Back to NinjaMushi's Profile NinjaMushi's Profile

This review mostly concerns the horrific portrayal of reptile care of Himitsu no Reptiles—something deeply important to the purpose of this manga.

For clarity's sake, I got my leopard gecko a week ago—I'm not an authority on reptiles. If you doubt anything I say, feel free to do your own research. However, before purchasing mine I had done dozens of hours of research and I can tell you this much: The mangaka of Himitsu no Reptiles doesn't give damn about proper reptile care or, at the very least, they are extremely uninformed. I don't know if it's just a matter of Japan's practices but, for a ... manga that's dedicated to the love of reptiles, some of the portrayals of reptiles care was horrifically uninformed and near abusive. The degree of foolishness from this manga rivals PetCo, and that is a terrifying thought.

What are some examples? Well, within just the first arc of the story, which focuses on a leopard gecko, there's three HUGE problems.

1) Using sand as a substrate for a leopard gecko will almost certainly kill it due to impaction. I have no idea why someone that doesn't know at least this much is writing a manga about reptiles. Please, if you get a leopard gecko, use reptile carpet, title, or (if you still want loose substrate) eco earth if you must.

2) Keeping it in a cage smaller than a shoe box is terrible. Adults need at least 20 gallon tanks and babies need 10. These are living creatures that will want to explore at least a little. Keeping it boxed up like this may fit the Japanese life style of "smaller is better" but it does not fit the life style of leopard gecko. Also, they need more than one single hide. They need a warm hide, cool hide, and moist hide.

3) Feeding it a reptile powder rather than live insects is just fucking abuse. Often, leopard geckos won't even eat insects until they see them move. Perhaps some will eat a powder (especially if raised on it) but many probably wouldn't. Besides, they need a variety of insects: crickets, mealworms, dubia roachs, etc. are required for a healthy and happy leopard gecko.

These are three critical things the manga gets wrong about leopard gecko care and that is important because the whole point of the manga is reptile care. The mangaka seems more inclined to show how easy it is to have reptiles rather than actually giving good information on how to properly take care of reptiles. If anyone actually applies what they learn from this manga, they will kill their animal out of sheer laziness. I wouldn't care so much if this weren't a manga that has actual ramifications on how people may end up treating their animals. Because it paints reptiles as super easy animals to take care of, a reader might impulse buy a gecko, fail at taking care of it, and ultimate kill it.

This manga blows. Beyond fucking annoying characters, it teaches readers how to lazily take care of reptiles in ways that will result in the animal's poor quality of life or death. I rarely feel this livid about a fictional story, and I'm the type of guy to yell about anything I dislike. This is an insult to people that actually cared enough to do their research and, even worse, a worrisome advertisement of reptile ownership for people that might fail in caring for their reptile.

Let me preface by saying that I am a huge fan of Welcome to the NHK, written by the same author. NHK was a story of human struggle, and not in a fantastical or hyper dramatic way. It was merely about people trying to overcome their inner-demons, life, and anxieties. Why is this important? Because when I had seen he also wrote a story called "Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge," I figured that he had lost his marbles and wrote something completely unlike NHK. While true that it isn't a 1 for 1 copy of NHK, there's a similar spirit inside of NHCE (shortened for the ... rest of the review) that appealed to me in every way.

STORY:

What seemed to be a story about a loser wanting to be a "cool" hero that fought bad guys along side a cute anime girl, ended up being a story of overcoming the darkness in one's own heart, particularly sadness. While the premise isn't anything incredible, the way the story focuses on the parallel between the fight with "the chainsaw man" and the emotional dilemmas of the main characters was nothing short of great. What I like so much about this story is how it's not directly about the chainsaw man, nor the fight against him, it's about an internal fight against depression. This lack of knowing what to do in life, utter loneliness, and a sadness too hard to cope with, is all too familiar. Maybe we don't all fight chainsaw wielding sacks of depression, but most of us struggle to cope with the hardships of life at one point or another. To me, that's what's so great about the story of NHCE.
(8/10)

CHARACTERS:

I'll be honest, the main reason I liked the manga so much was for the themes, not the characters. However! I do like the characters a lot, considering the short amount of time we have with them. What makes them work is not detailed characterization, but rather the relationship behind them. I don't mean to say that they have a particularly deep relationship, but I love how it ties into the themes mentioned earlier. Not only is it about overcoming personal issues, but being there to support the ones you care about. Yousuke doesn't really help in the fights with chainsaw man for quite awhile, what's important is that he cheers on Eri and to protect her if she ever needs it. What seems like a shallow relationship, is actually the bridge between the parallel I mentioned before, the chainsaw man and the internal struggle he represents. These characters, and their relationship, are nothing groundbreaking. Still, I can't help but feel they were written perfectly for the themes that are channeled through them.
(8/10)

ART:

While nothing too impressive, the art still holds up. Within the first few pages, I noticed how similar the art is to the NHK manga, despite being drawn by an unrelated artist. I figure this means the author has a specific taste in art and this falls right in place. Again, it's nothing that will blow your mind, but the main highlight is the humorous expressions. I had to change my profile picture (on Discord) to one of Yousuke's faces just because they cracked me up that much, but that might just be me. Anywho, it get's the job done well enough.
(7/10)

ENJOYMENT:

Honestly, I fell in love with NHCE within the first chapter because it remind me of NHK in a weird way. I didn't know what it was at first, but it slowly became for apparent as I continued reading page after page. It was the heart and core of the manga. It's the idea that, no matter how bad life gets, we can overcome our personal inner demons. Even if we need a little support sometimes, fighting is better than giving up and dying. That's a message I deeply loved in NHK, and NHCE reminded me just how important it is. Perhaps I could complain about the short length, sitting at two volumes, but I felt that everything was said that was needed to be. For that, I enjoyed it a lot.
(9/10)

OVERALL:

What can I say? I think this is an underrated gem that more people should check out, especially if you're a fan of NHK. While not perfect and a little on the short side, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is certainly a great manga.
(8/10)

I'm kinda disheartened by the overall low scores for this otherwise genius masterwork of comedic fiction. Now I do an extent of ignorance towards the sorce material but from the sounds of it, they made the right choice in making Ao Oni the Animation such a classic comedy anime. Along with the likes of Corpse Party, the amount of thoughtful shock value is exceedingly high. Personally, I laugh at every episode with a huge grin on my face.

Many of the characters reminded me of my wonderful friends, so seeing them get brutally murdered by Ao Oni every week is slightly heart wrenching, but nonetheless a ... satisfying time. Every character is distinct, what with their own terrib- I mean beautiful designs and interpersonal traits.

Now, if you can read past my sarcasm, I actually think Ao Oni is an underrated masterpiece of comedy. Hey, I laugh at the characters being dismembered on a regular basis... so it can't be all that bad. Right?