Akuma no Riddle

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On a personal level, this is a 10. But objectively, this is truly about a 7 at best, as far as everything goes. Characters were by far the strongest point. Even those who did not get a lot of love from the limelight still got good characterization and fleshed out storylines. However, the tight restraint on their appearances and interactions ultimately feels like a lot of the character potential is lost. It is even more unfortunate that this is how it has to be due to the nature of this yuri survival game. I'm not 100% sold on the yuri, since even though the manga ... has more than the anime, it still feels lacking for the most part.
Overall, I did enjoy this a lot more than other people I recommended this to. It had a lot of potential, even if it ultimately felt unused for the most part due to constraints of plot.

The series has an interesting concept, of having the need to find who needs to be assassinated. In fact what makes it more interesting, is that until the end of chapter 4 it’s not clear.
In regards to the characters, I cannot say that I don’t enjoy the fact that they have such varied personalities, but I feel like perhaps they could be worked on a bit more.
Overall, it feels like this a typical scenario, where one group has to fight, whilst the other has to survive.
It’s in a sense too over used, and therefore this make the series a bit of a ... rip off. Plus , I feel like the character of Haru, could have been developed a bit more.
The fact that you don’t really get to understand, of what really happened to her, it’s a bit of a downer. In all honesty, it’s just covered up with the line of “she had some kind of surgery, which to be honest is somewhat unbelievable.
I feel like this could have been explained, and revealed in much more detail than that.
On the other hand, I did enjoy the art. It was somewhat unique, and different which was my main reason I decided to read this series.
Overall, the series is alright, and I am yet to read the entire manga, so perhaps my review will change once I’m done with it.

Akuma no Riddle

The Survival game is a special kind of genre, one that has, within a set of parameters, a wide selection of customization. One series can focus on the traditional battle royale setting, while another can use the murder mystery to accomplish its goals. For Akuma no Riddle, there is only one target and everyone in her class (except one would-be assassin) wants her dead. Does this series nail it's own approach to the survival game genre? Not really, but at least it looks pretty!

Story: The premise is simple: one girl and her BFF against the rest of her all female class. Each one ... of her potential killers only has one shot at ending her life and if they succeed, they are allowed anything they desire.

A story like this one relies heavily on its characters, as the atmosphere, exposition and the like are dictated on character interactions. However, as I'll get to later, the characters of this series range from generic to straight rip offs of other character ideas for other survival game series. With this in mind, there is no true atmosphere, no suspense to any of the murder attempts. There are betrayals and surprises and a few moments of the story are actually pretty well thought out, but at the end of the day, without a memorable cast, all this series has going for it is a typical story about temptation with a dash of lifeless yuri.

Characters: On the note about characters, I'll first say this: if everyone's targeting two people, those two people should at least be somewhat memorable. However, the two leads barely have any characterization. Hare, everyone's target, is the typical Genki girl who with a dark past, complete with scars all over her body and a desire to be friends with everybody, even her killers. Her reasons for being everyone's target is only briefly hinted at and as the story continues, the reader is not given anything to work with to discern the reason for themselves.

Hare's partner, Azuma, is the stoic protector who also has a semi-tragic past. She is initially one of the killers, but joins Hare's party for a reason akin to "love at first sight". Their bond is the archetypical knight and princess same sex pair, with Azuma protecting her friend through the kind of paranoid obsession one can expect from an assassin among other assassins.

The rest of the cast includes the arrogant girl who's only after money, the honest one who only cares about family, the manipulative mastermind, the shy girl with a split personality, the elegant girl and the serial killer who uses scissors...does that last one sound familiar? Heck, do all of them sound familiar? All of them have motivations for their actions, but almost all of them are so unoriginal that it brings the entire series as a whole down. The one exception to this rule is the other yuri-pair. Their connection to "the school play" arc was actually done quite well, but even their individual characters aren't anything particularly memorable.

Overall, the cast, which should the lifeblood of a survival game, has no identity of its own, hindering what could have been a decent series. Any originality this series may have is suffocated by the tropes and cliches this series is made of.

Art: On a lighter note, the illustration quality is above average, especially during the colored first page of almost every chapter. Those illustrations were honestly one of the few reasons why I kept reading, even though they are little more than potential ships between two characters.

Action scenes are drawn well, with every blow having an impact. Faces are expressive and moments that desire bigger panels are indeed given the space they need. The character designs themselves are nothing special, but I must admit that they do look very in color. Aesthetically, the series is pretty well off.

Enjoyment: I read this series in about one day but it wasn't because it was a page turner. The characters are bland which in turn ruins the rest of the story, regardless of any creative potential the premise may have had. I turned the pages for the art, not for the characters or story. For those interested in this series, brace yourselves. If you like very nice pictures, then look at the first pages and drool over them to your hearts content because there's little else to this series in terms of substance.

I believe that, as it stands, a score of 4/10, "ew", is appropriate. The series looks nice, especially on the colored pages, and its premise actually sounds quite interesting, but the unoriginal cutout characters ruin the already genre-typical plot. Attempts at originality fall flat and while there may be a good scene or two, at the end of the day, it simply struggles to bat even.

The answer to Riddle is simple: Better luck next time.