RaW Hero

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Raw Hero is a work that alot of people reading it probably have an in-grained bias towards, as Akira Hiramoto lost a great deal of good will among fans after the controversial ending to Prison School. This being his first project since PS ended, readers tend to hold that ending against Raw Hero. Putting aside real life events, is Raw Hero any good? It is one of the weirdest works ive ever read, with bizarre plot plots, insane character motivations and backstories, extremely over the top fanservice, and you're basically more than halfway done the manga before the plot even starts. Point by point:

Story: Super ... weird. Sets itself up as kind of an X-Men superhero story, before becoming a crossdressing harem romance, with some chapters of pure sex comedy and some chapters of shonen fight scenes. I'm honestly not sure it even has a plot, given how seemingly random everything is. At the very least, the ending is extremely dissapointing, giving zero resolution to the romance, the superhero plots, and literally not mentioning what happened to a few of the major characters. The manga might be trying to make some kind of point that fixating on the larger plot is pointless and you should just have fun along the way, but it just comes off as disjointed and unsatisfying. I'd give it 4/10.

Art: Looks very similar to Prison School, which is to say really great. It emphasizes a sense of photorealism, which really highlights the clash between the insane events and the realistic visuals. Hiramoto also draws maybe the most fetishy manga women I've ever seen outside of Hentai, so if you enjoy that style you'll like this. 9/10

Character: Characters are polarizing, since they're not very fleshed out and seem to more be tools for comedy than actual human beings with personalities. I wanted to avoid making this whole review a comparison to Prison School, but the characters in PS had fleshed out personalities and were easy to become emotionally invested in, which I can't really say was the case for Raw Hero.

Enjoyment: Despite having so many flaws on a technichal level, the work is so idiosyncratic its hard not to at least have some fun with it. Hiramoto has a weirdly philosophical sense of humor and an earnest approach to life, so there are parts of it that are fun to read, but you have to get through the thick layer of bizarre crap and unexplained plot points to get to it.

Overall: 5/10. Its a work with alot of flaws, but at the very least it will stand out in your memory.

Final thoughts: Prison School's ending pissed people off because it was a manga they loved and the ending robbed them of a satisfying conclusion. While this ending was also rushed and unsatisfying (it may have been axed prematurely) I don't actually care enough about the story to be that upset by it.

Thanks to AloneScans for making it available in english

HOLY SHIT
this manga is
fucking awesome as hell an ecchi, action packed, emotion masterpiece
definitely check this out if you're fans of series like gantz and gigant.

The story: 9
honestly just go into this series blind, this series is action packed and EXTREMELY ecchi, (same author as prison school, so duh) also has amazing pacing.

The Art: 10
Brilliant art, makes the story flow so well. As good as some other works like berserk, gantz vagabond etc..
...
The characters: 10
The characters are probably the most compelling part of this manga, the mystery of Jelly E Fish is fucking awesome.

Enjoyment: 10
WORDS CANT DESCRIBE HOW ENJOYABLE THIS SERIES IS JUST READ IT

Overall:10
Just brilliant, masterpiece

Softcore Porn / Cross-Dresser/ ECCHI/ Dark Humor/ ECCCCCCHI/ Hero... not...


Honestly, this Mangaka, Akira san, is still on something after completing "Prison School". After scanning through the first chapter of this manga (and eventually 9 chapters), I want to use multiple “confused Nick Young” or (◉◇◉) ? as my emoji signs. But!... WHO CARES??? THIS SH*T IS FUNNY ¯\_ (◉ω◉)_/¯

!!!!! (Please read this before my categorical review)
If you are wondering what is going to be like for this new Manga, please proceed to the Main Cover for Chapter 4. WAIT! If you are scarred by what you will see, I don’t think ... this manga is for you... xP
!!!!!


Story: 1-5
I can’t tell if this mangaka is making an effort or not making an effort on creating the plot. Even if he IS making the effort, this story is extremely weak. Basically, if you take this plot seriously, you lose. Thus, 1 for potential no effort or 5 for potential effort.


Art: 8
This is a very controversial category. If I say 10, some readers will say I disrespect female audiences (the drawing angles of some characters can be uncomfortable from time to time). Yet, if I say 5, I will be lying to myself (in my opinion, Akira san excels in drawing female figures and face expressions.) Eventually, I decided a 7.51 will do. This makes the rounding easier to an 8...


Characters: 5
So far, the character setups seem to make sense... So far... 5 because there will be too many unpredictable factors in the future chapters.


Enjoyment: 1 or 10
When I read any manga, i switch between two different kinds of brains: one with brain cells and one without brain cells. As you can tell, the one without brain cells gives me the most enjoyment while scanning through this manga. Thus, an easy 10 for simply “PURE” brainless laughs. (1 for using my brain xP )


Overall: 7
For someone who read manga to relieve stress, this can be rated pretty high (more than 6 is pretty high imo). Yet, for someone who simply wants to gain knowledge and find its intrinsic value, this is definitely worth 0. As a simple man who just want some good laugh, I will give this a 7 (-3 for not using my brain cells). I want to see where and how extreme Akira san will take us... LMAO....

Honestly i can say one thing about this manga. It was the worst one I have read in my life. Its so shitty i had to force myself to finish it. Every chapter had at least one gross scene and it was just painful to read.

The story is decent if we dont think about the fetishized main character that has to dress up as a woman. There were many scenes where the emphasis was put on a private part of a character and in my opinion it was disgusting. I didnt expect it to be so frequent and explicit, in most parts it was just ... unnecessary. It makes the story less serious, but its not comedic either.

its listed as comedy, but in my opinion it isnt one. There was a lot of r*pe jokes, every part that could be seen as funny in some way was just gross and made me put down my phone and stopn reading it for a while. I hate how almost everything in this manga is focused around sex and nothing more

the characters are horrible, the main character is treated very poorly by life and honestly thats great, characters should be challenged but the way it happens makes me not be mad at the character, but the writer. The only character I kinda liked was Mariko, Chiaki was bearable, the rest of them is trash, I hate how frequent were r*pe and m*lestation jokes especially towards Chiaki. These scenes were there so often, especially in the second half, it was disgusting and gross, i hated the cosplay girl the most, i dont even remember her name, she did so many horrible things and she doesnt face any consequences. Also there was this one character that was thinking all the time about sex and she was dressed in a way to show her breasts and ass, its clear to me that she was made to sexualize her because she doesnt provide anything to the plot. shes just there to show her breasts and thats it.

The only good things about this manga is 1. the artstyle, i must say its awesome, very pretty and generally pleasing to look at, 2. the plot twist that was by the end of the manga, it was unexpected.

again, i think this manga is just a waste of time, i expeted it to be a funny comedy with some unexpected characters but it was just a lot of sex jokes and it was very weird. Im sure some people will like it, but for me it was so bad i had to write a review about it, i wanted to drop it so bad after every chapter but i wanted to see if it gets better by the end. No it doesnt, it was all just a waste of time

tl;dr: A manga with fantastic art and great comedy, but a nonsensical plot and absurdly awful ending.

RaW Hero is a superhero manga I guess, but that’s not quite right. Rather, it’s a really difficult manga to describe because it’s entirely nonsensical. It’s world building is centered around how in Japan people with special abilities had appeared, but the government was covering it up. As a result a group called the Special Ability Liberation Front (SALF) came into being demanding the release of information on special abilities. They became incredibly aggressive in their demands and somehow gained the ability to gain special abilities through surgery, though ... in the process becoming what are called Monsters. As a result the government put together a team called the Justice Management Team (JMT) composed special ability users called Heroes to combat SALF as well as fight crime in general.

OK, so that sounds like the set up to a standard superhero vs supervillain story with the supervillains possibly having a point, though barely. The thing is that it makes absolutely no sense within the context of what SALF actually does. SALF literally never does anything except hand out flyers and throw around paint. They’re pretty much just protesters and not even violent ones. It makes absolutely no sense how they gained the technology to give their members special abilities. It also makes no sense why they would use said technology because nothing they do ever requires it. And thus it makes no sense why the JST was made to combat them. Especially considering how extreme JST gets in trying to stop them, generally doing far more harm than SALF ever does.

I suppose you could it a parody of superheroes but that doesn’t quite fit either because the superhero aspect is pretty much never relevant. The story actually focuses on a regular guy named Chiaki, who desperately needs a job to take of his two younger brothers. Thus, he accepts a job request from JMT to go undercover as a part of SALF. On top of that due to various circumstances he ends up going undercover as a woman, and thus needs to cross dress whenever he goes to work. But once again, his work doesn’t involve any of what you would expect from the henchman of an evil organization. Rather, the vast majority of work he does do involves printing out, folding flyers, and putting them in mailboxes. He occasionally gets swept in other things, but they’re really random without any sort of cohesiveness.

As such, the overarching plot in general doesn’t matter whatever it is. Rather, what’s important is more so the characters, their interactions, and their relationships. The characters certainly aren’t written all that deep. Rather, they’re all pretty flat with no real character arcs or anything like that. Despite that, they’re still a lot of fun because the manga is jam packed with humor and unexpected nonsense. Even when things are supposed to be kind of serious they’re still wrapped up in comedy. This results in things at a lower level also making as much sense as they do at a higher level, which is to say not a lick of sense at all. But it’s still amusing to read. On top of that, the art is fantastic to the degree that this is a manga that might just be worth reading just for the art. It’s incredibly high quality throughout with a unique style that’s used incredibly well in such a way that characters come through really well.

All of that’s enough to make you like a few of the characters and get invested in them and where their stories, however little sense they make, will go. That’s what makes the ending such a gut punch. The manga definitely got rushed into an ending. That isn’t that big of a deal as it’s pretty common and often out of the mangaka’s control. Thus, I don’t blame the mangaka for it being rushed. What I do blame him for however, is that the ending felt intentionally malicious to it’s characters and thus an F you to the readers that got invested in them. Yes, I know this author is known for bad ending, but this is definitely his worst, or I suppose I should say his worst so far. This was a manga that never made sense in the first place. Plot wise it could have done anything at all and it wouldn’t have felt out of place. But what it chose to do was an ending that did incredibly wrong by the manga’s best character. Seriously, one of the panels in the last chapter is going to haunt me forever. I suppose that’s an achievement in and of itself, but it’s one that a manga like this should not have.

If dark humor, ecchi/borderline hentai, twisted story setting is something you can't get over don't bother yourself with reading this manga you are not going to enjoy this. But if you like Prison School or similar shows where your common sense becomes bizzare and what is bizzare to you is a common sense here then get reading because it's a joyous and amazing experience.

(Note: Just relax, chill out, I'm afraid this manga is not exactly a piece for you if you value morals too high and too seriously.)


Story - polarizing, dark brilliant humor skirmishing with seriousness are the main horses pulling this manga ahead (together ... with first-rate art)
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Here it can go from nothing much to ridiculously great it depends on a sort of person you are, it's difficult to judge this as there is generally not much serious happening but also a lot. Humor and grotesque situation switching mood with serious scenes can suddenly appear and disappear from panel to panel, it's wholesome.

I find this humor and setting and how the author creates contrast and depth even at a completely banal occasion such as putting on clothes exhilarating but I fully understand there will be people who won't like this at all and give a low score here that's how different this manga is.


Art - amazing, dynamic
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There's not much to say here just watch and experience pure joy.
The artist is highly skilled, his figure drawing skills are superb, I want to mainly highlight these areas:

1. Dynamic camera work and depth (skill to work with camera is very often the weakest part of manga authors/artists but not in this case, author can work with a camera like a seasoned professional pushing angles that you won't see in majority (if at all) of manga or anime you ever see, great perspective and action.

2. Figures. Author's skill at drawing figures is something extraodinary. It's so entrancing. He can pull a serious casual state as well as very sexy pose perfectly.

3. Facial expressions, here the author excels and goes beyond again. You won't see this in majority of manga out there so if this style compels you and you are a fellow budding artist I highly suggest studying this mangaka and his previous work, it's worth it I can promise you that. Suggesting an artist worth to be studied from hopefully says enough even to you as a reader of mangas about how alluring it is.

4. Form and depth, simplification of forms and structure as you see in anime, manga and other comic styles results in the lack of form, the artists does a great job at pushing out of this trap to deliver lively drawings while keeping true to manga style. The author is not the only one out there with this amazing skill and it certainly takes tremendous amount of work to create a piece like this but it's always a great experience for anyone seeing this.
Again just go and check for yourself to see, if nothing else just for the artwork it's worth it to at least check covers and some panels to see something less generic and expand your brain's visual library.


Characters - hillarious, solid
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There will be more depth to characters than you would expect, there will aso be times when you expect more depth and nothing else comes.

Overall characters are great to follow, I enjoy watching them and can't wait to learn more. There are certainly some very obvious parts from the beginning as the author let's us see it through his art but here comes the catch - a big one - the author is not known for following your usual anime/manga plot lines and character developments and you can bet that it's not going to be any different here so overall nobody but the author can tell what is actually going to happen to the main characters. This is certainly a driving force behind the development throughout the story (I personally find Prison School's ending pretty hillarious as it's the kidn of humor and development I like and find entertaining but there is a huge number of people who don't like it and find it BS so be aware you have been warned).

Situations characters are put at, how they are artistically and humorously portraited and how they react and overcome (or well just get through) them is a satisfying and a great ride.


Enjoyment - top notch
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I'd be repeating myself here, previous points I believe put the pieces together to see how well I enjoy this manga. So just a few maybe negative points for you potential readers.

The manga heavily depends on sexy art form, silly banal scenes with a serious look (difficult to explain but imagine Prison School, Grand Blue, Gintama, ...), dark and sometimes very dry humor (it's amazing but it really has to click with you otherwise you really won't like it), dynamics of development and camera, expressive art (especially emotionally).

My main advice is, do not expect anything, do not get serious, take it easy, relax, turn your brain off and just enjoy the ride.


Overall - definitely worth of recommendation as well as a purchase with a little but
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There is a lot to recommend here for a like minded person. If you want something unusual, something fun, something that will make you see situations from angles you would never expect, something humorous, something with extraordinary art, and something a bit lewd. This is for you.
But be aware that this manga and mangaka don't take itself, you the reader or genre in general too seriously so if you find this BS this work is just not for you, pass it aside and go for your next piece, it's perfectly fine and understandable.

Unfortunately this is also a breaking point and the biggest negative point I can find about this manga and the author, if you are not into this kind of thing you are not going to enjoy it, it's not about average it's either you really like it or you just don't. There is really nothing in the middle, some people like Gintama and some people can't stand it, it either clicks with you or not and it's the same here with Raw Hero, you either clicked with this kind of siliness or not.

I did not mention specifics of story as there is a summary but Raw Hero is certainly a raw hero, unusual, hillarious, beautiful and different.

As a purchase, art is worth studying and the manga itself worth of your collection too, that's why I can highly recommend this even if you want just something beautiful to look at or just relax and laugh at how your usual world of villains and heroes can just be so different yet so fascinating, just dont' be too serious about it.

All of the elements that usually make manga bad (over the top fan service, unexplained and inconsistent plot, bizzare character choices, off the wall progression of events and so on) somehow work brilliantly here. At moments I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt afterwards. It should not work, but it does. I guess it's necessary to read it with a certain mindset to enjoy it.

A lot of people hated the ending of Prison School, I on the other hand loved it, because I saw the whole series as a troll-job from the start. There is always a certain point that makes you ... question the author. Am I being trolled here? Is the manga bad, and the author thinks it's actually good, or is it bad on purpose? That was what the ending of Prison School felt like, the author trolling the audience. With Raw Hero I got that feeling right from the start. Certain red flags that would make me drop other manga series never made me drop Raw Hero. I felt that I was in good hands. That is what Raw Hero is as well a - troll job, a very well done and executed troll job, with great art, and a healthy pinch of insanity. I don't recommend it for everyone, but it's worth at least checking out. I am looking forward to further works from Hiramoto.

-SUPER SHORT REVIEW-

It's good. And weird. It has to be your cup of tea for you to enjoy it. Lots of nonsense humor. The protagonist ends up becoming a cross dresser. The art is just great. The characters are unique and the story is funny with a couple of serious moments that will make you think.
This is the same author as Prison School, but I think the pacing is way better and the drawings have a lot more detail to them, so it's a lot easier to understand what's going on.
If it sounds like you might like it, it's sure to make you laugh ... out loud a couple of times and get you hot and bothered in some scenes.

It's been good until the last few chapter comes


I've been enjoying reading this but I'm honestly disappointed in the ending, maybe if they added more chapters in the end this will turn out to have a more satisfying ending. It feels like riding a roller coaster and when you are at the top there goes a brownout that even it is going upward it suddenly loose force and goes downward again.

I love the story and I hate some characters but I disappointed on how it ends, it is much better to make a conclusive ending for this rather than an open ending. Can't we just ... have a happy ending?

This is a story that you will love the villains and hate the heroes

Finally Akira Hiramoto sensei came up with convincing ending even though there is more to get from the ending. Compared to his previous work Prison school, epilogue sums up some good equation and gives respective character flexible perspective. Truth to be told, I didn't like 1st few chapters of the manga, only thing that kept me through was it's drawing and belief in Mr. Hiramoto's echhi storyline. With pace, story became intense keeping echhi stuff aside. There were some good characters and some who doesn't provide value to the plot even though plot describes them to be otherwise. Protagonist was going through identity crisis as ... it shows and very pathetically written that doesn't even deserve pity. Mariko single handedly carried the plot, other just went with fate. The beginning and conclusion sequence of the plot makes it another pulp fiction.

Plot of the story in my perspective : Humans are mutating causing disturbance in society. With mutation, they are generating special abities. Those who use these ability for the wellness of society are held as hero and those who use these ability to oppose the law are viewed as villain(they don't believe). The war is going on in between Police secret agency known as JMT and SALF a known group who cause disturbance among highest societies. JMT and SALF both has ability user but I didn't notice them in whole of 41 chapaters. Neither the manga describes about ability nor the ability holder but it seems they are machinery advanced and physically durable and immune. Protagonist Chiaki Miura is jobless on the hunt of job but failing miserably to get a job. Job is needlessly needed for him as he has no parents and two siblings to take care of. On certain incident gets an opportunity to earn money. It was through JMT officer who offers her a job of spy under SALF organization. His interview to get into SALF goes miserably as well, as he goes to interview wearing a woman's costume. With circumstances favouring her, he finally joins SALF and report each activity under the nose of organization. Smoothly hee lives two lives, one as brother to his sibling and and as woman that works in SALF. In mean time after his accidental meeting with Mariko Assuming turns the table of the plot; where the love story begins and troubles along with it. With time he learns about SALF and it's most wanted Jelly E. Fish, that SALF is a good organization that raise voice against discrimination towards people with mutation. As plot proceed he learns Mariko is Jelly E. Fish, by that time he is already in a love triangle with JMT pink ranger Mihono. On further Chiaki tries to escape from love triangle but by that time SALF's secret mission is revealed by him becomes big trouble for him as after the unscripted event takes places Mariko got accused of being Jelly E. Fish and sentenced for judgement. With these Chiaki is crowned as most useless and pathetic character of a his time who does nothing more than trouble and those troubles comes back to him as well. Only thing desirable about him is, with his innocence he gets a lot of unrequired harem.

A review of the manga in case you're considering reading it (Or reading it).
Don't let this put you off—it's a fun ride!

It's one of the best I've seen in comedy-ecchi. Seriously, it was so good. True degeneracy at its finest. The author is notorious for bad endings, but the artwork is top-tier for this genre. Prison School (by the same author) had a weak, rushed ending, and Raw Hero isn’t much different. But the artwork? Incredible. The man knows how to grab attention.

Something I have to say is... This manga was definitely axed. For those wondering: when a manga is axed, they don't say it's ... due to low sales or anything—they just announce its end. You can tell by how abruptly it wrapped up. There were clearly dropped plot threads, like the perverted neighbor and her hero squad. Even the theme of "what is a hero" was quickly glossed over when the MC rejects the title of hero.

I just wish the mangaka cared more about the story. The ending didn’t have to be good or bad—nothing surprises me after reading Metamorphosis—but there was nothing here. No resolution. It leaves a bad taste. Don’t read this for the story—it’s not good. The plot, though, is really original and adds a lot to the comedy.

The ending was AXED and left on a cliffhanger. I wanted to see a certain character happy, but it is what it is. I’d rate it 7.5/10, mainly because of the ending. Outside the ending, the artwork is 11/10, unmatched.

If it had a happy ending, it’d be in my top 3 manga of all time, which is hard to achieve.

Rushing things ruins many manga's. Once authors earn enough, they lose passion to draw and just want to live life, which is bad for fans. But what can we do? It is what it is.

I’ll still read whatever the mangaka does next, if he does. His art style is amazing. How could you not want to? Aside from the ending, it’s a masterpiece. I guess this is just Akira Hiramoto trolling the readers like he did in Prison School, even if it was worse in Prison School, this one wasn't that bad. Some might enjoy it, others, like me, were disappointed or straight up hated, which is totally agreeable. But it’s a fun ride.

That said, I’d honestly love to have a beer with this mangaka. If he’s half as insane as his works, it’d be a blast!

RaW Hero is a work done by a man who is mentally insane. I guess that's already obvious because this is the same author that made Prison School, but this series is on a whole other level. Just from the first chapter alone, you can tell that this is a series that you can not take seriously and also in the same vein can not expect to be any semblance of "quality."

All this series wants to do is to be weird, to be unpredictable, and it covers this up by calling itself a gag manga. And honestly, it is pretty funny. I actually laughed a ... couple times reading it.

I think that this is a manga in the same vein of something like Golden Boy, although I think that this is just way funnier. To enjoy this manga, you can't expect anything out of it. You read this to laugh a little bit and to see all the ecchi shit that happens.

I don't know if I can recommend this manga to any normal member of society, but I do think that if you enjoy something like JoJos or Golden Boy or Prison School then you might derive at least a little bit of entertainment from this story. Plus, it only takes like a couple hours to read because it's so short.

I gave this a 5/10, close to a 6. Decently funny series that doesn't try to be "good" in any way.

I have never read such a bad work from any author that clearly has several mental and personal issues that he needs to work on before committing himself to a manga, as they clearly leak into the story creating a completely apalling experience when reading it, as you can only feel the mental issues of the mangaka hidden behind a layer of irony called plot.

You can clearly see that the author is not trying to write a coherent plot, nor trying to develop a set of characters and making a character focused manga (like for example, Vagabond), but he's just trying to dump as many ... 'bizarre' sexually-inspired situations. The manga reads as a outlet for a sexually repressed male.

Expanding on the characters - the manga could have benefited much more from a multi-focused approach, developing more the main character brothers, as well as the recruiter with glasses.

In short - this work is not to be considered a 'real' manga perse, but just the ramblings of a starting mangaka.