Back to RESET_iii's Profile RESET_iii's Profile

One of the all-time "greats" every otaku lauds, I personally never understood why it kept coming up in discussions, that is until I watched it. After that I immediately understood why it is considered one of the greatest in the medium. A gripping story, likeable and relatable characters, and top this all off with some of your typical anime stereotyping (or even satirization, Itaru was hilarious!) and you have the recipe for one of the most amazing anime I have ever watched, Steins;Gate.

The best part about this anime is, honestly, all of it. There is not one aspect of it that trumps above the rest ... and becomes a singular reason of watching the show, instead every component of the show, be it the plot, worldbuilding, characters, all build off of each other and prop each other up, making a show that excels in every category. An amazing show for any set of preferences.

Words cannot express how good this anime is. If one is reading this, stop reading this and start watching the anime immediately.

"Our Precious Conversations" knows what it wants to be, a romantic, feel-good, shoujo manga about 2 teenagers loving each other. The story does not drag on with the premise (unlike some other feel-good romance manga) and concludes it when it needs to.

The story makes you feel warm, side-characters do not get as much attention as, say, Kaguya-sama, but the story makes it clear it does not want to use the characters more than what they are meant to do. This review might make the manga sound a bit "safe" and "conservative" to which I say, it absolutely is.

Characters are extremely entertaining, if not a bit ... generic. The main girl, Aizawa, is a typical beautiful airhead in a romance shoujo manga and the main guy, Azuma, is a typical foul-mouthed incel protagonist in a shoujo manga. The side cast functions as a way to boost the main pairing by providing them with interactions that function as a deeper look into their characters and how they act.

The weakness to this story is exactly what I said before; the story is nothing new and you can probably find 10 manga with a similar premise by just going into a bookstore.

Our Precious Conversations is a manga that knows exactly what it wants to be, and excels at that. You might have read the story 10 times over without actually ever picking this specific manga up but if feel-good shoujo romcoms are your favorite, then this read will be one of your favorites.

This manga was...something. Definitely something

The premise of the manga is extremely interesting, but due to some fundamental issues it falls short in multiple areas. I believe that in order to be able to criticize something you must also have a reference point that would make your criticism "valid." In other words, I must be able to praise it for what it does right in order to criticize what it does poorly.

Firstly, I think the art is good at what it does, to convey a dark, gritty, and bleak world the art style is drawn strongly. The storyline also holds up together fairly well in the ... early to middle parts of the manga, having a simple enough premise with a relatively simple objective to leave us expecting "how are they going to go about completing it?"

Unfortunately, many issues hold the story back from becoming a potential "gritty shounen" a-la Berserk, etc.. Mainly, is how the story is extremely linear, to the point where even the "surprising moments" of the story feel predictable. The flow goes like this: The main crew needs to complete an objective after a hard-fought battle vs. mutated cockroaches, crew heads to location for the objective, surprise! Cockroaches have holed up an ambush in the millions with new weapons and mutations and our crew now needs to fight more cockroaches against innumerable odds (add in a few character deaths here and there.) This formula works the first few times but quickly loses momentum the more it is used. Characters also feel very one-note and boring, constantly using the "I fight for my friends!" power-up, it also doesn't help that the story also never really uses these characters or uses them in very linear ways (a side character is used either to stall time for the main characters, provide a "clutch comeback" for a fight using their power, or to showcase their powers only to then promptly die instantly.)

I did not mention the later parts of the story (I believe it starts around chapter 140?) in my positives. That is because at that point the story becomes extremely convoluted, and one of the main driving forces of the characters (exterminate the roaches) simply becomes lost in translation in the new threat that the story is trying to hand over to us (this is a very vague spoiler, but the moment a certain character is introduced, the threat instantly warps and becomes cockroach-human eugenics)

Unfortunately, the manga is currently on hiatus so nobody knows how/when the story will end, but as of right now, I think there is not much reason keep caring about it. It has a ridiculous and over-the-top premise but the author writes a serious story with it, resulting in a manga that feels directionless and is only read because of shock value and does not leave a lasting impression.