Survival: Shounen S no Kiroku

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This is my first review here on MAL but I hope I somehow deliver my message properly to you guys. :)

Survival: Shounen S no Kiroku is a survival manga, obviously. The story revolves around a boy who struggles to survive on an island after a strong earthquake struck.

In this review I will show you why you should or should not read this manga, but mostly on the "should" part since I'm kinda biased. Well, here it goes...

Art:
The art is drawn rough which some may not like but I think it portrays the manga well. The backgrounds and such are drawn good as well. ... The character designs are a-okay and are drawn consistently although it may look goofy at times but that only adds to the personalities of the characters and creates a break from the seriousness of the manga. Overall, the art is generally good.

Character:
I'm not really good at reviewing characters but I think the characters were thought well. They have a certain disposition which they keep throughout the manga, though this is not to be confused of the characters being flat, character-wise, in fact, the characters are quite round-ish. The characters develop through the chapters although it may not be noticeable at first. Overall, I like how the characters were shown and I give it a very good rating.

Story:
For the first 20 chapters or so, the manga focuses on being informative. It teaches us basic survival tactics which is the aspect of the manga which had drawn me into reading it. After the first few chapters, the story itself transitions in. The introduction of side characters and obstacles was done okay and the pacing of it was okay as well. However, the dangers of being in a survive or die scenario was not portrayed well. Overall, the combination of the informative side and the actual plot side makes this manga's story good.

Enjoyment:
I thoroughly enjoyed this manga. Very good. yep, that's it, no more explanation needed cus I got tired of explaining.

Anyway, I'd like to say that this manga is a good survival manga. It is informative especially to people who know little about survival tips and tactics. It runs you through possible ways of acquiring essential resources needed for basic survival. If you're the type of person who likes learning new things then this manga is great for you. If you're just bored and just want to pass time then this is also good for you as the chapters are easy to grasp and not that lengthy. However, if you want to feel the sense of danger of being in a survival situation, then this manga may not be for you because the character almost has this plot armor, or as the narrator would say, luck, with him.

All in all, I give this manga a 7/10 which I interpret as good!

This review is gonna contain spoilers so heads up


This is a terrible survival manga, the narrator or whatever is just annoying and points out the obvious as well as used as some sort of explanation for when the Mangaka does some really dumb plot armor sh*t like how he accidentally figured out how to make leather more loose and wearable among some other god awful contrived BS just to force some plot along. This isn't fun, exciting, intense or thrilling at all to read like a survival manga should be, there are no stakes involved no risks and fear for the main character because he ... always finds some stupid unbelievable way out of any predicament he is in this dude pretty much killed a bear by accident and tamed a damn owl before that. It's ridiculous.

In short, The narrator over explains everything and seems to think you're blind or stupid and the main character never really works for anything everything just conveniently falls into place and it's just extremely boring. Even when the MC does do something like build a base of operations it just skips forward to when everything is pretty much done and off screens him making tools etc. The least you could do is show us him making it and how hard it was and the process of making etc. but no. It kind of just mentions or shows that he's gonna build something then we skip to when everything is mostly done or is fully complete. it's boring. Wait, this wasn't short.


Sorry for the short review but it's been about a month or more since I last read this and I finally decided to write a review for it since I was bored. I may come back after reading some more to add on to this and I may even go back and re read it to give you a better more detailed reasoning for why I think this is awful but for now i'm gonna leave it at this.

The way the story started, I expected to have something amazing happen in the end but well. Where do I start with this one?

It's good, for the most part. A lot of luck but the author try to stick with survival as much as they can and it's always interesting to see how mc manages to get out of dangerous situations. It got boring sometimes because of how ridiculous certain scenes were but overall entertaining. The problem really comes when other people are introduced. I was fine with the girl because it created a good dynamic between the two and we could see some pretty ... good character development for the both of them. He's always been alone and got used to it and the survival way while she's always been with other people and is weak and needy. Frankly that should have been explored more and the author should have spent more time with them on the island. There was also something to do with the survivors in the other island.

But instead of that we got a weird stuff with the american army and some type of Japanese nationalism, it was just weird. It went from a survival story to something completely crazy and I was just reading to see where it goes. Man was that ending disappointing. It makes absolutely no sense at all. The way everything is set up is so bad I wonder if the author was on drug. It's really that second part that ruined it for me. By removing the survival aspect the story lost its essence. That's why I have mixed feelings about it.

I lost track of this manga long ago but now that I found it again makes me very joyful.

I thought the story would be more sadder and unsuspected as it approached to the end but I guess it wasn't like I expected, but i anyway liked how all ended. I don't thing an ending with Satoru meeting with his family once again wouldn't be any good for the manga to end, i think the mangaka did good on how it ended the manga because of the way it ends relies on the imagination of what the reader want to imagine what it should happen after.

In ... summary the manga doesn't give you the feel of ``what to do next´´ or that empty feeling after finishing something, instead it gives you the vibe of a story that doesn't have an end ''yet''.

ps
don't mind this review, I am just practising the way i write just like an sketch of a drawing before you come the real deal.

Do not eat raw river fish, do not eat raw food in general, salmonella is not good, also the behavior of some of the animals in this manga are straight up BS. Though manga in 2015 tends to have some BS narrating so this is actually within my expectation.
I won't say anything about luck and stuff because for a happy go lucky teenager he's done quite well. He ooze positivity 80% of the time, and it's actually engaging yet feels natural for a boy his age.
About the artstyle, it's 2015 goddamn it, this is actually on the better side, and it fits the ... theme of this story. Not to mention the paneling and the background, which is definitely not an amateur work.
All and all, I give this a 6/10, would be 8 if not for the BS narrating.