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Dec 4, 2019
This might simultaneously be one of the worst and best attempts at harem ever.
At one point, instead of the usual featureless self-insert, our chick magnet is actually believable as a chick magnet; one can very much see why everything on two legs around him wants to get into the pants of this handsome, smart, suave, strong, reliable, battle-hardened action hero that would literally travel through hell and back for one of his chicks.
On the other hand the harem is ramped up here, and made even less believable than usual — this dude is seriously having sex with all of them in the same room [reluctantly
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of course, as any true harem protagonist]; there is a ridiculous plot device that basically requires him to touch their erogenous zones periodically to alleviate some curse, and all of them are just standing and watching as he reluctantly does them one by one, waiting there turn — the sex scenes basically show all nudity but genitals; indeed the opening sequence is full of nudity with Barby-doll-anatomy.
Apart from that, the plot is actually not bad at all and unlike most harem series it has some interesting male characters, some of which border on flirting with the protagonist but not quite; the action sequences are fairly good and the protagonist looks pretty cool wielding a sword with his parent somehow looking even cooler.
The romance between Basara and Mio is also not that bad; Mio is your typical tundere at first who is quickly won over by Basara's awesome-at-everything, especially being your adopted onii-tyan — to make it even more delicious Mio only refers to him with "onii-tyan" during the sex scenes.
Which brings us back to this clusterfuck harem full of sex scenes; it just distracts so much from what is actually worthwhile about the series; it could have been a good plot-driven romance–action, were it not for the harem and the sex scenes constantly distracting from that; I don't even think the sex scenes are that good; they're super standard sex scenes that don't really have that Masahiro Itosugi je-ne-sais-quoi to them which actually makes them not detract from the plot, probably because he makes characters talk and say interesting things during sex, and the sex is also just far better.
And the harem really detracts from the main Basara–Mio romance; Mio is the one whom everyone is rooting for; the others are just side-interests at best; none of them really have the compelling backstory that Mio has; exemplified the most in one scene where your shipping balls get bluer than the face of an oxygen-deprived smurf when Basara and Mio share a moment and then the rest of the harem just walzes in to ruin the moment and fuck with you.
Maria as "part of the harem" can stay; he's just a troll succubus that would fuck anyone anyway and he's mostly just funny and adding to the fire and watching, but the rest is so obnoxious.
If the rest of the harem were just characters rather than getting in the way of the main romance, if the sex scenes were better or just not there, this could have been fairly good.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 1, 2019
The title hereof is confusing many with the "genderless man"; it seems to be interpreted by many as "a man sans a gender identity" which is a contradictio in terminis. It should be noted that the /Japanese/ term "zyendāresu" is a /fashion/ term; it's a contemporary style of androgynous fashion in Japan.
That out of the way, many expected a series with a title like this to be about gender identities; it is absolutely not and never really mentioned; it's simply about a fashion model and his domestic partner and what their live is about. It seems to draw in fans by explicitly being about the
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fashion world of this new fashion style; and that's largely all it has going for it; there are some interesting social criticisms here and there on the fashion model world and culture in general but there's not a lot else going on except a slice of life series that's not particularly funny.
Very mediocre in my opinion but I saw many readers get really confused over the the title and saying that it was totally not what they expected it to be — so I'm making this review to clarify what one is to expect from this and what the meaning of "genderless" in the title is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 11, 2019
This will contain some spoilers; there is no other way to review this.
This is a very strong break from Locon's usual style that often features lighthearted cute males — cross-dressing or otherwise, and actually quite an emotional story. I'm usually not very big on stories that deal with transgender issues and find them insufferable, but this is a strong exception to me due to how it is dealt with; it's portrayed as a tragœdy like any other.
It starts off as a deceptively normal trap pornography story, but after a while the character's deeper discomforts are revealed, and it also touches upon that which many trap
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stories discard: that traps are often not forever, but only exist as teenagers. It deals with the character's coming to terms that he won't be able to do this forever, his clear discomfort with his penis, and his simple wish that he were born female instead.
But it deals with it in what I feel a far better way than all the identity-ridden literature that often deals with this: it expresses it as a matter of a wish rather than a matter of identity, similar to "I wish I were born rich" or "I wish I were born pretty" — it also has a pretty sad and tragic conclusion for a story so short.
If you — like me — enjoy traps but hate the identity-ridden world that usually comes with transgender-related topics and enjoy a story with a sad ending then this might be for you, because it's an entirely different take on these kinds of issues that is usually shown.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 11, 2019
It's yet another romantic comedy, there are a lot of tropes and clichés to the genre that one might rely on to decide whether one will view it, thus I will mostly focus on listing which common tropes this one fulfills, and which it doesn't.
In a basic nutshell, it's a love development between two archetypes: "tundere" versus "rapey bisyounen" [Don't try this at home; there are legal consequences to both outside of fiction.]; what makes this unusual is that the tundere is the perspective character, which rarely happens, and on top of that, though it is a perspective character, it's not a "self-insert" character —
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as in, the type of character that is purposefully kept bland and lacking any features to facilitate better audience self-insertion. Unlike a lot of romantic comedies, this story lacks a self-insert, and both characters are full of flavor, both very attractive, and both exceptionally skilled at a variety of things.
The major flaw that is very common to romantic stories it suffers from is that there is about zero progression until the end; they share a lot of moments where the rapey bisyounen seems to break the ice of the tundere, only for most of that to be dismissed in the next episode and the tundere being back to "No, I hate you, you're a perverted, sexual harassing alien!", completely ignoring that in the last episode the former came pretty close to being honest with his feelings — until the very end of course when it moves more towards a resolution of their romantic tension.
This is, to me at least, less of a problem than it normally is, because it is legitimately quite funny and endearing, and watchable for the humor and romantic moments alone even if one not be that interested in its "plot", or dismayed by the lack thereof.
Let's first dive into the characters: The titular perspective character is a female, misandrist, violent tundere, who somehow managed to become student council præsident at a formerly all-male school that is still 90% male, who is an absolute draconic tyrant. The catch is of course that he also secretly works at a maid café where he's forced to address the incoming male patronage with "master" and all those clichés, which he's also actually quite good at, contrasting his domineering and misandrist attitude at school; he's also inhumanly physically strong and goot at about everything, but of course loses temper and cool very easily.
Our rapey bisyouen is a male master gamesman who is also physically and intellectually skilled in about anything, who happened to, by accident, find out about the maid café, and became a regular patron thereafter, keeping the præsident's secret all the same. This character is cool and collected, hard to get upset and plays the præsident like a violin and enjoys making him uncomfortable and constantly sexually harasses him. The interesting thing about the animation style is that animation switches between more realistic and more goofy faces, and that for whatever reason the rapey bisyounen is actually a lot cuter and prettier when he puts his goofy face on whilst trolling, in my opinion.
Both characters are at the very apex of the social hierarchy and idolized and coveted by males and females alike. For whatever reason despite the præsident being perceived as an absolute tyrant, especially to males, this still does not seem to stop them from coveting his attention, with about half of them being implied to be masochists.
The interactions between these two are absolutely the highlight of the show; the chemistry between them is amazing as afforded by the fact that neither is a self-insert.
The series also features a lot of cross-dressing. I præviously remarked that the rapey bisyounen actually isn't that good of a bisyounen. It wouldn't be Japan of course, if our female tundere not habitually cross-dress, and actually look far better as a bisyounen than our rapey bisyounen looks. There are also two characters that frequently do male-to-female cross-dressing, one less willing than the other, neither of whom I found particularly interesting in that respect, whereas I usually think cross-dresssers look really good.
My absolute biggest problem is the eventual introduction of a romantic rival, because it's kind of an annoying character that adds little outside of it and has no real chance, but most importantly you just feel so sorry for this character losing, this is one of the few cases where they introduce a losing romantic rival and the pain of loss is actually portrayed rather than glossed over — ordinarily, I would applaud this, but it feels like such a stark contrast from this otherwise fluffy series, and I really felt sorry for him, regardless of how annoying the character is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 5, 2019
This is a very interesting take on the so-called "harem genre" — where normally the protagonist has a large list of suitors that seemingly don't mind sharing, or can all remain friends despite the competition, this a rather gritty take on a more complex reality: the protagonist ever more gets sucked into repeated infidelity and sexual addiction until it consumes him and starts to endanger his reputation and life.
The members of the harem also feel more fleshed out than usual, and have more of a backstory, though it's not exceptionally detailed, they are often given a history and have interesting personality and sex outside of
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the protagonist as well.
True to the harem genre: the protagonist feels relatively bland and lacks agency, though it's far from as extreme as is usual in the harem genre.
The strength of this story apart from the dark, nihilistic characters is that it definitely feels like a clear progression: there is no ship tease that never concludes and there are no filler chapters; every chapter feels like it progresses the plot and that it ends on different dynamics between the characters than whereon it started. It feels like a very coherent, albeit surreal story that has a beginning, a progression, and an end.
The characters are generally unlikeable, but interesting. The protagonist is somewhat meek and first portrayed as being strung alone and unwilling to hurt his childhood friend but later revealed to be far more duplicit: most of the other characters are sexually exploitative of others and generally arseholes, but often in their own way with their own histories.
It features a lot of smut; it's one of those borderline pornographic comics where everything but genitals is generally shown as is common to this author.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 29, 2019
Well, this is certainly interesting and well done "for a Magical Girl show".
Remember when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for seemingly nothing more than "Not being George Bush"? Expectations do color impressions, do they not?
This is seemingly extremely well-received for two reasons: A) it's legitimately quite good. B) it's a magical girl show — those are of course typically the creme de la créme of cow dump.
Misapprehend me not: large parts of it are very good; it has a very interesting plot that has some interesting twists that is complexly interwoven, but also, sadly, some gaping holes: obviously the very præmise that in this
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universe "magical girls" are created by pledging an æternity of servitude in exchange for any, one wish is something that creates a gaping plot-hole — indeed, they usually seem to not use these wishes to solve all problems in existence. One character has the power to stop time, and to travel back in time; that too seems like something that could be used to solve everything, but it isn't used for that, and it is never explained what the limitation of this power might be. The audience is præsented at one point with an explanation as to why all the magical girls must be young females... and I kind of feel it would be better to just not raise and answer the quæstion because the explanation is ridiculous: young females are super emotional; this is required.
The big selling point is also the darkness, the sorrow, and the loss these characters experience; to be sure, there is no plot armor in this series. A nice thing about it is that the series does not try to create symmetry between the five main magical girls like they often do: and is okay with killing off some of them before the end or otherwise admit they aren't all æqually important to the plot.
But all of this is nothing new per se which brings us back to the original issue. If I were to draw parallels; I'd say this is a darker "Burning-Eyed Syana" in some ways, with both a more complex plot but more plot-holes as a consequence. But it follows a very similar præmise where one must make a contract with a crimson lord to become a "Flame Haze" and sacrifice something for something else; both have similar characterizations that the Flame Hazes/Magical Girls often have a dark past, morally complicated personalities, realistic flaws, no plot armor, and often care not about human lives as much as they do about the balance of the universe. The difference is that "Syana" created a new concept of "Flame Haze" instead of "Magical Girl" — a concept generally associated with trashy, cheesy wish-fulfillment.
Also, be warned that after a very grim story: the ending is incredibly cheesy.
The art direction is something else though: the soundtrack can be absolutely haunting and cut-out animation is often used during battle sequences to create a most-surreal, and haunting atmosphære.
And finally: we do have to dive into its subversions of clichés: I think that's a good thing; I think the gimmick of making the heroes "Magical Girls" rather than inventing something entirely new like "Flame Hazes" isn't a bad idea at all and a plus point; I also think Kyubey is an interesting character for being extremely cold and unemotional, but not portrayed as stoic, but very energetic, cute, and upbeat in his speech patterns. But that's not enough to make it a magnum opus; it's good; in some places exceptional, in some places cheesy with plot holes, but simply being good and a magical girl show at the same time makes not something a masterpiece, just because magical girl in general is a genre that is terrible. And this isn't even a true magical girl series; this is a dark, story-driven action series where the action heroes happen to look like magical girls and are called that. Why isn't Syana a "magical girl"? Is he not a young female with magical powers? He's not a "magical girl" for only one reason: he walks around in a black trench-coat rather than a fluffy dress with ribbons; that's really at the end the genre-defining element here.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 18, 2019
This is deliciously cute, rapey, and manages to keep the progression of their relationship going at exactly the right pace, for me.
The setup is that we have a pushover good guy, who was elected class præsident for no other reason than that no one else seemed to want to do it, and a bad guy delinquent that constantly skips class, whom the former is to convince to join class initially. The latter enjoys teasing the former with various sexual requæsts in exchange for joining class and trick him with ambiguous language, yet they of course become very close friends and lovers through all this.
There are
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two main characters in this:
Koguma: short, meek, cute, a pushover, deliciously flat-chested always out to help other, severe self-confidence issues. Starts the story getting constantly tricked and molested by Hino, but of course secretly comes to enjoy being the object of Hino's sexual exploitation and teasing.
Hino: somewhat taller, a self-loathing delinquent with little sense of self-worth, not necessarily out to help others but Hino, very little concern for his future. At first convincing himself that he's merely interested in teasing Hino for shallow entertainment, but later comes to realize how much he cares about him.
The art is nice and delivers what is important about this strip: Koguma being cute and embarrassed over being tricked by Hino once again into being molested, or expecting molestation of some sort. Story-wise, it's mostly slice of life, but it's not a status-quo-ante comic where the reader might feel there is no progression; their relationship constantly progresses to a deeper form of intimacy and confort with one another.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 30, 2019
As of writing this: only 25/33 chapters have been translated, sadly it seems to be impossible to find a translation for the remainder.
It is a smut battle series with a plot; there are a lot of — very good — sex scenes, battles, and it even has a plot. It's also a harem series where the harem isn't inexplicable but actually for a purpose.
The basic plot is that the m.c. has some kind of macgruffin gift from God called "the serpent's eyes" that has several factions warring over the m.c. for its power to make "females" instantly horny. (It is never explained why it seems
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to work on males just as well. )This is handled considerably less terrible than it would sound, and it's believable; for various plot reasons the m.c. ends up having a lot of sex with various other characters that seem to have absolutely no problem sharing the m.c. around.
As in any good harem there are of course a wide variety of characters and archetypes: in order of appearance:
# Makina:
A female teenager and classmate of the m.c. and quintessential "kuudere" type that is incredibly stoic and to the point whom the m.c. has had a crush on for a long time — he hasn't a lot of character traits despite being stoic.
# Lucia:
A male, teenage devil and by far the cutest harem-member and my favorite, very playful brat with boundless joie de vivre all the same who showers the m.c. with enthusiastic affection. The character has some elements of being a trap and a shota in how girlish and bratishly-youthful he looks, but he's still clearly a teenager and male: being male he's also deliciously flat chested, of course.
# Enzyu:
A female, teenage Angel tasked to protected the m.c. — in many ways this character is an older — and sadly less flat — version of Syana from Burning-Eyed Syana and looks very similar complete with a flame-sword and crimson hair. A very tundere-like character that has a hatred for humans and has a hard time admitting his liking to the m.c.
# Mika:
A female 25-ish "mature woman" type with a very buxom physique that also happens to be Enzyu's direct superior, also an Angel in the business of protecting the m.c. that makes frequent advances onto the m.c. and has no problem using his sexuality. This is also the only character with a darker skin complexion than all the others having a typical design of darker skin with white hair.
# <name redacted for spoilers>:
The m.c.'s teacher, similar "older female" type to Mika but more so the "sexy librarian"-type, very strict with glasses and black hair to complete the fetish, even throws in a lot of random German to make the character appear even more strict.
# Rapha:
An older male angel associated with Enzyu and Mika in some way. The "bisyounen"-type that acts very calm and collected, has very refined mannerisms and an air of mystique to him.
So it's this strange hybrid between a smut series and an action series? So is either any good?
The smut:
It's very well done; most of it, as is customary for the genre, is very rapey with various characters needing to be rather forcefully be "put in the mood", but end up enjoying it regardless. The main character of course frequently has sex against his initial protests but also participates in similar rape-with-favorable-outcomes of many other characters.
The action:
It's also well done; the fight scenes are easy to understand and don't look like total chaos and the camera angles are all well done.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 27, 2019
Firstly, this is a daily-published strip: one page of usually four panels per day; thence the huge number of chapters; be not put off by that too much.
I will say that it started off not as great as it became, but it progressively became better. It started as a typical trap love-story: character meets other character; mistakes other character's sex; other character casually reveals actual sex, and they get closer together.
The story quickly gets more political however: the author originally wanted to call the story "Freedom" — in English — but the publisher recommended against this. At first, I was not too impressed with the
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supposed "freedom message" — what is there to be found in "freedom from gender roles" be all thereof merely males trying their hardest to be indistinguishable from female social expectations, wearing female clothes and taking effort to adopt female social mannerisms? That's not freedom; that's conformance yet again — however, in the end the strip did put my concerns to rest as that's the twist. Yuuki starts out basically being indistinguishable from "female" but it's eventually revealed that Yuuki isn't actually trying to act and sound female, and that apart from the clothes that's just how he naturally behaves, and he's an otokonoko Wunderkind that needs not in any way alter his mannerisms or voice — eventually, Yuuki appears more and more in male coded-clothing and anything in between as well and just dresses however he pleases.
Yuuki's backstory in flashbacks and his relationship with his grandparent is also very moving; I also like that the strip doesn't make it all about gender, but also highlights the parallels with Yuuki being pressured to dye his natural blond hair black, to conform more to Japanese expectations.
There are also many other relationships apart from the Yuuki–Mayu relationship that are given prominence and development, and many other characters do find more of their freedom throughout the story and learn to cast aside various expectations they placed upon themselves for no good reason.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 21, 2019
Something with a præmise this outrageous deserves to be examined at the least, I guess.
This is a romantic comedy between a lizard-man and an ordinary human: the set-up is that the latter some-how managed to negotiate an arrangement to collect the molt of the former who must shed his skin every month or so: we're thrown in in medias res with little explanation as to why these lizard-men exist and how this arrangement came to be but their diverging biology from ordinary humans is explained gradually: they just exist in this world and the reader has to accept that: later on some flashbacks are provided
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that explain how this situation came to be.
We have two main characters:
Ryuugasaki is our female, teenage lizard-man with a quirky biology: he can scale walls with his gecko-like hands and feet; he sometimes has a tail, and sometimes not; has some interesting eyes; and last-but-not-least, needs to shed his skin every month or so much to the fascination of his love interest, Yugami — this could of course have been the perfect excuse to go with the finest d.f.c. man has ever known since lizards don't have mammaries, but alas: he has breasts.
Yugami is a male classmate of Ryuugasaki whom the latter has feelings for, that, at least initially, seems to be mostly fascinated by the former's quirky biology and collects the former's molt and uses it to create a statue of him — they of course grow closer together as the story progresses.
The narrative breaks tradition with both characters æqually serving as the perspective: the thoughts and perspectives of both are heard with the same frequency, whereas usually, the perspective of the ordinary character is the only one heard.
Apart from that there isn't really much of a story and a plot outside of its outrageous præmise: a lizard-man has a crush on an ordinary human; the latter collects the former's shed skin to create a live-size statue therewith... that's pretty much it. The chapters are very frequently released but also very short and mostly about nothing at all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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