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Dec 25, 2020
Yakedo Shoujo; where to start? Well, on the optimistic side it had it's moments but those moments aren't necessarily anything to write home about. It's mediocre really, although it doesn't really rub me the right way with it's approach towards suicide.
Story: 5/10
Yakedo Shoujo portrays suicide and depression very crudely. If you're looking for a heavy dose of psychological horror and philosophy; you'll be disappointed with the lack of it. Despite MAL giving it the horror genre, rest assured, there is none of that. In turn, what you really get is a incomprehensible mess of a narrative.
Let's get into the story. In the world of Yakedo
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Shoujo, we see high school life through our protagonist's eyes. From the get go, the exposition sets itself as very depressing. I for one, liked it. A mother who sees nothing in her son but the husband that left, the nihilist that is the MC and the duality of Shiina and Kaname.
Where it falls flat, is the pacing of it all. The pacing on this manga is like reading at light speeds. We jump from Shiina and her friend, to the disjointed family of Kaname in a single chapter. From there, we jump to Kanae's abusive father and rarely leaves time to flesh out some characters. A good example of good pacing is in Kokoro Connect. Each character has his/her trauma and development. In that anime, it makes to sure to adequately dissect a character and give it time to soak itself in.
Everything happens at the same time, and it's all just messy. Maybe it was written this way to simulate reality, but it ends of falling flat as a fruitless attempt to add meaning to a rushed story.
Art: 7/10
I liked the art. It wasn't god-tier art or anything, but it was good. I believe where this manga shines the most is with the art. With conjunction with the characters, the expressions on some of these character's face just seem real. It's as if you can see life in their eyes, and it symbolized alot. It's such a subtle and minor detail that many don't pick up, but truly the eyes on some of these characters have so much emphasis on them I don't know where to begin. Other than the faces, the art is pretty alright.
Characters: 6/10
The bread and butter of the whole manga has got to be the characters. It's fair, to say the least. It's nothing good per se, but it's nothing horrible. The MC, although shockingly plain and forgetful is more than what what meets the eyes. He suffers from his own problems and goes by his own agenda. I'd say he's the most realistic character here. Kaname's flaws are only brought out by others, but from the outside he seems very stoic. For a generic psychological manga, that was much to be expected, but Kaname is a breath of fresh air compared to the other characters who just fall flat. Kaname goes through a moral lapse and we see his stoic character rust and shatter over the course of the story. Kaname's slow development was a great plus for this story.
On the other hand, we have Shiina. She is laughably edgy and her character all revolves around suicide. Her character glorifies suicide but doesn't even put it in a realistic light at all. She ends up feeling 2D and ingenuine. Maybe if her character was simply just fleshed out more, it would've been drastically better. I think I may have to retouch on her character in the future, but I don't think I can understand where the author was going with this. It ended up feeling like a shitty knock-off Hannah Baker, and that is really saying something.
Enjoyment: 1/10
Absolutely pathetic. I couldn't enjoy this manga at all. I came in expecting some heavy psychological hits, deep philosophy but it all came out edgy for the sake of being edgy. You may like the contrast with the serious topics and the vibrant art, or you may like the relationship dynamic between Shiina and Kaname. Whatever it is, I for one didn't like it one bit. I thought that the contrast was nice, but it really didn't tie into my enjoyment. The dynamic between those two characters felt 2D and I thought the story couldn't touch upon suicide well. In every chapter I have always contemplated why I even continue to the next chapter, it was just a extremely distasteful piece of media.
Overall? 4/10. It's alright but I couldn't find myself enjoying it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 1, 2020
This is my first review. I've read a good chunk that has been scanned, and finishing the 11th volume I had to get my feelings out.
To say that I didn't enjoy reading it would make me a liar, but I surely did. It's because, well, I'm a sucker for these kind of tropes Nejimaki Kagyu(NK) uses. Although, here's what I have to say.
1) Story: 3
I won't bore you the nonsense with any summaries, and I'll get right into the pork and beans of the review. The story is very, very messy. I frankly don't know where to start with this one. For one, if you
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really wanted to get right in under NK, you would have to have a understanding knowledge of the world NK is set in. The problem is, you're thrown right under the bus with NO exposition at all. You're given just barely enough to grasp the story, but even then it still doesn't make sense.
There's a few overarching tags the manga falls within, action, comedy, romance, and school life. If you've read a good chunk, you know that school life is a very loose term to describe this manga. To bring up exposition that was never introduced formally; Charaizm is the belief that characters that are stronger than others will excel. It boils down to individuality, strength, and resolve. i.e. natural selection. Why I say school life is a loose term, except the setting is in a school environment is that it doesn't flow like a high school slice of life manga would. It's as if action and romance had a love child, and for the sake of it, was in a school environment that had nothing to do with it. Many readers are confused because of this. Readers get a huge bomb dropped on them, expecting a light hearted school manga, but what they really get is a shonen-esque tournament arc, and we are just expected to go along with it. It's honestly like the author wanted to flesh out the story more than it should've, but really ended up dragging it out and beating it once or twice.
That's just a glimpse of it too. There's alot of asspulls in NK, and sure that may be excused with the "comedy" tag, but NK takes itself too seriously now and then. From here and there, you get light-hearted comedic interactions to then action you'd see in a shonen manga. These types of holes in the plot leave you completely dazed, throwing tropes at you left and right all willy nilly until it all becomes intelligible. Maybe it just be me, but I don't think I'm on that plane of intelligence to grasp NK.
2) Art: 10
The art is the saving grace of this manga. I've haven't read much at all, but out of all I did read, NK has the greatest artwork. It's a very unique style that you can't really describe unless you see it yourself. The greatest part about the art, is the facial expressions, and how they go from 0 to 100 within panels. NK can go from extremely simple, to intricately detailed scenes within the change of mood. Speaking of mood, the art is very much an indicator of mood. Comparing NK's art to the likes of JoJo is a great comparison. In the anime(jojo), whenever the mood changes, the color scheme does too. NK does a terrific job of enforcing mood within it's scene, giving off it's own aura in a way.
3) Characters: 4
The characters are pretty generic. You've got characters from every side of the trope section, to the point where it's not even funny. What's saving the characters tab from being a 2, would be character development. No spoilers of course, but characters do eventually get fleshed out. Although, they're pretty generic character developments, it's still alright. Yet what really breaks the score, is how weak character development can be sometimes. The girls who fall in love with the MC just fall out of interest within the first volume to make room for the plot. It all feels too silly, something you'd see out of fairy tail; where the bad guy makes the transition to good, it happens here too. It's all pretty silly from there out, a character is given their designated trope and that's all they are. It feels plastic and fake, it feels 2D. Yoh, the only outlier to this, is one of the greatest written character NK has got so far. I won't say anything else than that.
4) Enjoyment: 7
It was generally very enjoyable. It was kind of something you turn off your brain and just have fun to, that you laugh at it's ridiculousness. Although NK has it's time where it goes full retard, it is still pretty fun to watch as carnage unfolds. To top, the art is just a great compliment to all that. It's one of those reads that will illicit some sort of audible reaction from you, whether that may be "so bad it's good," or so funny, NK is great at drawing that out. What really killed the enjoyment, is probably knowing that NK has a long history of inactive scans. If you're like me by any chance, you prefer completed stories over ongoing, and NK is a story that's on it's last legs.
5) Overall: 6
To deliver the killing blow, NK has it's highs and it's lows. It's a very flawed story that you keep coming back to. I'd totally recommend NK, but I'm sure it'd be a hit or miss, and because the scans are still ongoing, it may be hard to pickup, and easier to drop. It's similar to a love-hate relationship some may have with another media. I'll end it on a high note, and say that if you are going to read NK then you'll be in for a rollercoaster beginning to end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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