Vetsunova

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One-shots have a difficult task of simultaneously standing well on their own while also needing to potentially be spun off into a larger long-running series. This work could feasibly function as the first chapter of a larger work, but is pretty lousy when taken as the one-shot it actually was meant to be.

Story: 4 A pretty by the books story about real people inside of a videogame, with the interesting twist that its actually just VR that takes place solely in the real world. However, there is so much exposition that its hard to really get invested, because instead of telling any kind of emotionally ... compelling story a solid 50% of the "story" is just an info dump about the world. This would work fine in a larger work where exposition was needed to establish what was to follow, but in a one-shot, its just needless information.

Art: 6Nothing exceptional, but the character designs are at least kind of interesting, if maybe a littler generically inspired by other battle shounen.

Character; 3 Nothing even remotely memorable about any of them. Villain is boring, heroes are boring, the people who inhabit the world are half as interesting as the world itself.

Enjoyment:4 Just really mediocre in general. This author has had a couple of series start and quickly end, and I think its indicative that he has some really interesting ideas for series, but he fails to entertainingly execute them. This is another example of a decently creative world, but just a really lacklustre story. If you did enjoy this, try Mx0, a much better work by the same author.

Overall: 4

"Wait, am I actually unconscious in a hospital after hitting my head, or--? Huh? IT'S ALL VIRTUAL?!"

I have a love-hate relationship with Kano Yasuhiro and his works. Vetsunova is a pretty good example of why.

Kano's art is... good. It's nothing special, but it's technically sound, and he has his own style. But his panels are so cluttered and his layouts so crammed in, honestly it gives me a bit of a headache. Vetsunova's virtual avatars should be a chance for him to flex his character designs, but he goes straight for the cheesecake. Immediately upon starting the oneshot we're shown a 17-year-old with her bits ... barely covered, and she wears that outfit for the whole story. Look, I'm not averse to some fanservice, but it would have been way more in character for Miri to agree to help Crazy Kong on the condition that he teach her how to change her avatar's outfit instead of just forgetting about how uncomfortable she is like the reader's not going to notice that the teenage heroine's ass gets as much panel time as her face.

The story has so much promise. Augmented reality! It's been done, sure, but there's still mountains of potential for variation. But other than the initial infodump, Kano seems pretty wishywashy with his world building. It's implied that the characters are navigating the real world as visually augmented by the "Glass" glasses, but does that mean when Miri experiences recoil from her gun, she experiences that in the real world? Are there real world people and cars they can't see while navigating the race track? Does this cause real world accidents, injuries, and even deaths? But Kano doesn't seem to care about this as long as he can give panel time to Kong sliding face-first into Miri's crotch.

Ultimately, Vetsunova -- the story and the virtual world -- has a lot of potential, but Kano doesn't seem interested in taking advantage of it.