Feb 4, 2023
I bought this manga on a whim when I saw it laying in the "newly arrived" section, so I did not know what to expect going into this. When I saw later that this manga included a lot of sex scenes, I was shocked but still excited to read this, since a lot of good works of art incorporate the use of sex scenes to progress their stories.
A Girl on the Shore is not one of those stories. It feels like a hentai with some dialogue sprinkled in rather than a story with a few sex scenes. Sometimes they happen randomly, other times it's
...
an entire chapter filled with them. If this was all that the manga was trying to be then I could accept it, but the way these scenes are drawn and the way the dialogue is written gives me the impression that Inio Asano was trying to create something way more than a child-on-child smut doujinshi.
None of the characters are likeable, and while I understand that the main characters have deep rooted problems, they never have a proper conversation with each other that feels real. They don't mind having sex 6 different times within the span of a day, but God forbid they have an honest talk about their feelings for each other.
The ending also feels unsatisfying with Isobe's sudden change of behavior, combined with a time skip showing Koume in her new school with a different boyfriend. I wish they elaborated a bit more on what their lives looked like now, and how they learned from all of their experiences. But hey, at least it wasn't a feel-good ending with the main characters falling in love all over again and becoming a couple.
Other than that, the art is amazing. The characters look a bit uncanny, but that's one thing that makes Asano's work stand out from the rest. There was not a single panel that looked bad, and the manga captured the gritty atmosphere of rural japan quite well.
If you even slightly think that this is something you won't enjoy, then don't pick it up. This story and its characters are not going to blow your mind with their complexity.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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