Back to HiddenSilentMe's Profile HiddenSilentMe's Profile

I was thinking about Golden Kamuy the other day. I really loved the manga. The plot, the great cast of characters, the history and the artwork! Everything was amazing and it made me wonder what Noda Satoru was up to, since I knew he was working on a new series. That's how I discovered Dogsred. A sports manga about hockey.

As a Canadian, I've grown up around hockey. While I've never been rich enough to actually play it, I've played road hockey and watched the NHL both on TV and at the arena. But a hockey manga? I didn't know if I wanted to read ... it. Even though I grew up with hockey, my feelings towards it has waned throughout the years, to the point that I no longer watch it. I don't think a hockey manga would do anything for me, but Noda hasn't failed me yet so I took a chance and read it.

By chapter 23, I stopped and came here because I'm angry. I hate how much I've been sucked in by another sports manga. I don't really read much sports manga or watch sports anime, but when I do I get sucked in and Dogsred is no different. Actually, no, it's a classic sports manga set up but the characters and the situations we find them in is classic Noda. Chapter 23 was possibly one of the most epic chapters that I've ever read. Not just in a sports manga, but in life. It's that amazing.

And it's only the first day of training. If it's that hardcore now, what is going to happen in the future?

I love this. I'm already hooked and I want more. If you've been wanting a Golden Kamuy fix, try this. If you want a sports manga fix, try this. If you just want to see the epicness of chapter 23, try this!

Just try it, because I've been having a smile on my face since the first chapter and it hasn't gone down yet. So I'm going to go back and catch up to see what happens next.

(non spoiler review)

I want to start off my saying that I really enjoyed Akuma to Love Song in the beginning. Maria was an interesting character that felt different from the regular shoujo heroines. She was someone who spoke out and was blunt and insensitive, but you could tell that she was like this as a means to protect herself. Because deep down, she hated how she was.

It was a compelling to watch her slowly being down her walls and open herself up to the world.

I also liked her rag-tag group of friends, since they were a great bunch who called out Maria's bluntness but ... also provided her a good buffer to help her sort out her feelings and change.

Then....the story fell apart. We learn about why Maria is the way she is and became a soap opera. That doesn't have to be a bad thing. Soap opera are popular for a reason and have always been a staple in shoujo and josei storytelling. But when you have characters behave in ways that betray your expectations then it came be a bad thing.

Instead of growing, it felt like the characters stopped for the sake of the soap operaness of the story. For such a character driven manga, that's a crime. Not only did out female lead become a shell of herself, but the male lead had me actively rooting against him. The second and even the third male leads were miles better than him and it just got boring to read about their struggles. Struggles that could have been solved very easily.

As for Maria's female friends, in the second half of the manga they become non-existent. Instead of Maria changing with the help of her friends (both guys and gals), it became a story of Maria's trauma while three of her guy friends, who all love her, hang around and brood.

Again, there are tons of stories that are like this and some I've liked too, but the story wasn't initially presented that way and changed in a way that hindered the characters instead of making them flourish.

Unfortunately, I ended up dropping this at chapter 71 because I couldn't take it anymore. I did read some comments here about future chapters and I'm glad I stopped before I got to that nonsense. (One reviewer said that the manga made them have Usagi Drop flashbacks and I don't want to feel that way, so it's better for me to drop now before they happens to me too)

I'm bummed, because I liked the story in the beginning and liked all of the characters, but then I just got annoyed.

Gakuen Ouji is something you'd expect from a Shoujo and while it starts off strong, it goes downhill rather quickly and ends in a rushed manner. It's a shame too, because the story did start off with tons of potential.

Story (spoilers here, sorry): The premise....is messed up. An all female high school starts including guys and while you may think there will be some weird hijinks here and there, it ends up much worse. The majority of the women at this elite school a rapists and sexual offenders. The men have to choose between going with the flow and letting the women have their ... way with them or become the boyfriend of another female student and promise your chastity to them. It honestly makes no sense. Truly, it makes no sense. How can a school exist like this? And the teachers don't seem to care when the students are chasing down a male student so they can rape him.

I honestly hate the premise of the story since sexual assault is always a disgusting practice. Anyways, outside of this we meet our two MCs who decide to pretend to be a couple so they can be spared from this. Only the female MC gets bullied throughout the series because of the guys she's monopolized from the rapists.

The second half of the story had the two MCs separated as the FL starts going out with the second ML, but before they she spend time with the third ML. She honestly has more relationship time with them then the actual ML, but whatever. Misunderstandings sperate them and no one is capable of communicating their ferlings in a healthy manner, so they run from each other.

She had better chemistry with the second ML, but she is destined for the first one because that's how it goes. While I understood why the ML liked her, I don't know why the FL liked him. The story doesn't really do a good job showing you that or making you feel like they could be a viable couple. But the series had to end so they end up together even though they spent more time apart.

There is a subplot that has the FL's former bully come back to bully her, but it felt convoluted and dumb. In Shoujo mangas, you'll have the FL get secondary male characters vying for her attention, which happens here, and you'll have the ML get the same thing...only in this manga the guys are decent while the women just want to rape the ML. I almost wish we got a proper secondary FL who made the actual FL jealous so she could realize her feelings, but instead thr ML just gets rapists.

I did mention that the story did start off strong, and it did, because it was about two people coming closer as they pretend to date. The more drama and misunderstanding the story brought forth, the less it made sense.

There's also a plot point of a male student finding our FL with drugs in her making her want to have sex. This leads the male student being questioned by another male student about consent, which is great, but this is also a manga where rape is common place and female students do this to male students all the time with no consequences. It's such a weird side story considering the world the mangaka created here.

Characters: As you can tell I forgot everyone's names despite the fact that I just finished reading this. The FL seems like she's strong, but she's just kind of there and goes with the flow. The ML does shoe some growth, but the rushed ending puts a damper on it. He is the better written character though, which is why the second half falters because he's not shown as much as he was in the first half.

Art: It's fine.

Overall: I've been trying to read more Shoujo stories, because I want to expand my manga horizons. While I'm not the biggest fan of romance, I have come across some Shoujo mangas that have made me fall in love. Unfortunately, Gakuen Ouji isn't one of those stories. There's so much potential here, which is why I feel slighted by what we got. We go from the ML and FL as pretend couple maybe become more in the first half, only to throw it away for the FL and second ML becoming a couple in the second half. They were built up better and had better chemistry, but because the FL and ML have to be together that gets tossed aside at the final chapter. It would make sense if there was more development between the two, but it's not strong enough for me to care about them. Or care why the FL is crying about the ML.

I wanted more but got nothing in the end. I am in the minority though, so if you think you might like the story you should give it a chance. It is short, so you have nothing to lose. I just hope you enjoy it more than I did.

When I first heard about this anime, I was all in. An isekai where you're placed in an Otome game sounds interesting and finding out that our MC is the villainess who has to work hard to not get a doom ending was intriguing.

And for the beginning of the show, I was truly captivated. Not only was the show funny, but a nice change to the other isekai shows that we've all come to expect. It was also due to this show that I started to seek out other villainess stories and for that I'll always be thankful.

Unfortunately, I feel like once the ... show had it's time-skip and Catalina started school, the show kind of fell apart. Each episode had a mini time skip too. There were times when an episode would start and I'd think, "Huh? Did I miss something in the last episode?"

We know that all of the characters love Catalina, but I wish there was more development for the characters to shine as teens. It's strange, but it seemed like all of the characters had more life to them when they were kids.

It's not a bad show, but you could tell that the writers were trying to cover as many major plot points as they could, which ended up causing the show to lose that initial spark that it had.

Sarazanmai is the newest anime from famed director Ikuhara and overall, it was okay. The story is fairly straight forward and while it is linear, it can feel deep depending on how you look at it. It's all about connecting and forging through relationships, even if they end badly or you get hurt. These connections help shape who you are and it's better to confront them then to toss them aside.

Each character goes through their own struggles and hardships when faced with these connections. Kazuki feels like he has no connections and due to the guilt he feels towards his younger brother, he creates ... a new persona just to connect. This is meant to help his little brother, but it's more about Kazuki's victim complex.

Enta is seeing his best friend, Kazuki, slip further and further away from him and this ignites his obsession and fear of abandonment. Toi is similar in that sense, but he is also trying to protect a connection that uses him to do bad things. ps. Enta and Toi are the best characters in the show.

At it's heart, there's a lot of good here. I do like the general idea of the anime and what Ikuhara is trying to create here, but unfortunately everything kind of falls apart here. What started off as a quirky 'monster' of the week type thing soon gets boring. The same song and dance numbers get replayed each time and I just started skipping them. It doesn't help that they served no purpose to the actual story.

At around episode 7 things do pick up and I started to really enjoy the show, but the last episode ruined things for me. All of the stakes that were brought forth vanished and while I don't mind the ending in the grande scheme of things, it felt rushed and incomplete for all of the build up that we got.

So it's fine. It's not the worst anime around and it's not the best.