Back to Druser's Profile Druser's Profile

It's easy to see why Insomniacs After School is so acclaimed. Its vision for the way it wants to handle a romance/slice-of-life combo is a familiar-seeming template that never quite seems to work out for most manga, but that this one is capable of executing very well. Coupled with strong environmental art - in particular, the way Ojiro draws rain and water is fantastic - the story is always engaging as it meanders about through the various goings-on of its characters. The main couple could be bland or generic in the hands of a lesser writer, but Ojiro doesn't belittle the reader and handles the ... pair well enough to make it work (much like how Your Lie in April handled a similar situation).

Still, for me there are more points holding it back than I'd like. Compositionally, it tends to be rather static, in a way that I could definitely see working for some people but often ends up feeling too jittery for me. Ojiro's ability to communicate the story through art can be hit or miss - when the manga works, it *really* works (volumes 4 through 6 in particular truly live up to the manga's ideal form), but it sometimes does get muddled and misjudge the shape of text and subtext. Also, the first 3 volumes are relatively weaker, with noticeably more plotting and compositional weirdness, a lack of chemistry between the leads, and a general sense of unclarity about the direction of the story. Thankfully, that improves rapidly afterward, and the series maintains a relatively steady quality from volume 7 onward.

I'm definitely glad I got to experience this manga - it fills a clear niche that a lot of people were looking for (with quality, too) and does a lot of interesting things. I'd like it to be better but I'm still pretty satisfied.

Frankly, this is bad.

Ryouji Hirano's art is better than it was in Bozebeats but still really weak and messy on almost every page (with just a few exceptions). The story blatantly gives away the twist on page 2 and then proceeds to pretend that we don't know until the "reveal" near the end. It's not all bad, as there is a decent amount of character writing and the rest of the pacing is theoretically solid - however, between the extremely jarring mismatch between the information the reader has versus the information Hirano wanted the reader to have, and the painful-to-read art, those positives are strangled ... out of the work. Hirano probably can make something good someday, if he gets a stronger grasp of story flow and most importantly figures out how manga art works, but this ain't it.

With all the anime hype going around, I figured I may as well check this out (I haven't watched the anime). I was quite disappointed.

Paripi Koumei (Ya Boy Kongming) manages to take a reasonably interesting premise and turn it into a bland by-the-numbers story. The character writing in particular stands out as dull and uninspiring - Kongming mainly just does some basic "all according to keikaku" stuff, Eiko is textbook waifu bait (and extraordinarily characterless for several volumes), and everyone else is pretty one-note. The story is decently plotted but nothing especially impressive - it tends to bounce around a bit awkwardly sometimes, but it's ... not a big issue. The artist is not bad but they clearly are not fast enough to handle a weekly serialization. The one thing the story is good at is in making a story that should be a total chore easy enough to read that I was willing to get 7 volumes in, so credit where due I suppose.

Overall a very mediocre 5/10 manga. If you like the premise, I'd say skip this one and just read Shiori Experience instead.

This is a manga with a pretty solid premise, and a lot of moments that are, in isolation, quite well-crafted, but overall kind of fails to develop its story interestingly or create any real weight in the story.

The biggest issue with this manga is the extremely heavy-handed short-term foreshadowing. Without fail, before some big event happens the mangaka will make sure to spend multiple pages beating you over the head with what's coming. As an example, there is one particular double-page spread in chapter 1, clearly written to be the biggest dramatic moment of the chapter (and could have been a great one) that is ... undermined by the fact that instead of a gut-wrenching moment of "whoa, of course this was going to happen, but also wow" it's more like "yeah yeah everyone knows what's going to happen so let's just get it over with and move on with the story". This happens constantly, and really prevents the story from carrying the intended emotional weight.

Artwise, it's pretty good overall - nothing super special, but it has distinctive character art that works pretty well for the intended tone. It kind of devolves as it goes on though, starting out pretty competent but becoming increasingly poor near the end of the manga.

Aside from that, the pacing is good at the beginning but becomes weaker as it goes on. The character writing is fine, but a little shallow - the characters have a tendency to lack anything more than their rough outlines. I could critique the dialogue - there is a strong tendency for child characters to speak like caricatures of worldly adults, almost to the point of parody - but it is also entirely possible that this is a translation artifact, so I will not judge the manga on this basis.

Despite my issues with it, I think the manga was a worthwhile read, because failing in interesting ways is far superior to just being generically dull. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the mangaka, because they are really just a few problems away from being excellent - I am reminded of Yukimura, for whom I rated Planetes a 5/10 as well but loved Vinland Saga.