Children

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Ugh.

5/10 for art, 2/10 for the story, character, enjoyment and overall.

This is a gore fest going for dismemberment, torture, extreme violence and general shock value right from the first pages. Honestly, it is best described as stomach churning.

The story... there's not much of story told, as due to manga focusing on gore it largely only gets a two pages or so per chapter to put a hint about this or that character's background. While there's a story progression, due to gore taking most of screen time, by chapter 8 it didn't advance quite far.

The art is average, and characters are not exactly believable, although ... the don't exactly get a lot of time to properly "unfold" due to most of the pages being dedicated to violence.

Overall... this is quite bad, and not enjoyable in the slightest. Violence approaches guro level, although not quite detailed, and there's nothing good about this manga.

My suggestion is to avoid. It is quite bad, its main gimmick is attempting to shock, so in the end there's nothing worth reading here, and it is not for faint of the heart or weak stomached people either.

I have never reviewed any manga or anime, so this is just a first experience. Im a Brazilian user in Myanimelist, so, sorry for any english mistakes.


How far can the gore go?

In my searches for manga, one interested me a lot: Children. This cover image and synopsis interested me instantly, since horror would be the main focus of the story. Until then, I had never tried such a genre in a manga, where suspense and plot work differently from animes. It was in this reading that I thought: “Does the work deserve all this criticism? ”. And my conclusion was: “Yes, it does, but on ... the positive side”.

Anyway, this review may contain considerable spoilers, so be aware of it.

As I have never reviewed here before, I believe that verbalizing is better than taking everything to the technical level.
I liked the story. The opposition to which Tooru (protagonist) was subjected marked the work right away. A lot of psychopathic children killing adults, while Tooru finds a way to escape and at the same time save children's minds, manipulated by parental traumas.
And the returning characters represented that consistently and fairly. I admit that, although it is the weakest factor in the manga, it has remained reasonable throughout the development of history.
The final part (volume 2), in my opinion, was weaker than the rest. While the first volume focuses on setting the daycare center with the protagonist, this second one already tries to complete the plot, without seeming too fast, which is a pity, as it still felt. Since Mirai's death, I imagined that a tragedy would happen, but I never thought it would involve a couple of people who already knew the darker details of the nursery, and yet, who wanted to destroy the place out of pure vengeance. I found such an objective empty of them. I couldn't feel anything about the subsequent deaths because what was in focus now was not the most adult pair, but the resolution of a massacre, practically thrown at the reader. What is saved here is the construction that history needed to build right in the opening chapters. If that was badly done too, Children would surely be a horrible and unfounded manga.

In conclusion, the manga is not the best thing I have ever experienced, but it was not a complete disappointment. There were bloody and fun moments at the same time, which attracted me. Of course, it is not possible to save the accelerated ending, nor the final objectives (however logical they may seem). I believe that if the secondary characters would take better advantage and evolve them during the work with the protagonists, the work would be much better (more chapters would already solve the problem).

Story: 6/10 - Good at the beginning, but partially lost at the end, with the objectives. It is the famous “without feelings” or “emptiness” that is fundamentally part of the work.

Art: 6/10 - Average, nothing big.

Characters: 5/10 - Weak. Some are disposable and others are not very interesting.

Score: 5/10 - The end sacrificed part of the story, but it pays off as quick entertainment (for those who sympathize with blood and psychological).

This review may content spoilers

"A story that starts badly usually ends in carnage."
I'm not saying that, the author herself wrote this, word for word, or at least what the translation tried to make me understand on the back of the second volume (Because I bought them, like any human being ). I am impressed of how honest she was by writing this, seeing how disgusting this manga was. As her first manga, maybe she could put it forward, but nope: devalued, depressed, desperate, all what it sadly deserved. But why tho? How did I get to read this and falling in some kind of traps ... full of despair. Why did I disliked it?

What a stupid question to ask myself, because what was I expecting? One of the main reasons I wanted to read Children was for the charming, bloody art style on the cover and also because I saw Happy Sugar Life and U-12 in the recommendations, which mostly focused on HSL. It's the story of an adult named Toru Igarashi, looking for a place to make a lot of money. After a random recommendation, he goes to an orphanage where he will meet Sakurako Shimizu, the "mother" of the many orphans living here. Keep in mind I really want to quote "mother", she's actually a murderer, manipulating her orphans and teaching them to kill in the worst way possible, passing by passers-by to yakuza.

So yeah. Let's put HSL and U-12 in a blender. Was it seriously a good idea?! Clearly not! Unless you're one of these people liking to see other people being tortured and getting their limbs savagely cutted by an axe... Even then, I don't think we could find much enjoyement into that too. None of the character presented into this seemed outstanding, they mostly are developped trough flashback. The story goes way to fast for giving us time to admire and prefers stuffing us more and more of overused clichés to pack the whole thing up, making it a much more unpleasant experience. The drawings are fine, but also confusing to see who does which actions in what time and can sometimes makes the rest of story more obvious and unsurprising with the writing. Seeing a little girl despairly trying to get out of the orphanage despite knowing that she might get killed during the process, 'cause what kind of unlogical horror manga will it be if there wasn't some kind of dark side... Maybe I'd be terrorised if it was in the first manga that I've read, but when you know the clichés, we don't feel anything when these moments happen. We feel empty. Just like the protagonist.

There's not much to complain about Children because of how short it is, I just know that there's other manga that does well their jobs in their storytelling. Go read Happy Sugar Life if you want to live the story of a cute girl wanting to protect an other cute girl like a mom/wife, or go read U-12 if you want cute girls beating the shit out of buffed perverted grown men. You'd feel more accomplished by reading these instead of two volumes of that rushed story labelled "Children".

For a horror manga, the art does the job wonderfully. Its creepiness factor combined with the aesthetic of child-like innocence and fear is something not to be understated. Its moe art style combined with the well-crafted gore is a great combo for anyone interested in horror manga of that nature.

The story's theme is not only thought-provoking on the nature of evil, but is also fun to read for your horror needs. Most of the supporting cast do suffer from somewhat rushed conclusions and lack of development, but they serve the story's theme and message really well. Their individual quirks also make them quite endearing and ... pitiful.

Overall I recommend to anyone looking for a fun kawaii horror manga.

What a mindtrip this manga was. The cover, and the very first chapter lead you to think that there's just something 'off' about the entire story. Very quickly, its shown exactly what's wrong with everyone in the 'daycare', especially the headmaster.

The storyline was good, but definitely not the best. There were some really good surprises with good foreshadowing, but nothing too outstanding.
The art was incredible. Giving the Manga the true eerie feeling that it deserved, it really captured the whole mood.
Character development and the character design was good. Again, nothing too outstanding, but the character development worked well with the story that was given.
Overall, ... I really enjoyed this manga. For a quick read that has you on the edge of your seat with what happens next, I would recommend this to anyone who wants a quick horror read.

Children is a rough around the edges attempt at murder-based shock value. While the initial premise of the main character being sent to a daycare only to find that its actually a slaughterhouse is interesting, that intrigue only lasts for a couple of chapters resulting in a very soulless read for the most part. While there is a twist at the midpoint of the manga, the transformation of the main character is far too drastic which kills any immersion in the story. From there, Children finishes off with more shock and murder tied up in a fairly clean ending.

While this manga is a very quick ... read (approx. 30mins), I can't say that it's worth it unless you enjoy casual murder stories where the insanity of the characters is on full display and don't require decent story or characters. Either that or you have half an hour to spare and your standards aren't too high, then this is a passable way to kill that time.

Story: The story has some nuance to it which stops the manga from being a waste of time and there is enough mystery to give you a good enough reason to keep reading.
Art: The art of this manga won't be for everyone, as it's of a more unique style than you would usually see. That being said, the art is still good and suits the content of the manga very well.
Character: The characters in this are not good. While they are actually quite nuanced and have some decent character dynamics, the way the characters are written, with shock-value first and story consideration second, makes it difficult to care too much. There is also the issue of simply not having much time with the characters so the huge shift midway through just doesn't work well.

TLDR: Mediocre murder manga that's good for killing half an hour, just don't go into it expecting too much.

This is one of those manga where you can definitely tell that the author had a story planned out, but got axed after the first volume and so the author had to sprint to cram in all their ideas in the latter half.

There are certainly some good ideas here and twists that I like on paper. A manga about a guy who gets roped into a literal extermination camp disguised as a children's home in which children are forced to be murderers? And the MC slowly starts to uncover the deeper mystery as to why the children's home is this way and who the people ... truly in charge of it are? And none of the children (not even the teacher running it) are actively malicious but rather victims of a horrible institution? AND the MC is implied to have some skeletons in his closet that he isn't letting on? Amazing idea. Right up my alley. I just wish the end result could have been fleshed out and all the plot beats could have had impact. Like, the story ALMOST says something substantial about being trapped in cycles of abuse and being able to break free from them, but everything is so rushed that it comes off as muddled at best. I definitely get the impression that the author WANTED to convey a message with this manga, but simply didn't have enough time to do so. Without going into specifics if you feel like reading it, the ending sounds great ON PAPER, but so little time was spent with the characters involved that it just doesn't stick.

An obvious victim of the editorial axe. You can tell at even a cursory glance that after the first volume the author was scrambling to tell their story in whatever way they could with the little time they had left. I feel like this had the potential to be a good story, but it just wasn't meant to be I guess.

To end on a more optimistic note, I think the art is quite good. Very appealing mix of cute and creepy that I definitely vibe with. Even if I'm not really a fan of how the overall manga turned out, the art style definitely got me to check out the mangaka's current webcomic.