Uchuujin no Kakushigoto
Secret of the Alien

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Shock value is considered by many to be a cheap trick or an easy way to get a rile out of someone without putting in much effort. To me, however, there's a sweet spot of shock value, an uncanny valley of sorts where the shock becomes comedy before it becomes outright disgust. This manga hits it dead on in the face, completely obliterating it and leaving nothing but a mess in the surrounding area.

It's clear from the first chapter that you're not here for a romcom with a decidedly more mature art style. You're here for the ride. Every character is pushed up to the ... max for the sake of driving everything up the wall, and as a result, we break through the roof into the stratosphere. Each chapter introduces a new baffling brazy batshit insane twist that you have no choice but to giggle at. To take this manga seriously is to fail yourself. There might be a sprinkle of real shit, a semblance of reasonable thematic elements, but in reality, we're just here to have fun, so don't be fooled.

If you want something grounded and logical, it's not going to be here. Yes, it's hard to turn off your brain completely and just enjoy the absurdity of it all, but life is absurd. At the end of it all you might wonder what you read all of it for. Sometimes you don't need a reason other than "cool as fuk yea", and that's fine.

I personally enjoyed this series. But I think it's because I didn't put much stock into caring about specific events within the narrative. I instead concentrated more on some of the themes it tried to convey and trying to understand them.

Secret of the Alien is kind of all over the place when it comes to what occurs in the story. At the start, you are presented with what you believe to be a high-school romcom - in the next moment, you're experiencing a thriller. The story takes some dark turns thereafter, leaving you a little confused. What is this all about? Why does the tone ... of the story keep changing? To be honest I'm still unsure. My best guess is that the author is more interested in subverting expectations, along with communicating certain themes. I can appreciate that, but I'm certain some people want something less abstract, or vague. If you're the kind of person who likes consistency in tone and genre, this probably isn't for you.

That being said, I did like how the series depicted aliens. We, as humans, often like humanizing things. Whether it be animals, objects, or aliens. In truth, who is to say aliens view time, consciousness, or even the universe in the same way we do? Haru's actions in this story prompt you to think about how humans form expectations of the world around them. Especially as it pertains to consciousness and morality. I found one user on MangaDex (called McAlastair) put it well: "At the end of the day, Haru truly is an alien; even if she looks somewhat human, her way of thinking and morality is beyond most of our comprehensions. Instead of a Black-Grey-White Morality, she runs with Blue and Orange Morality. And... goddammit, my head hurts thinking about all this."

Our lead in the story, often called "class rep" is also kind of interesting. He's strangely fixated on being "good" even though his actions often work against what is morally correct. As a character, I would describe him as hollow. One could argue this is due to poor characterization (a fair argument, considering the speed and pace of the story) but I intuit that it's intentional. It plays off of the absurdity of Haru's actions quite well.

The art style is good. It conveys what is going on appropriately and matches the style/tone of the manga. On many occasions I found myself rather disconnected from characters, sometimes having difficulty perceiving their emotions. I think this is because of how the eyes and faces were drawn. The pupils and irises were often shaded (sometimes seeming to blend together), making it difficult to "see" into the eye. On crazy or emotional characters this effect worked well.

All in all, I enjoyed "Secret of the Alien." But I believe it's because I tempered my expectations early on. For people who are looking for consistency or something that "makes sense," this one might throw you for a loop.

I came searching for copper, and I found copper


Art is decent, it's enjoyable, but don't expect a masterpiece, the motivations for the characters are hit or miss, the characters are fairly flawed and sometimes not in a good way, however certain characters had basically no redeeming qualities. Most characters in the manga I find hard to like aside from the titular alien and I don't mean this in a good way either, I find it hard to root for the protagonist or to sustain my interest in their shenanigans. The multiple love interests is also kind of annoying, I kind of came ... into this expecting and wanting a singular heroine, but if that tickles your fancy, then it's not much of an issue.

Overall, some might enjoy this, while others might not. There are better choices for manga than this one, but this one is fine in its own right.

Edit: I've finished the manga of all 23 chapters, and I can confidently say that this manga is straight garbage, don't read it. I have no clue what the author was thinking when he ended this because the ending was probably one of the most appalling things I've ever read