Apr 11, 2010
For every shoujo romance manga you might have read, you've found yourself engrossed in a story where young students are on the cusp of discovering love, their growing bodies and minds rushing with complex emotions regarding the embodiment of their desire, sweeping you in a fairy tale of a young lady (or gentleman) finding romance, or losing love before truly understanding it. Well, not in shonen love stories, and Seven of Seven covers shonen harem love stories with the dignity of a mini skirt on a moe girl!
[STORY 5] The central plot isn't anything really new, but has a bit of originality to
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it. So it naturally has to drop the ball. Nana is, of course, a dangerously shy girl who doesn't have the courage to confess how she feels to Yuichi, her super crush. What I liked was each of Nana's key emotions manifesting into physical form (shyness, enthusiastic, intelligence, etc.). The problem being is that this sort of plot device requires consistantly good writing, a solid explanation of the cause and effect for her emotional disembodiments, and at least three more volumes. The fact that this happens so fast and very little detail is given as to what caused six new Nanas to appear out of nowhere is way too distracting of a concept to get around before enjoying the story. Something is loosely explained about how they are there to help her gain confidence in herself, but this thinly disguised as a plot, because in the first six pages, there are six half-nude Nanas fighting over clothes. For a 27 chapter story, nothing really happens, just a series of events to show some up-skirt shots. Tie this in with a cookie cutter villianess love rival, a stock sub-plot with the high school exams, and you have a recipe for uninspired, paint-by-numbers writing. As long as you only care about the gals showing skin, this won't bother you too much.
[ART 3] Most harem titles, even if the plot is weak, lends itself to least good artwork. In this series, the art is a mess. The character designs are boring and it's pretty easy to forget about the fact that there are seven Nanas squished into a panel most of the time, some of them without distinct characteristics to tell them apart from each other. Outside of Sexy Nana and Smart Nana, the rest are fairly forgettable. They're all drawn in this squashed and rounded body style that makes all the characters look dumpy and bland. The fan service really isn't worth it, as some of the excuses for these girls to be scantily clad (to win a baseball game) is just kind of silly. It only drives home the point further that the core story is really weak. Decent backgrounds, at least.
[CHARACTER 5] Despite each of the Nana's personality traits described to you, they amount to very little. There's barely enough character depth to fill up a Dixie cup. The male love interest adds nothing, and the father character is useless. Even the villian girl, whose name escapes me, adds very little. The only character I was okay with is Smart Nana. She's the most enjoyable aspect of this manga.
[ENJOYMENT 6] It's really short, but at the same time, nothing really compelling happens until near the end of the story. While I was pretty harsh on every other attribute, the ending is actually a little touching, making me wish that more focus should've been put on the obvious. The humor is predictable, the supporting cast does anything but that, and it's just kind of boring.
[OVERALL 6] A decent ending keeps this from being a 4 or a 3. Sadly, the focus was not where it needed to be for this title, and the fan service won't keep even ecchi fans interested long enough to care. I would rather watch the anime
PROS: Lots of panchira, it's short, a pretty decent ending
CONS: Boring, Unappealing artwork, poor exposition
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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