Litchi☆Hikari Club
Lychee Light Club

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Zera is my toxic Sigma male "literally me" character ngl... Now, I came into Litchi Hikari Club as a fan of Japanese Angura and Eroguro Kei and shock material in general, so I had a semblance of what was going to happen, though LHC turns it all up to an 11. If you don't know what Eroguro usually entails, then be advised that this manga has ultra-violence/extreme gore and explicit sex scenes. I only recommend this work to readers over 18 and those who enjoy dark themes and shocking material. Albeit, Litchi Hikari Club is so much more than mere shock material, trust me.

The art ... style is fantastic. The art style has a very strong Angura aesthetic, with Shironuri (white face makeup) and Gakuran (black boy's school uniforms) complimenting the dreary monochromatic background of their Shouwa-era, worn-out, industrial town. Despite each member wearing the same clothes and having the same hair/eye colour (not typical in anime/manga), each boy has a unique look to him and stands out, from Kaneda's half-hidden face to Raizou's effeminate gestures. Colour is used sparingly, and when it is, you can FEEL it, despite the comic being in black and white (that's how effective it is).

Though the leader gets the most screen time, LHC doesn't have a main character and mostly focuses on the Club as a whole. Zera is their leader, a calm and calculating young man who obsesses over aesthetic beauty. He demands order in the club and commands calmly, but with an iron fist. The members seek his approval and follow him in his goal; to give life to their robot Lychee, and have him successfully kidnap a human girl. His members include his right-hand man and lover Jaibo, a sycophant with sadistic tendencies. Tamiya, the somewhat disgruntled former leader. Niko, the ultra-dedicated "#1" of Zera's. Dafu, who is fairly quiet yet dedicated in his own right. Dentaku, a highly intelligent young man in charge of programming Lychee. Kaneda, whose nail-biting habit reflects his anxious spirit. Raizou, a highly effeminate and spirited young man who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty in the club's business. Jacob is the youngest member and is the most innocent of them all, however, he is still very much complicit in the club's heinous activities. Other major characters include Lychee the robot, and Kannon the kidnapped girl (despite being in captivity, she has agency and plays a major role in the plot).

While it is comparable to Lord of the Flies with its isolated and self-governing male-centric, barely pubescent cast, I feel as if LHC reaches a separate logical end conclusion of LotF's more open-ended themes. Mirroring Japan's own extremely group-centric society, LHC functions with far more social cohesion and centers around the constant battle of appeasing (not rebelling) leader Zera in order to gain power... Well, except for what happens later, but that's a spoiler. Not to mention that it breaks down NatSoc (we know it as Nazism) into a smaller, digestible scale and shows how it influences the club's power structure and culture, that being of brutality and aesthetic worship (Nazis heavily used pleasing aesthetics to advertise their regime). As you would imagine, a large group of the same sex does indeed create sexual tension, which is shown in Zera and Jaibo's relationship and the resulting "power-couple" dynamic that is equal parts a shockingly NORMAL depiction of a gay relationship and a spiral of bad influence that emboldens each boy to embrace his negative character traits. This may be me reading into it too much, but I feel like, despite its dated setting, LHC still applies to the modern day with how our post-industrial society is creating dystopias where increasingly isolated men/women seek echo chambers and borderline cults in order to feel a sense of belonging. It also offers a mild character study of Zera, who slowly devolves into a mess of paranoia as his club devolves into chaos, his personal anti-thesis. The greatest theme, I'd say, is what it means to be human. I won't spoil it, but the end shows that humanity is earned and not begot by simple existence.

Being used to the level of obsurdity these kinds of manga can get into, I wasn't particularly charmed or delighted by this. It's not for the easily disturbed and disgusted, but I wouldn't say it's for the people who like it either. You're going to see child death, sa/cocsa, and gore.

COULD the manga have worked without underage relations? Yeah it really didn't need to show me ... THAT. The main plot(?) and Zera's belief probably couldn't work in the same way if they were aged up at least to being 18, puberty and all that, but it could have at least been something else. I ... don't really know. I didn't enjoy that part of it. The gore was pretty typical, art is fine, and I enjoyed the idea of what makes something human.

This manga is a hot mess. If you want to read it to say you read it, sure whatever, but it's nothing to write home about.

Lychee Light Club – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended

TLDR
Story – 2/10 – 2 x 0.275 = 0,55
Art – 8/10 – 8 x 0.2 = 1,6
Characters – 3/10 – 0,675 x 0.225 =
Enjoyment – 4/10 – 1,2 x 0.3 =
Total: 4,025 -> 4

Story – 2/10
Lychee Light Club is just a mess. It focuses so much attention on shock value and being graphically explicit both in its gore and sexual elements that it just doesn't make sense in the overall story. Sex scenes are just stuffed in without any context or reason whatsoever. From one moment to the other, we are suddenly lost within the ... infighting of a secret club composed of high schoolers who want to kidnap young women for the cult, who somehow have access to sleep-inducing drugs like it's nothing; oh, and it makes people sleep for days on end.
For this purpose, they program a robot to do the kidnappings. For some reason, emotions are then inserted into the robot, and the robot, which is fueled by lychees – yes, the fruit – suddenly wants to become human because of a beautiful woman that he kidnapped.
The infighting within the group is also too sudden and has no background whatsoever, just being an abrupt plotline that makes no sense.
Things take a turn for the worse for no reason whatsoever, and it becomes so violent for, once again, no absolute reason that it doesn't make any sense.
One thing, however, is well done: the atmosphere of a secret cult.

Art – 8/10
The art style is the only positive point of Lychee Light Club. It is detailed, it has some personality, and it is very easy to understand what's going on, although the cadence of the panels isn't necessarily the best. The character design – not concerning the part that we are able to tell each other apart, but the design per se of the wardrobe and characters – is also well done. The twisted and perverted humans are also seen easily in the rendition of the characters' faces, which is a point of notice.

Characters – 3/10
Characters are just as bizarre as this story: they are the members of the cult, the robot that suddenly wants to become human, and the women they kidnap, and that's it. The infighting is terribly made in the perspective of the characters and in their development – which doesn't exist –, and the lack of any character arc is atrocious in its conception. There are some quirks in the main character that give him some type of personality, but that's it. Not to mention that it is quite hard in a one volume manga to thoroughly develop the characters.

Enjoyment – 4/10
In such a bizarre story that makes no sense and has in its DNA shock value and sex scenes that play no role in the narrative, other than showing the reader some somewhat censured genitalia, it is no wonder that the enjoyment is so low. Moreover, this story wasn't in any shape or form a joy to read or go through; its only saving grace is the fact that it is very short, but definitely longer than it should be. All these reasons only make possible a not recommended.