Apr 26, 2023
What would happen if someone took the idea of boys vs girls and crank it up to 11? Well, this.
It is quite an intriguing idea and perfect half not only revolves arount this concept, but really went out of its way to make it as grandiose as it could. But did it succseed to tell a good story with complex characters, clever twists and whatnot? Let us find out!
Without spoiling too much, I want to say it's unlike most works I've read so far so by thar virtue it immediately had my attention. However after 120 chapters I have to say it's not without
...
faults. Perfect half bleeds from so many wounds I kinda feel bad for tearing it apart in this review.
First, the art, which is easily the strongest aspect. The visuals are simply a joy to look at, everything is detailed, the characters look unique and the the world feels cohesive. The only thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is that some pieces of clothing looks too modern considering the medieval setting.
The panels are not clustered at all and the action is easy to follow. However something I don't understand at all is why does every chapter starts with the recap of the previous one? It is nice to be kept up to date, but they should be at the end of a major story arc. This aproach makes it a time waster at best and infuriating at worst.
Regarding the action. While this works is not afraid to shy away from gore and excessive violence, it lacks tension. Not a single fight had this back and fort between the opposing sides. The stronger combatants were always effortlessly beat the weaker ones. That is just boring. The moment to moment movements were missing too. The fighting scenes consited of cool poses and crossing blades, but little details in between.
Still, overall the art is great. The character writing on the other hand... To live with the words of the internet's busiest music nerd, is not good. Although there is two that stand far above the rest. I would like to leave the best for last tho so more on that later as what took me aback the most is that the author managed to cram not one but two Mary Sues in a single work. Honestly that is impressive to say the least. The first one is the male MC. Imagine him as a really horny shounen protagonist. My main gripes with him is that while it was told that he was trained to be a top tier fighter by his fater since a young age. However, one, it was never shown what kind of training and whenever he gets in a tight situation he solves it without much effort. And two, it is hard to believe that he is able to go to toe to toe with much more experienced fighters than him, let alone overpower them.
The lead female character is arguably even worse than that. She is better at everything than everyone without any character flaw or more in depth info about her past hardships, dreams or life philosophy that would make her less one dimensional.
But it's not the end of the world since the supporting cast and the antagonist can carry the plot still. Except the supporting cast while likable, they rarely get the spotlight and the main antagonist are the moustache twirling kind. All theatrics no depth.
As I mentioned previously tho. Fortunately there were two characters whom stood out. One is the MC's dad. He rarely appears but never fails to steal the spotlight. At first shown to be a comedic relief but as the plot progresses he turns out to be a quite mysterious man who moves a lot of strings from the shadows. A shame he is not the protagonist. Either him or Ryu Karim the other person that is written much better than the rest. He actually has a clearly defined reason behind his actions and despite being one of the top dogs, he actually have to struggle to get his way. It is really weird that Perfect Half is able to incluede engaging characters yet settles for mediocrity.
So far it seems like this chain is not made of the strongest links, and I still haven't toched upon the plot. In short and free of spoilers, man and woman live in seperate kingdoms and there is a war going on between them, with the rulers of both land tring to gain an edge over another. This is basically what the main conflict is in a nutshell. As you have guessed there is a little more nuance to it. Not a whole lot because most of the time it is a bout screwing around. I mean literally. This is quite an explicit story. Which would not be a problem in itself if the plot wasn't so barebones. Most events just happen out of the blue with very little exposition.
Another thing that pisses me off greatly is how morality works. Every single character is either on a pure black or white specrum with no in between. Though things get more high octane at around the 100th chapter, but it's too little too late.
In the end, Perfec Half was a major dissapointment for me. I really wanted to like it because I see potential underneath all that rubbish. But I arrived to a point where it just became a waste of time tho get to the latest chapters. Overall it is not better than a weak 6.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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