Joshikouhei

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Joshi Kouhei, a philosophical, action packed manga with alternate dimensions, giant school girls wielding railguns, mind-fuckery, brutal and gorey combat, lots of panty shots, philosophical skeptism, and... two chapters devoted to a full-blown s*x scene?


Who am I writing this for?

Anyone who's a complete degenerate like me. Obviously if you're a more vanilla, slice-of-life, romcom type of reader, then this isn't going to be for you and you can safely stop reading at this point. This manga definitely isn't for the faint of heart. But if you are a complete degenerate, then you're going to love this.


Why am I writing this?

I just read this absolute marvelous ... piece of literature in one entire sitting all last night. I have never had a manga that has absolutely captivated me so much where I stayed up all through the night reading it in a 6 hour sitting. I just could not put it down. Even when I thought I reached a good stopping point and turned off my phone to try to get some sleep, I just couldn't and I found myself turning my phone on again to continue where I left off.

I had been so enraptured by this manga that when it was finished, I felt quite empty because I didn't know what to do next. I still feel quite empty even after a whole day has passed, and that's why I've decided to devote some time into writing this review of the manga, which is something I rarely ever do. Perhaps it'll get rid of that empty feeling. I've read hundreds of manga. I could count the amount of manga that I went out of my way to write a review for on one hand; and I'll have to add another finger after this.


First off, who is the mangaka?

The mangaka is Matsumoto Jiro. He is quite well-known for using plenty of nudity and deep philosophical questions in his works. His other works include <Freesia> and <Jigoku no Alice>, which you may have heard of (also amazing btw, though not as good as Joshi Kouhei imo).


How should I persuade you all to read this?

Rather than tell you all what it's about, I think it's better to first off tell you what it contains. This will determine whether you're degenerate enough to read it or you won't touch it with a 10-foot pole:

1 Giant school girls that bring death and destruction everywhere they go.

2 Philosophical problems that'll have you thinking, most notably skeptism and sense of self.

3 Gore. Lots of blood and guts.

4 Lots of nudity. Also a lot of panty shots. Like, a lot of panty shots.

5 Grotesque monsters and shock imagery.

6 Crossdressing and pegging. Not the kind that involves cute femboys.

7 A full-blown s*x scene

8 Truck-kun (Matsumoto Jiro really does like his trucks. This ain't the first manga of his that had truck-kun)

Now, I know what you're all thinking: "wtf is this?" and you know what?... I wasn't quite sure either when I was reading it. And unlike all of you guys, I didn't have anybody who told me this was going to happen. I just got to that scene and was like "well, I guess this is happening now..." All I know was that I couldn't put it down.

If any of these points captivated your attention, then I seriously suggest you go and read it right now! If you're still on the fence, then let me try to persuade you more by going a little in-depth on this masterpiece.


So what exactly is Joshi Kouhei?

(In trying to keep this post spoiler free, I will only be skimming the surface of the story. All things that are written here are practically told to you within the first few chapters so don't be worried about any spoilers. I'd hate to be spoiled in an amazing story like this too.)

In the universe of Joshi Kouhei, an alternate dimension was found, containing basically a second Earth. So there were many people that migrated to the alternate dimension because the original Earth was running out of resources. However, now the people in the alternate dimension have declared independence from the original dimension, and they are fighting back. So now there are two factions in this multi-dimensional war. There is the United Army of Earth and the Dimensional Liberation Front.

Our main character, Lieutenant Takigawa, holy name: Kiriko, is on the side of the United Army of Earth. They are located in the alternate dimension on the front lines fighting against the DLF.


So what is Takigawa's role in all this?

Lieutenant Takigawa is the commander of Hyena Platoon, a special team of dimensional arms that have the dark and gritty role of exterminating rogue or corrupt dimensional arms. Because of their role, it's obvious that the team aren't well liked by other Assault Girl pilots.

Dimensional Arms? Assault girls? Corruption? What the heck is all this?

Dimensional arms is another word for Assault Girls. As for what Assault Girls are, they are monstrous robots (gundam) that look, feel, and sometimes act like high school girls. Assault Girls were created to be impervious to all conventional weaponry, such as firearms, tanks, and even missiles. "The girls, they're invincible. You can kill people so easily. It feels like you're just crushing bugs." Well, invincible to 99.99% of the population anyways. There are of course other various ways to destroy Assault Girls, such as other Assault Girls.

So what's the big deal about corruption then? Well, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. In exchange for such amazing and awesome power (along with looking like a cute high school girl), the pilot of the Assault Girl becomes corrupted over time. Their corruption is measured in various levels. The more a pilot becomes corrupted, the more they begin to act like an actual high school girl.

A corruption level of 0 is just you in the body of a giant high school girl with full control. Somebody with a higher corruption level may start gossiping about their imaginary high school life (remember that the majority of pilots are middle-aged men). "At level 5 corruption, you recieve mail and calls from a mother and friends that don't actually exist." This becomes dangerous in combat because the Assault Girl will actually become more focused on their phone than their surroundings. You can see what happens because of that in the first chapter.

Become too corrupted and you'll never go back to normal. Go even further beyond and you are more than just useless in battle; you become a detriment to everyone around you, destroying your surroundings with no remorse or emotions.

This is where Hyena Platoon, Lieutenant Takigawa's team, is called in to take care of the situation.


Okay, well that's all fine and dandy but... why do they look like high school girls? Who's the pervert who came up with this (wonderful) idea?

(That would be the mangaka, Matsumoto Jiro)
You'd have to ask the Prophet.


Okay so... who's the Prophet?

Can't say, but you'll find out soon anyways. All I'll say for now is that they can calculate the answers of the universe in less time than it would take to make cup noodles.


So is there anything at all that you would say isn't a 10/10?

There is one thing, and that's how messy the art is, though Matsumoto Jiro is also known for this. In the fight scenes, it can be quite difficult to follow along and see what's exactly happening. I just had to use my imagination and context clues to figure out who's dying. Also re-reading it is going to help point out things you missed.


Conclusion

If you've made it this far into the post, then surely you've shown some interest in the story. Go give it a read! Everything I've talked about pertains mostly to the first few chapters. There's a total of 45 chapters, and it gets quite mind-fuckery near the end (as if it wasn't already in the beginning).

Obviously this manga isn't going to be for everyone. There's a huge list of fetishes contained in this manga (as with the majority of Matsumoto Jiro's works), but since I'm a complete degenerate, this manga rose to the top for me.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this manga as much as I have. Though that might be hard to do because I love this manga so much. It has jumped to my top 5 manga list of all time in one night. It might perhaps even be my #1 spot. It just checkmarked all of my fetishes, while also having a coherent and actually entertaining plot (Not that kind of plot. The actual plot is really good). In all my years of reading manga, there has never been another manga where I've stayed up the entire night reading. In fact, I've been thinking about rereading it... even though I just read it last night.

Joshikouhei has a jaw dropping beginning, sloppy and somewhat unnecessary middle, and fantastic end.

Apparently it was originally a short story, and was only written to be longer at the editor's encouragement. So it starts out very tight and inspired, but stumbles around for a while until the author figures out where to take the story. He does figure things out eventually though and ultimately it's seriously worth the read.

Highly recommend if you like sci-fi, existential horror, edgy ultraviolence and degeneracy, and life philosophy.

I'd describe the beginning as Gantz meets Getter Robo and Devilman... with a touch of Mirai Nikki. The setting also takes minor inspiration ... from Gundam, so you'll have a fun little "pointing leonardo dicaprio meme" moment if you're familiar with it.

By the end Joshikouhei shapes up to be its own thing. I have some comparisons but they're spoilers and don't quite do it justice anyway. I've seen some people compare it to Freesia, the author's major work to date, but I haven't read that yet myself.

Sorry if this sounds vague but I would rather you learn the details yourself. Honestly if you're still reading this review you should probably just check out Chapter 1. Joshikouhei has very strong first impressions and if you like it you can keep reading. It carries its initial momentum strongly until at least around the end of Volume 2. After that point I wouldn't blame you if you dropped it, but trust me when I say the ending is worthwhile.

Joshi Kouhei was a story I picked up because I wanted to try out some mecha manga - mecha being one of the first genre’s I really delved into back in my first days of Japanese media. The visuals of the front cover were really well done, the way people described it in other reviews praised it highly and all around it really sounded like a great read. While I’m sure it could be, it was too gross for the likes of me.

The beginning of Joshi Kouhei is genuinely interesting - its psychological impact hitting from some of the first interactions and the protagonist ... being so stoic and grounded in his belief really contrasted how the other mech pilots seem to lose themselves to the fantasy of being a teenage girl. The art is killer and the way the mangaka draws screams grunge - it’s gorgeous.

But there are some glaring issues that really undermine the message that was already in the works.

The fact that a lot of the shots expose the girls underwear. You might think “yea but they’re mech, it’s not actually a girl” but the thing is, the mech are literally designed after high school girls. They, the pilots, can even lose themselves to the mindset of being a high school girl themselves - so to decide to make the mecha be young girls and have panty shots every 5 pages is just jarring and really churns the stomach. It makes you question why the mangaka chose to do this - especially when the people who are piloting these mecha girls are grown adult men. Something just doesn’t sit right about that.

While nudity wouldn’t upset me when used in the way Joshi Kouhei does, the fact that, again, the featured characters are meant to resemble teenage girls just seems like a gross miscalculation that really diminishes the horror of the body horror and taints it in a disrespectful way. It’s the constant question of “why” that really got me to drop the manga - I couldn’t answer why the constant sexualisation was reasonable so I decided it wasn’t worth continuing.

A few times I felt the shots were done unnecessarily and passed into a realm of “this seems very much planned to appeal to a certain type”. The glaring ones to note were;
> Chapter 4, Page literal 1 we see one of the girls who have gone insane and she’s - and I’m sorry for this MAL - penning herself in the nether regions and fondling one of her many chests. WTF. Why? Body horror doesn’t mean whatever the hell that page was.
> There a few chapter pages that just have panty shots when there is no need like Chapter 4 pages 12 to 20 were just a bunch of different “c'mon dude” shots that felt like the artist actively sought to give the characters poses dedicated to showing off their underwear, chapter 5 pages 23 and 24, chapter 6 page 13. Honestly I could go on but it’s kinda self explanatory.
> Chapter 5 pages 11 and 12 which were just. I don’t even want to begin to describe what is on those pages but it’s on the same if not slightly worse than the chapter I pointed out.

I think Joshi Kouhei could have offered a lot had the constant nudity of characters meant to emulate underage girls been significantly toned down. If you’re able to look past it I’m assuming the manga has a lot to offer - but like I’ve said in several of my other reviews I am now unwilling to bend my morals to promote material that really doesn’t seem to have respect for women. Especially women who are meant to be seen as underage.