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I consider myself someone who has a decently high tolerance for trashy manga, but this one managed to piss me off in just 13 chapters, which is kind of impressive by itself.

It starts off innocuously enough, like another of those stories that focus more on cutesy interactions between the ML and FL to make the reader giddy inside rather than serious character development or complex relationships. And it's all fine, although it's slightly annoying how freaking dense the FL is. But ok, I could overlook that.

However, as soon as they get together, things just fall apart, and this manga becomes a collection of the worst ... possible tropes in shoujo:

- rapey ML who acts like a dog in heat that just can't control himself, making the FL extremely uncomfortable and afraid and BLAMING her for it at first, and the way he talks to her and his leering behaviour like constantly tongue kissing her out of nowhere is just so trashy and creepy. And this is all either portrayed as being sensual or swept under the rug, as if it was just a little mistake and he swears he won't do it anymore and yadda yadda;

- a horrible, bastard of a rival, who seems obssessed with the FL and whose plan of winning her over involves things like stealing her lunch, creeping over her and forcing physical contact, and instigating rumours that she's two-timing her boyfriend with him and making the whole school make a pariah out of her -- and this latter one is not even a misunderstanding or subjective, he outrights admits it;

- misunderstandings galore, about such dumb stuff that could be easily solved if they just talked for a bit, fueled by a meek FL that can't say no to anything and just won't talk to her boyfriend about the creepy guy stealing her lunch and making moves on her because "she doesn't want to trouble him unnecessarily".

- not to say the minor stuff, like the "we can't tell anyone we are dating because of your fangirls" trope. Just..unbearable.

If not for the serious tone this would feel almost like a parody of shoujo. It's a shame when authors start off good but run out of ideas too soon and then just trope their way to the end, and this is the worst way possible you could do this. And from skimming the next few chapters, it seems things just get worse and worse.

Ran-chan might just be my favourite depiction of social anxiety I've seen in anime and manga in the last few years. Unlike in anime like Bocchi and Watamote, her social anxiety isn't just a convenient trope that's constantly played for kicks, and she's not made to be "adorkable" (although she is adorable). She's awkward, yes, and she has trouble speaking to others, but she doesn't froze into a glitched out impressionist painting nor is she constantly plagued by negative thoughts and paranoia for us to laugh at her. She's her own person, or at least she thinks she is: she chose to be like that, ... and it's refreshing and interesting to see her slowly allowing others in her life, and growing out of her desire for solitude. I like her a lot, and for me reading it was worth it just because of her. I'm not saying that those other depictions of social anxiety are bad, but it's just good to see a different approach to it.

Sadly, this is a romance manga and not just a character-driven slice of life story, and everything gets ruined because of the male lead, Kaya. I wish that the "not related by blood" siblings was the most problematic thing about this story.

"Monster" is quite an apt term for this creep, even more than it was in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. If in the latter Haru feels like a "monster" because of a slight disregard for social conventions and immaturity, Kaya feels straight up dangerous. He's forceful and abusive, constantly forcing himself on Ran to prevent her from escaping or forcefully kissing her, stalking her, throwing her things away, trying to prevent her from interacting with others. He acts like a spoiled kid who constantly wishes to be pampered by the girlfriend/mother figure he sees in Ran, only he's a man that's way stronger than her and it all just makes for uncomfortable and weird situations. Not only that, but every time Ran seems to be growing a bit, by accepting herself and others and opening up to them, Kaya comes crashing down and ruin everything because of his narcisism, jealousy and selfishness. The worst thing about it is that the story seemingly try to justify his acts as if they were cute or even "hot", as if he was just a confused guy in love and not an abuser. This feels less like a romance story and more like a thriller sometimes.

I don't think I'll drop this, at least not definitely, but I can't say I'm enjoying reading it as much as I wanted. If only mangaka were bolder enough to use the "third wheel wins" ending more often, then this might come around, but as the story is going, I doubt it will. As it is, this is just getting more painful to read each with each new chapter.

This is a truly deceptive manga.

From the synopsis and first few chapters, you'd think this is going to be an edgy, borderline fetishistic (which isn't all that off the mark) story about a little creep who thinks a little too much about killing his own classmates, and that the story would somehow back that up every chapter. Somrthing like Shounen no Abyss.

Instead, this is just a sweet, run-of-the-mill self-insert romance manga between an edgy guy full of angst and the classroom's muse who eats way too much. The main character's dreams of murder stop being relevant and are barely ever brought up again pretty soon ... into the story, and what we get are just the usual interactions between the two of them. Sometimes the MCs love of gore, true crime and murder comes into play, especially to explain why he's so weird and has no friends (understandably), but it's not as tied into the narrative as the synopsis makes it seem.

Overall just another sweet romance manga that focuses on direct interactions between the main couple, like Kubo-san or SukiMega.

This is your typical melodramatic romance manga where nobody seems to act like human beings, but rather like actors in some larger than life play. Something as commonplace as going to the beach with friends is turned into an absurdly cathartic, life-changing event, with hearty and sobbing speeches about friendship and how much life has changed and how much they've been through in just those few chapters. And everyone is constantly on edge about something or other, and then nothing can be solved in a subtle or simple manner, everything should and will be aggrandised for dramatic effect. People are constantly walking on eggshells, blushing, ... looking away, overthinking. A smile is never just a smile, it's a grand display of happiness. A sad face is never just a sad face, it's a tragedy.

And I get it, that's the appeal, and I'm sure it will ressonate with fans of melodramatic stories. Personally, I don't think there's anything here that sets it apart, except from the art, which is really good. But the story and characters are just fine, and the romance aspect quite weak and dull, and as soon as I put it down I forgot about it completely after a while.

"This series was in part my attempt at seeing how much of that I could destroy — which is why I started off with a romantic comedy trope, just to see how chaotic I could make it from there." – Inio Asano on Oyasumi Punpun. This will be relevant soon.

Anyway, Henshin, or: How People Keep Trying to Find Deep Meanings in Porn

My first contact with Henshin was through those anime pages and groups on Facebook, where people would spend a considerable amount of time posting anime aesthetics, lo-fi hip hop, and displaying a rather unhealthy obssession with ahegao. That last part alone should have made ... me wary enough, but well, what's one more terrible manga to the list?
I should have known better than to fall for the "hentai with a plot" deception, but people kept bringing it enough to catch my attention, so I might as well take a look for myself.

The plot is very simple: a girl changes her appearances as a means to change her life. This one good decision led her to bad decision after another in order to get her into the most deviant and abhorrent sexual situations possible.
...that's it. That's the whole manga. To sum it up, it was the narrative equivalent of abusing/killing off the dog so people would feel sorry for it. It really has nothing going for it other than sheer shock value and emotional manipulation. And it clearly worked, considering how popular it got, but it takes little retrospection to see how bad it is.

Somehow, I've seen this manga being labeled as a "coming of age" countless times — only that, you know, coming of ages usually features growth, introspection and choices made by the main characters. The story wants you to believe it does that, but from the first page to the last, Saki never gets to be anything else than a vapid, empty character only meant for channeling sexual depravity, as if we didn't already have plenty of those around. The only kind of introspection she ever gets until the bitter end is things like "oh no I don't know what I'm doing" or "I loooove sex" (that's not hyperbole, she literally says/thinks that), which tells a lot about the choices her character is ever given: whether her actions are influenced by other people, drugs, or her unnatural craving for sex (always external factors, not once her own resolve), in the end it doesn't really matter: all of them are just excuses for her to get into more sex, and even if she is for a moment shown to be conscious that something's wrong, it doesn't really matter: she does it anyway.

Along the way, in those aforementioned anime pages and discussions, somehow Saki started being called the "female Punpun" (as well comparisons with other characters, like Shinji and even Bojack Horseman for some reason). However, even Inio Asano was conscious enough that a whole story centred around a sad boy being sad all alone in his room wasn't enough to engage people. What made Punpun interesting was his sprawling cast of side characters, that introduced all kinds of points of view and different narratives into the story. Although Goodnight Punpun has its fair share of snob cynicism and Punpun himself ultimately kept his self-destructive and egocentric personality, he was never given a shortage of options and paths to take. Through all his life he was introduced to both evil and good, irresolute and determined people, people that tried to help him and that only made him become worse. It was this diversity that made the story, the universe, and Punpun's character believable, even though it was all still so absurd: nothing was ever only black or white, there were myriads of colours that influenced its characters, and even though the story maintained a cynic and toxic look at reality, it always tried to keep some sense of narrative cohesion. This also reflects on the opinions people have about Punpun: some pity him, claiming he was a victim of odds, some consider him to be the absolute worst.

Henshin, however, does not have that: every single character is depicted as despicable and egotistical, always leading Saki into a even more disgruntled spiral of helplessness even if it meant acting in completely unrealistic ways (like a mother who's so oblivious she immediately believes her husband's claims of being seduced by their own daughter without even considering listening to her side of things), which makes the story completely unbelievable and dumb. Even the one character who shows the least bit of kindness does so as just a way for the plot to spit harsh truths and making Saki even more miserable. It tries too hard to make us care about her by introducing her to gradually more and more screwed up situations, trying to force a sense of shallow pity into the reader, instead of making us care by turning her into an actually believable character or give her the least bit of humanity. It's even sadder to see people deeming her as a "strong" character, when she does nothing but be carried by the plot instead of carrying it, which is not a demonstration of strong character writing, at all.

At first, I thought the art was being purposefully drawn to be as coarse and crude as possible to fit how horrid the whole idea behind the story was, and I've seen some people rise in its defence based on that — only, it wasn't actually doing that. By taking a quick check at the artist's other works, it seems like this is his actual style: somewhat bloated bodies, exaggerated anatomy, and themes such as humiliation and rape (even things like anthropomorphic sex roosters). It also constantly uses the 'ahegao face' (which might explain why it attracts so many edgy teens), so it's hard to defend that those scenes weren't intended for at least some kind of audience to enjoy (namely, Shindol's audience). It simply doesn't add up.

On trying to see how chaotic he could get from the simple premise of self-improvement, the author ended up with nothing but self-deprecating onanism — which seems to be all the rage these days, so it's no wonder it got so popular. People might throw the words 'subversion' and 'deconstruction' around it, but it does nothing of the sort, and attempting to find any kind of deep meaning in Henshin is just a roundabout way to not admit they enjoy a work that has nothing to offer but cheap shock and porn.
In the end, Henshin is just your average hentai doujinshi, only it's not really appealing unless you're into some really screwed up stuff, and it doesn't work as a story of any kind, so I got absolutely nothing out of it rather than disgust and a deep impression of lost time and that the people who revere it as quality story-telling should find better, healthier hobbies.

Frankly, I shouldn't even have that much to say about this and the fact that I do makes me a little queasy: it's a hentai, it's supposed to be mindless and stupid and generally not worthy of any deep analysis. However, the moment people start acting like it has a story to tell it might be judged as such, and the story it tries to tell is complete and utter shit.

Emulating the gratuitously pompous and cheeky style of the eponymous main character, I'll go right out and say that this manga is lame as fuck.

Continuing with said style, to add some vague and vapid criticism so that people will believe I actually have something of value to say and am not just throwing a trite analysis around to sound smart, the main problem with this manga is that it abuses our suspension of disbelief to a point it becomes not only annoying but borderline ludicrous. It's like reading an impression of the literary establishment through the lens of a complete outsider, who never before set ... foot on the endeavour of writing a novel. And, considering this manga commits about every mistake a novel should avoid, that is not surprising.

Its problems start right with its main character. Mind you, she's not only a very capable writer who can very well face up to some of the best of her generation, no: she's this kind of unbelievable, unearthly talent who's incapable of committing a mistake and leaves anyone who reads her words utterly flabbergasted. At the beginning, the editor did point out that her style was rough, but that little fact was just ignored through the story to universal appraisal. Never mind that even the greatest novels of all time all have flaws and are not continuously great, and some didn't even impress critics when they were first published and only found acclaim years later: this 14yo girl has just produced a flawless work. Really, how hard is it to tone down your character to a believable level, especially when writing an artist of a field the author clearly has no experience with?

The manga claims that Hibiki's novel "views on life and death" (whatever that means) and hazy nostalgic feelings are what makes it special, however we are never given any kind of reason to believe there's anything remotely special about the way Hibiki thinks or see the world or about herself, because all she ever does is act like a complete asshole and an overaggressive nutcase who should probably be put into a restraining jacket. It's like the author's impression of how a "true" author should act like came to him while watching a wrestling match. She also claims to read a novel a day like that's supposed to be impressive, which makes me think the author completely missed the point of reading.

The thing is, she's boring. It's no wonder the only reason people around her find her interesting is the same reason they would amuse themselves by watching car crashes videos on the internet. She's basically an on/off switch character with no relevant personality; only the off part is slightly broken since she's either wreaking havoc or being less but not totally not an ass all the time.

The problem with a lot of manga that features artistic talents is that they deem enough to tell rather than show. In this manga, we are constantly told how amazing Hibiki is, but we are never shown any reason to really buy any of that, especially since we are not ever given a word of what she actually wrote (because that certainly would be the final blow to our suspension of disbelief). If anything, all we are shown is that she's unstable and should seek professional help.

The rest of the cast doesn't help either. Rika is the only character who's anything close to interesting or can convince us she's a decent writer, and even then she's just reaching mediocrity. Her novel idea is actually pretty evocative, rather than the dumb and vague "life and death" that we get about Hibiki's. Only the two of them plus the editor have any relevance at all in the story. There's another guy whose whole deal is being a massive creep, but it has been 37 chapters and we still have no idea what relevance he has to the story, and all the others are just there filling up holes.

The art is terrible. Not much to say about it, I think anyone who ever looked at a human being can see that. It's rough but without any style like Jiro Matsumoto's, so it feels accidentally bad. And even then, for some reason, the author thought it a brilliant idea to give every female but Hibiki a cleavage so sumptuous it completely disrupts any attempt at anatomy, especially since he clearly doesn't know how to draw one.

The manga also adheres to the "deal with it, wimp" attitude that wimps themselves are always so fond of, but different from other works that manage to deliver that gut-punch that makes you go hmmm, all it accomplishes is feeling insincere and, at worst, offensive. Seeing a 14yo girl who acts like your usual rebellious teenager who just discovered nihilism going on empty rants teaching adults how to live their lives is hard to digest.

Really, what makes me the most surprised is that this manga actually won an award. I wonder if maybe the judges all caught a cold that day and sent their children in their place because it's hard to imagine this work being actually taken seriously in a competitive environment or by any grown adult.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime — but not really, since writing a fantasy story with an actually weak main character would take some effort, so let's just throw that overpowered blue blob into the usual generic JRPG fantasy world and hope we can get away with it.

Well, they did. After all, that title would be too long even for a light novel. And the isekai formula still works like a charm: you just need to change whatever the main character gets incarnated in next, be it a polar bear, a vending machine, or — oh for fuck's sake — bloody Vladimir Putin ... (just make sure to make them all overpowered self-insert characters, or else...they might start taking you seriously).

So the gist of the thing is, dude dies and gets reincarnated as a demigo...I mean, a slime, in the aforementioned generic fantasy world (which needs no introduction, if you saw one you saw them all). Every obstacle is won over some stupidly overpowered ability the slime was incarnated with for some reason; probably cheat codes. It doesn't last long, though, since a cute blue-haired girl sells more.
At first, it got me excited, since the first episode is pretty irreverent and fun, and I thought I was in for a parody-esque anime in the vein of Konosuba; as the second kicked in, however, it was obvious this would be just your run-of-the-mill isekai with nothing new under the sun. I kept watching to see if they could turn it around, but it doesn't seem it will. It can't decide if it wants to take itself seriously or not, and meanwhile, it bores you to death.

Rimuru's voice got annoying right on episode 2, and he (?) doesn't really have a relevant personality. Everyone else but two characters who receive the flashback treatment on the Dwarf Town (which doesn't really help us care about them) is just fodder for jokes or for Rimuru's slow descent into megalomania.
In episode 6 we finally meet our promised main girl...which proceeds to fall in love at first sight with our dear blob, so I figure we can get her out of the picture as to having any chance of being a decent character.

If you are looking for something that will make you mildly amused at best for a couple of minutes each week, give it a try. It might just be your cup of tea. Otherwise, it's just an utter waste of time and you won't find anything redeemable here. Better dispose of that ever-growing plan to watch list before.