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Similar to Asato Mizu's earlier doujin REC, Danchi Toilet de Machiawase follows a similar format of having a cover/premise that sounds lewd, disturbing and disgusting but ends up wholesome. However while REC takes thing in a major tear jerker direction, this bathroom based manga goes in a more lighthearted/comedic direction with a rather touching outcome.

The premise is simple, a socially awkward girl spends her free time at school in an abandoned men's room at school. Her biggest fear is someone finding her there cause her "life would be over" if someone spotted her. Take a wild guess what happens next?

At 6 chapters there really ... isn't much I can say that wouldn't just outright spoil things. Both characters are enjoyable and likable. The art direction leads to some rather funny visual puns. I don't think Asato Mizu's style is for everyone but I for one love her bait and switch style of comedy, along with her cute art style. If you're a fan of her more famous works like Denki Gai and Aharen-san I'd really recommend this for a quick read.

I gotta say this is one difficult manga to recommend people. Not due to its quality, which I felt was incredible, but the cover turns off the majority of people (for pretty good reason frankly).

The cover though is all part of what makes this amazing. You see it expecting the most disgusting, depraved and horrifying hentai you can think of. The first few pages dig into that notion hard. Without context you don't want to continue cause you're 99% sure you know whats going to happen

Then page 10 hits and it all becomes so much more clear.

I'm amazed how much character and emotion and ... author could get out of such a short story. The majority of the manga has almost no environments and much of what we learn is through dialog alone. Normally that would be a death nail for a manga, but here it is played very well. There are select panels that just hit me hard, be it through a specific piece of dialog or how the character is drawn.

I don't want to spoil a thing because it is best to go in fairly blind.

Read it, then read it all over again. Those first 9 or so horrifying pages end up taking a whole new light once you are aware of the context.

Midori Days is a fairly standard rom-com with a twist that could've been a really solid series. It had all the elements to be something special, but man does it fall flat on it's face hard.

I guess I'll list off some things I enjoyed before I go into what I hated. The art direction is very expressive. Character heavily bounce between their standard look and more cartoony ones fairly regularly and its entertaining to see. The voice acting is also really solid (least when talking about the sub). The dub does have it's merits too, reminding me a lot of Golden Boy. Finally Midori ... (for all the negative stuff I'll have to say about her later) does work well for the gimmick. She is the perfect personality to have in such a silly situation. I find the full frontal nudity to be oddly refreshing for a show that is not very sexual at all (as well as being basically needed for it's gimmick to feel more natural).

Now to best sum up what made me dislike this show: balance.

Most romantic comedies have to balance at least some drama in with their comedy, and Midori days is no different. The problem is the series does it in a borderline rage inducing manner. The biggest victim of this is the character Ayase. We really meet her in the second episode when the male lead (with Midori already stuck to his hand) saves her from what was to be a horrifying situation. Now you would think with something that serious the series would treat her character with some respect and dignity right? Nope, she becomes the punching bag for basically the entire series. Maybe if the series did a better job setting her up as unlikable this could've work out, but instead she is written as a hopelessly in love teenager girl who fails at every turn.

Midori is the next problem: the series gives you basically no reason to root for her. She is cute yes, but why is she the best match for Seiji? Out of every character who falls for him in the series she has the least going for her, she is just a rich girl who (prior to the series) basically stalked him to the point where she had random photos of him laying around her bedroom. Throughout the series she destroys any possibility he could have at the high school life he wants. She doesn't change him for the better either, rather he does that mostly on his own.

I feel like the author had a solid rom-com on their hands but got stuck with a useless gimmick that basically forces the series to end up extremely predictable in the worst way possible. I think watching this just hit me the wrong way because during the first few episodes I really liked where things where going and thought it may shock me, but at time went on I realized how terrible the whole ordeal is.

daily life of 3 high school girls (and one salary-man) shown through nothing but laughs, groans, music and verbal communication. Simple premise indeed, but was I pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

Each of the main cast members show a surprising amount of character throughout the short series. Sure they are all character types we've seen before (the hyperactive ditz, the cute moe type and the straight man) but for such a simple concept I wouldn't expect much outside the box. Watching them go about their day almost feels like you're in a foreign land where you don't speak the same language and can only ... communicate through verbal communication.

The entire execution of the premise reminds me of late 90s video game cut-scenes or even some Pixar short films. They create an experience that differs from one you'd get hearing spoken dialog (or considering this is an anime site, reading subtitles). It sort of boils everything down to the most basic of emotions in a way that would massively overstay its welcome in a full length episode, but hits just the right spot in 3 minutes.

I don't understand at all why this series seems to be so disliked. Did people expect an epic riveting story from twelve 3 minute episodes centered around 3 high school girls with no dialog? Its a very short series so at least give a couple of episodes a shot. If you're into slice of life this would be a nice change of pace from the often dialog heavy genre.

(Contains minor spoilers towards later WataMote Chapters)

The prequal to watamote claims to be from the perspective of Tomoko's best friend Yuu-chan, however the familiar lead quickly takes over. Despite its misleading premise, WataTomo is a rather pleasant look at the often brought up middle school days of our unpopular high school girl.

While the cringe humor and otaku references are still very prevalent in the series, there is one notable difference; the portrayal of Tomoko herself. In the main series shes presented as an inversion to the typical shy character trope in that shes extremely unlikable in her thoughts and to many people (most notably ... her brother and Kotomi). That being said she still comes off as pretty sympathetic, as many of her problems aren't entirely her fault. This manga completely throws the sympathy out the window, as she is just a straight up prick here. While flashbacks in the main series give a good reason why Kotomi doesn't exactly like Tomoko, this series completely drives home how unlikable Tomoko was back in middle school, and boy does it do it well.

Yuuchan is also shown to be not much more than a super innocent girl (borderline to a fault). There is a bit of retcon in her character however. When she was introduced in an early chapter of WataMote Tomoko showed rather little interest in her other than "she was my friend from middle school". You'll quickly notice here that her relationship with Tomoko isn't all that different from her later appearance.

That being said there are a few moments where the two do get along through mutual (rather cringy) shred interests (usually related to Yuu-chan). In fact some of the more interesting chapters are the ones that expand upon events that were shown in flashbacks before (you'll know them if you read the main series). The most interesting part of this series though are chapters that show how the three main characters grew into who they are now. You see the first time Tomoko becoming a shut in, Yuu-chan getting her first taste of the popularity she is implied to have and Kotomi's completely understandable distaste for Tomoko. There are some more dull chapters that just feel like they could've been normal watamote filler chapters (ie Tomoko tries to copy something from anime chapters). These are fine, but if I wanted more of that I would just read the main series

Overall this is a short but enjoyable manga that I recommend to any WataMote fan. It doesn't go over Tomoko's entire time in middle in as much detail as the main series does with high school, but it does provide some rather pleasant character development that fans are sure to appreciate.