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Oct 8, 2024
Is the peak of comedy in praise of a masculinity that is years behind the times?
Ignoring the tendentiousness of my introductory question, I had some expectations with this series, seeing that it is no less than number ELEVEN in the manga charts here (to give you an idea, it is above series like Kingdom, Punpun, Houseki No Kuni, 20th Century Boys and Nana) and also that a couple of acquaintances had recommended it to me. So I said, well, I'm not in the mood for dense and dramatic stuff, and it's 12 chapters long, so if I like it, I'll pick up the manga. Why
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not give it a chance?
You can see that the people I know aren't immune to adoring things that outside the weeb spectrum wouldn't get half as much praise as they do. And mind you, not every seinen has to be a drama about the human existence and suffering, we need stuff that's easy to digest in the art we consume. The point is that my relationship with this series expresses something very obvious: comedy is subjective, and making it is very difficult.
Although I don't think it's fair to detract from that aspect of the series, because in some moments it's the only thing that saves it from being nothingness itself. It generated this strange thing that only Japanese comedy can generate in me: at times there were well-executed jokes that made me laugh out loud and at other times the degrading sex jokes employed made me think that it's not that hard to realize why Japan has had a declining birth rate for years.
I guess if I can sum up the comedy of this show in two words, it would be: bro humor. I don't know if that term exists but I'm going to coin it. In and of itself the fact that they go for hyper masculine rhetoric behind several of the gags presented in this series is not a problem (shit, JoJo knew how to do it very well). But the fact that a large percentage of the ridiculous and excessive debacle that this series handles is entirely between groups of men, excluding a lot of the female characters from the comedy, doesn't do it for me. And if that wasn't enough, let's sexualize the girls without their consent, because that's hilarious without a doubt! It also doesn't help the constant screaming that is this series, and although that's not something that usually bothers me in anime, here there is an excess of testosterone being expelled so intensely that I'm sure my estrogens formed new antibodies to the point that my ovaries were about to pop out of my body, pierce the screen and hit some of the male protagonists.
This gives me the perfect excuse to talk about the characters, because with the null plot that this has, I don't even think it's worth to talk about it. They're not the worst characters I've ever seen, but they lack... something, I don't know, I feel that none of them have a strong enough personality to impose themselves in a strong way in front of the whole sequence of intense situations that happen to them. Neither of them have much depth and in general their way of being is reduced to a specific gag, and if there is conflict, it only matters on a micro level in a certain situation. There are a couple of funny interactions (Azusa believing that Iori is bi for example, or the two muscular boys which in general I found to be nice enough, although except for the hair color they are the same character twice) but not much more than that. The reduction of characters to a specific gag gets particularly awful with Nanaka (because this isn't going to be the peak of Japanese comedy without gratuitous incest!), Iori and Kohei's classmates (I suffered through their segments a lot) and especially between Chisa and Iori's interactions.
Chisa especially is a character that frustrates me, because she's another eminence of female characters being victims of reductionist male writing. Usually she would be the character that stupid girls like me would have to identify with, and I suppose if it were another type of series she would work for me. But the only thing I can conclude about her is that there's no reason for her to surround herself with those people, being that she's constantly exasperated, and that she's was concieved as a character to have a shy girl that even though she CLEARLY doesn't want to be in compromising situations, the story puts her in them anyway because it's hilarious to see girls in sexual scenes, especially if they don't want to do it! Not to mention the fact that she and Iori are cousins and for half of this season there are jokes about them being a couple, sorry people but nothing in the way they interact says “cousins” (how are you going to make comments about your cousin's ass?) even if this is an attempt to appeal to that fetish, they are failing miserably in the process. Something that even struck me about Chisa, is that more than once they use other characters to tell us how she feels. Weird af if you ask me. At least Asuza is cool and Aina has a bit more range in terms of her personality and for some reason the fact that they called her “Hekabo” always made me laugh, I don't know if it's because I imagined her with that bizarre makeup or what the hell.
Considering what I just said, this series made me conclude something interesting about comedy anime set in our world. Even though it takes place in a realistic setting, with characters that you could run into in real life, doing things that the average Japanese person would do, the situations portrayed at times are so absurd that they border on the far-fetched. And as much as you can tell me “it's a comedy, you can not take it so seriously” yes, that's true, but there are limits to how far I can let humor go to modify the ways of human interaction in such an extreme way. Especially if I feel that the characters don't do enough to make the lack of realism employed at least enjoyable to watch (I mean, GOD, WHAT PERSON WITH A MINIMUM OF RESPECT FOR THEMSELVES LETS HIS FRIENDS INTERRUPT A SEXUAL ENCOUNTER AND STILL BE FRIENDS WITH THOSE PEOPLE? not to mention that they claim not to have a partner and then live crying, anyway, I insist, then they wonder why their birth rates are declining).
You can see that the escapist and ludic theme reigns supreme in this anime, even if there's a lot of humiliation and extreme interactions involved, since at the end of the day it's an “ode to youth” and living a dream. In any case what I see here is a fourth-rate wet dream that would probably come from the mind of someone whose only contact with the world and with art is comedy anime, because (although maybe I'm giving people too much credit) I find it hard to think that someone who is not used to anime could conceive of this as “peak comedy”. Maybe I didn't turn my brain off enough and I overestimate too much what I consume, but clearly my brain isn't going to turn off if I watch humor that degrades women!
Maybe I'm asking too much of anime, who knows. Maybe a little more diving would have made this more digestible for me, at least I expected that when it started. Maybe less sexualization would make me a little nicer to what I see, but then again maybe my western brain likes to talk and complain about the things weebs like. If the manga is anything like this, I don't think I'll read it, and its position on the charts will continue to baffle me, though if I decide to leave my dignity behind for a while maybe I'll watch season 2.
Anyway, I think I got a crueler review than I thought, despite my complaints it's not the most offensive or degrading comedy I've seen and if you're better at turning off your brain than I am, there's a chance you'll enjoy it. The animation delivers and despite everything, it's funny at times even for pretentious sourpusses like me. But I think I'm better off watching Nozaki-kun, at least there the gender roles are not so strongly delimited.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 13, 2024
I consumed this because I knew that it was one of the most acclaimed anime's of last decade. I know people who loved this show and in a break of finishing Gintama once and for all I said "Well, this is short, let's see".
I can't say that this doesn't have anything of value, because the story does have something to tell. The arc of a child soldier trying to grasp the nuances of human emotions is honestly well executed and it's the best thing this anime has to offer. Violet it's not only the sole character that gets development, she is the only one who's
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design stood out to me (she is also voiced by Mikasa's seiyuu, that woman just has some kind of artistry to interpret dry girls with problems of extreme devotion). The rest of the character's designs felt pretty generic to me, I feel it falls into the most default 2010s anime aesthetic concievable. Even though the animation is stunning, I feel it lacks some kind of dirtiness or experimentation for me to love it.
Despite watching anime and reading manga quite a lot, I'm no expert in consuming "light novels". Even though I love reading, it's not a literary subgenre that catches my attention, I've been told that it's writting leaves a lot to be desired. But I have consumed a total of three animes based in light novels. One is Slayers, with is just pure fantasy stuff, and despite it not being a very deep story, the comedy and the animation compensate the lack of depth. The other one I watched was Bunny Girl Senpai, which I mostly enjoyed, but I feel that it has the same problems this anime has. Not only the characters designs seem generic aside from the few characters that really do matter, the narrative structure it's pretty similar. The show exhibes the problems of this character, which you have to pay attention to because they are going to be very "deep" and "moving", and then presents another one, and this other one, and so on, and so on, and that's until we get a little deeper with this other subplot that involves the main characters. This anime made me conclude that this narrative structure, at least in dramas, doesn't work for me, since I get the impression that at the end of the day, the story can't delve into interesting stuff regarding the characters that are presented, and the flow just ends up being very monotonous. Specially when all the stories try to touch some kind of emotional fiber in you, I do get that this anime talks about war, but there is a point in which the tragedy of another person I JUST KNEW and that I'm not gonna see again in the show doesn't really move me emotionally.
Some stories are nicer than others, I specially liked Iris's one, not sure why exactly. I thought that the chapters regarding Violet's flashbacks were going to crush my heart, but I found them to be a little rushed??? I didn't get to feel the relationship between Violet and the mayor, a little more time with them would have been better (there is a scene thought that's very hard to watch).The last chapters, which go a little bit off the default narrative model of "Violet is going to help someone write a letter", do better the narrative flow, specially since Violet ends up healing all her troubles regarding the major and his brother, I must say that healing process was very satisfiying to watch. The ending is servicable but just that. No character here, aside from Violet, blew my brain or did something very memorable (at this point I've forgotten most of their names. I remember liking the one voiced by DIO's seiyuu but mostly bc I just like his voice lmao).
I doubt I'll watch the OVAs, since I had enough of "Violet helps someone write a letter" and I don't need more stories like that, I maybe will watch the movie which I understand it has Violet a little years after this anime's events, and I get the feeling it can be pretty good if they do something interesting with her character.
So pretty much, If you like dramas with no intense pacing and with some character growth, check this out, specially if you're looking to empathize with the main character. You'll probably see something of value in this if you watch it with that mindset.
Also, this is just nitpickiness but, this is not fantasy! the only "fantasy" element is that she has metal arms and that she is kind of a killing machine, but that's not enough to tag something as "fantasy"!!!! There is no type of magic creature nor strange magic system here, neither does the world have something strange that goes outside our convention, they use very normal weapons in the war!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 30, 2024
Probably this review won't make justice to the love I have for Gintama, but there are only two OVAs that go straight to the point so it's easier for me to write about this than write another parts of the anime. The moment I found out there was a "love potion" arc in this show that never fails to make me laugh out loud, I wanted to check it out immediately.
It's another stupid Gintama arc somehow, but it's simply marvelous (it sustains my theory that Gintama shines the most when it's stupidity gets overbearing). Basically this is Sorachi subverting the "love potion" trope that
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we have already seen a thousand times in eastern and western shows, and taking that trope to the most ridiculous posibilities it can offer. Even the law that you "fall in love with the first person you see" after consuming the potion is rebuted and taken to the extreme, with very stupid sexual fetishes and testicle jokes in the best possible Gintama-fashion.
Tsukki is one of my favorite female characters of Gintama, and GinTsuki is my favorite ship of all the series, so this was literally the best meal that the show could serve me. It's ridiculous how much I can relate with Tsukki's enamoured stupidity and how Gintama takes her crush and tsundere behaviour to absurd limits, I just simply laugh way too much. The dynamic of these two is explored in it's most absurd limits and it shows great results.
There are still a few problems with these OVAs. Narrative wise, it is true that the villain is not amazing, I liked what Tsukki said to her but her motivation its quite meh, and her story it's not great. Compared to the comedy, which is sublime, this falls a little bit short. And the other problem (the biggest one, though this isn't the chapter's nor Sorachi's fault) is that it's impossible to watch this in good quality. It's not uploaded to Crunchyroll nor is in good quality in piracy servers or torrents, I got this in 480p in a page full of ads and I watched it not only because is canon, also because the concept got my attention. But it's very possible that people will skip this for those reasons, and if you're into Gintama this is not a waste of your time at all.
Well, this one is great, idk if it gets to the comedy peak that the arcs of the scandal, popularity poll, owee and the genderbending one reach, but it doesn't have much to envy of them. Gintama forever!
HONEEEEY!!
DARLIIING!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Nov 13, 2023
The lack of reviews this has and the fact that I would like to exteriorize all my thoughts about the manga I just read is the main motivator for my following words. So might as well write them.
As an Aka Akasaka fangirl, I had already stumbled upon Yokoyari's drawings on Oshi No Ko. Since I started drawing classes not a long time ago, my teacher asked me to pick a mangaka's style to reference and practice, so I picked this woman's style, since I liked it quite a lot and it isn't utterly detailed and complex as other mangakas whose drawing style I really like
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(eg: Q Hayashida, Yuji Kaku, Kentaro Miura, the list goes on). This attempt at "reasarch" I was doing to develop my own drawing abilities, and the fact that I knew she had works written by her (and wanted to see what she has to offer in that regard), were the main motivators why I picked this up.
So well, first, it's a collection of short stories. As it tends to be with these kinds of collections, some stories are a lot better than others. They delve about love, sex (I wasn't expecting this much sex coming from her), human relationships and deception. I will list them all and give my thoughts on each of them, as well as my rating.
1. Hagane no Kokoro
Typical story about cheating and marriage. Nothing groundbreaking nor very interesting here, this could be pretty much be a side story of a dorama or a telenovela for all I care. Though I'll say the twisted perception of desire that the protagonist has is compelling.
5/10
2. Neo Dutch Wife
This was... something. Even though the subject matter is quite disgusting and hard to read, it deals with something that affects A LOT of young people nowadays (I'll say this situation is pretty Japan coded, but the fact that I, a girl from latinamerica, has met boys who view women and sex in exactly the same way as the protagonist, does says something about media and our own escapists ways of proyecting our sexual desires). I'm glad the story does acknowledge how problematic (and common) this actions are, specially within mangakas themselves. It's strange, and very disgusting at times, but it works.
7.5/10
3. Stand By You
This one is also something. I like how it talks about protection in sex, and even though it's also pretty dark and twisted while dealing with VERY serious issues (and the ending is bittersweet, to say the least), I do think it does manage to make some interesting points about devotion and how people project happiness and liberation on sex, even though that liberation may not be healthy for you if you analize it correctly.
7.5/10
4. "Kawaii"
Got HUGE OnK vibes from this one, now I get why Akasaka is working with her. Also a bittersweet one, but it does deal with a very interesting topic on Japanese society and the line of work that it represents. I like how it gives agency towards a protagonists that is trapped in a line of work usually considered degrading to women, and how she deals with all the positives and the negatives that it all implies. A pretty current subject if you ask me, mostly with all the OnlyFans craze. This is one of the few stories that has cute scenes, so I'll give them that.
8/10
5. Ipponbana
Wow.
The most different story of them all, and for good reason. Has some sapphic vibes engrained in it, which I really appreciated. Very interesting chemistry and interactions between the protagonists, deals with heavy subjects and I like how it handles the fact that some persons impact our life hugely even if they aren't with us anymore, that hit me. Extremely sad, but quite deep and poetic. Loved this one, read it!!
10/10
6. Koi wa Zenkei Shisei
This one is so short that when I first finished I had to read it again because I didn't understood a thing. In retrospect, it's quite intense but funny, if this is a parody on the isekai subgenre, it's actually a pretty good one. It's quite bizarre and a little out of place compared to the rest, but I ended up liking it's short intensity.
7/10
7. Namu Amidaisuki
Interesting one, also the one I feel most unsure about. Realistic in some ways, the relationship reminds me of Nana Komatsu and Takumi's toxic dynamic in Ai Yazawa's Nana. Though I'm still confused if the own toxicity of the relationship is endorsed or not, that may be the main reason why this story makes noise in my head. Still fine I'll say.
6/10
The art is great, I really like how homogeneous the style of this woman is and how she uses the hair and eyes to convey emotions the character's emotions. With how mundane most settings are, she does a great job to do something with that.
So well, I'm going to say this I quite liked this! Not every story is great, but I was actually very surprised with how dark and heavy some of them are and the topics most of them touch. They actually gave me Inio Asano vibes, which I'm not pretty sure if it's good or bad lmao (considering I like Asano it might as well be).
This made me find out that Yokoyari is actually an ecchi artist, and considering my uneasy history with sex portayal in manga and anime (specially because of it's huge issues with sexism and the male-gaze), I'm still trying to sit through that. Even though my western brain still has some issues with how sex and relationships are represented in Japanese media, this may be one of the few times I'm actually interested in the view the author has about explicit situations (even if it can get very twisted at times). I read somewhere that Mengo said that she tries that her stories, despite being erotic, are actually to be enjoyed by men or women alike, and I'm actually very glad for that!
I do think some of this stories may have benefited of more pages and development, but I'll still take them despite how short some of them are.
Would recommend it, but mostly if you're already into manga and have read seinen before. Will probably read more by her in the near future.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 11, 2023
Words aren't enough to express the disappointment I felt while reading this.
This story had been recommended to me by a few people I hold very dear to my heart. Considering that the anime is only 12 episodes and the manga is 122 chapters, my stupid brain said "well, since the anime cuts that much, I'll go to the manga to read the full story".
My god what a stupid mistake I made. Not only this was a pain to sit through, it was probably one of the least enjoyable manga reading experiences I faced in all my weeb life.
However, I will say that it's not all
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crap and the story has a few redeeming qualities. I'll start with what most people agree on: The first 40 or so chapters are good and the foundations of Hori and Miyamura's relationship in that part are pretty nice to read. Not the most amazing romance I've found in fiction, but fairly interesting and good nonetheless. Even after the unnecesary stretch of the story, they still manage to have nice interactions from time to time. The side characters at this moment were also (for the most part) well handled. I liked the Sengoku and Remi chapters specially.
Also Miyamura himself is a pretty good character and I like the dilemmas he faces and the growth he achieves, I'll say the story of the shy and closed-off character getting friends has been done to death but also it's just a trope that works for me, so most of the time I'll take it. And I'll say his interactions with most male characters (Tooru, Sengoku and Shindou) are, most of the time, nice to read.
However, I guess this is were all my praise for this manga ends.
So well, I'll go to my three points here.
Plot/Narrative:
There isn't much and to be honest I wasn't expecting there to be much of it, but an endless cycle of characters bantering and saying dumb stuff didn't do it for me. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was sitting towards a slice of life with mindless comedy, but this was easily one of the most uninteresting reads I had reading something like that. Why? Because of a few things. Firstly, the humor. When it hits, its great, and when it doesn't hit, its painful and cringy. Unfortunately, the second situation happens more frequently. And I get that teenagers are cringy, I don't tend to mind that in fiction, but here some interactions feel so unrealistic and out of hand that were just downright idiotic.
Lots of things that happen here are absurd and, most of the time, meaningless to the story. Chapters such as the one that Miyamura and Sengoku clean the pool, or Hori suddenly not eating (and then not developing into that issue again aside to make jokes about girls not eating, pls tell japanese men to stop writing about that), or that pointless chapter in which this ex-classmate of Miyamura goes closer to the cake shop of Mura's family and then has the most devoid conversation I've ever read in a manga (to then never appear again). And those are the ones I remember because I'm pretty sure I already forgot half of this manga. These scenes don't do it for me, not only because some of them imply a character banter that isn't funny (eg: the chapter in which Miyamura can't say "atatakai"), they never really dive deep into something interesting for the characters or the story. And I like dumb, simple fun with no plot progression, it really does it for me in stories like Wotakoi or Gintama, but here not only there is too much of it that the story doesn't progress, it's just not fun to read.
Though as I said, I enjoyed Hori and Mura's plot in the beginning and some interactions the characters have are still nice at times so I'll give this manga that.
(5/10)
But I guess my biggest flaw here lies with the characters so here is where my rant will get more intense.
Oh my god, have I ever found a manga in which I thought that most of its characters were complete idiots? (maybe Komi-San, but that's not the topic here) Because this was the sensation that Horimiya left in me. And as I said above, this wouldn't have bothered me if they were funny or the story did something to hold them accountable on their faults. Because that's exactly what I would have liked to see with characters like Hori.
I don't downright hate Hori, but I think she is one of the worst romance female protagonists I've ever read. She is fine at the beginning of the story but she ends up being pretty intense (specially with how she treats Mura) and despite the story and the other characters acknowledging that she has some pretty bad personality traits, Hori never does enough introspection herself to question that. I get that the story tries to be simple, but if Miyamura did question himself, why didn't Hori ever did so? That would have been great to explore and would have left to better development for the two of them!! I also get that Miyamura likes her as she is, but realisticly speaking, your romantic partner can take so much of your shit until it blows up on them, and if you don't make the effort to change your bad relationship habits, most probably you'll end hurting that person very badly. And believe me, reading Hori behaving like this made me realize about my own bad relationship habits and how I had to acknowledge and question them in the past so my partner and I can be healthy towards one another when conflict arises. So really, considering this is a shonen, it would be a nice lesson to teach to pubert kids, but I guess it wasn't in the author to do so.
My point with Hori is: she does shitty stuff to the people around her and despite the characters by her side knowing she doesn't treat people right, she still gets a pass and it's super popular. And really, if you wanted her to be like that and to work as a character, a little bit of questioning and her being hold accountable would have been great. She is just too much and at times had me saying "this girl is an idiot", which I don't really tend to do with protagonists when reading fiction, even less with female characters.
Then there is the rest of the characters. I like some of them (Sengoku, Tooru, Remi, Sakura and Shindou) but the cast ends up being so fucking big that the story sidelines into the most unteresting plots or (almost non existant) character development.
If it's not this, its just a gimmicky character that's here to add mindless drama (the blonde boy with glasses and that girl who has a crush on hori, or the few teachers). To add up to the fact, the reactions some characters have to some situations (eg: this green haired guy who has some chapters dedicated to him cockblocking his sister's crush) are too intense and don't help me care for them or like them at all! Chill please!
But to sum up, I guess the amount of characters did end up stretching this story into meaningless arcs thar really don't add anything up or end up just feeling flat.
At least Hori's father has a nice relationship with Miyamura, though his dynamic with Hori ends up being a little bit too repetitive (and even problematic if you ask me). Mura's dynamic with the Hori family its quite nice too.
(3/10)
Art:
It's fine, it does what it has to do. The only issue I have is some male designs, when you have Sengoku, Yanagi and the green haired guy together, they have the same hairstyle so you can't really tell them apart. The monochrome could be better used also, it doesn't really help to recognize the huge amount of characters this has. (6/10)
Some other stuff:
-Who thought that Hori saying that she feels worse about Mura cheating on her with guys than with girls was a good idea? (or even thought it was funny?). Maybe this is my western brain speaking but that statement can be really easily interepreted as homophobic, and the manga should at least try to stop Hori on thinking like that, because it's also a toxic behaviour on her part.
-Yes Hero and Haigawara, we girls tall about our tits, it's just natural to talk about your body with your friends. BUT WE DON'T GO THERE TAKING OUR FRIENDS CLOTHES IN PUBLIC TO PROVE HOW BIG SOME OF OUR FRIEND'S BREASTS ARE. AND ALSO YOU DON'T GROPE YOUR FRIEND'S TITS OUT OF NOWHERE NOT EVEN IF IT IS YOUR BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD. This is not the only anime/manga in which this happens and I'm so tired of this scene happening because it's the most unrealistic shit I've ever read in my life. Specially considering the characters are Japanese, which tend to be very prudish people so this makes even less sense by their own standards!! (lots of scenes in this manga don't make sense at all considering their standards, to be honest, eg: miyamura being tatted af being 16 y/o). But well, guess it's just an excuse for underaged girls to undress? It's not like shonen editors ever see a problem in that, but still, this was completely unnecesary. And it isn't even funny for fuck's sake.
-On the same note, perverted teachers aren't funny, they're creepy af!! If you're going to have a character like that please make it be held accountable for their actions.
-Why did the story set us up with the fact that Hori's parents are never home to then have the father constantly acting like a parasite in the house? What a fast way to contradict your own statements.
-Yeah maybe this is just me but honestly If I'm going to read a slice-of-life set in a school I'm going to excpet realistic interactions and midly realistic people. This manga didn't give me this at all so I guess that's were most of my problems lie in here. No fucking brother cockblocks his younger sister like that, almost no father acts like Hori's father, no married couple with self-respect towards each other keeps sustaining a marriage in which they barely see each other. Editors, please, stop giving Shonen such passes, I'm begging you.
-Why didn't this close up the love triangle between Sakura Tooru and Yuki?? Why didn't Yuki and Tooru ever dated? I didn't really liked them together but the fact that this relationship has no closure is also pretty nonsensical.
Well, I guess this wasn't for me or I'm just getting old for this stuff. Don't waste your time reading this if you're looking for an interesting realistic story with nice progresion and good character development, there is almost none of it here. Some scenes may warm up your heart but at the end, you'll find out they're scarce and won't really fullfill what you're looking for.
The dream sequences with the cats were cute though.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 21, 2023
I had some expectations regarding this manga because I saw it being really recommended on the internet, and even though I started liking it quite a lot at the beginning, as the plot went on I started liking it even less. I'm writing this because I don't have any other place in where to express my feelings on this work.
Some spoilers in there.
Plot/Narrative:
There isn't anything groundbreaking in here but I think it starts pretty good, mostly with what happens to Kaneki and the proposal of a pretty "grey" story morally in both sides of the conflict. However, I think it extends more than it should
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and in the second half of the story it opens way too many branches that end up being in detriment of the enjoyment of the story, and I even feel all those branches weren't closed efficiently (considering there is a sequel, I let that slide though). It has some pretty good and interesting gore moments, but there is also some narrative turns that for me where pretty cliché and not at all applied efficiently (spoiler: Rize being alive, all the scene of Kaneki and Touka in the bridge and Kaneki being "far away" from Touka to "protect her"). I too think that the amount of fight sequences is in detriment of what the manga wants to tell, and by times it seems like you're reading a shonen. I personally thing that the CCG scenes don't really work because they are portayed like a "detective" story but WE KNOW what it's happening to the ghouls that the CCG is researching so it gets pretty boring to read the deductions of the police.
It's not a bad story itself but it's excecution could be better. (6/10)
Art:
I read a lot of people in the reviews here calling the art "ugly and sketchy" and I couldn't disagree more. I think Ishida is pretty good at using the monochrome to his favour, so much that I can't imagine Tokyo Ghoul with colours, black and white just works perfectly to transmit it's vibe. The characters have very cool designs that add to their characterization (there is a reason why the mask of Kaneki is so iconic). I loved the watercoloured drawings, specially how the Ukkaku was drawn, it's beautiful.
The only thing I'd critique on an aesthetic level is the coreograph of the fights, they aren't easy to follow and they are weird to read (and there is more fights that this kind of manga should be allowed to have) (9/10).
Characters:
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I think most of the characters are well characterized, but a good portion of the cast suffers of: 1. being very uninteresting or 2. being unbearable. The first point applies to almost all the CCG members and the second one to a good portion of the ghouls, whom as much as the plot would want me to love them, I couldn't stand them (Tsukiyama and Rize to mention the easiest examples, and the ghoul that doesn't understand complex words too).
Kaneki is for me a good protagonist and he works, I don't like all the desicions he makes but I think there is a good job done with the place in which he finds himself and all the emotional debacle that he suffers (though his transformation it's a little bit too sudden). Those scenes are hard to watch and they work, for the most part. Though, get away from any asshole that has Kaneki as his pfp on Twitter.
The rest of the Ghouls have the problem that some good characters (Yomo, Touka, Uta, Hinami) are left aside in the second half of the manga in favour of much less likable characters, and this specially bothered me in the last arc. I hope they participate more in Re.
From the CCG I only managed to care about two people: Juzo because of his eccentricity (He has the best flashback by far) and Akira because she was the only woman in the CCG that did something important (the lack of women in the CCG for like eight volumes was quite bothersome for me, it took Ishida quite a while to add a woman in there) and I think she was the only character that added something interesting to the CCG scenes.
I didn't like Amon, but he isn't badly characterized, I simply find it hard to care about characters which their only personal trait is being obsessed with their job. Sadly I'm spoiled of something that happens in Re with him and that does end up taking off some weight of what Amon does at the end of this story (It's also a pretty common shonen trope, to make things worse).
The rest of the CCG were all pretty forgettable and boring (I was pretty annoyed by the constant hype the story had with Arima just for him to act all mysterious and then do nothing interesting at the end), though I liked the relationship of Juzo and the big guy, it's one of the few relationships that work well in this manga, with Kaneki and Hinami and all the relationships the old man in Antieku has (he also offers a quite good story in here).
Hide being a pig enthusiast disappointed me but I guess it made sense in the plot.
Then the rest of the "strong" relationships in the manga weren't treated well imo. Touka and Kaneki, to me, were introduced as a less toxic but less interesting version of Asuka and Shinji of Evangelion, and despite that, I was kinda down for it, but then Touka is set aside by the plot with the most cliché excuses used to build romances in fiction, and I didn't like that at all, aside from the bunny scene, that shit was cute.
My biggest criticisim in the relationship area has to do with Amon and Akira's relationship. I thought they had interesting interactions and conversations, but the sexual undertones of some scenes of both of them REALLY bothered me, specially because Akira is the DAUGHTER of the dead ex-workmate of Amon. I know nothing really happens but the manga does hint it in a way that's not subtle at all and I though It was unnecesary and uncomfortable.
Well, I generally feel that the characters itself arent' wrong, I just feel they could be better written and better utilized in the story. None of them blew my brain neither I thought they were memorable or complex and that says a lot. (6.5/10)
Some other things:
-I'd like to know how the fuck a Ghoul becames a Ghoul, there is a big plot-hole here imo because if I was a CCG pig I'd be investing in researching that, I think It would help them quite a lot.
-The power system starts fine but then with that buffed jojoesque kagune of the cannibal ghouls every sense the scaling had disappears and by times it's just a manga of "guys full of steroids fighting" and tbh this isn't JoJo so I didn't sign up for that. This makes the manga look EVEN MORE like a shonen and it's not good.
-The exploration of sexuality and romance is ass. I hope that it gets better in RE and that they don't do this fucking flashfoward shit of everyone married and happy.
-I think it's really unsensitive that in a manga in where the act of "eating" to survive and all that is that important to the plot, while at the same time there are jokes about how we women eat "less" because we are women and "like to take care of ourselves", because it's pretty obvious that they are baseless and cliché comments written by men that have no idea how we women eat. Really these comments don't add anything to the story and its inclusion bothered me.
-Was there necesary to portay the homosexual side-character in such a hackneyed and awful way?
This seems like I'm being unfair, but I do thing the manga does a few things right (good gore story, though too edgy by times) and I liked the tarot symbolism (though I'd like it to be more explicit and not that undertoned).
Some very liked reviews in here say it's worth to read it again because of the hidden symbolism, but tbh I don't think I'll sit all those CCG scenes of them talking to see that.
I'm not that excited about Re as I thought I was but some day I will read it just to know how this debacle ends.
Well, It wasn't what I was expecting and If you wanna read a good detective story or a good mystery manga, go read Urasawa's work.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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