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This is more or less a review of the original source material but oh well. I dropped this pretty early on as you can see but not because there were many horrible cringe-worthy moments like the ones in Chobits or Kimi No Todoke. I just didn't find the story to be captivating or engaging. It's a pretty simple slice to life which means that a great deal of the enjoyment from reading/watching comes from character interactions as opposed to world-building, combat, or even soliloquies (which works great in NANA). This is where the issues came in, for me at least, because I found all the ... characters (except for Mika) to be mind-numbingly boring. I didn't feel the chemistry between the two leads nor did I find any reasons to justify them having any sort of relationship in the first place. The relationship between the leads felt akin to that of the relationship between Sawako and Kazehaya, albeit much less unrealistic and pandering. I can't really pinpoint what I dislike so much about Skip to Loafer. Maybe it's the lack of plot which causes the story to rely on subpar comedy and lackluster characters (as a mentioned earlier), or maybe it's the presence of my #1 most hated "popular and unrealistic nice boy" trope that (again) feels like it's pandering to an audience that wants to escape into a "my-life-but-better" fantasy. Nothing wrong with this but it'll never be my cup of tea and might not be yours despite the glowing reviews.

Vague-ish Spoilers.. nothing that wouldn't show up in the first volume.

My motivation to start Chobits didn't come from the series's widespread acclamation, it instead came from the sartorially beautiful covers. However, even the modicum of pleasure I experienced while viewing the covers was stripped away due to the achromatic lens we view the actual contents of the manga through. Of course that's a given, but still, I felt the need to give the manga SOME praise before ripping into it.

Now getting into the actual story, right off the bat we're introduced to the idea of a persocom, basically a computer that materializes in the form ... of a VERY young-looking human woman. Our main guy, Hideki, reallyyyy wants one of these things so he can search up.. porn? Anyways, he can't buy one because he's a broke college student, but somehow, he manages to come across a discarded persocom in a nearby dump on his way home from work.

He takes said persocom home and tries to boot her up. Here is where shit gets weird.. the button you have to press to start her up is located somewhere on the exterior of her vagina? So yeah he pretty much molests her. Basically, the only reason the creator made this narrative decision was so that they could get some fanservice in there and not make the main guy seem like a complete asshole because he didn't have a choice you guys, it was the only way!!!!!

After we move on from that messy plot point from earlier, the persocom finally wakes up! By this point, I was already put off by what I had seen so far and was hoping that Chii's grand entrance (while conscious) would be the turning point for Chobits, but it wasn't. Chii bears NO resemblance to a human being. This is to be expected since she's a computer, but still considering that this is a romance manga and the creator has already taken advantage of artistic license on multiple occasions, I was hoping that she'd do more than just say Chii, talk about underwear, and be this nympho-esque figure for Hideki.

I don't even care that she develops a "personality" later on and has something akin to a tragic backstory. She still starts off as this 13-year-old-looking girl with the intelligence of a toddler, and she still ends up learning MOSTLY everything she knows about life, and more importantly, interpersonal relationships from this guy who controls her bodily autonomy more than she does, and claims to have "fallen in love with her at first sight," which was literally just an example of sexual attraction because she doesn't have any fucking substance, but I digress.

To sum it up Chobits is ass.. unless you're a certain type of person, seriously, I felt like I was watching some weirdo's fetish play out on multiple instances. If CLAMP wanted to make a romance with a central theme of "anyone can love" maybe they shouldn't have framed it in this slightly disturbing manner?

I'm going to preface this by saying I LOVE josei... so naturally, I had to read Kyoko Okazaki's Pink, ntm it comes with the tagline, "LOVE + CAPITALISM."

Starting off with some backstory, Pink was originally written in 1989 during the peak of bubble economy Japan. Despite this, it takes a different approach than the one you might be expecting, instead of being head-on with its criticism, what Pink does is take this setup and paint a picture of the way a consumerist society operates. It doesn't tell you how to feel, it just throws shit at you, and in a way we can still pull ... aspects of the narrative and apply them to our current situation even decades later.

Now moving on to Yumi, I actually really enjoyed her character. She doesn't have groundbreaking characterization, (which actually serves this type of a one-shot surprisingly well!) nor does she feel like a one-of-a-kind idiosyncratic protag whose purpose is to excel at being annoyingly cynical, which is sadly a common theme within Josei. Yumi feels like someone you could actually know in real life as opposed to a caricature. But, moving on to another factor I like to look out for!! The way taboo topics are presented within transgressive media!! Now with Pink, although the story is carried out in a comedic way, it never seems to put itself in a light where sensitive issues such as misogyny and suicide are devalued which I greatly appreciate.

SPOILERS???? AFTER THIS MARK

More on the story's light-hearted feel, it's humorous in a way that's refreshingly blunt, and for me personally, the most memorable part of reading Pink was skimming through Okazaki's sardonic commentary (mostly on the characters) that was stuffed into the margins. But aside from all that, plot-wise, Yumi, our protagonist, works late nights as a call girl to feed her pet crocodile (a manifestation of her hunger/desire if you will) who just kind of chills out in her apartment??? She has sex with rude old men, buys things just for the sake of well... buying things, and just explores the simple pleasures of life alongside her sister, and the man her step-mother is having an affair with. Sure, it's messy and complicated.. but it's also so much fun at the same time!! Pink essentially shoves its eccentric nature in your face and leaves you to deal.

So in conclusion, if you can get your hands on Pink I'd definitely say to give it a go!!! :)