all. Though Hiro is surrounded by a bunch of girls, there’s like a few panels per girl where they show some interest in Hiro, and then it’s never brought up again. It’s not even a slow romance or subtle romance. It really doesn’t feel like there’s any at all. As a result of all this, despite being quite prominent, Hiro is underdeveloped as a character to the point that it kind of feels like he’s dragging down the rest of the cast.
The structure of the manga is short stories, usually only a single chapter, that show the various incidents that Hime gets involved in. These incidents generally involve some sort of supernatural mystery or fight against some sort of supernatural being. However, this isn’t really a mystery manga or action manga at all. The solution to the mysteries is generally some new supernatural phenomenon that only really matters for that story. The fights also don’t really have any depth or complexity to them. The manga is also okay with straight up skipping the climax of these, meaning, it’ll build up to a big fight, and then just skip to the aftermath. Ultimately, it feels more than anything the manga is focused on establishing horror and mystery vibes and atmosphere. And due to the fast pacing and the heavy variety to the supernatural phenomenon, it does an incredibly good job of that. However, things do get repetitive eventually, at which point the manga starts getting pretty dull. This may not have been as much of an issue for those reading the manga as it released, but binge reading it it definitely felt like it was dragging.
The majority of incidents that Hime gets involved with have very little if anything to do with any overarching plot. However, there is an overarching plot involving a fight for the throne and the secret background of Hime’s family. There were certainly some very interesting aspects to all this. But overall, this story was badly told and came to a pretty half assed ending that left a lot unresolved. I think one of the biggest issues was the pacing. The story tries to keep every incident confined to as few chapters as possible. So there would be a bunch of chapters that don’t advance the overarching plot at all, and then a chapter that advances it a lot in a pretty rushed manner. And then a bunch more that don’t advance it at all. Things did speed up eventually, but it still felt really haphazard and jarring pacing wise. There is a sequel series so maybe that resolves things better, but I can’t say I was all that satisfied with the ending to this one.
The art was a mixed bag. The quality is definitely good, barring some rough edges towards the beginning. The environments and monsters were also well designed and helped considerably in establishing atmosphere. The character art I wasn’t as much a fan of. The character designs themselves I feel were somewhat boring for the setting and premise. But more so than the designs themselves, I feel it wasn’t really using them all that well. There wasn’t really much art that made them look beautiful or eye catching, and though there was a lot of art that was meant to look cool, it was all of Hime and was mostly very similar so the effect wore off pretty quickly.
tl;dr: A manga with a mostly interesting cast and a pretty good sense of atmosphere, but pretty weak beyond that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Sep 11, 2024
tl;dr: An anime that relies entirely on it’s pretty unique type of ecchi comedy.
This anime is a ecchi harem fantasy comedy about a highly skilled adventurer Hunter named Kikuru leading a party of newbies as they go on quests to defeat monsters surrounding their town. The problem is that the other four members of his party all have quirks that make them useless. Hitamu is a Martial Artist, but she’s too straightforward with her attacks and thus can never seem to hit anyone. Maidena is a White Mage with great healing abilities, but her knees go weak at the sight of monsters and thus she’s
...
never there when it counts. Toxico is a Black Mage that can use a lot of powerful spells but she’s incredibly weak physically to the point she often runs out of stamina before even getting to the monsters. Then there’s Hanabata, a Warrior that’s overall pretty competent, but her special ability turns her into a drunk mess. Kikuru ends up having to babysit them pretty much, which ends up making things harder than it would be if he was working alone. Still, his goal is ultimately train them to be strong enough that he can retire without worry, so he sticks with them.
The anime is mostly a chronicle of them just going into the forest near their town and facing random monsters or going through preparations to do so. There’s no overarching plot beyond that, though there is some surprisingly interesting and deep worldbuilding. The main characters get fleshed out somewhat with some background, but there’s not much in terms of character arcs. There’s also some light relationship development, but nothing too much. This largely comes down to Kikuri being immensely dense to any affections the heroines feel for him, though this handles that better than most anime in that it at least gives a clear reason why Kikuri is like that: early on in the anime he misunderstands another’s feelings for romantic affection and gets shot down hard.
Ultimately, the two core aspects of this anime are the comedy and ecchi. The comedy is decent enough. The core of it is the main heroines being terrible at things and bringing about bizarre situations, though there’s enough variety beyond that that it doesn’t get too repetitive. Ecchi wise it was pretty good as well, though it was very different from the ecchi in most ecchi anime. For one, there’s not much ecchi centered around the protagonist. There certainly is some, but for the most part he’s just a bystander or someone trying to rescue the heroines from the ecchi circumstances they’ve gotten themselves into. And these circumstances usually involve the heroines getting molested by monsters. It’s the first time I’ve seen that so heavily played for comedy in an ecchi anime so it was definitely unique, though if that’s a good or bad thing will come down to personal preference. Another unique element was that this had full on ecchi with the otokonoko (that’s the correct term these days, right?). Otokonoko aren’t uncommon in such anime, but ecchi scenes with them are usually treated mostly like a joke. This was much more equal opportunity about it, for better or worse.
I really liked the art style and the character designs were pretty great too. The animation was also really solid. Of course for the ecchi, but it was also surprisingly really solid for the action. The OP and ED were both pretty solid in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was also really memorable because it’s the best I’ve heard so far in capturing the feel of Dragon Quest’s soundtrack. The atmosphere it created allowed the parody aspect to work really well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Sep 9, 2024
tl;dr: An isekai comedy centered around successful stupidity.
This manga is about a trio of three friends who end up getting reincarnated into another world after dying together in an absurdly dumb way. This manga is a spinoff of another manga that as far as I understand it simply features the trio living normal lives as high school students, though it hasn’t been translated into English so I haven’t read it and thus I can’t say all that much about it. This spin off isekai manga went on for longer so it was probably more popular and also has what feels like a proper ending, so
...
I don’t think it’s necessary to read the other manga to enjoy this one.
Anyway, the way they reincarnate is actually pretty interesting. They essentially take over the bodies of a trio that already existed in the isekai world. That’s not unheard of when it comes to isekai, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done with a trio together. That results in some pretty interesting dynamics. See, the three that got reincarnated, Shota, Sanae, and Kana, essentially had a love triangle going on in their previous world, and seeing as they all got isekai’d together that persists in the new world. However, the people whose bodies they took already had their own stories. And that included romances and even marriages with children. So when they run into people that already know their bodies original inhabitants, it gets really awkward. Thankfully, this is a comedy manga so it is able to play it all off in a pretty amusing fashion. The ending got kind of bizarre trying to force this to work out in a nice way despite all the issues, but ultimately I’d say I was still pretty satisfied with it.
Beyond that, the plot is a pretty generic isekai story where they have the goal of gathering up heroes to defeat the big bad that’s trying to take over the world or to destroy humanity or something like that. The plot is weak, but it really doesn’t matter because this is a purely comedic parody manga. It’s a bit different from most isekai parodies, in that it’s really not trying to be witty in playing around with tropes or mechanics. Rather, it’s just trying to be as stupid as possible with them. The epitome of that is Sanae, the titular ponkatsu. A ponkatsu means useless junk essentially and in this context it means someone who screws up so often that screwing up is their primary character trait. Sanae is really dumb and is constantly doing dumb things, but somehow it all magically works out. Usually in completely ridiculous ways. The rest of the cast isn’t as extreme as Sanae, but even with them most of the humor is centered around them doing things wrong but them somehow succeeding. This does get kind of repetitive, but overall there was enough variety to the absurdity for it to be at least somewhat interesting and funny all the way to the end.
The art was decent enough but nothing special. It’s pretty generic in terms of style and designs and doesn’t lend itself well to visual humor. It gets the story across clearly enough but that’s it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Sep 6, 2024
I have been a major Code Geass fan since the original two seasons aired about a decade and a half ago. I can't say I liked Akito the Exiled all that much, but I felt it had potential and was still appreciative of what they were trying to do. I acknowledge the issues with Re;surrection but I still absolutely loved the film for what it successfully managed to do. Rozé of the Recapture however, I found to be a failure in essentially all respects to the point I feel it may well have been better for it never to have been made at all.
One
...
of the the most critical aspects of Code Geass is a protagonist that is, for lack of a better way to say it, intellectually overpowered. The writing may have to gloss over things and straight up bullshit things at times in order to make them feel that way, but the important part is to give off that sort of vibe. Lelouch is obviously the best example, but I'm not a hardliner that feels that Code Geass without Lelouch is impossible to do right. After all, I felt Leila filled that role reasonably well. Rozé however just doesn't make a good Code Geass protagonist.
That Lelouch would still be amazing even without his Geass was heavily emphasized. On the other hand, with Rozé the focus is on how she wouldn't be able to accomplish much without hers. This is a core element of her character arc. It isn't all that well written of a character arc, but the issues are broader than that. It is simply not the type of character arc the protagonist should have. A side character sure. But if the protagonist has such a character arc, it kneecaps the entire series. Crazy schemes and great strategies that manage to pull off things that no one expects to be possible are Code Geass's bread and butter. Rozé just straight up isn't smart enough to do all that much. And this results in the series just overall being a lot less intriguing or exciting.
Something that elevated the narrative in Code Geass was the themes that it explored. Most of the themes it explored it did superficially and often in ways that were pretty naive or fantastical. Thus, it was better from the perspective of bringing up questions than answering them. Still, it definitely had something to say, and with Zero's Requiem it did provide a resolution, and provided it an incredible fashion. Many argue that Re;surrection diminished that ending. I disagree with them in that I feel that showing that minor conflicts that the Black Knights can resolve (as long as Geass isn't involved) elevates the world that Lelouch created and thus builds well on that ending.
But that's beside the point, which is that Rozé of the Recapture actually does do what people accuse Re;surrection of doing in that it greatly undermines the ending of R2. It makes it feel like what Lelouch accomplished really didn't have all that much of an impact. Somehow Neo-Brittania manages to take over Hokkaido again. Also, Neo-Brittania has an overpowered defensive wall that the Black Knights are completely useless against for some reason. Neo-Brittania also has Damocles and a bunch of F.L.E.I.J.A. despite them having been blasted into the sun. If that wasn't ridiculous enough, things get completely absurd in the final stretch where apparently they have an even greater superweapon that could easily have defeated the entirety of the rest of humanity if Rozé and Ash didn't just happen to be in the right place to be able to stop them. On top of that, it is explicitly shown that Lelouch and CC chose not to interfere in all this because they decided it was no longer their place, which is pretty much their only involvement in the show. None of this makes any sense and severely contradicts key elements of core aspects of the main series. It is quite frankly insulting.
How cartoonish the villains were in this was even more insulting. They could not have created more 2-D villains if they had tried. That everyone had complex motivations was a core part of the main series. Some motivations were clearly better than others, but there was an attempt at giving depth to at least all the main characters. On the other hand the primary antagonist of Rozé of the Recapture is so lacking in depth and is so generic of a villain with such simple minded and evil motivations that I suspect the writers may have been trying to go for "It's so stupid it's actually genius", but just ended up with something utterly stupid.
The rest of the antagonists don't fare much better. The majority are also two dimensionally evil to the point they make Clovis look deep. The exceptions are so half assed that they might as well be. For example, Narah has motivations centered around how Brittanians in Japan were discriminated against once it was freed, but this is obviously nonsense and doesn't justify her actions at all. And Catherine had a decent character arc conceptually, but it was severely rushed and thus wasn't able to hit the character beats necessary for it to be built up properly.
The cast on the protagonist's side is similarly weak. The majority feel like bargain bin version of characters from the main series in that there was very heavy use of the same personality types in similar roles and with very similar relationships thus producing very similar dynamics. It felt a lot like the writers were just taking things from the main series and throwing them together without understanding why they worked so well in their original context. There are a lot of character and plot threads that go absolutely nowhere or feel like they had no point whatsoever. As such, its quite hard to build up investment in the cast. This severely weakens the ending, which was trying to go for strong character centered emotional beats, but isn't able to land any of them properly. This results in the ending being immensely unsatisfying.
The use of reoccurring characters from prior Code Geass media was decent. The only one that has any major presence is Nina, whose story does a pretty good job of reinforcing her character arc centered around her desire for redemption for creating F.L.E.I.J.A.. Beyond that everyone's presence is cameo level. Seeing them is cool again and all, but Re;surrection was so much better at this that the cameos in this don't really have all that strong of an impact. The only exception I can think of is that unlike Re;surrection, characters from side series like Akito and Oz get cameos in this, so for those that especially love those characters this might hit harder.
With all that said, there are still some areas where Rozé of the Recapture is pretty good. It still manages to handle the intermixing of slice of life and fanservice with the more serious parts of the show really well in a way that felt very true to the spirit of Code Geass. The action is also pretty good, though it uses a lot of 3DCG which some may take exception to. I also feel the new mech designs are weaker than the older ones. The character designs on the other hand are fantastic, and the art and animation in general is pretty good. The soundtrack is as good as the main series when it comes to the more action oriented tracks, but is weaker when it comes to softer tracks or tracks that are meant to be regal. The OP was pretty good in terms of the song and visuals. The ED was decent in terms of both.
tl;dr: A sequel that is unsuccessful at most everywhere that was great about it's predecessors.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 22, 2024
tl;dr: A laid back series about cosplay with great comedy and character moments.
This anime is about an introverted guy named Gojou helping a gyaru girl named Kitagawa cosplay. There isn’t really any sort of overarching plot. Rather, the focus is simply on the Gojou and Kitagawa hanging out and doing cosplay related things. In doing so the viewer gets a look at the world of cosplay with it providing some good insight into both the technical aspects of how cosplay is performed as well as some of the mental aspects of why people enjoy cosplaying. There’s also quite a lot of great comedy.
With that said,
...
there is some substantial development over the course of the season. Gojou for example is definitely making major progress in his character arc. Gojou has long dreamed of becoming a Hina Doll artisan. However, due to a traumatic experience as a kid, he’s felt that society would consider him a wierdo and look down on him for this. As such, he chooses his dream over society and becomes someone walled off and alone focusing solely on practicing making Hina Dolls. However, in helping Marin with cosplay and then becoming close friends with her, he gets exposed to a whole new world and begins coming out of his shell and growing as a person as a result.
A core theme of his character arc is that it’s okay to be who you want to be. This theme is also the focus of the story of the only two side characters that mattered, the Inui sisters. A lot of this theme is centered around typical gender expectations, though I feel it’s making the point in a broader sense. I think it’s written pretty well, wherein it’s not exactly subtle but it’s not exactly in your face either. It flows naturally from the story being told while still clearly getting the message across.
Marin doesn’t really have any character development, but she has really solid relationship development with Gojou. She falls in love with him pretty quickly and after that is just a treasure trove of adorable moments gushing over him. Gojou I suppose is somewhat dense in that he doesn’t pick up on this. Though overall I feel it does make a lot of sense because Gojou is supposed to be pretty dense when it comes to socializing and such seeing as he has done very little. And though we don’t see much of Marin interacting with people other than Gojou, she does kind of give the impression that she acts pretty close with everyone, so I don’t think it would be fair to judge Gojou too harshly. Still, despite not making any explicit steps forward, they do have pretty good chemistry and a lot of good fluffy romantic moments so it’s pretty fun to watch their relationship progress.
The art and animation in this are also great. The art style look really nice and can be quite dazzling at times. The character designs are also pretty great, especially the cosplay outfits. The animation is also really nice. There was bizarrely high budget put into certain scenes that usually would not be so intricately animated, but the end result was quite striking and very memorable. The OP and ED had pretty solid songs. I thought the OP had pretty solid visuals too, though the ED’s I wasn’t all that fond of. The soundtrack was decent enough as well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 21, 2024
tl;dr: A manga that’s really rough in most aspects but flows well enough that it’s fine as a braindead read.
This manga is about a group of high school students trying to escape from a capsizing cruise ship overrun by zombies. Overall I’d say that it’s not terrible, but it’s pretty lacking in terms of everything. Plot wise, the only overarching goal is to escape from the ship. Beyond that it comes down to the conflicts between passengers. This is enough to hold up the manga to some degree as there are some interesting elements due to how they’re both in a sinking ship and facing
...
a zombie crisis simultaneously. Still, all in all it didn’t really feel like it had good character stories either.
It didn’t feel like the cast was fleshed out properly and thus how they behave felt mostly random. There are attempts at giving characters depth but they’re all badly written and none of them work all that well. Thus, while the constant twists and extreme character moments were still interesting enough in the moment, in a broader sense the story was pretty hard to get invested in. Similarly, because characters weren’t fleshed out properly, without a good grasp of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations, it was hard to get invested in them as well. As such, while the ending was okay, it didn’t hit all that hard.
The premise also makes no sense. The biggest issue is definitely that the way the ship capsized is by completely flipping over. At this point the vast majority of the ship is underwater. However, despite that it still takes over a day for the ship to actually sink. I am not an expert on ships, but that just seems kind of ridiculous. Even if the entire ship was designed to be completely air tight for some reason, this would still mean that an external force strong enough to completely flip over the ship didn’t do enough damage to it to break its airtightness. I’m able to pretty easily look past issues in realism if it feels like they’re necessary for the story being told, but this felt completely pointless. The way things play out in the ship does not make sense a lot of the time if the ship is upside down. It’s basically drawn and written as if it was upright the vast majority of the time.
There are a lot of other issues as well, such as how the plot treats simply escaping from the bottom of the ship, which is the only part above the water, as the end goal. No thought is given at all to what they’d do after that, and ultimately it is treated as if it was trivial. But that doesn’t make sense at all within the context of why the ship capsized in the first place. These inconsistencies are glaring enough that they kind make the plot overall feel not worth taking seriously. This is very much a work that you need to shut off your brain and just go with the flow of in order to enjoy.
The art was pretty rough and character designs were kind of boring but the style fit the story well enough and it worked out okay. The fan translation is also somewhat rough but should be simple enough to understand.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 20, 2024
tl;dr: An incredibly generic rom-com in which very little romantic progress is made and the comedy gets pretty dull.
The original premise of this is that a girl named Yui as the ‘Seatmate Killer’ tries to make boys that sit next to her fall in love with her just to shoot them down, but is unable to make a guy named Yuuki fall in love with her. This premise isn’t quite accurate though, and the reality of the situation results in a much more bog standard rom-com without any particularly interesting gimmick to it. It’s the typical story where one-character falls in love with another but
...
is incredibly slow at actually advancing their relationship.
Yuuki is an emotionless airhead that’s also pretty dense. Yui is an overtly energetic girl that’s trying too hard to get people to like her. There’s some background given to flesh them out, but it’s mostly just described in passing and doesn’t play much of a role in the actual story. It also doesn’t feel like they grow at all over the course of the manga despite the attempts at making it seem like they have. A lot of the side characters in the manga also have attempts at character arcs, but they either go nowhere or they make progress in such a way that it makes their whole story feel meaningless and like a waste of time. Early on things feel like they are progressing steadily enough, with Mina’s arc feeling especially solid, but it’s all downhill from there as it continues to throw things into the mix.
The manga ends without much progress having been made. And honestly, when I finished the manga I didn’t even mind because I didn’t care about the relationship at all. A rom-com where you don’t even feel like rooting for the main couple is just broken. It’s hard to get invested because the characters have zero chemistry and just overall aren’t very likable. Honestly, I think it was more amusing watching things fail than it would been satisfying to see relationship progress. The reason they aren’t likable is because the writing doesn’t really do anything properly with them. This is a partial adaptation of a light novel so I understand that it isn’t adapting the entire story. But even considering that, far too little of substance happens.
The comedy is also pretty weak. It’s almost entirely of the type that has no wit to it. For example, the type where making references or breaking the fourth wall is supposed to be funny in and of itself without any further joke to things. Or the type where characters just being overtly exaggerated or unexpectedly stupid is supposed to be humorous. I think such comedy is fine in small doses, but with it throwing so much at you it actually got kind of annoying. The art style is pretty generic, but the quality was pretty solid at first so it’s decent enough. It gets worse over time though, with an over reliance on chibi and just in general a lot of low effort art.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Aug 19, 2024
tl;dr: An action harem series with a lot of ecchi, a well written plot, and a well fleshed out cast of characters with great character and relationship arcs.
This series begins with Toujou Basara unexpectedly gaining two stepsisters: Mio, the daughter of the former Demon Lord, and her attendant, Maria. Basara himself isn’t a stranger to the world of Demons, seeing as he’s a former member of the Hero Clan, a group dedicated to protecting humans from Demons. However, after an accident where his powers went out of control he was exiled from the clan and began living the life of a normal student. But now
...
with Mio’s being targeted by both the new Demon Lord’s faction and the Hero Clan, he’s forced to reawaken his abilities to protect her. Unfortunately, his strength isn’t at the level necessary to do so. But thankfully Maria has a plan that involves using magic to link Basara and Mio in order to make them both stronger through what is called a Master-Servant contract. The thing is that Maria is a succubus, and thus the magic is pretty lewd.
This story is a mix of comedic slice of life and more serious action/drama, and overall, it handled the blend of the two really well. The goal of Basara and company is ultimately just to live like normal humans. And in the case of most of them, that means living like normal high school students. They spend a decent amount of time doing so, though even when things are completely peaceful the Master-Servant contract ends up triggering and causing various ecchi mischief. In addition to this pretty much always being really amusing, it also often does contribute to character arcs and relationship development. Also, I think this series has the best handling of ecchi I’ve ever seen. In most series ecchi gets repetitive pretty quickly because it quickly hits the maximum level it’s going to go and then it just stays there. This series has a very steady escalation curve wherein it starts off not that extreme but ends full H, which made it interesting and enjoyable from beginning to end.
Though Basara and his friends just want to be left alone, the rest of the world unfortunately isn’t willing to do so. And thus, they often have to be proactive in dealing with problems before they become too much to handle. There’s a pretty interesting plot with a good amount of solid world building regarding various factions that Basara has to navigate not just through defeating his enemies but also through dealing with the political situations surrounding the conflicts. Basara is very interesting when it comes to dealing with all this because he’s very pragmatic and is willing to do things that are pretty sketchy, though the plot doesn’t require him to do so all that often or do things that are beyond the pale.
There are ultimately three main factions, the Demons, the Heroes, and the Gods, though each also has various subfactions with the plot heavily centered around the conflicts between said subfactions. The plot does a great job at fleshing out the demons and telling their story to completion. The plot does a decent job in terms of the heroes, but it definitely felt like there was more left that wasn’t dealt with. The plot barely even touches on the Gods in what felt like a pretty big omission as there was a major plot thread related to them left unresolved. In one of the afterwards, the author mentioned that he was planning on writing a story featuring Basara’s father as he deals with said plot thread, but it seems that’s not happening, so it seems that plot will remain forever unfinished.
Action wise for the most part is pretty basic, but pretty solid. Characters have pretty clear ability sets that grow over the course of the series. There’s a good amount of variety so things don’t really get repetitive. And in general things flow pretty well with a lot of cool moments and satisfying victories. The action in the final arc felt like a break from that in that it felt like it was overtly convoluted and random. It’s heavily tied to the classic Japanese elements, the classic Chinese elements, and how the two are connected. Elements played a part in the action even before this, but in a more generic fashion. This felt a major escalation in complexity. On top of that, it also ties things heavily into very specific geography. There’s similar things before this, such as Byakko’s relationship with the cardinal direction west, but the final arc escalates things to the point it feels like you need to have a pretty good grasp of the map of Tokyo in order to properly understand what’s going. I suppose in regards to both the elements and geography the issue may arise from the fact that the target audience generally does possess preexisting knowledge on the subject that I do not. But as most reading this review will fall into the same category, I think its still fair to say that I felt the action in the final arc was hard to follow and dragged on too long.
Character wise, overall, the series has great character and relationship arcs. As mentioned, there’s a good blend of serious and comedic moments, and this brings out different sides of characters and helps flesh them out. There’s also a lot of variety to the heroines and they have great chemistry not only with Basara but also each other. As a result, everyone is pretty likable and it’s easy to get invested in everyone individually and the group overall. There are also some pretty great side characters. The primarily highlight being Lars, who’s just as cool if not cooler than Basara. It’s pretty rare for the protagonist in the genre to have competent and cool male friends, so he was certainly a very pleasant surprise.
There definitely were a few weak spots in terms of the cast though, mainly towards the end. In addition to Basara, the heroines that have great character and relationship arcs are Mio, Maria, Yuki, Kasumi, and Zest. With Hasegawa it felt like the writing trying to portray her as a mature and wise character above needing a character arc, so she doesn’t have one at all. She has a pretty solid relationship arc though. The other two heroines, Nanao and Celes, have character and relationship arcs that reach a solid enough conclusion, but they felt really rushed towards the end in getting there. There was another character, Rikka, that had a character and relationship arc that was slowly being developed throughout the series, but in the end the series ended without doing anything with it, which was pretty disappointing. Still, even with these issues, the ending and epilogue were still fantastic and an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the series.
I should also note that the art in this is downright incredible. The character designs are varied and amazing too. They’re also used really well in both the action and ecchi. The fan translation is a mixed bag since it involves multiple translators, but the weaker parts are mostly all towards the beginning so I definitely think its worth pushing through them.
The side volumes, Light and Sweet, mostly felt like a waste of time. They’re just fluff, but it’s not very good fluff and is much weaker than the main series. They’re not written by the author of the main series so I suppose that shouldn’t be too surprising. The art in Light is also from the artist of the manga, and it’s decent but nowhere near the main artist of the novels. The art in Sweet is done by the same artist as the main series, but for the point in the series that it takes place the art is pretty weak compared to the surrounding novels of the main series, so I can’t say I was all that satisfied with it either.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
