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Deplorable and morally reprehensible on a myriad of levels, contrived and cliched to boot. Nothing valued is in this manga. Major spoilers ahead, because the level of depravity at hand is impossible to explain when excluding one particular egregious spoiler. The one spoiler that takes a potentially mediocre-to-decent manga, and takes a giant shit all over it. The one giant shit of a spoiler at the center of the galaxy which the rest of this dumpster fire orbits around.

The groundwork of the plot needs to be laid out first to give proper context to said spoiler. Its hard to give an exact summary because of ... all the identity issues this manga has, which we will get into later.
The gist is, its an old-school shoujo romance with badass giant robots, and the fate of the world at stake. Kurusugawa Himeko is at the center of a love triangle, with a yuri lover and a male lover fighting over who gets her. Himeko is also a sacrificial deity. A "sun deity", in particular. Which is contrast to the yuri love interest's "moon deity" status. The sun and moon deities are complimentary opposites/blood sacrifices necessary to enact the world reincarnation ritual. The sacrifices get to choose how the world is cosmically governed after the Earth's rebirth.

The two primary choices here are as follows:
A) A select few Gods will continue to inherit the Earth, and their power will have a much deeper stronghold this next reincarnation.
B) Humanity will inherit the Earth and self-govern without the rulership of Gods.
C (Technically)) Stop any sacrifice from happening all together.
One final crucial detail to note, is that Himeko gets to decide between A and B. The moon deity/yuri love interest represents B, while the male love interest represents A.
Fascinating philosophical dilemma, is it not? So much potential there. And so much at stake! Plus its yuri! And there's badass giant robots! I can't wait to see what thoughtful meaningful message the writers had meticulously planned ou---WRONG.

The spoiler not only negates any meaning that could have possibly been had here, it CORRUPTS it. How so? The sacrificial method. A "blood" sacrifice. Now, a blood sacrifice is harmless on its own. The Yakuza do it all the time, and its pretty badass when they do it. So then what's the problem? The type of blood. Virginal blood, of a high school aged gir--500 year old infinitely reincarnated legal demon loli. Very typical of Japan. Plus, might be passionate pure intimacy between two doting girls. But no.
The moon deity rapes Himeko. The sacrificial blood, is not only virginal blood, but is harvested through a sexual assault. And the "why" behind the assault, is the most disgusting reason. The "why" is to "protect Himeko from becoming a blood sacrifice, because she (moon goddess) loves Himeko so much". Which is glorifying rape as an act of grace. And she isn't played off as a villain either. You are meant to root for the yuri couple. So this manga is ENDORSING this point of view. That rape is an act of grace, and a necessary evil.

Not only that, but at the very climax of the story, Himeko has a choice between the two lovers. Again, keep in mind that the two lovers are also indicative of the aforementioned philosophical choices A and B (see paragraph number three). Now, because of the fact of the rape, any choice to be had is negated by the fact that A (the male lover) is the only good option. Because he never harms Himeko, and genuinely cares about her well-being. What a waste, since an unbiased choice would make the climax much more impactful. But oh well. Is what it is. OR SO YOU'D THINK.

Himeko chooses to ally with her RAPIST. Why? Because yuri is the purest form of love or whatever. Then moon goddess proceeds to molest her AGAIN, then attempts to MURDER her. Then even taunts and mocks her over the situation. All "haha I raped you and did attempted murder on you, fucking xD." And yet after ALL that, Himeko STILL decides she's madly in love with moon goddess and goes through with the sacrifice with her, killing the boy who actually loved and cared for her in the process. And its portrayed as this intimate triumphant moment. When in actuality, its a deplorable glorification of a trifecta of the worst sins one can possibly commit (rape, murder, genocide).

We haven't even gotten to how uninspired and all over the place it is. All this review has been so far is JUST the moral bankruptcy. But there's EVEN MORE wrong with it, albeit far more minor. Let's start with its lack of inspiration. Tropes, tropes, tropes galore. The damsel in distress (Himeko/sun goddess), cheesy bullshit love triangles, chosen one bullshit, indestructible Mary Sue bullshit, an entirely unexplained bullshit magic system, power of love/friendship is magic bullshit.
Especially when there's a lack of chemistry between any of the characters to begin with. Not one relationship in this manga that isn't forced. Positive connections, enemies, they're all forced. Soulless husks of characters too. All feeling like plastic dolls who solely exist to drive the plot forward.
Speaking of "plot", this is where the identity issues come into play. This manga has too many concepts, and not nearly enough time to develop any of them because of such a short run time. Leading to a disorganized absolute mess. Is it a shounen mecha war story? A cheesy campy shoujo love story? A hyperviolence tragedy with ecchi elements aimed at young adults? Who the hell knows? Certainly not the authors.
Plus again, back to the blood sacrifice thing. Allegedly, the rape was necessary so that Himeko can no longer be marked for sacrifice. But apparently, that's a crock of shit since she got sacrificed anyway! So that was for fucking nothing except shock value, and getting passed off as deeper than it is. I could list off more plot holes, but that would easily double the length of this review.

Credit where credit is due, the mechs themselves are pretty dope. Dope designs. There are some really cool shots in this manga. Unfortunately the mechs aren't put to good use, as the action scenes are super cramped and confusing. Hard to tell who's who, even if the mech designs are all very distinct from one another. There's also a lot of whiplash between the cheesy shoujo bits and the epic mech bits. Oh, and the space aerial shots are pretty dope too. And its not yuri bait, as there are girls who do in fact kiss at least once. Those are the only positive things I can think to say about this hot piece of garbage.

TL;DR, I cannot recommend this manga to anyone, UNLESS you really adore either mecha or yuri, especially the combination together, and want to see those themes explored regardless of the quality.

The world's gonna end, we're all gonna die. But fret not, the moeblobs are always by your side! Though the void may scream incessant and loud, with friends, there is solace to be found.
Girl's Last Tour is a soliloquy of war, somber depression, but also, the inherent value in the simple beauty of life and other people. These cute rambunctious girls go on silly little adventures together, but its always under the shadow of the harsh reality they live in. The decimated cities. Fighter planes, tanks, and submarines long since overtaken by nature. The humans who once piloted them long forgotten. How these desecration machines ... are so...normal, to them. Hell, they don't bat an eye at atomic bombs. The simple fact that each cutsey "adventure" is evidently a quest for survival. A survival not guaranteed, mind you, especially with their lack of education and guidance by an elder figure. They're in the thick of it. The remnant shreds of humanity's last hurrah, now a distant echo.

Yet, despite it all, they smile. Damned be it all. Damned be the end. Smile, laugh, and play, not just cause they live another day, but because they have each other. And that's the true beauty of the show. That's what makes it iyashikei. They confront the bleak impending end as we know it with a heartfelt smile and belly-filled laughter. Though they may be physically weak, their sheer indomitable love for all the curious and mundane is why they are the two unique survivors of Earth. And everyone can take away this message with them. Even when times are tough, even if you will confront an inescapable end, life always brings quiet little presents that make it worth living. Not just surviving, truly living and prospering, so long as you keep your heart full of a love for life.

The last two episodes are my favorites, because they put this juxtaposition on full display. Episode eleven in particular, has two stand-out moments. One somber, the other bombastic. There are many moments where our main girls are enamored by the sky's many phenomenon. Yet this time, the abyss stares back. Something snaps. A bloody setting sun. A bloody setting sun, looming over a desecrated city. Nothing of value is in this place. The usual crew of childlike wonder bursts into silent streaming tears. They themselves can't comprehend why on a conscious level, yet its evident as the viewer that they fully understand what's going on, truly understand the level of what's been lost. Forever. Even the extraordinarily naive Yuui, understands this much. To the point where it shakes her soul to remain immobile for a while and weep.
And then, we whiplash the tone to her playing with tactical missiles like its Galaga. Laughing uproariously and seeming a pyromaniac for some moments. Such an innocent girl, capable of such acts deep down. Its no accident either. The first fire was, but the sequential are unmistakably preemeditated. And she's capable of such horrors because, though her subconscious knows all, her waking self is purposefully dormant to the realities of war. Treating everything like a game. Makes the punches blow a little softer. Without Chito by her side to snap her back to reality, its very possible she had the capacity to level the whole continent (island? Who knows.), should she persist in her state of childlike denial. Though the interior is very aware, the exterior needs to be purposefully unaware to get through the day. These moments are all so small and subtle, yet they scream so much about the effect war can have on a young person's mind. Yet still, despite the adverse effects, and the utter grotesqueness any human has the capacity of, they push on to experience what beauty life does have.
And for episode twelve's montage. Children, students, new families, schools, performers. And the destruction in their wake. Impending. Inevitable, considering our Touring Girl's are the better part of humanity left. Yet they too, tried to live their best lives. And the girls, who know little about humanity beyond the atrocities they've committed, get to see what truly has been lost. This montage is a pinnacle of cinema. It can't have full impact through words, it needs to be watched through the context of the whole series to have its full impact.

Unfortunately, even a thought piece such as this falls victim to some of the worst aspects of moeshit/CGDCT, so it gets some points deducted for that. For example, the eating. The fucking eating, dude. The moronic baby "mmmnm, mmmn. UUGUU mmmnNNMmm" noises they make. It adds nothing to the overall narrative and overstays its welcome by a longshot. Just in general whenever they make noises like that too, but eating is easily the worst offender.
Additionally, just how ignorant Yuui is sometimes takes away from the immersion sometimes. Particularly whenever she is ignorant about a device pertaining to war. The missiles for example. Even if its one of my favorite scenes, if not for the inconsistency. She survived a war. Survived so well, that she's one of the last two of the entire human race to go. That's quite a feat, not knowing what a missile is. Especially since she's seen it every day at one point of her life.

But these issues are so minor, that the overall rating still remains high nonetheless. I'm excited to see what adventures and philosophical meanderings the mangaka comes up with next.

Onee-yuri lovin' and loli thigh tuggin'! Onee-yuri lovin' and loli thigh tuggin'!

Gotta write more, so here goes. Its a fluffy romantic manga about a sickly inpatient loli allergic to the sun who becomes girlfriends with her intern doctor who's at least 15 years older than her. The loli is suicidal at the prospect of never getting to experience love due to her illness. So the milf intern promises to be both her lover and to find a cure for her illness.

A quick warning for any future readers: make SURE you read PAST chapter 13! There are really 20 chapters, not just the 13. If you ... end at 13, you get a shitty cliffhanger with a petty bitchy unresolved conflict. And if you finish it, then you get a fluffy happy ending, which fits much better with the tone of the rest of the piece.

Disco Elysium meets Psychonauts on a geopolitical scale. Bonus points for the dynamic duo actually going inside each other for once! Er, each other's brains, that is.

Limbo The King (LTK) is an action-packed detective scifi manga about two guys fighting a disease which can only be cured by entering the comatose brains of the afflicted. The main mystery revolves around three questions: what is the true nature of the sleeping disease, how does it spread, and where does it originate from? The answer can only be solved by the small, limited population of people who are capable of diving into people's brains and fighting their ... inner most demons: their memories. Through the eyes of King and his coworker Adam, we get to see these mental worlds unfold, attack, and peacefully collapse once they conquer the disease.

LTK is an exciting read, both for the entertaining dynamic between the MCs as well as how the mystery and scifi elements engage you to try and solve it. It is equally plot/mystery-driven as it is character driven. This is especially evident in the mental worlds of the comatose/diseased patients. Exploration of these worlds is equal parts about the psychology of the patients traumas as it is about the logistics of how brain diving works in the first place.
The dynamic between King and Adam displays this balance as well. They have a fun dynamic which deepens over time, and the main activity which nurtures their dynamic is their investigation/the scientific process behind it. Its evident that the mangaka put a great deal of effort into making sure everything's connected, which I deeply appreciate.

There's some major things holding it back from being a nine though, which I shall detail here. Major spoilers ahead.
The mystery has great pacing in the first two volumes, which starts to fall flat at the very last volume. What made its pacing so great initially is how it slowly built up the elements over several chapters, clearly creating a puzzle for the readers to solve, but never fully answering your burning questions/hypotheses. Well, LTK just throws all that shit out the window in volume three. It got real bad once Adam got into a car accident out of left fucking field, by which point it starts throwing random bullshit twists at you. What was once a carefully constructed mystery, now has new left field elements being introduced and added within panels of each other.
The twist villain is the epitome of this, the most egregious one. He's some random guy who just so happens to be King's childhood BFF who we never see until the last five or so chapters. So this whole mystery has been building up to...some nobody yandere who created the disease just to be a yandere? Fucking really? I could maybe excuse it if he's been there since the beginning. But no. He's just some random fucking guy. It pisses me off.

But I'll give credit where credit is due. While the actual mystery element of the ending was a complete crapshoot, its clear the mangaka was building up to a clear and satisfying unifying theme with this whole story. Life is worth living in a world full of suffering, and without the triubulations of the past, we wouldn't be who we are today. Suffering creates beauty and meaning, even if it hurts. That's a damn good message which hits home for me, and is what keeps the rating floating high overall. It also gives a satisfying conclusion for all the brains which have been dived so far, and to the journey between Adam and King/Rune (although its King's individual journey which is the most impactful). They also did a bait and switch at the end which makes the viewer almost think that King falls for the bluepill, which is the one actually satisfying ending twist once it turns out to be a trick.

Overall, its a fun read! Very engaging characters and mystery, even if it kinda fucks up at the end. I'm interested in seeing the rest of the mangakas future work.

>tfw no qt nato tactical cyber loli gf to kiss and make out with to extend her cyber loli life so she can be my cyber loli wife

why even live

Have to write more, so here goes. The plot is about girls who are sentient millitant weapons stopping an alien miasma from consuming Japan. It places emphasis on the relationship between the loli and her owner/commander. There are some yuri elements to it too. The lolis are lewded, in an especially fucked up way at the start of the manga + some eroguro throughout the plot, but it turns out progressively more wholesome as time goes ... on. Shoujo Yuuki isn't especially deep, but if you want some short bittersweet moe with a goregeous artstyle, I'd say it's well worth a read.

Junji Ito meets Animorphs. And its pretty fucking cool.

I agree with the public fanfare about Dear Anenome being both trope heavy and not that scary. But it's worth a read for the sheer thrill of the artstyle alone. Harkening back to Junji, a lot of his stories rely more on coolness factor rather than creep factor, which is exemplified through each page flip here too. Its unique monster designs and real life biology lessons are also a treat. The animal biology is based on real life biology, so this is a great manga for zoology enthusiasts as well. I'm curious to see where this manga ... goes and will continue to support it as time goes on.

Jagaaaaaan is a strong premise with extremely loosely-bound ends interconnecting said premise. It starts strong, keeps that momentum rolling for a while in its infancy, ends with an absolute bang, but the entirety of its middle is held together by straws and lube.

A lot of lube, since the mangaka does an absolutely godawful job at disguising his thiny veiled fetishes all throughout the work. Robahata, Moroha, and Yadori are all prime examples of this. All three are guilty of turning an otherwise philisophically interesting battle series into dubcon and noncon pornography. Not for the sake of cultrally taboo discussion, or exploration of desire as ... some like to argue, straight up pornography. If the mangaka wanted to take a deeper look into these issues, they wouldn't be made light of and treated as a joke. "Erm atchually, Yadori-san giving a sloppy titjob to a FUB billionare is extremely integral to the plot!" my ass. These scenes feel like they don't even belong to the same story. It's pure masturbation, and jarringly disconnected masturbation at that. That is my number one biggest gripe with this manga. It's why I find it impossible to reccomend to just about anybody. If it weren't for these gripes, Jagaaaaaan would EASILY be a 9/10 read.

That said, the psychological premise behind indiviudal's innermost taboo and selfish desires highly piques my interest. Jagasaki-san sells the premise really well with his desire to shoot and bludgeon anyone who pisses him off. A desire I'm sure most can connect to in some way or another. Almost all of the early monsters have this shared quality about them. They're unique, have intrigue relevant to a real world problem, and all clearly establish the tone and theme of the piece. It's bound to make you uncomfortable. And it's a damn good discomfort, one willing to challenge your moral compass. An addictive introspective discomfort found few and far between throughout media. It's the embodiment of the phrase "art is meant to disturb the comfortable, and comfort the distrubed."

Its artstyle is also one of the most unique I've ever seen in the industry. It's so grotesque, yet impossible not to marvel and stare at. The raw expressions are the most captivating. Even monsters lacking any resemblance to the human visage perfectly capture the ugliest, intense, and inexplicable emotions across the human spectrum. The quality of the monsters themselves are also top notch. Even when the creativity in other areas is lacking, the conceptualization of the monsters are always fresh, even when the metaphors and internal logic behind their abilities start to lag in the later chapters.

And oh boy, do they lag. Hard. The logic, the art, story, characters. Especially the premise. The middle of Jagaaaaaan completely loses sight of what the story set out to accomplish. Jagasaki himself is a crystal clear example of this. Jagasaki before chapter 68 (the general consensus for the series prime, which I wholeheartedly agree with), and Jagasaki not long after are two completely different characters. One is an unapologetic anti-hero who revels in his complete disregard for human life to a...sympathetic moralist who feels pity for his murderous streak? What? Is this even the same manga?

The monsters as well, lose their human qualities, and become more force of nature villains. Villains like Chiharu and Nomen, both literal forces of nature, come to mind. All the monsters who came before have one commonality; they're all perfectly average people you can walk past the street, one's you've met before, perhaps can even see within yourself, but who have all their worst flaws turned up to 11. While Chiharu and Nomen are not people at all. They're Saturday morning cartoon characters with all edge, no point. All the background monsters share this quality as well. The whole DDL arc very clearly showcases this. Also, as their humanity falls apart, the logic behind their powers become total bullshit. Its primarily the powers with lengthy expositions behind them which fall prey to this. Like the whole energy cancelling bullet immunity thing which is a repeat throughout the later villains, which somehow manages to get even more reatarded each time its introduced. And you know what else gets more retarded each time its introduced?

The art. It lost all the soul and charm of the original, as well as its expressiveness. As the character's original intent dies, the spirit in pen and paper dies with them. Go look back for yourself to see how drastically different the character's designs are. It's almost as if they were outsourced and drawn by a whole different mangaka entirely. The monster designs thankfully remain cool though. Especially the very last and final arcs, where the main villains finally get the depth they've been desperately begging for.

Chiharu and Nomen are at their peak here, as they finally have clearly defined roles. Nomen is a complete and utter rejection of desirious human nature, and wants all of humanity to be a placid hivemind clone of him. To "become one". He's like the Third Impact's persona if it was really into vore for some reason. Chiharu serves as Nomen's antithesis by completely embracing all of the ugliest parts of humanity. Nomen is the Shinigami of human nature, while Chiharu is human nature's ultimate lifegiver and defender. Here, their roles as forces of nature make sense as their metaphors are clearly established. Jagasaki also returns to his origins as a bloodlusty asshole who's only motivation is his homicidal streak. These final chapters also end his character arc in an extremely satisfying way through the best girl in the entire series, Belle-chan.

Belle-chan is Jagaaaaaan's saving grace. She's a perfectly average woman. All she want is a quiet, peaceful life, and for her boyfriend to be happy. She showcases sex as an act of pure lovemaking instead of a crude act of violence. She wants Jagasaki for Jagasaki, not for him as Jagaaan. She is all the pure and unapolegetic affections of a woman which give men purpose and strength to live. She is the purity of desire and the antithesis of the notion that all desire is evil. She is the spirit of the innermost human soul. She is best girl, holding the weight of all of Jagaaaaaan's epic highs and lows by her breasts--I mean. Shoudlers.

TL;DR: It's a good yet questionable at times read for anyone who likes cool monsters, psychological elements, and cute girls, but I definitely can't reccomend it to the faint of heart given its sidebacks. But, if you're willing to look past those, it introduces a lot of novel concepts and is well worth the read, especially for its thought-provoking beginning.