Back to MisterK's Profile MisterK's Profile

I've came to this manga years ago and just periodically read few chapters.

Compared to Hitoshi Ashinano's probably most known series, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikko, this tittle is much simpler and have very little world building or characters.

Story follows young adult, Isaki who is capable of flying airplane without proper license.
Piper PA-18 Super Cub, or just "Cub", is owned by middle aged woman Shiro and hers much younger sister, Kajika, often tags along, as she's too small and weak to pilot Cub on her own.

Shiro and Isaki have an agreement that instead of paying any money, he'll do some flying chores and deliveries for plane owner.

Later ... on, another young pilot is introduced: Sayori. She's a hot headed and energetic, as much as Ashino could make such, character.
She pays great respect for Shiro, who apparently is well regarded pilot and character, in the region despite hers laid back, borderline lazy, drunk-aunt attitude.

Problem I have with this story is that even for Ashino, it is barely holding itself. Art is reserved and character design is simplistic. Stylized anatomy is too close to parody with elongated and stretched figures, and very deformed heads and faces - as if the author didn't feel like drawing.

All six volumes were published in the span of six years, and for me, it does feel like story should have had stayed a one shot as it originally was, because how aimless it feels most of the times.

What initially been reserved, stylized or a just choice in most places, later felt like tired or messy obligation to finish the chapter, and eventually entire comic series.

Worst offender though, must be the finale and resolution.
It tried to answer some question, none wanted to get answered. It tried to bond everything together, but ended being cheap or superficial at best. If it wasn't so much out of the blue than perhaps it might be working, but it ended being kind like those exposition-dumps, bringing whole experience to low, disappointing feeling of being cheated.

It is a nice read, specifically if you know Hitoshi Ashino and his other works, or just enjoy laid back and calmer slice of life, but still is just lacking any proper value.

It really should've had been one-shot, and one-shot only.

Moeblob the Anxiety is rather silly series about socially challenged girl, with depersonalization-derealization disorder manifesting at every social event.

Hitori Goto, heroine of the story, suffered a social outcasting trauma due to her mental issues early onset manifesting as inability for decision making and reacting in social situations.
Instead of being properly treat and rehabilitated, girl was left to develop her mental issues into serious, debilitating condition leading to more and more downward spiral resulting in developing grandiose delusions in hers early teens.
Inspired by daytime tv talk-show with some moderately successful band, Goto decided to realize hers delusionalisit dreams by becoming a rockstar.
She borrow guitar from hers ... father and by sheer coincidence, turned out she had dedication and skills which helped her develop certain online notoriety for doing online covers of famous songs (which further pushed her detachment from reality and society).

Shortly after becoming a high schooler, Goto is faced by the reality that hers lack of self worth, social anxiety and delusions won't let her realize hers dream of playing in front of the school.
That's when eighth-grader syndrome kicks-in, and she starts bringing guitar to school, hoping it will be enough of an interesting feature for someone to approach her, and leading to formation of a school rock band. Which in a weird way happens, and the story unravel into further checkmarks of "kid in a band" trope.

Goto, aka titular Bocchi, is catered by deus-ex characters which for unknown reason accept her on a whim, push her into social and personal growth leaving wide gap of slapstick and abstract humor. Which in this case, works really well with all the abstract skits being clay figures, composite segments, crude 3D animations and such, rather popular during current online "content meta".
Though, supporting characters are flat. Each other girl have one obvious quality and one obvious flaw and only males in series are spineless father and mean-looking manager for the other band.

Another gripe I have, is how music starts as normal but well composed pop-rock, which quickly evolves into some mad tremolo tap-hammer-on festival not many teen guitarists can really pull off. It falls too close to that Suzumiya Haruhi concert where one android-girl just uploads herself with mad skills of guitar playing because... anime.
Same issue here. Playing simpler music and suddenly jumping into technically complex arrangements is out of place.

Series which does much better personal growth is obviously BECK, and the growth is not 13-15 year old kid becoming prodigal shut-in genius and another one advancing from no skills to on-stage improvisation in months, but normal progression which takes years.
But music is not the scope of Bocchi the rock, it is just background for making same old jokes.

Next thing that really is just in your face and hard to skip is how uneven the animation quality is. Some episodes are just all over the place, and I'm not talking about gags.
Smartly injected rotoscopy and 3D animation of concerts, stage playing should work on most people though. But pixelated and blurred photography for most of the backgrounds is just lazy.
And speaking of lazy - beach episode did not fall into "bikini" cringe, but sure took a nose dive during festival and maid-cafe part.

Background music was ok and lofi, chiptune-like theme of Bocchi was actually nice. Band songs though were bland, characterless, and too much focused on merch-sales rather than "indie band/livehouse" vibe one would be expecting.
Voice acting is another proper part. Goto was well acted and maybe older sister-manager felt really miscast.

Personally I just loved those chibi animations during end credits. Just really sad, how OP and ED songs were just safe and pretty weak in general.


All in all, this series was enjoyable for what it was, but coming from memes and general praises, it didn't leave strong impact.
Not something I'd recommend to anyone, except people enjoying CGDCT to be honest.

Sappy story, with extra bestiality.
This film is a reminder that some ideas or projects are just doomed because how bad they are.

Story follows some average girl who starts sleeping with super cool and edgy guy, who turns out to be an reverse werewolf. Wolfmanwere?

There are few bits, enjoyable moments, like that one where ex-student, now bestiality enjoyer mother moves out into sticks and lives a "simpler, closer to nature" life, with her bastard mutant children. But that's it.

Except one deus ex scene, to trigger mentioned above change of scenery, film is predictable and boring.
Story is simple, and boy oh boy, does someone had hots ... to put some doggy x student girl action, am I right? I am.
Also finale build up is so obvious and poorly delivered, I had to pause for a moment to rethink why should I keep on living, when I waste my life watching such crap movies.

Music is forgettable just like voice acting. Backgrounds are best part of this whole film, chara design fits my preferences but is obvious cost-wise pick and doesn't fit story that well. Plot holes are large and everything else is just barely working together. Very so-so.

Final verdict:
vaush/10 (but with dogs, instead of horses)

Spotted flower.

Or rather: waisted premise.

It started as a weird spin-off or an alternative take on archetypes from Genshiken, but all went south for no reason really.
Last time I was this disappointed about pointless turnarounds and shockers, was when I did watch the Disney's Star Wars trilogy.
But from the top.

Me, like probably most people here, looked at this series because of the author's previous works, the "Genshikens". Those two series were long serializations about students spending their free time at the uni manga and anime club. Something like Big Bang Theory, but funny and sans cringe.

So "Spotted flower" takes archetypes from that series, looks and traits, ... mix it up, and leaves the reader with pregnant wife and hers husband, who likes to rub out to some loli and shota porno games. Like any normal Japanese man would, right?
Wife is progressively getting more into her pregnancy, and because of that, and how actually many men feel, she wants sex and her husband is reluctant.
Funny shenanigans happen, comedy, slapstick, slice of life and some dirty adult jokes as well. All is fine.

This manga started before Genshiken Nidaime (second Genshiken manga "season") really took off, and surpassed that publication because it was made at slowest pace possibly.
And as the Nidaime started devolving into weird harem-gay tropes for no good reason, same did happen to this series.
It degenerated.

For me personally events in the series, which should be a one shot, or 2-5 chapters at most, are just random.
There's the power-duo of husband with weak character and his wife, who's strong and rather direct, which is then supplemented (to call it lightly) with 10 or so "side characters", who take the lead and derail the narration.
Series goes for a full plate of cheap soap opera plot twists.

I'm wondering if those events are some repressed urges? Or did Shimoku Kio and his editor just spent too much time indoors and forgot how world filled with humans works? Even for a comic series, and I've read some unbelievable junk, events in Spotted flower just don't add up. None is cohere after few chapters here.
Those are, again, just disconnected events, and plot holes are filled with more and more idiosyncratic people, popping every chapter.
Narration is chaotic and story just loses its core to wander aimlessly around some weird fantasies I presume?
It would be all good, if it was connected with buildup, premise or at least some logical hints. But nothing like that was present before hand.
Story just randomly drops the bomb, and the drama ensues - just like in Nidaime? No. Just like if you were reading a book about carrots, and in fourth chapter there would be only explanation how different diesel engines work, and no more mentions of said carrots.

Because I was following said previous works for very long time, and it was probably the only serialized comic that made me wait at night for the next chapter to be released, this off-brand "Genshiken" is tarnishing the good memories I had of the adventures of the otaku club members. Author unintentionally made a stinker, and I have so little words to stress this fact until I go into excessive swearing to express my anger.
It's that bad.


After reading what is available as of May 2024, there's just this one question: why?


If you are also someone who knows Shimoku Kio because of Genshiken - just stay away from this. If "Spotted flower" is your first read from this author, just know, it's probably his worst piece to date.

DISAPPOINTED!!/10

Great start and even greater left down.

After rather long break from anime, I came back to this series and was pleasantly surprised.
Initial premise, mood, design, feel of the series was good, despite mediocre opening and very bad ending songs, which became premonition of what this series would become.

While story was still fresh, and little details were present about titular character - Freien, a thousand or so, years old elf who is lazy but talented as a magician - story was good. It kept bouncing between collage of memories and current events.
Despite indifferent, almost unpleasant or passive-aggressive nature of Freiern, the more of her backstory ... was unveiled, the more this character became somewhat close.
And then it started going downhill.

Cliche, tired tropes, and eventually, more and more younger-lo0oking girls started to pop-up.
Frieren turned out to be god-like magician with One-punch man level of unrecognition, by most, of hers true powers.
Events began dragging worse than most uninspired side-quests in ancient RPG game.
Basically, series got boring.

Side characters are the same - purple mage girl is cold, antisocial idiot who can't read relationship or human face-to-face ques, besides polite, passive aggressive formalities. And redhead boy, who has no spine whatsoever, is also un-killable, godlike warrior trained by Freieren's former party member (just like purple girl btw).

So instead of slow paced, slice of life series, this cartoon drifted into action-comedy with scenic, long, dragging scenery and landscape shots, some action, some memories, some boring background characters, some more old memories of events which would become deus-ex machina to push forward very formulaic format of the episodes.

Maybe my fault was expecting it to be something closer to Aria or YKK, while focusing on the overall concept of how "eternal" character like Tolkien-like, long living elves are lonely because of their lack of concept of time and mortality of other races.
Or might it be that this adaptation just lied about being something else in the hook, first 3-4 episodes and then drifting into mediocre fantasy adventure animation lacking adventure?

Well, that said, I feel lied to.
Last time I've seen this level of "accidental" trolling was when I believed one weird guy and watched Haruhi Suzumiya season 2.

Anyways - I have my guesses about elf loli and "hero" after-death relationships, I'm tired of people shipping purple and red teens together, or even worse - Freieren and monk elf... Uh.

My opinion is a hot take because you people can't handle the truth. If a series is just a bit, initially, better than average product, you fall into trap of judging it highly.
Funeral March of Freiren is not bad, but the longer it goes, the weaker it gets. It lies, and have horrible openings and endings, and those, obviously, are the most important aspect of every cartoon (that's a joke).

First 4 episodes are 9/10
Later you can remove 0.25 point per 10 minutes of the show - I gave it 4/10 because it's not bad and had just a little amount of cheaper and quality moments. But story, despite initial quirk, is house of cards build without said cards. It's an illusion.

Final score: overhyped/10

I've started reading TGWOK back when it was still going.
Revisiting it decade later was a mistake.
You can't enter same river twice, and you can't enjoy bad series when older.
As a kid, it was a silly time filler, and my taste in Japanese comic books was really bad apparently.

The story is that Keima, a young sociopath impassive in common life, just wanting to play his simpleton dating sims, bumps into Elsie - a bottom dreg demon from hell who's mentally challenged.
"Hilarity ensues" as the unconventional duo deals with shenanigans, dating "real women" (other teenage girls), and it just drags for ages instead of ending in a ... maybe 2 volumes as it should.

Art is is acceptable. Characters are not. Gags are gagging with how boring and formulaic they are.

It's a product of its times, back when harems were still "hot", so not worth reading if it isn't 2010s.

One of those series that aren't really bad, but neither are good.

Izou is a high schooler and is facing his fate of dealing with medieval courtesan who cursed his great-great-grandfather and now returned as a demon to fulfill her unrequired love.
In short, it's like Urusei Yatsura but with ghosts and demons instead of aliens.

Art is heavily stylized but also chaotic. Tiring to read.
Story done a million times which is generic slapstick/ecchi/action/romance/whatever.
Characters are one dimensional, flat, and changing on a whim to allow joke or "drama action" to happen.

Felt a lot like an attempt to make series which could get a cartoon adaptation. Soulless.
...
Not the worst, but feels stale.

Where do I even begin?

Whole premise is that one horny kid wants to sleep with another girl who's allegedly is selling herself out.
And after that series go full discord mod/redditor admin mode, and it just gets worse with every few pages.

Art is average with better or worse moments, but it gets actually almost all right trough few later volumes I've regretfully checked.

Story, again, is just horny kids doing intercourse/petting, and the "hilarity" following that. Characters are one dimensional without any positive traits - everyone is scum or degenerate, just like everyone involved in publishing this trash.

If this was a series about adults, sure. There are ... things like Henzemi, but it's about 13-16 year old children which someone invented, someone else read and agreed on to pushing forward publishing, so more people would read it.
I mean, come on? It's not even subtle - later on there's literally a scene where a kid is proceeding into intercourse with older, sadist girl, and ends up with his own cum covering himself. And it even gets worse later on.

It is just pedo porn, and there's no excuse or walkaround about it.

Disgusting trash, author and everyone involved should be locked up.

With the advent of an anime coming for the series, I finally mustered my self hate, and finished this comic series.

This review dances around major plotline events, but doesn't contain major spoilers. None the less, I mark it as one with spoilers.

I'm not a huge fan of Asano Inio, but would lie saying I did not enjoy "Goodnight, Punpun" and especially "Solanin".
Coming to "DeDeDe" I was expecting either deep dive, psychological exploitation, emotions or just captivating story, and was met with product, which I believe, is impossible to experience as not only non-native, but not as an experienced citizen of Tokyo.

In this work Inio welcomes ... the reader with a promise of supernatural, coming of age story. But that's just a wrapping.
In reality story is dealing with author's urge to make something hyper-realistic, ugly, strong, while it is poorly made comedy with romantic and action elements.

Whole premise of two highschool girls being friends, going trough earliest stages of adulthood in a world, where there's a huge UFO hovering over the capital city of Japan is a big lie.
Of course, as a seasoned author, it's not just some unexplained deus ex, narration pushover. Mentioned UFO mothership combines elements from films like "District 9", "Independence Day" but also the 9/11 events, making people to deal with the trauma of losing their loved ones in an unpredictable tragedy, but for the most parts, it is just a catalyst for general dissatisfaction, government critique, conspiracy theories and such.
If it all did come and unravel some deep questions and answers for the reader, it would be great piece, but in the case of "Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction" author tried to reach the heights of Hideaki Anno's Shinseiki Evangelion, but it ended more like "and it was all a dream, and they lived happily ever after" kind of climax.

Biggest gripes are twofold for me.
First, being that on the photorealistic backgrounds there are cartoonish-comedic characters with more and more deformed heads.
It worked in "Punpun", it was bad decision in "DeDeDe" because none of the characters seemed serious, even when dealing with some... serious decision making or events. And even worse, those events mostly turned out to be pointless drama anyways, making each additional one just being a reason to roll eyes and take a break from reading rather than emotional or shocking experience for a reader.
Second is that beside main narration and storyline, there's complementary "Doraemon" parody, and further the story, the border between those got more blurry, switching from realistic with cartoon characters comic book, to same but looking like children's cartoons.
For me it was off putting. Bulgakov pulled it amazingly in "Master and Margaret", and ever since so many, especially Japanese manga authors, are trying the same with at best, tolerable results.
Anyway, reader is following the events of childhood friends, weird and most likely mentally challenged Ouran and her bestie: Kadode, who really got her eyes on a teacher, and thank god it ends at it like that.

Ouran is very close to being NEET gamer trash, but that role was filled by her creepy brother. Kadode is just weird because her mother is mentally ill and her father was workaholic, and she seems to not give much to it.

At this point I really am regretting I wanted to make some "New Yorker" grade review, but will try my best without delving into spoilers.

So at first, girls are teens, than young adults. They go to an university, met other people, fall in love, get jobs, party, drink, the works.
Supporting characters are introduced, and author sure did think about some more exposition and backstories, but editor probably hinted that the series would take another 30 years to finish with how sluggish, meandering and lost the narration is in this series.

So for good 60 chapters there's some slice of life, comedy, exposition how advanced aliens with great, doraemon-grade tech are actually powerless and defenseless against brute humans.

Now, and this was the moment I flipped my table, jumped out the window and howled like elk with broken leg, time travel concept is introduced.
During these events, everything reader was forced to go trough, goes into bin. Vsauce Jake Chudnow's - "Moon Men" music chimes in, and it goes: but if I told you that all of what just happened, is not real? Or rather, could not be real... for Ouran! What if Kadode could go full ret... Madoka on her, and selfishly try to protect her, by... sacrificing self, because Ouran did the same earlier, or rather, in paralel reality, which actually, is the REAL real reality... ?!

And at this moment I knew, author went so far into his head, that made a full circle, and forgot he had an idea, making previous hundreds of pages pointless masturbation of how detailed backgrounds could be and how little actual substance a story could have.

Also: in this story Trump also was a tool for foreign nation. What a comedy. And American weebs.
Haha. What fun.

In the end it all felt like a very elaborate critique of Japanese society, bound by strict rules, expectations, social ladder, and so on... Which could be done with finesse and not with cornflakes made out of concrete and asbestos, dipped in sewage water.
This is the reason I think non-natives will not really get it, because, a social critique of a society I am not a part of, and I am aware how flawed is in the first place, doesn't get me.

Comic book narration is messy. Art is both overdone and undercooked. Parallel narration is tiring. Tone of jokes doesn't resonate, events don't intrigue, drama doesn't grip and mentioned finale is weak attempt at mentioned "Evangelion" or perhaps even "Akira".
I'm not a smart reader who'll enjoy "Ulysses". I'm also not someone who'll read "Demon Slayer" or "One Piece" for 400 chapters with glee. But this manga somewhat insults me on both levels: pretending to be intellectually stimulating while throwing cheap gags and jokes, and trying to fix poor storyline with quirky events and "action", without being quirky nor having action events beyond some pointless gore and disrespect for series built around it, like "I am a HERO" for example.

If I could go back to a parallel universe, and prevent myself from reading this series, I would do it as many times I could.
But I can't, that weak fantasy and poor narration. And so is "DeDeDe".
A tiring, mostly boring story which when almost at the end decided to go 270 degrees on the spiral-axis, trying to be smart, and being just annoying and flat.
I don't believe it I am going to write this, but seriously, whatever author tried to do here, Madoka did better, and I hate Madoka with a passion.

TL;DR
"Hey and welcome to Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction, where everything's made up, and the storyline don't matter! Yup! The storyline here is like cancer caution warnings on the pack of smokes - no one cares, not even the smokes makers!"

Basically, go read "Solanin" from Inio, or if you like space aliens and gag comedy, just read "Urusei Yatsura".

Boy oh boy, do I like some campy romance? Yes I do!

Tomo is a girl! is light hearted, simple and comedic romance high school story.
Whole story and gag source is that titular girl is brutish, karate tomboy, and her love interest, Jun, a childhood neighbor, is also thick, sporty, karate bloke. And they know each other since childhood.

Supporting characters are Tomo's best friend, a machiavellian sociopath flat goth-loli-like Gundou, cute airhead, but actually cunning emotionally closed imported blondie bimbo Carol, her love interest and cousin (sweethomealabama.mp3) Kousuke, who is girlish, blonde weakling, and Tatsumi - a happy-go-lucky pushover to fill the gaps, and is hinted ... viewers should ship him and Gundou.

Rest of characters are: two basic bitc... girls, some hoodlums, and carbon copy mothers of main cast, plus young, less feisty Heihachii as Tomo's father.

Show starts with Tomo confessing to Jun, and Jun, an average teenage boy, totally thinking a girl confessing to him is a declaration of mutual, ever male bond friendship. You know, the regular and normal interaction of normal teenagers around the world.
Later on hilarity ensues as Gundou plays with socially inadept Tomo, and she is so thick, she takes it as helping, because Tomo is a girl! but also: very bad at reading people.

Like in most high school rom coms, pacing and avoid progression to check all the tropes of the trope list is getting painful. Adding how quality drops between episodes 4 and 12, with a huge bump in some scenes, makes it harder to swallow.
There's beach, clothes shopping and clothes shopping for a total makeover, needles exposition and backstory flashbacks, lots of deus ex and out of character turns of events, just to push the story to redo the sins of filling the show with checklist items and fillers, and again.
If it were not 13 episode series, it would suffer a lot, but as a reasonably short series, few things can be looked over. It does drag a bit in the finally though.
The worst part is pointless drama at the finale.
It does not serve a purpose, there was no build up, and there is no reward.

Strongest part of the series is voice work of Rie Takahashi as Tomo.
Personally, her screaming is on par with Hina Kino as Honda Hanako from Asobi Asobase, and there were few scenes I kept on rewinding to just listen to that beautiful, husky yelling in character.
Other voice cast is good to proper. They overdid a bit Carol and her mother, I understand it was conscious decision to push the trope and exploit it, but it wasn't over the top, and not really parodic. Just bit too much and not in a fun way.

Weakest parts were music, very safe and sounding like it was taken from dozen other shows, and quality of animation.
Troughtough the series Jun goes from thin boy to lean or even bulky middle aged man within few scenes, and fashion choices of mostly polo shirts really aged him weirdly. It bothered me a lot.
And not only Jun, but in the finale episode, both him and Tomo looked more like 20-40 year olds in few scenes rather than teens.
It was uncanny and certainly, made the finale episode less rewarding.

Background art was good but few shots were overused, most likely due to budget cuts.

TL;DR:
Tomo is a girl! surely is light hearted and silly show, many probably know trough "rawr X3 uwu" voice over the manga panels meme. But in the end, it is flawed production. Problems and resolutions characters are experiencing makes this series a bit retro, and if not for gaming handheld and wireless ps controllers, one could tell me that action took place in late 80s or earliest 90s and I would not have a reason to not believe them.
It is enjoyable show to a degree, but like I said, you need to just be very ok with how unoriginal and tired the genre is overall.
Was this to be your first romcom show ever, I would rather advise to watch something else, but not sure what actually since too many shows are just pretty much same these days...

I enjoyed it, but it is 5+/10 show. It's not mediocre, so a bit stretched 6/10 because Tomo's voice is perfection (and they didn't turn her into brut klutz, just slightly thick-ish idiot). Still, it feels like a bit of a stretch of a rating.