In a typical shounen manga, there would be a happy ending for the cast, and the main lead would end up with the female lead. This manga does not do that. This is THE shounen manga where the main male lead has a male love interest and where the female main has a female love interest for her. Yes, we have an LGBTQ+ cast right here. This is the good thing about this series, along with being what is unique about it. Let’s start off with some of the good things about Gamerz Heaven.
IN THE BEGINNING:
We have a third year middle schooler named Kaito who is obsessed with video games, that some of his classmates cannot comprehend why he’s so into video games. One day, he finds a mysterious disc with the words “GAMERZ HEAVEN” on it. Kaito who is really curious without hesitation plays the game, but he realizes it’s no ordinary game: it MERGES the REAL world with the GAME world. In this first level, he meets a boy called the Navigator (who is a character of the game) and finds one of his classmates (who was class president of his class) has turned into a demon that the main lead ends up killing. The next day, none of Kaito’s friends (they are in the same class as him) seem to remember the class president that disappeared. In order to figure things out, Kaito and his friends enter the strange game.
The beginning chapters dragged me into their world, and I wanted to find out more about what exactly was going on in this game. I wanted to know exactly how DANGEROUS this video game was.
CHARACTERS:
The characters aren’t too memorable, but they also refuse to be forgettable either. They make up a fun cast. What I love about the characters is that not one of them is technically straight xD xD
Kaito—game-obsessed otaku who is hella dense. He and Kyouko are childhood friends. He’s infatuated with Navigator.
Kyouko—smart girl with glasses who attends cram school. She has an unrequited crush on Kaito, but may have a soft spot for her friend Rio too.
Navigator—the smol one who helps out Kaito and co. and is kind of like a “wanted” convict. He at first is monotone and lacks emotion, but he does develop. Navigator gets attached to Kaito, and it becomes more obvious in the later chapters.
Ren---he’s just as obsessed with video games as Kaito. It seems he has feelings for him.
Rio---a sassy girl and good friends with Kyouko. She’s pretty good at games in the game center. She has a crush on Kyouko. Eventually, there’s a bit of a flashback showing where the origin of that love comes from and how she and Kyouko first meet, which I thought was pretty neat.
There are more characters, like Ren’s dog and an idiot trio, but the ones above make up the main cast.
ART:
I actually kinda like the art style. It was easy to see the battle scenes and distinguish the characters. It’s not the best art I’ve ever seen (like Tegami Bachi), but it DEFINITELY ISN’T the worst. The beginning chapters start off very strong and shounen-like, but unfortunately later on, I felt that the art got a bit more feminine to the point it looked like shoujo manga almost (in one scene, there was a shoujo bubble effect).
TOWARDS THE ENDING:
So, why did I give this manga a LOWER SCORE despite all the good stuff I said about the manga? Well, it was because of certain parts of the middle to the end that caused its downfall.
The manga was trying too hard to be dramatic and add a bunch of plot twists to the point that the manga was unable to answer any of the questions I had. For example, who gave Kaito the video game in the first place? How did this game cause all of this madness like the disappearing classmate? What exactly was the goal in this game? There are a lot more questions I would type here, but that would reveal a bunch of spoilers.
To be honest, the ending was absolutely horrible, and the last chapter was extremely rushed. None of the questions I thought of were answered. It was utterly UNACCEPTABLE. This was the example of what NOT to do in an ending (this reminded me of the time when I read the last chapter of D.N.Angel).
WHY YOU PROBABLY MIGHT WANT TO OR NOT WANT TO READ IT:
What I really like about this manga was the fact that it was one of the only shounen manga in existence to have canon shounen ai and shoujo ai treated equally. And no! It’s not just subtext! There are legit intimate moments between the characters! It wasn’t obvious which (shounen ai or shoujo ai) the mangaka preferred (I only found out after finishing the manga that it was made by the same creator as “Graviation,” a popular yaoi manga).
If you want to read a manga for the sake of a gay middle schooler cast, then try reading “Gamerz Heaven” (you might still be put off by the ending.. But if you’re just interested in yaoi, there’s a doujinshi based off of this series made by the same mangaka that you could read. I’m not sure if it’s good or not because I don’t read yaoi)!
But if you are expecting an excellent story with a satisfying ending that ties up all the knots to the story and don’t care so much for the romance, then I suggest you find another manga.
