*I am going to be using the word "weird" many times in this review, and you will see why*
"Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko" is a weird manga. I don't think anyone will argue against that. The premise is certainly unique, and a weird take on the fantasy genre in which a couple people (a guy and a girl) battle against mysterious creatures in a supernatural setting. In this case, the setting happens to be inside the body of humans who have been "bitten" by the Fishbowl Man and need to be saved before the goldfish toxin takes over their bodies and turns them into goldfish. See where the story gets weird yet?
But let's back up for a second to the beginning. Kousuke is your average high school boy with nothing special about him. One day, he happens upon a weird girl in a school swimsuit with a plastic gun tied whose hand is stuck in a vending machine. On top of that, she fell asleep there and wakes up as Kousuke tries to leave without being spotted by her. He frees her, and she thanks him by giving him a weird telephone (like you would see in a phone booth) that has a cord connected to nothing. She tells him to give her a call if he ever runs into trouble. By trouble, she means the Fishbowl Man, a mysterious "man" with a goldfish bowl for a head who goes around after rainstorms and turns people who are bleeding into goldfish.
While relieving himself in a public bathroom later on, Kousuke turns and notices the Fishbowl Man standing next to him. He is "bitten" and falls to the ground as blood pours out of the cork-sized hole in his neck. Somehow he is able to use the phone connected to nothing to notify the girl (who is named Ringo) and she comes to help him. Ringo is a "blood diver" which is a person who shoots herself (with the plastic gun) into the wounds caused by the Fishbowl Man and captures the goldfish toxin from turning the person into a goldfish and saves them. Through a series of problems due to Ringo's inexperience and poor swimming skills, Kousuke has to help her, and afterwards they end up teaming up to go around and help people since Kousuke is a strong swimmer.
Aside from the weird plot, the manga also suffers in other categories with the most noticeable right from the start being the art. The art in general is just poorly drawn. Some closer images of the characters are good, but most of the time there is large lack of detail, especially in the character designs and emotions. The Fishbowl Man is about the only character who manages to be well drawn most of the time and he is also the only one with a unique design.
The characters also suffer from being generic and having a huge lack of any kind of backstory. Kousuke's sister who was turned into a goldfish is given a short period where we're supposed to feel bad for her being turned into one as Kousuke goes through the pain of not being able to save her (before getting through it kind of quickly) but she wasn't even shown or mentioned before so there was absolutely no connection at all. Moving on to the main characters, Kousuke and Ringo. They have a weird relationship in which the author attempts to give them a very small amount (so far) of romance, which for the most part falls flat and is quickly forgotten after a couple pages. The minor characters are also pretty generic: a girl with a short "must-get-revenge" period, a boy who gets nosebleeds at the mere sight of girls in swimsuits (and Ringo is always wearing a swimsuit), a "senpai" figure, and a motherly figure. About the only real interesting character (well Ringo is't bad) is the Fishbowl Man, but unfortunately he is almost completely shrouded in mystery at the current time so not much is known about him. Apparently he can still smoke a cigarette even with his weird fishbowl head though, just fyi.
While it isn't horrible, there isn't really anything that stands out about "Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko." The art is simple, the characters are pretty bland and have basically nonexistant pasts, and the story is just weird. If you want a simple, weird manga than this may be something you enjoy. However if you are looking for a thrilling tale with interesting characters or breathtaking art than I recommend skipping this one.
