Shachiku Succubus no Hanashi

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tl;dr: A short and sweet manga that isn’t all that ambitious but does very well at what it sets out to do.

This manga is a story about a succubus named Lily and a human named Kuroki who are both being overworked by their respective employers. As a succubus Lily’s job is to show people their deepest desires in their dreams in exchange for their vitality. However, Kuroki’s requests are continuously shocking, not because they’re bizarre or wild, but rather because of just how normal they are. He has the opportunity to ask for anything at all in his dreams, but what he asks for are ... simple things like playing video games or hanging out with a cat. The structure of the manga is episodic, wherein the majority of episodes involve Kuroki coming home tired from work, him and Lily discussing something in the lead up to Kuroki requesting a dream, a panel that makes it look like Kuroki is about to ask for something extreme, but then on the next page him doing something completely normal and then him explaining why he chose what he did. There’s not a lot of variety there, but this is a short manga, only one volume, so within that scope even just repeating this gag again and again remains pretty amusing, cathartic even.

In terms of character’s there’s not a lot of substance there, but what is there was pretty solid. Kuroki is a kind and hardworking guy beat down by corporate life that’s beginning to lose sight of what he’s living for, but thanks to Lily helping him he slowly becomes more optimistic. Lily very starts out hating her job and just wanting to laze around all day, but in helping Kuroki she comes to appreciate helping others more. She also falls completely in love with Kuroki, though she’s a tsundere about it, which leads to a bunch of romance related fluff, both with Lily and Kuroki directly as well as with each of them interacting with Lily’s two succubi friends. It’s not like it hits any particularly strong emotional beats, but it’s adorable so I thought it worked well enough for what it was. The only real complaint I have is that the manga ends before any real progress has been made and the romance overall remains completely unresolved.

The art quality isn’t particularly great but is solid enough. Design wise, it’s pretty dull outside of the three succubi, but ultimately, they’re what matter most so I suppose it’s pretty solid in that regard as well.

Shachiku Succubus no Hanashi is a short comedy/slice of life manga with excellent artwork, which is unfortunately brought down by a repetitive story and one note characters that overstay their welcome.

Story - While the idea of a succubi interacting with a guy who just want company was at first a decent gag, this one idea eventually made up almost the entirety of the manga and this repetition was uninteresting. Any other plot points that were introduced such as people's declining vitality (which seems like it might impact the main character), are either quickly ignored or never explored meaningfully. This manga would have been much better ... had it been cut in half at the minimum.

Characters - Beginning with the main succubus girl, she is only defined by her tsundere attitude towards the MC, and the lack of depth becomes more annoying as the chapters add up. Many of her tsundere actions also make little sense as at their first meeting she asks with a straight face if he wants to see some crazy fetishes yet is later embarrassed by handholding? Based on the setup I understand if she is embarrassed by more mundane romantic occurences but not anything physical, based on what the story implies the usual dreams of the men she 'works' with are like. Furthermore, it is never actually shown what her job is like with other men, so it is unknown if the MC's purity is actually rare. Given how common loneliness is in Japan I wouldn't be surprised if his desires are not actually unique.
Moving onto the male MC, he is also quite generic, and his only character development feels incredibly underwhelming because both before and after he is an incredibly selfless guy, the only change being that he becomes slightly more proactive. This combination of main characters was okay for the first few chapters but based on the aforementioned complaints they did not hold up for over twenty.

Art - The characters were very attractive and consistently drawn (especially the various succubi), and the expression changes of the main character, even if they didn't fit his personality, were humorous and well drawn. The paneling was easy to follow and had a good balance of light and dark spaces. The backgrounds were often very detailed and not too sparse, which is a nice change of pace from many non-serialized series. The art was definitely the highlight of this manga and the main reason to read it (and where most of my score is from).

Enjoyment - Reading this manga was relatively enjoyable at first between the artwork and decent comedy, but this enjoyment declined over time despite its short runtime due to repetition. If this had been limited to around 10 chapters or so, I would have enjoyed it much more as the same gag and character traits wouldn't have been drawn out too long.

I would only recommend this manga if you are either a fan of the art style or enjoy hot tsundere girls acting embarrassed. On the other hand, avoid it if you are seeking developed characters or engaging story.

Yes, like almost everybody else, I wanted to read this because I thought it might have been a hentai or something similar along those lines. However, after reading it, I am disappointed by the story and regret reading it.The only thing that I enjoyed about the story was the art. Other than that, there hardly is anything good about it.

I'm going to talk about a problem with the manga. This next part briefly delves into the plot. A little bit of a description of what's happening, the premise is about helping people be at peace and good health in order for the succubi to ... earn a little bit of their vitality. The issue with this is the fact that the plot doesn't go anywhere at all with that idea. I understand that it is supposed to be a slice of life, but that shouldn't be an excuse for how terrible the story is. Even with slice of lives, we're given a big plot and the events that the characters experience help progress the story to reach that overall big idea. Literally, nothing happened within this story. I felt like we're still at square one when the manga ends. Any semblance of character development is minuscule and the only semblance of plot would be the male lead being nice to win over the female lead's friends. After introducing the character, which is around chapter 3 or 4, you can switch out any of the latter chapters with chapter 5 and there would be no difference in the plot. No new information is given, nothing has changed, and there is no character development. Each chapter is basically a different rehash of the previous chapter because the author isn't able to come up with any new ideas. I honestly felt that it's a waste of time to read if you don't enjoy the artwork because it lacks a lot of components of a story. To the point that the ending of the manga felt more like a build up to a climax rather than a resolution to their story. The only time that I felt that there was going to be any progression was when the author tried to take a risk by introducing an interesting plot point. Yet, we're only teased with the possibility and it was abandoned all together.

Another thing that I disliked heavily about the story was the fact that the characters are so 1 dimensional and badly written. The two protagonists have very little chemistry; The author teases that the two characters could be in a romantic relationship many times, but it's' not something that I can stand behind. Their entire relationship doesn't feel natural and it is never shown why they care for one another. This doesn't help with the fact that this romantic plot is something that other characters try to push for as well. In the story, the male lead should just be another number on her list of vitality producers, but something's different about him that makes her like him. What's so special about him? I can't answer you because there is nothing interesting about the male lead. He's just a tired but optimistic guy for the entire 26 chapters. The female lead's entire character is boiled down to two things: she works too much and that she likes the male lead. That's it. The author overuses the trope that the main character is very innocent and isn't a horn dog, to the point that the trope is the premise for several chapters. The first few times, it was sort of funny, I guess, but when you have several chapter dedicated to this trope, it honestly feels like a waste of time to read and uninteresting.

3/10, and that is me really high balling it. Like it could have taken a much different route. Don't make it a slice of life if you don't have a direction for potential plots. If you wanted to tease throughout the entire manga that there could be a romantic plot, just go for it. It would have been much more interesting than you testing the waters and immediately jumping back out