Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu

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It's actually really entertaining psychologically captivating. The dynamic between the two main leads is just fascinating and the mangaka keeps throwing greater and greater obstacles for the MC to overcome, all the while being completely screwed. It's quite exhilarating to see how the MC makes it out of each hurdle. The way he plans things out is perfect. It's just so screwed up that you just want to read more and more. Kind of reminds me of Flowers of Evil, in that sense, but less poetic and more psychological. The art is also really good too. I would hella recommend it.

Oh man looking at all other reviews made at the early stages of the manga is pretty funny. Just like what the other reviewers mentioned, the manga is a psychological horror with a twist at the beginning, but man it gets weird as fuck as it goes on.

I don't want to spoil too much, but if you caught up to the newest chapters, you'd realize this mangaka really couldn't take the story seriously. Changing genre and theme every 10 chapters or so. I'd even argue that the manga doesn't have a theme at all. One second you have bullying horror, then you have some yandere ... rom-com, and now you have shonen battle manga with fans making tier lists of how op characters are.

But yeah, it's pretty fun. Filled with dark humor, nice action scenes, and pretty solid shonen-style character writing. But whatever it is, it is not what the description suggests.

NON-SPOILER

Oh boy, you look at the front of this book and once you chest-deep into the manga you realize that you really SHOULD NEVER judge a book by its cover. It has a HUGE plot twist and it's great honestly. It's captivating in the sense that it's so disturbing that you can't stop reading. It's the same as if you're witnessing a horrible tragedy happen and you don't wanna look but you can't stop yourself from doing so. For anyone who likes psychological, thriller and gore this is the read for you! I recommend it, beware there is a lot of explicit stuff int it ... that may trigger memories, especially have you have been bullied before.

“I can’t process what just happened” -Katou

Unironically this quote ripped directly from the manga is pretty much a complete description of the entire thing and for some reason I love it.

Venus Puts Fur On Me is one of those manga that confuses you just as much as it entertains, questions fly in and out of your head as you read through each page which weaves an ever-growing net of in your mind. As a warning, in order to actually be able to read and enjoy this you’ll have to be able to sit through some pretty messed up stuff and be able to leave ... a bunch to the imagination, as I’ve noticed that these are the things that put people off of the most.

Minor Spoilers Below, Skip to the end for a basic tl;dr

Story 7

The story is a mess of ideas that sometimes, if you’re lucky, MIGHT make a little bit of sense, but it is worth mentioning that the manga is still being updated so these loose ends might eventually be tied up. My personal favorite parts are those little glimmers of hope, things start going well for the main character and for a brief moment (usually less than a chapter in length) it seems like the future is looking up only for it to come crashing down immediately. (It’s kind of like the good scenes in Re: Zero)

Art 8

There’s a lot to be desired, the characters are bland and generic and most of the characters look exactly like each other with small details. The largest example is between Shirosaki (main antagonist) and Aoyama which are direct copies of each other with the only change being the color of their hair. That being said I only gave it an 8 because Nanakajima’s face is 100% the best part of this entire show. His switches between villain and victim are perfectly displayed on his face.

Character 6

No one in this manga is normal, even Tanaka who seems like he has his head on straightest has a couple of problems. This is the core of the manga’s largest issue: its believability. Of course a work of fiction doesn’t need to be the most realistic thing ever but when it’s obvious that there’s almost no reason for a character to act the way they are or when the explanation is flimsy at best it serves only to pull you out of the story. I’m the kind of person that can overlook such flaws as long as the series isn’t finished and can eventually be explained but if you aren’t that kind of person you probably won’t have that good of a time.


Enjoyment 10

Despite how screwed up everything is and the manga’s blatant flaws I really can’t help but read it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve actually enjoyed theorizing about a manga. Trying to predict how a character will act and how it’ll influence the story is the best part about reading an ongoing series and for now this remains among my top 5 favorite manga of all time.

Overall 7

TL;DR I really didn’t expect to enjoy a mediocre manga as much as I did. As I said earlier there’s a lot you’re going to have to overlook and stomach in order to enjoy this manga. That being said once you get over the original shock of the first two or three chapters it really becomes a solid read that captivates your attention. I’d recommend this to the people who unironically liked “Happy Sugar Life” but didn’t think it was wild enough.

This manga is just ridiculous. I don't even know what to say, it just takes itself completely seriously while the most improbable and whacky shit happens and I just can't handle it. At some point it just became so ridiculous I couldn't even laugh at it anymore. Definitely an entertaining manga, but if you want a grounded story about bullying stay away from this one. If you want a completely ridiculous manga about bullying though, this one's perfect for you. That's about all I can say, really, yeah there are characters and plot and such but your enjoyment is gonna depend almost entirely upon how ... ridiculous you want your bullying manga to be.

This is one of the stupidest manga I've ever read and it's magnificent for that. Why? Because it still manages to be enjoyable despite being so goddamn goofy.

The basic structure for the past 90 chapters are like this: Nakajima goes absolutely bonkers and everyone he meets becomes just as much of a crazy bitch as him without even noticing it due to the current circumstances seeming so mundane. My favorite crazy goober is Midorida, she's got that yandere in her but doesn't have that dumb love triangle rivalry shtick like Aoyama does. It also helps that she's kinda ditzy, very cute.

It is my exact ... type of dark comedy, and trust me this manga KNOWS how comedic it is. However of course there are some genuine flaws with it.

My main one is with Shirosaki, despite being the poster girl for the series she gets very little focus after the Kyoto trip arc, they do occasionally throw in bits and pieces of backstory clues but we haven't had much batshit twists and turns like the first 3 volumes had with her. The bullying also becomes sort of a back piece as it becomes more of a mind battle with occasional shounen battle series-esque sequences.

Still though, I like it! And if you have a humor sense similar to mine you'll likely like it too.

This review will spoil a first-chapter twist and vaguely touch on plot points, but is otherwise spoiler-free.

As of this review, this manga has only been about half-translated. At the pace of the current group's releases, they're projected to take over three years to complete the rest of the manga. This means that unless you can read Japanese, you can't read it to the end yet. Fortunately, I can, so I have the honor of writing the first complete review of this manga.

Before anything else, I must say that the MAL entry as well as some of the preliminary reviews are misleading you. Toss aside any ... expectation of this being a serious, disturbing, psychological drama about bullying, because they will only result in disappointment. Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu is an absurd, goofy manga that is structured similarly to a battle shounen. For the most part, it does not take itself very seriously, and any reader who does will only be met with questions and confusion. Now onto the review.

The first-chapter twist is interesting. From the perspective of Tanaka, we see Nakajima horribly bullying Shirosaki. Perhaps this is the kind of story that involves Tanaka attempting to stop Nakajima's bullying, or otherwise saving Shirosaki somehow. It's a premise that has been explored many times by other manga that take themselves far more seriously. But it's revealed that Nakajima is actually a kind person, and is being forced to bully Shirosaki by Shirosaki herself. This nicely turns the story on its head, reestablishes Nakajima as the protagonist, and sets up a far more unique premise, one where the bully himself is actually the victim.

The manga's goals seem to be in conflict with its premise. While Nakajima's grave circumstance with Shirosaki is given some importance early on, the story does not attempt to address it directly. It instead chooses to go in a different direction, having Nakajima confront other "genuine" bullies, with the rationale being that they would get in the way of his bullying Shirosaki. The story sidelines Nakajima's suffering, keeping it as a constant throughout the plot rather than the driving conflict of the narrative. To anyone wishing to see a story in which Nakajima searches for a way to escape his situation, this will definitely come as a disappointment.

Looking past the premise and towards the rest of the story, it becomes a bullying-themed battle manga, in each arc of which Nakajima meets increasingly threatening foes whose goals relate to bullying others. Everything about these storylines is absurd. The characters' powers, the premise, the setting, everything. The absurdity can often be funny, such as the school campus being so large that it takes thirty minutes to run across. It can also lead to endearing characters, more on that later. But the liberties that Nakamura takes to achieve this often gets in the way of the narrative.

For example, one story arc follows a merger of two schools into one, and involves a student council election where Nakajima runs for president to stop a competing bully from having his way with the newly-merged school. The manga claims that Nakajima has already secured the votes from everyone from his school pre-merger. Considering every student in the school sees Nakajima as an evil bully, it's hard to believe that everybody would vote for him instead of the other candidates. In another arc, Nakajima needs to procure a flash drive containing compromising footage of him so that it won't be shown to the public, but in this case, it's hard to believe that the arc's antagonists wouldn't keep several backups. Furthermore, it's especially hard to believe that despite literally the entire school being aware of systematic bullying, no information about it makes it outside the school. Including more would require more heavy spoilers, but the point I'm trying to make is that Nakamura hand-waves away or often straight up ignores inconsistencies, kinks in the story, and potential continuity errors for the sake of progressing the plot or to make a character look cool. There a large "anything goes" attitude, as if the universe has no rules or limits.

Furthermore, a lack of rules can result in a lack of stakes. Why should I ever feel that a character is in trouble when the definition of "trouble" isn't even agreed upon? When deus ex machinas are permissible and commonplace, tension is lost. Goofiness isn't an excuse to ignore rules and stakes, and a story with all of the above could have been achieved had it been given more thought.

Despite all this, Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu has one fantastic redeeming aspect: Its characters. Where many others fail, Nakamura has successfully written a cast of characters that is endearing and interesting to watch. The manga contains many dynamic characters that drastically change as the story progresses. Nakajima himself is thoroughly interesting, which is the most important quality that any good character must have. Despite placing quite low in the power ranking of characters, he doesn't come across as underpowered. His outward appearance as a ghastly bully contrasts well with his good nature, letting him have his cool moments while also preserving his role as the kind hero-type character of the story. His circumstance with Shirosaki also earns him sympathy from the reader, letting us easily root for him. He's calculating enough that he earns the respect of canonically smart characters, yet not so all-knowing that he can easily outmaneuver any challenge on his own. He's balanced and easy to love. He's not very complex or multidimensional, and grows relatively little compared to the rest of the cast, but the most important thing is that he is interesting and has agency.

The quality of being interesting to watch is shared among many other characters. Be it the pathetic underdog-type character who grows into a respectable person who earns the respect of other characters, or a prior villain, crippled, changing his ways and becoming an ally to Nakajima, whose fights are exciting to read. Nakamura has done a fantastic job of writing truly endearing characters.

A final note on art before the conclusion. The art is very simple. The way Nakamura draws his characters is very distinct, and should he continue his manga career beyond Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu, his character designs will no doubt be very recognizable as his own. However, there is a very low level of detail. Backgrounds are very sparse and almost resemble liminal spaces. There's basically no rendering to be found, making the art seem very flat and two-dimensional. As a result of all this, the panels contain a lot of white space. The manga doesn't take itself very seriously, and is very goofy, so this by no means detracts from the experience, but at the same time, the art is nothing to write home about.

For what it's worth, I personally enjoyed this manga. With all the criticisms I have about how little it takes itself seriously, I ended up loving the characters so much that I overlook its downsides. But in being objective, I have to be fair, and the fact of the matter is that this manga's narrative is relatively poor in quality. Its goofiness makes it difficult to be truly invested in the plot, and for many, the characters simply can't make up for that. So in the end, I can only conclude that this manga is mediocre.