Gyakusatsu Happy End
Massacre Happy End

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Story: 8

Very entertaining and engaging. The manga manages to give a twist to the concept of time loops, and keeps you abreast of the decisions that the protagonist will make taking into account his goal and curse.

Art: 7

Regarding art, it adapts very well to different situations, emphasizing the macabre of some scenes, not recommended for those with a sensitive stomach.

Characters: 7

As for its characters, they all fulfill their role quite well. Something that I really liked was that unlike other works of this style, the protagonist is not so much a genius or a defenseless child, but someone who makes decisions ... that are quite realistic or with which you can at least empathize.

Enjoyment: 9

To finish, highlight what I said at the beginning, I wouldn't say you'll find a masterpiece here, but it is a remarkable work, which knows how to make good use of its resources and ends up being pretty interesting.

It must be one of the mangas with more conveniences that have ever crossed my face. However, ironically, for the protagonist there are rather few; the rival detective is the one who gets almost all of them this time. Very cool also the conveniences of characters that, coincidentally, with how big Japan is, are always there to be found when the plot requires them to do so. There are tons of plot holes, and the author simply overlooks too many details that are essential for a psychological thriller like this work.

On the other hand, the atmosphere in general is very well done: it transmits an ... appalling despair, sadness and tension, as well as it makes you empathize with the protagonist despite the atrocities he commits, although the quality of the writing is not up to par with the rest. It is simply a work with which you suffer more than enjoy, something that is evident with the evolution of a certain character that I will not mention for spoilers reasons; in that aspect, congratulations. The premise and the use that is given to time loops are interesting; however, this further accentuates the mangaka's shortcomings as a writer, as he leaves behind a fair share of plot holes.

In the end of the day, the concept, the atmosphere and the hook are all great. A pity that the mangaka fell short in the planning of events.

I'm the type that reads most random manga that's out there, as long as the premise is interesting. Gyakusatsu Happy End has an incredible start that starts nose-diving into one of the worst writing imaginable.


Story: 1.5/10
The only thing the story does well is not to let either side hold absolute power and control. It does well on the similarities of Death Note, a cat-and-mouse chase. It has the tension at the start, albeit goofy with the characters that I'll explain later below.

Let's start with the biggest issues thus far - how convenient everything falls into place. The story becomes incredibly dumbed down, not the premise ... that's actually interesting, but how everything falls into place. Not by you as a reader, but by the story not just giving it all to our characters. A similar, big problem is how they would explain that something "might" exist or some theory, despite there are plenty of reasons why it both sounds stupid and how flawed it'd be, it wouldn't matter, since it'd be exactly what they were looking for.

Something else is the story annoyingly adding new characters to an already established plot. While some characters somewhat fit into it, there are definitely others that just appear out of existence to serve the story. The only good thing is that they at least somewhat affect the story, despite them being so plain and obvious that they were inserted haphazardly.
There are many plot devices that are just convenient, and you're expected to believe that they just find the answer, or believe an amazing plan because of a crazy idea, but in actuality has so many flaws. The locations are horribly presented since they're added just like the characters. You just don't believe they were planned into the story, but something the author just added.
Despite having many large flaws in the characters' plans and the story itself, it does not matter nor cares, because the author doesn't care, or just didn't think through/plan the story enough.

What I'm glad over is when the story focuses on our protagonist, because that's when it actually is interesting and coherent.

Characters: 3/10
Everyone is crazy in some way. The detective plays the obvious, typical "oh I'm quirky and don't actually follow the law.", the side-kick to the detective that leans more into justice, the yandere that goes crazy and goes for the love interest. Our protagonist is basically Kira and the detective is L. These are the main focus of the story from start to end.

Let's start with the positives. The protagonist I liked for his descension into madness from his own issues, it's written entertainingly and doesn't feel too out of place, albeit incredibly edgy. He does somewhat play the smart character well, but the story's focus slowly shifts away from him, and onto the police officers' "investigations". The love interest is similar to that mixed with our protagonist pretty well, a person that wants to protect their loved ones, willing to risk their innocence for it, for what they feel is the right thing. Our protagonist, again, is similar in that vein, but loses himself much more. He sets the theme of a psychological thriller very well and is probably the biggest hook and reason for the manga being decent.

Now, to the worst character. One of the antagonists to our protagonist; the "detective", has to be the dumbest character ever written. It was like he's written by an A.I.
First off, for a police officer, most things he does, he gets away scot-free, but somehow it's to establish how quirky and potentially insane he is. The problem is how literally nobody else in the police department is capable, and the ones that are capable of solving multiple murders are teenagers and him. Worldbuilding suffers from this since everyone's incapable of doing the right thing.

The problem as well is the leaps of logic he does as a detective, he doesn't deduce our protagonist. Of course, he has the God damn, typical "oh, I just have a feeling", and drives that to our skull, making the craziest plans that could've actually been solved a long time ago, or without doing the edgiest, crazy crap. I want to give a quick example, slightly spoiler-ish.
The detective almost kills two teenagers to prove a point, and one of them is entirely innocent. He doesn't do it well, mind you. Of course, the plot favors bullshit, and despite doing something insane and "intricate" enough, he just walks away thinking everything would be fine. And of course, most things he gets away with because the police are dumb enough to just let him go, despite in the other police officer's eyes; he is intentionally trying to kill teenagers, make false accusations, waste time to find the actual killer, and more. The fact that he's not fired or actually in jail far earlier in the story is maddening.
The detective is a cartoon villain with how who plans dumb ideas and fails, but we're supposed to believe he's quirky and crazy because he has amazing intuition and smarts.

The second large problem is how most characters make the dumbest, asinine decisions - and the plot favors it. This I can't go too much into since it'd be too many spoilers, but just think the dumbest decisions you can pick, and it works out because the author didn't have a second thought. The biggest similarity I can come up with; think of Death Note, but written by an Isekai author.


Art: 6.5
The art is nice, the focus is on the characters; like facial expressions, body language, and such. Although it makes the background so incredibly plain, just there to serve where they are at most of the time. This is the only reason why the manga does so well.


Overall: 3
If you can really, truly turn off your brain, you 'might' enjoy the plot. At the very best, it might be a guilty pleasure, like why I even finished reading it. At worst, it's another interesting, edgy manga ruined by the horrid writing and characters that'll make you physically cringe. If you just read a light novel of it or just the script of the manga, you'd believe this was written by a 13-year-old, thinking they just wrote Death Note 2.