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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Brynhildr in the Darkness

Japanese: 極黒のブリュンヒルデ

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 18

Chapters: 181

Status: Finished

Published: Jan 26, 2012 to Mar 31, 2016

Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Jump

Authors: Okamoto, Lynn (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.26¹ (scored by 14,018 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5367²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #547

Members: 34,669

Favorites: 807

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Filter Preliminary Spoiler

Sep 14, 2012

AJL41382

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/181 chp)

~This is my first revive, so be gentle~

(I tried my best to make it spoiler free)

So Gokukoku no Brynhildr, the new mange from the author of "Elfen Lied" (which most of you must heard of and maybe even seen and love it like I do)

Gokukoku revolves about a man named "Ryouta Murakami" that lost his childhood friend "Neko Kuroneko Kuroha"(neko for short) in a tragic accident.
One day, a new girl that looks exactly like his childhood friend comes to his class, and what happens from there is history.

Story: 8.5/10
...

Apr 19, 2017

Drasill

Recommended

Brynhildr in the Darkness (gokukoku no brynhildr ) is a manga written by Lynn Okamoto.
He will be more known for his other work mainly Elfen Lied .
I have been a fan of his work for some time and read some of his short stories such as Allumage and Flip Flap and obviously Elfen Lied which as the author says is the same type of story as Brynhildr. (also read Nonono his ski jumping manga but who cares)
The thing is Gokukoku's plot was inspired of Old Norse mythology (Ragnarok / AESIR-VANIR war) which makes for a way better and more complex plot in ...

Aug 14, 2014

Genocyber

Recommended

Preliminary (100/181 chp)

Written by Okamoto Lynn, known for Elfen Lied, one should expect some similarities between the two. Compared to Elfen Lied, the violence and exposure is toned town, and so is the art quality imo (in the anime it's censored geh) However, that doesn't really bother me much, as Brynhildr makes it up for character growth... well, until something happens to the character, which would be major enough to be a spoiler so I won't say.

I've only skimmed through the Elfen Lied manga, but Okamoto seems to have some kinda liking for sci-fi experimentation with ...

Mar 2, 2014

FallacyR

Recommended

Preliminary (55/181 chp)

Gokukoku no Brynhildr happens to be a hidden gem of the manga world, passed up by obscurity, however, this makes it even more appealing of a manga, if nothing else. As expected of the mind behind Elfen Lied, Lynn Okamoto, Gokukoku is an intelligently done and fairly well thought out piece of work, rich in darker, more ominous airs. Unexpected however, is the "Death Note" style of command and control, cat and mouse esque thinking games also prevalent. Fans of grittier plots will certainly appreciate this particular story without the extreme sense that some horror or more psychological mangas provide. However, the gore and moderately ... sexual themes may turn some readers off, albeit not nearly the level of Elfen Lied, for example.

Story/Entertainment: The story starts off fairly typically, almost giving off an "awkward neet" sense, however, it builds quickly, within the first few chapters, adding Okamoto's "bleak and grit" charm. This particular charm, which never truly escapes the story, is a particularly wonderful effect for fans of the style. One could say the transition from introduction to center-piece of plot was too fast paced, however it doesn't detract in any real way, skipping over unnecessary details and fillers. As the story progresses, the grimness pervades every corner of the story ensuring a continuing theme of death and failure only inches from the doorstep of our protagonists, in a way however, that only bubbles just beneath the surface. In doing so this method of writing creates a sense of safety and well-being for our cast only to be shattered not long after. This cycle builds and adds to the overall enjoyment of the story, rather than an expected and monotonous "edgy and dark at all times" narrative. If any qualms are to be raised in the overarching story concept, it'd be the somewhat harem-ish feel that comes into play after a point, which some of our more purist or serious readers may not agree with. This feeling isn't explicitly detailed, but there are times when you can find yourself somewhat frustrated with our damsels at death's doorstep almost throwing themselves at the hero, detracting somewhat slightly from the gritty theme. One could argue that it is a sense of relief, much need in tales such as this and given the somewhat scarce nature of these occurrences a valid point is presented, and should be left to reader preference. As such, the slight presence of a harem-ism will not detract from the score and should merely be a note in the back of the reader's mind, leaving us a 9/10 in both categories.

Art: The art quality is extremely high and even the pickiest of readers will have a hard time passing up Gokukoku no Brynhildr for it's artistic style. If any issue were to be raised, it'd be simply that noir-style art can make it difficult at times to discern the image of what's being presented. Despite this, it doesn't obscure the image entirely, and is a rare phenomenon, earning the art style an 8/10.

Character: Our character cast is another high earner for the simple reason that the character personalities do not detract from the story in any way. It does take some time to see our various heroes flesh out more unexpected traits from their stereotypical presets, but they do fulfill their roles very adequately. With Ryouta Murakami being the role of the hero and protector of Gokukoku no Brynhildr, his initial introduction is somewhat....opposing of what would be expected. In the first few chapters, most readers will assume, as stated earlier, he is another awkward neet character. This is cleaned up fairly quickly, showing himself to be our hero we expect, and the highly intelligent planner we didn't. Murakami proves himself to be the unexpected mastermind all too infrequently seen in today's Japanese stories, and is a highly refreshing, and exciting change of pace from the bumbling idiots normally placed in heroic-centric plots. Beyond this, however, there is little deviation from character archetypes by the rest of Murakami's cadaver. The quiet and all too innocent "memory ridden" heroine, the ecchi and straight-forward girl, and our hopeless, clumsy child round out the crew. Yet even with this present there are still moments of doubt drawn onto our characters, and you can find yourself second guessing the nature our heroines due to the story-writing, and as such, can be forgiven.

Overall: I highly, highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in a more serious narrative, looking forward to a grittier tale and unafraid of less cheerful and bumbling story. The negatives are nothing worth denigrating Gokukoku no Brynhildr over, and as such, I fully well would advise giving this fine manga your time.

*Note, you'll see I rated it a 10 on my score, however this is due to personal preference in genre. You may disagree, as a 10 to myself, may be an 8 to you, so this review will be based as objectively as possible.*

Aug 15, 2017

Makey

Mixed Feelings

I don't want to go too in detail but just to quickly sum it up.

The manga starts off pretty decent, the characters comical interactions with each bring a nice touch, the plot (for the first half of the manga) was fairly interesting but sadly this is another one of those mangas where things start off great but at a certain point you start noticing it go down hill.

At around the halfway point (similiar to where the anime ended) the plot development starts getting weird.

So much is crammed in the remaining chapters (120-181) that you see the pace is being picked up and quickly rushed a ...

Oct 28, 2013

Dimi_sama

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/181 chp)

This is gonna be my first review so please be gentle.
I just finished reading all the chapters from Gokukoku no Brynhildr and I have to say that I found it pretty cool.
The story was awesome.It may be like Elfen Lied but it is completely different.
Art was not something special,it was fair though.
Characters were amazing.I loved Kuroha and Murakami very much.The bond between all of them was preety strong.Their friendship could overcome all the obstacles.
Overall I higly recommend it to those who search for adventure,supernatural phenomena and maybe a little romance.Those of you who enjoyed Elfen Lied (like I did) will fell in love with this. ...

Jan 10, 2013

Senkagami

Recommended

Preliminary (Unknown/181 chp)

Gokukoku no Brynhildr It's simple one of the best manga for me. If you enjoyed Elfen Lied you seriously need to read this story. Everything inside it it's awesome. And whatever you would say guys, I think this manga It's very original

Sep 14, 2019

Ainosora

Not Recommended

This is honestly the saddest manga experience I have ever had, the first 100 or so chapters are absolutely amazing and might've possibly been the best manga I've ever read but the proceeding 80 or so chapters dropped my score from 10/10 to 1/10. I'm honestly not sure how the series went in the poor directions it did but some advice I'd definitely give, after the end of chapter 100 or 110 or so when it feels like a stopping point, just stop. You can read more but don't say I didn't warn you. It is hard to go over the problems with this manga ...

Sep 12, 2015

moonkingdomify

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (Unknown/181 chp)

I was a fan of this series. Until the Valkria arc ended. This review was written before the ending of the series because as of chapter 155 I have dropped this series. I don't care of it gets better this series has jumped the shark now, and that's not a good thing for the tone that this series tries to portray.

Brynhildr in the Darkness is about a guy and his harem of magical girls. that's pretty much it. But the magical girls are given a very dark twist where they will die within three days if they don't have medicine that inhibits these effects. Each ... girl has their own power from world manipulation to future sight to enhanced hacking (more useful than it sounds) to Shoop Da Woop like laser beams. The series is, or was, creative in it's character designs, it was definitely interesting to see the ideas that Lynn Okamato could come up with. The main character has a lot of respect for the super powered women that have come to surround him, he often turns them away when they attempt to sleep with him so they don't make a mistake. They handle the fear of dying before procreating well, they handle the fear of death before marriage well and the character of Kazumi was an amazing character study to take a look at. But of course that didn't last past the first few arcs. The Valkria arc was amazing, the villain was a great character foil to Kuroneko and it had one of the most emotional character deaths I had seen in a manga or anime for the longest time. Then we end the arc on this note where Okamato could have ended the series and ended it well. The main character and the main love interest had finally kissed before the main love interest risks her life to save the rest of the cast. They'll be getting a supply of the medicine they need and the leader of Vingulf has been killed, and this is where the series should have ended. It's ending wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying as the Elfen Lied manga ending but not many endings are that amazing. But then it continues.

The series continues and it does look a bit promising, but as you read it drags on... and on... and on. Even though it's only 55 chapters as compared to the 100 chapters before hand this last sixth of the manga has been horrible with a massive amount of fan pandering. Then you have the creation of Takaya. I wouldn't have minded if this guy wasn't put into the role of hero but, well he is. Takaya is one of the most sexist anime characters I have ever seen and he down right rapes Hatsuna multiple times under the grounds that he's her boyfriend, this is the worst part of the series by far. Then you have the Amnesia, which is happening for a second time with the same character, it makes for a repetition of the first arc, which annoys the hell out of me. Then we have the blatant flanderization of the characters.

I mention Kazumi a while ago, she was an in depth character that starts off as a this greedy annoying bitch who isn't very likable, but then she goes through a character arc that has you routing for her. She has fallen in love with Murakami to the point where she wants to marry him. This isn't Hatsuna's puppy love or Kuroneko's self taught love for Murikami. It's truer love that stems from a feeling of trust. She wants to marry him and have children with him though she's willing to risk everything, including her life, to save him, if it meant his safety she would give up her chances to live out her dream of becoming a mother and loving wife. She is literally the only character left un-flanderized (when you take the worst trait of a character and make that their only trait).

Murikami was a very nice guy who legitimately cared for the safety of these girls but now he's just a plot device. He's been worse than flanderized, he's been changed as a character. Now he's just sort of an asshole, or the stereotypical harem master.

Then you have Hatsuna, a girl who has the power to regenerate any injury as well as acting as the white mage of the team. She was a strong female character who would fight back and was able to think strategically within critical situations. But she's reduced to a submissive victim. She's constantly being raped by Takaya, which is being used as comedic relief. I mean what the fuck Okamato? You wrote Elfen Lied, which was a masterpiece for many different reasons and then you went and wrote this. You handled domestic abuse so much better in Elfen Lied. And this has just become a series based around fan service. Speaking of which, all of the female characters get a breast enlargement closer to the current point, which was pointless.

What pisses me off the most is that this series had massive potential to be one of the best manga series I have read, and the second on that list behind Elfen Lied, but due to the last sixth of the manga so far having nothing but filler and fan service those chances have been ruined.

The only thing good I can say about this is that it is a very visually pleasing series.

Age Rating: M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Disturbing Content, and Nudity.

Disclaimer: The last sixth of this manga is not for anybody who has a single liberal bone in their body.

Overall Rating: 5/10

May 11, 2016

Derenor

Mixed Feelings

I am really surprised to read all those positive reviews here since I dropped the manga pretty quick. What can I say? First I was excited to read another story by Lynn Okamoto who created Elfenlied one of my favorite animes.
But as before when I read the Elfenlied manga I was pretty disappointed when I read Brynhildr.
Elfenlied was, in my opinion, pretty much saved by the anime studio. They cut the story off at just the right moment before Okamoto messed his whole story up.
When I read Brynhildr I felt like he did not really dare to do something new or at ...

Jul 22, 2013

jmnduc

Recommended

Preliminary (5/181 chp)

This manga is very good but the only thing I hate is the tragedy. OKAMOTO Lynn seems to only like sad endings, like elfen lied, especialy when you know the end when you start to read it like Grave of Fireflies. Personally, it's frustrating. I want to watch or read because it's good and want to know what's going on and not know how it ends at the beginning. And also tragedy in the story is Ok but having the heroe(s) die... It's disapointing.

Oct 14, 2018

ZerothZero

Recommended

I'm reviewing part 1 here, up through the first half. I'm not as familiar with the 100s-ish chapters, so they aren't as fresh in my mind as the first half. Anywho, here goes my first review on this site. No spoilers, hopefully.

This story is a great story for one main reason: the pacing. Everything flows together nicely. While a bit janky at the start, the crucial information is laid out and we understand who the protagonist is, thus allowing us to connect with this adventure. Apart from this one decision, though, the readers find out information when it's needed, and for justifiable reasons. Intelligent actions ...

Aug 26, 2017

Nagatake_

Not Recommended

I hate being harsh with manga that seems to have effort poured into it, but this manga is really bad.

Initially I was interested in it, but eventually it became more of an attempt at Gunslinger Girl (note: Kazumi looks like a character from there). But, it soon became just a dull attempt at pulling your heartstrings by sympathizing with a main character who is dense and clearly an excuse to build a harem.

The story continues to drone on with incomplete and shards of character development, but in the end it barely closes the doors on the characters - leaving questions open, while making the ...

Feb 9, 2021

Resting_Bonfire

Mixed Feelings

Gokukoku no Brynhildr
Brynhildr in the Darkness

I have one thing to say. Anyone who saw the anime adaptation of this manga in advance like me and liked the concept, but found the implementation horrible. He should definitely recommend the manga. It is far from a masterpiece, but it is significantly better than this questionable anime adaptation.

From manga to anime, a lot of scenes were skipped and a lot squeezed together. Here you can see much more relevant dialogues and story-related details. Among other things, you can see a lot more of the characters, as well as the professor who was my favorite.

One of the main ...

Jul 25, 2019

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A manga with a great protagonist, interesting character relationships, and good writing that begins going downhill about 2/3s of the way through and botches the ending in a number of ways.

This manga started out amazing but it lost a lot of that by the end. First off, the protagonist is awesome in that he’s strategic minded but not a jerk, kind but not naïve, and reliable but not overpowered. This is a core of a lot of the more intense aspects of the manga, wherein it involves him using his quick wits to come up with ways to get over the challenges they’re facing. This involves using and dealing ... with a number of different powers, but the most interesting and crucial of these is foresight, which ends up allowing all sorts of crazy plans and situations to happen. There were a lot of fake out moments, both with events shown simply being foresight or illusions, and also characters basically being brought back after death. This did get got old eventually I admit, but it also added a lot of suspense and kept things moving really fast. This makes the more action and intense portions of the manga really interesting through most of the manga, though the last third or so started getting a bit weaker, and I feel that was heavily due to how it involved foresight less. Character relationships are the other crucial part of the manga, and they too for a good portion of the manga were great. There was a constant fear of death in most of the characters, and hence a push for them to do something with the time they had left, which pushed them to move fast in all matters. Hence, they were immensely happy just doing normal things, and that got conveyed very well and often very amusing. Furthermore, the protagonist being as dense as a rock regarding such matters required them to be very direct, which added even more amusement, and always kept it feeling like things were moving. About two thirds of the way through though, it starts getting a lot messier in weird ways due to things getting overtly complicated between them as a result of added variables, memory loss, etc. which felt badly implemented. The ending doesn’t really help in that regard, in that the ending is incredibly strange in that it has elements of being pretty solid regarding such matters, but the way it's done makes it feel kind of unsatisfying. As for the overarching plot, it is incredibly interesting for most of the manga with things slowly being revealed and the villains master plan seeming crazy but also grand and something the reader wants to understand. However, the payoff on that was a mess. It’s quite hard to end such long overarching mysterious narratives, and this did not succeed in pulling it off. The final arc where everything was finally explained ended up leaving a lot out, and even worse bringing up a lot of contradictions and random plot devices to keep things moving forward. While I appreciate it when things are overall consistent, I don’t mind too much with there being contradictions or forced ways to get around stuff established a long time ago. However, here it would be pulling out random things and throwing them out randomly from chapter to chapter and it largely made the ending feel arbitrary and not well planned as if the author just decided it was time to end it and forced it along as quickly as possible. This is up until the finale, where he suddenly decided to put on the brakes and have the characters spin their wheels pointlessly for a bit before finally letting things end, though the epilogue was decent enough barring the previously mentioned character relationship issues. The art was pretty solid all the way through.

Apr 17, 2023

TimeFliesAway

Not Recommended

Preliminary (101/181 chp)

Alright, enough. I’m dropping it.

I only continued this for the mystery part, because I really wanted to know about the aliens and all the stuff revolving around it. However, 100 chapters in, and there still isn’t much revealed. Everything that happens is so underwhelming, so I doubt I’ll be satisfied with the ending anyway.

It’s crazy enough that I could get through 100 chapters, even though it’s so energy-depriving. I feel like an empty plastic bottle right now.

The plot itself is a good idea, but the execution is so pathetic. It’s literally just a horny author, who gets turned on by gore.
Every character is shallow, their ... only personality being either whiny/arrogant or perverted. All the superhumans ("magic users") are female, because the institution used science as an excuse to see naked women and get paid for it. There’s literally no other reason why there aren’t any boys used for the experiments.

But the protagonist of course is a boy, so that’s why there’s a harem. You can’t have a male protagonist with only female main characters and not have a harem, right? Compared to other harems, the protagonist has already chosen “his person” before the harem came. Which is cool, but that isn’t stopping the perverts from forcing themselves on him. So many chapters & pages wasted with unnecessary “I want a child from him”-talk.
Or groping boobs. If the perverts can’t have him, they will let out their perversion on their same-sex friends. Who cares about consent? Because even if they say “no”, perverts don’t stop from that.
Just say you’re lesbian, if you love female breasts that much.
Literally every time they were taking a bath together, there’s at least someone comparing their size or groping them.
Do men really think that women don’t do anything else?
Is that actually a thing in Japan (women touching each other’s private parts without it being seen as sexual) or just fantasies, which somehow can be found in every single manga/anime, written by a guy?
I’m seriously considering to write a manga where men grope each other’s parts like that, just to show all the other male authors how ridiculous & pathetic it looks like.

Half of the series is just horny stuff, while the other half is gore. If you’re into that, you do you i guess, but definitely nothing for me.

Another page-waster is the unnecessary drama.
The protagonist keeps getting tragically killed with all the other characters being sad about it and crying their eyes out. Why? It’s very obvious the protagonist won’t die, especially not in the middle of a volume. And with 180 chapters; how would the story even continue if the protagonist died in the first 50 chapters? Absolutely nonsense.
The same goes for the other main characters. A main character either gets a heroic death or will come back to life again, if their death didn’t do anything for the plot. There are no excuses; every fiction works like that.
Yet the author keeps giving them dramatic death scenes, stretching it out through a whole volume sometimes. One volume was actually about a prediction of one of the main character’s death. Of course they didn’t die and it also didn’t get the plot going at all. What could’ve been resolved in one chapter, stretched 10 chapters, alas a whole volume, long. So dumb.

The last thing that really really annoys me is the “art”. If you can even call that art. The backgrounds aren’t drawn, but simply photographs with a cartoon filter put on top to make it look like it is. The author didn’t even try to make it look good tho. You can see all the wiggly lines still.
If it came out this year, it obviously would be that the bgs are ai generated images, but given it’s from 2013-2015, I guess it’s just a cartoon filter.
Look, I get backgrounds can be a pain, especially in anime/manga, where the artstyle is realism. However, it’s even more painful to look and read through this ugly laziness.
I hope the author at least took the photos himself, instead of taking random pictures from the internet to cartoonize, but the chances aren’t high.

The story came from horniness, there’s no creativity to be expected, after all.

Nov 7, 2017

Xaelath

Not Recommended

First of all I rarely review something unless it really triggers me but nothing has ever bothered me except this one.
I am quite kind when giving Score but its kinda subjective so take it with a grain of salt before you start reading it, or you might already finished and had the same impressions.

Note : I Finished reading in on 1 day.. 1 frickin day. start from 11 am to 9 pm over 18 volume, 181 chapter 3600+ pages.
This manga was amazing if you liked Elfen Lied well except it wont be what you expected, but i'll say you should give a try before ...

Nov 27, 2021

LadyStardust97

Mixed Feelings

Yesterday, while watching a certain youtuber's retrospective on Elfen Lied, I found myself curious as to what the mangaka, Lynn Okamoto, had produced after his first longform (and most popular- in the West, at least) work. Upon seeing the list of his manga, it clicked in my head for the first time that Brynhildr was by him- a return to SF after his sports manga, Nononono. I had heard of this series before in passing due to the anime airing, but had never paid it any special mind, and written it off as a seasonal SF harem romcom.
I'm not sure what it was, really, that ... made me decide to take the plunge and read it. Perhaps because I had less than fond memories of Elfen Lied from high school, I wanted to see whether he had improved as a writer, or was rehashing his prior work like some kind of hack. Regardless of the how or why, I ended up reading all 181 chapters within twenty-four hours. This is unusual for me- I normally dance around a work and read about 20 to 30 chapters at a time.
But Brynhildr is different. It's got a strange, compelling quality, as laden with cardboard cutout harem tropes and haphazardly shoveled in lore as it is. Unlike Elfen Lied, which aggressively pursues despair to the point that it loops back around to being comedic, Brynhildr's character writing and melodrama actually tend to land more often than miss. In a lot of ways, it follows a more refined and articulate style of conveying its misery- the shocks and detailed gore never quite hit the highs of Elfen Lied, but somehow are more enjoyable and nuanced.
The character writing in Brynhildr is what really shines.
Despite the main guy being your typical harem protag self-insert loser, the way other characters bounce off him and shine is positively prismatic. Perhaps it's because of the highly violent, morbid stakes that the girls are subject to, but they all actually feel like rounded out and sympathetic characters. Not to say this is without faults- Okamoto's humor clashes heavily with the tone at all times, with more explicitly sexualized characters like Kazumi and later Takaya delivering their teasing horndog lines with just a touch too much seriousness- Kazumi, easily the most annoying and dislikeable of the main cast, comes off as a pathetic jealous femcel while Takaya's lust for his girlfriend frequently verges on making him look like a rapey creep.
In general, the clash between the dinky fanservice bits and the high stakes action is the weakest point of the series- only two fanservice-oriented callbacks in the entire series actually work, both very late into the story. However, while it's unbalanced and only tenuously entertaining at best, this off-kilter writing is what defines Okamoto's work-- maybe one day, he'll end up getting it right. I can understand what he's trying to do, even when he's not successful with it.
The plot, however, is nowhere near as good as the character writing. This may seem like a strange statement- as stories are rightfully defined by the strengths of their characters- but it holds true. In many ways, it is a rehash of Elfen Lied's central conflict, with many of the unintended thematic issues of his prior work seemingly directly addressed and fixed in this one. Making witches the direct result of experimentation by the institute, for instance, as opposed to diiclonai being born unintentionally from a virus, removes the rather ferociously deterministic undercurrents that Elfen Lied struggled with. On a small-scale, arc-to-arc level, though, Brynhildr still frantically struggles to keep its head above water. Okamoto is rather intuitively good at manufacturing scenarios that keep hype rolling in a serialization, but over the course of the series, the solutions that Ryouta and his little girlfriends come up with as they face increasingly powerful foes correspondingly become increasingly convoluted. There are more than a few times when you can quite plainly tell he's written himself into a corner and needs an out fast, causing narrative upset and occasional tonal issues.
One of his biggest problems- a holdover from his earlier works- is his inability to let named characters go, despite the frequent over-the-top gorefests. He's slightly better at killing people off here than he was in Elfen Lied- where this issue reached near parody levels- but it still remains a significant detriment to emotional investment in the story.
Beyond the character and plot elements, his art has obviously improved since his earlier works (I would be concerned if it didn't). The linework isn't phenomenal and his art style isn't exceptional, but his sense of composition and ability to execute pageturns is practiced and competent. The girls are pretty, the villains are intimidating, the big bad organization's pseudo-religious cult stuff is esoteric. His trademark violence is portrayed at just the right level of tastefulness for this sort of thing, always striking but never straying into hard gore territory.
All in all, it's a pretty alright work. Okay, even. I think if Okamoto continues to serialize manga at his current pace, he might make something good within another ten years.
The strange tone and unique narrative style set this manga apart from other SF harems, making it stand out in both good and bad ways. If you like high school harems, psychic gore witches, terminal illness despair, and Japanese SF interpretations of Nordic mythology, this is the manga for you. As puerile as it can show itself to be, there is a charm to the writing- perhaps a certain innate talent for tension and sadness- that'll keep you emotionally invested despite the work's many flaws. What Brynhildr does best, after all, is believe in love- through shock cuts of gore, suicide, despair, and bad fanservice, it never gives up on Ryouta's dream to bring the witches happiness.

Aug 9, 2015

animeBee1ver

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (152/181 chp)

Since this manga has a tragedy as its genre, then expect that there will a lot of dying and killing.

First of, I will divide this series to three parts. Since this is what i noticed in the changes of the style of the story.

The First part was neat. Well thought off. As said, there will be lots of killing and dying but there will also be saving of course. In this part, we will be shown a small scale conflict between the main characters against this organization of pure malice. This was a good start and made me keep on reading.

The second part is ...

Aug 29, 2021

eddiebrock666

Mixed Feelings

I will start my review by an advice to anyone who is currently reading the manga or planning to : drop the manga at chapter 100-105. Nothing you will read afterwards is worth your attention. I have seldom seen such a drastic drop in quality in a manga. Had it ended right at chapter 100, it would be considered a classic.
Thus, I will review the different aspects of the manga BEFORE the drop in quality and then explain said drop from my point of view.

The first 100 chapters are amazing. It is very similar to higurashi in a certain way; with a constant looming threat ... that seems undefeatable. Suspense is omnipresent, along with an adequately cryptic lore that does not explain itself to the reader immediately. I found myself reveling in the few moments of moe that the manga offers in the midst of the thick atmosphere. I just hadn't enjoyed myself so much in a while getting through the manga, after the first few chapters, I already found myself hooked ; eager to learn more about the lore and characters.

The art is also pretty good. It's noting out of the ordinary; but I appreciate the simplicity of the character design that does not fail to look good, cool, or cute. Most of the cast is female yet it does not delve into excessively sexual combat outfits. I also appreciate the gothic inspired clothing for some members of the cast.

The characters are pretty interesting : they do not necessarily answer to known stereotypes, and prove to have defining characterists and traits while not trying to hard to be quirky. The main cast revolves around the main characters and evolves through his influence, each having their own opinion on the main character ; which develops through the various events. Dialogue also happens between different characters, lwhich makes it feel homogenous while their relationships evolve. Overall, the characters all feel very human ; and despite their unique condition even relatable. Keep in mind this whole section goes to waste after the 100th chapter though, as the manga goes on litteral creative mode and f*cks up every character rightfully (only one remains decent).

Ah, the drop after the 100th chapter, let's talk about it. So much to say, so many flaws to list, and such disappointment for wasted time that I don't even know where to start.

New characters are introduced with straight out annoying personalities, fan service which was limited to a healthy amount becomes rampant and cringe inducing, to the point where I had to skip pages. The story starts steering towards a different direction than the one we initially began with.

Some characters start to get seriously annoying and are ruined throughout the second part of the manga, while no new character introduced proves to really be worthy of your attention.
I swear, the right way of describing such a drop would be going creative mode on a regular save in a video game, destroying and messing every thing you worked for.
The plot twists end up being disappointing, and I honestly refuse to believe they were planned from the start ; because what we were being teased with through the lore sounded much more exciting. I really think Lynn either gave up on it or maybe was pushed to write more.

Manga readers, be warned, the end is not even bad in the author middle finger kind of way; it's bad in the "uh, that's it ? that's all there is to this ?" kind of way. Do yourself a favor and stop at the 100th chapter, so that you may keep it as a memory of a great manga.