Doku no Okurimono
Gift of Poison

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After giving Doku no Okurimono several chapters to find its footing im dropping this series at chapter 7.

Doku no Okurimono starts strong, we get some good character designs, a semi interesting story concept and some beautiful chapter cover art/chapter art. It also establishes itself well and you know what to expect from the series. The dialogue also seems decently written so I was quite excited for this series. It really seems like the mangaka put a lot of effort into the first chapter to get readers hooked and it does seem like the series is set up to be something decent but....

The manga seems like ... it had a lot going for it but issues present themselves from chapter 2 onwards.

We get immediate art quality drop offs. The veil of a realised plot begins to fall away and we start to see the writing flaws. Aku no Hana (Flowers of evil) is a story that is quite similar to the plot of this story. If youve read Aku no Hana and read Doku no Okurimono youll immediately begin to see the similarities. The issue is flower of evil delivers and is an amazing story where Doku no Okurimono seems like a soulless husk inspired by both Aku no Hana and Blue period, with none of the things that make either of those manga great.

The writing is painfully bad and it doesnt really seem like they have an idea of where its going. The plot doesnt flow and after its been established every chapter the characters make stupid decisions that could be easily fixed. The mc does something bad/shameful, he gets caught, he gets pressured to do another bad thing, repeat. If the mangaka has a point to the story or a purpose to whats going on the set up is so boring and stupid that its not worth reading through.

With every chapter released getting more thoughtless and pointless id really recommend avoiding this manga unless you want to read see how bad it is for yourself.

As stupid as every little plot revelation was, I could see where the author wanted to go. It could've been an excellent exploration of how teenagers deal with things like expectation, desire, and dreams in ways that make them way bigger than it needs to be. Gift stealing paint and refusing to tell his friend the truth for the sake of his own pride for only that to escalate into utter madness because of one girl and her stupid complex and relationship with stickers, makes senses in the grand scheme of things. It made everything felt dumb and stupid, but the internal turmoil made sense ... for and to the character. I only wished the author had put more commentary into the piece, with more sensible characters (like the Taima and Kokomi) giving their perspective to strengthen the themes.

Because, I completely understand why people fell off when this became an insane soap opera.

The ending is predictable but not horrible. I only wished there was a better build up that made it more deserving and devastating. Even if there was a couple more chapters to flesh things out, it would've been at least...more than decent. Because, at the end of the day, it was an interesting albeit melodramatic premise about about tragic artist, poisoned by his gifts.

...Being subtle was definitely not in this author's trade.

This is garbagio... but... in the same way people watch trashy tv like reality shows and telenovelas. The concept here, I think is interesting: a small lie/theft makes relationships crumble, rise, then crumble again, but holy shit the way it's executed is rather clumsy and unfortunate: you're watching hormonal, stupid teenagers muddle their way through melodramatic moments that (AT ANY MOMENT) can be solved by being honest and open. The classic trope of a liar digging themselves deeper into their lies, and you're just frustrated witnessing the events, screaming at the character to just confess. There are possibly 20 times the obscenely kind and understanding ... friends of the protagonist opened the possibility for the protag to just confess to the EXTREMELY MINOR wrongdoing, allowing an apology to lessen the whole dramatic and contrived situation.

The art is relatively strong though, there are these cool collages that show the artistic side of the characters and the creator really well. In the manga Blue Period, the author got other real life artists to represent other art in the plot of the story. A similar thing happens here in that the art reflects the different characters very well. I'll say that Gift (our protag) has great skills in painting and it shows that he's put in the work, but the art won't save the rest of the work.

Of course the author, gives us a glimpse into the protagonist and antagonist's past to see how they became to be so dramatically secretive and justice-seeking, respectively. It's not like it helps. You will read about these extreme behaviors developing in our two main underdeveloped, immature children, and it may be due to that immaturity that it can be excused but the protagonist cannot develop, and it's not like he has any lovable qualities beyond being a really good artist. A frustrating character might benefit if they were more charming or funny or alluring, he's just a diminished wet blanket.

The antagonist is fine, kind of cartoonish and devilish, her insane approach to torturing the main character through some mundane and extreme blackmail, she was the most fun to watch flipflop between nonchalant and crazy. I really wished I could see more of the supporting two characters Kokomi and Taima because they had the most potential. Kokomi had this big reveal of her being a kind of baddie with her piercings, which coming from my tatted and pierced self, I know that the piercings aren't crazy but the teen who has them and who hides them, what else will they be hiding? Could have been more spicy. I think some missed potential happened here because she was very sweet and caring and had this secret side to her. Equally, Taima is just a bastion of goodness, he was always supporting his classmates, so caring and kind that surrounded by all these "bad" actions between the protag and antag, he was like a detective understanding things better, I wish he had more screentime.

In the end, yeah I stuck with it to see how trashy it could get, and I will say... the ending almost saved this to make it a whopping 7/10 as I do think the author delivered on a crazy time. But going through this week by week was rather frustrating as chapter after chapter I felt the author had to hook us with huge reveals that, from a perspective of the whole work, make this a melodramatic episodic reality tv style hook that makes you think "yeah i'm okay to waste a minute reading this every week." I recommend this in the same way I recommend shitty donuts.

This manga ended almost a month ago, and i started reading right after that. Though i haven't read a lot of manga but this one is interesting enough to read it and finish it as quickly as possible. The first three chapters of this manga have very interesting characters and the plot. It's about artists and painting who struggle with their passion and not have enough money to follow their passion, which is about art.

Story-5.9/10

As i kept reading it. The plot and characters seem so stupid, and I think a bit exaggerated by the author himself. By the end of chapter 25, it does ... make sense of the title, which is "Gift of poison." It's a bit depressing how it's ended up. Mentioning the art style of the manga is just amazing.

Characters-6.1/10

Over all art styles - 7.9/10

I'll give it overall 7/10. Which means it's good.