Shinai naru Boku e Satsui wo Komete
My Dearest Self With Malice Aforethought

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Shinai naru Boke e Satsui wo Komete is gripping, thrilling and unputdownable.

The slow build-up of the first volume creates massive intrigue and from there on the series is a wild rollercoaster with shocking twists and turns every couple of chapters. What this manga does rather well is that rarely these twists are expected (in my case, at least). Whilst surprising, these twists are written so well that they end up making complete sense and being cohesive within the story, which I've found other mangas fail to do when trying to 'shock'. The way that many chapters end on a cliff-hanger makes the story incredibly addictive ... and the pace and fantastic narrative add to this.

I really like the characters in this story and they are all incredibly individual. The art is gorgeous but does not hesitate from being grotesque and frightening when the story demands it. I admire how the story tackles dark themes without being overly bleak and disturbing, a hard line to navigate.

I would highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers and the 'amnesia' genre.

I really like psychotic thrillers about crazy people, yet this one is somewhat disappointing. Not because it is bad per se. The art is quite good, the writing is fine, the characters are layered, and the story itself is quite consistent, yet the whole manga felt like a homework. It follows the standard script step by step. As superman once said: "Not impressed".

Characters: How should I put this? They are complex, well fleshed out and their motivations are well founded, yet they still managed the be cliché. Not to mention, despite their complexity their actions still remained one-dimensional. So in the end I didn't find ... any of them particularly interesting.

The story: Again, the writing quality is pretty good, but because of the countless ex-machina and convinietly introduced new characters, it felt pretty subpar. Not to mention, the fact that the MC's split personality was shamlessly exploited to keep the mistery going. I find this a really lazy way to keep the reader guessing. In my opinion, in a good mistery story the answer is hanging in front of your nose, yet you don't notice. Here, however, everything that happened felt like a deliberate attempt to misdirect the reader from the blatantly obvious answer. Regardless, it was futile attempt, since you could easily guess most of the plot twists.

In the end I wouldn't call this one bad, because it is not. It is just unoriginal. If you are new to the genre give it a try, but if you are looking for something new and fresh "this is not the manga you are looking for".

**SPOILERS**

Repost/Edit to help explain more.
I was enjoying the manga until it's revealed the main character "gave" himself DID (Dissociative identity disorder, formally known as Multiple personality disorder). To me it felt massively like a cop out with little to no setup as to how he actually "gave" himself DID. He simply decides to form it as a tool to get revenge, the story goes into little to no detail as to how he even did this. It feels as if DID was slapped onto the story as an afterthought. I enjoyed the built up/mystery the series had for a lot of its chapters but felt ... the reveal of DID really did bring it down. I feel as though there are many better ways to utilize the core components of DID in a fictional story.
The use of real mental illness in media and entertainment is a tricky thing to portray and the way DID is portrayed in this particular manga makes me extremely uncomfortable to say the least. I could not enjoy the manga after the way it used DID almost as a fix all for its plot holes with seemingly little to no research nor creative twist to the mental disorder.

Please stop sending me hateful messages and death threats simply because I do not enjoy this manga. I'm allowed to have an opinion that differs from yours.