May 12, 2020
Short: This manga fails in every way to be an entertaining story.
Long:
Whereas the Grisaia games and anime are able to create a stupidly fun story, the manga attempts to do the same but fails because this story is not meant for a manga.
The first point that this manga fails at is the kinetic feeling of the plot, where you get the impression that there are many parts moving individually to bring the Grisaia picture together, however, the manga causes what is a very complex story to become an unintelligible clusterfuck.
Let's look at chapter 0 and 1. Just like the start of the visual novel and
...
the anime, the manga starts with showing us the characters and the premise behind their arcs all in one sentence, however the first two do something very different, they establish the characters within one single sentence while excluding 2 of the characters that are still very important but move differently in the story (Yuuji and Kazuki). The manga doesn't do this, and instead shows 3 panels per character with speech and major spoilers.
The importance of excluding Yuuji is that the game and anime make a game out of figuring out who Kazami Yuuji is, until its taken enough time to establish the plot. When the manga tells us everything about Yuuji in the first panel it ruins the hook of the manga.
Backtracking to the establishment of the main cast, the reason this bothers me is because in the game and anime, there is about 20 seconds dedicated to this, not much information is given and it's very easy to forget that scene but still feel like the characters make sense.
An example of this is Komine Sachi, who is given the phrase "the sin of defiance" in the opening. When we see her first meeting with Yuuji, we can make the connection that the sin of defiance caused her to become Ella Enchanted, and that makes sense because of how her character is developed later on. Sachi doesn't want anyone to die because of her decisions anymore so she follows everyone's orders to a-t, literally portrayed as a maid. When the manga shows us exactly what happened in chapter 0,
it completely ruins the momentum of the plot!
So, what if we exclude chapter 0 and look at chapter 1 itself and everything beyond. Its still awwffuuuul.
Unlike the anime or game, this is completely devoid of stunning imagery, personality-rich character movement or interesting internal mechanics that is commonplace in the other forms. This has the most generic art I've seen in a manga, I have seen DOUJINSHI better looking than this, and with better consistency with character height!
Another issue is that it turns the great designs from the other forms into bland parodies of the actual characters. The only exception for this is Amane.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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