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Jan 5, 2018
This review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. It will be discussing the very big drop-off of humor and story that happened towards the end, as well as the horrendous ending that the readers received. I will, even with that being said, try and not spoil much. Just don't read the overall score, but honestly, I think I'd save your time if you do read it.
So I was going to just talk about the story, but I wrote too much about it. I'll use the format the reviewer gives me and try and make it as compact as possible.
Art: Really good. I mean,
...
duh. That's kind of the appeal of the entire story. Just lots of nudity; well drawn nudity. I'll be giving that a 9. Not only that, but it manages to always capture the scenes perfectly, which in this absurd manga, you have to give credit where it's due; it does the job, and it does it right.
Character: The characters are great... except they're not, really. They're odd. Kiyoshi, for example; he's a good kid, but he's also extremely contradictory in the actions he takes. I get that everything is exaggerated, but it doesn't work sometimes. The exaggerations are taken too far occasionally, and it ends up messing up with the character and what they REALLY would've done in specific situations. I'll be giving it a 7.
Story: Bad. Oh man it's bad. Well, it's good til about halfway through. We have the comedy we wanted and the jokes aren't used over and over again at this point. Hana's pissing thing was funny until the whole "under-the-infirmary-bed" thing, then it started running dry, no pun intended. It was bland, dull humor; the jokes were all re-used by the end of the story, and the only "haha, what comedy!" moments we had was the ending. It wasn't even funny, either. I'm all for shock humor but that ending was actually just a punch in the gut. It's as if the author didn't give a singular shit about the story they spent 4 years writing and drawing. Why Hiramoto? Just why? That ending was the equivalent of being dragged through shit for a month, waiting in agony to see what doomed future Chiyo and Kiyoshi will have, and then you just pull that stupid shit? Not only that, but you get rid of literally every character in the meanwhile as well. You should've just killed everyone, that would've actually been somewhat funny. I'm giving it a 4. If I had to rate only half the story, I would give it an 8. It was actually hilarious until the half-way point.
Enjoyment: 8. Yes, as much as I hated the ending to the story, I can't deny that the story itself was full of comedy, for at least most of it. Did I wish I never even read this cursed story? Yeah, kinda, honestly. Did I anyways? Yep. Did I laugh my ass off, for at LEAST the majority of the time I spent reading it? Guilty as charged. Therefor I can't bring it in me to give this anything lower than an 8.
Overall: 6. The story is the main shit-factor of this manga. "Oh, but it's a comedy ecchi/basically hentai story! How can you expect there to be actual story?"
Here's a tip, Hiramoto. I'm just a starting writer so maybe I'm being real cocky, or maybe I'm just plain wrong, but the number one thing you DON'T do in a story is lie to the reader. Don't make us think that there's a reward at the end if you're just going to leave some image of you laughing in the face of every single idiot who read the book til the end.
That ending was an insult, honestly. It's like the readers-enjoyment equivalent of being blue-balled, then subsequently punched in the balls, then being mocked for not being able to take the hit. And I hate that I can't give the story a lower score, because it was actually REALLY GOOD for the first half; in the end, however, it just turned into a story that ran completely out of steam and had to be "ended" because... well, who the hell knows. Maybe Hiramoto got sick of what he was writing? Maybe he hates all men, and wanted to prove some type of point in the sick world he made? Man, who the actual hell knows.
This is becoming too ranty, so I'm going to stop it here. Overall rating 6. Be careful with your expectations of the ending. Maybe April 2018 will give us something.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 9, 2017
(There will be some small spoilers, but they won't interfere with the main plot.)
When I first picked up Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria, also known as HakoMari, I was shocked. I realized this guy's writing style was similar to mine. I was happy about it, too. I thought, "Wow, this guy's ranked #4 in the manga list, and it's not even manga, it's a light novel that's up here!" "My writing's so similar to his, too!" I've always wanted to start writing books, and I've always been good at poetry, so, well, put yourself in my shoes. I'm
...
excited.
So I continue reading. The first volume was amazing, no doubt about it. You get your hatred for the antagonist, you care for the protagonists; I'll skip the individual explaining, but basically, the characters are great. Actually, this entire Light novel has one of the most amazing characters I've seen. Everyone's explanations are so in depth and detailed that I feel like I've met these people in real life, as if they were my best friends.
But that's really all there is to this story.
Now maybe it's unfair. I dropped HakoMari on the end of the 4th volume (It'll probably say something like 4 out of 40, but it's honestly a pain in the ass to count the chapters in this.) and the reason I did so is because the story is just aggravating. So maybe I should've gone the whole way through to rate this story, but I honestly couldn't even force myself to read any more of it.
Dude, it's bad. I felt like my own self confidence had taken a hit. I still stand by my statement that my writing is similar, which is exactly why it's hard for me to say exactly how much I despised the writing in this.
Everything is so god damn scattered that it hurts thinking about it. Doesn't help that I have constant headaches anyways, but this story intensified it by at least 5 times. As if calamity isn't a clusterfuck itself, this story offers a clusterfuck OF calamity, and every single volume leaves you with more questions than answers, and you're forced to just accept it.
Maybe they're all answered in the last volume, but no, FUCK that. I couldn't care less. If it was just one or two questions, then I would be waiting on hands and knees for the answer, but no, the list of questions is as long as Santa's in those Tim Allen movies.
I love cliffhangers. I love leaving the reader with a question, a reason to keep on reading, but I couldn't stand this. And, as if the story being filled with plot holes wasn't enough, the writer has this very strange outlook on people. There are a few characters in this story who act on nothing but "Because I can." Of course, many characters in this story CLAIM that they do something "Because they can", but really do have an ulterior motive; however, for some, it's not the case.
(Spoiler here) One of the side-characters claim that someone they liked was manipulated into liking someone, and that someone brought her to a hotel, then left, locked the door, and called all his friends over to that room to gangrape her. To this day, I have no FUCKING idea why the author felt the need to tell us this aggravatingly depressing story, because it literally had no impact on the main story, maybe aside from further tainting this side-character's morals. These kids are in high school. Fucking high school. If this high school was real, and I had heard of the kids in it, I wouldn't let any of my children go in a 100 mile radius of it, and I'd probably try and start a riot to get literally half that entire school behind bars.
Now I dropped the book at the start of volume 5 for a reason. Spoiler alert, but the main concept of the fifth volume is manipulation. More importantly, someone who has the power to manipulate anyone who has done even the tiniest thing bad, all while claiming to be a vigilante of justice. Of course, he's anything but, and it's his judgement of "bad" and "good", not a logical, moral, or ethical one. If he thinks you're a bad person and he wants you to be under his control, well, fuck you!
Thing is, I don't want to read anymore of this. Every single volume involves the legendary and my personal most-despised trope: "Break the Cutie". Every character who you think is good, kind, cute, or what the hell ever, will undoubtedly end up being crushed into oblivion, to the point where YOU'RE wishing they don't live anymore for their own god damn sake. Even when they get a good ending, they're so beyond screwed up that you can't help but think it would be better if they hadn't existed at all. And, well, seeing as Volume 5 is about manipulation, which is almost always the leading factor in "breaking the cutie", I'm calling it quits.
So maybe I'm just weakhearted, and that's why I don't like this. Maybe I should read it the whole way through because there's some "happy ending". But after playing G-Senjou no Maou and watching/reading similar animes and mangas, and reading many other books with stories involving tragic experiences which we see one displayed in every volume of this book, I'm done. This entire story is beyond too melodramatic for me. I was expecting a thriller mystery with a hint of romance and no comedy, but I get these super in-depth characters being crushed every single volume, who somehow can still give me wisecracks and smart-ass remarks that are genuinely funny.
The romance aspect of this story is literally fucking retarded, because for some reason, during the flesh and meat of the story, the romance is almost literally non-existent, but when they go back to their school lives, suddenly a typical high-school rom-com-esque romance takes place.
TLDR summary of this entire review
Story - 2. An absolute clusterfuck that somehow manages to pull itself together at the end of every volume, but still leaves a bunch of plot holes.
Art - 6. It doesn't really exist in this, since it's a light novel, but it's still a 6 because even though the drawings are good, I can't base the characters off of them. Someone that long haired walking around without tripping over her own hair every 5 minutes barely seems realistic to me.
Character - 10. This is undoubtedly the most painful thing about this story, because every character is completely mentally destroyed every end of the volume, and somehow they act "perfectly normal" at the start of the next one. I can't even imagine it being like that, though it's written that way anyways. If a character's gonna act some way or another, give me a reason to believe it.
Enjoyment - 3. I tried so fucking hard to enjoy HakoMari. I really wanted to. Like I said, the writing is very similar to mine, so it feels like I'm insulting myself when I say "It's just bad." But really, it's just bad. If anything, I feel like I could learn what NOT to do by reading this story.
Overall - 5. Pick up HakoMari if you can withstand all your favourite characters being emotionally raped, as well as a story so loosely put together it may as well not exist. It's like reading a story about two tragic characters, then putting them through a bunch of random missions that just tighten their bond, then giving them an ending. Fucking hell if I know how this shitshow ends, but I'm glad I don't, because given the way it's gone so far, I highly doubt the ending's going to rest well with my heart.
Also, you can notice how I get more irritated towards the end of the review. That's because this stupid story genuinely aggravated me. I can't give it less than a 5, though, which is even more aggravating, because without the characters, this story is a solid 1, and even then, I'm depressed that these characters even exist, because I just feel sympathy and pity for them.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, but this story tries WAAAY TOO HARD to be philosophical. Holy shit, it's embarrassing at most points. I liked the Monogatari series; though it was philosophical, it was the intention, and it was professionally executed (IMO), and it made sense from start to finish. Nobody acted outside of their character unless it made sense for them to. However, in HakoMari, the metaphor made no fucking sense, and the philosophy was so aggravatingly stupid that it genuinely hurt my head to think about it.
It felt like something I'd read from a scene 12 year old kid who somehow found a college-level philosophy course online and decided to write a story as a thesis. Don't read HakoMari if you're expecting a good story. I might read the last few volumes, and I might change this review because of it, but don't expect anything higher than a 6 or, MAYBE, a 7. Like I said, without the characters, this story would get an overall score of 1. Even with the characters, the story itself is just full of unexpected melodrama and pseudo-philosophical bullshit that it's painful to read anyways.
If, miraculously, that one last volume of HakoMari manages to make this story from a 1 to a 10, I'll go and learn sign language or something. Maybe get my friends to dig me up to my head and stone me. Maybe I'll jump off a fucking skyscraper, because I am 100% sure that there is no fucking way in hell 1 volume can save the absolute shit-tier writing in volumes 2-4. (Honestly, volume 1 was good. Good enough that it could've made a good anime. It should've stopped there, though.)
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 7, 2017
This already has two reviews that say enough about this manga, but I feel like I should make a review for it anyways, even though I don't normally make reviews. Warning: There's spoilers. But I can't tell what's early into this story or late, so be warned. I'll also put a tl;dr in the end.
This manga is a pain in the ass to read. Even though I enjoyed it, I can't give it a good rating, simply because it's just bad.
Hear me out. If you enjoy tiddies and butts, with no more than implied sex (I can't remember if
...
any sex scenes were drawn, stopped reading a while ago) then by all means, read this; in fact, I encourage you to read this, if that's your reasoning.
But if you're expecting any type of story, for the meanwhile, stay away. Far away.
While the actual story is good and the plot is above average, the mangaka never bothered going into detail and instead has been milking the fact that everyone wants to see naked women.
I seriously liked the plot behind this. I actually told a whole bunch of my friends that I've found the fated "Hentai with Plot" I've long searched for; but it only ended in disappointment when, not even after 10 chapters, the story is put on an absolute halt. Instead of getting the actual pulp and flesh of the story, we keep getting sidetracked with fan content that just showcases one of the other 5 survivors.
They're all assholes, too. Except what seems to be two of them. One is basically a rapist, who has fucked every single girl and a half that he's laid his eye on since finding out he's among the last 5. Another is someone who instantly accepts his position, and also uses it to fuck literally anyone he wants, even to the point where he points out girls he wants to fuck on the street, and has them basically get abducted. Another is a nerd who never had life fair, but gets excited with his situation and fucks someone he's loved for a long time (to be fair, she wanted it as much as he did, but he could've been less of a prick about everything.) Don't remember/don't know about the last guy.
Then there's MC. MC is saving his penis for a girl named Elisa. Elisa was someone who found out about the virus that killed every man, and finds out it's man made. MC gets suspicious of everyone around him, and now we're waiting for the rest of the story.
Now, the story is great, but there are way too many variables to have to maintain an eye on this early into the story. For starters, we have the "instantly accepts his position" guy interacting with MC's sister, who he sees on the street and asks the lady to get her to fuck him (aggravating cliffhanger which will probably only turn for worse seeing as 50% of the entire story so far is fanservice and NTR has a disgustingly (and extremely disappointingly) high demographic).
But when I said "waiting for the rest of the story", I didn't mean waiting for more pages. I really mean the story is at another halt, yet again. Constant fanservice chapters and randomly snapping into the lives of the other 5 men alive is getting beyond annoying. At first, I thought "It's pretty cool that the mangaka thought of not making the entire series revolve around the only one alive". Any one of them could be the MC's, but they're all pretty much ruined because they're all absolute dickheads ('cept for the nerd kid and MC, obviously.) Once that happens, I don't want to see them anymore, and I can guarantee that nobody else who actually looks forward to the story wants to either. They're nuisances. You could say "Well, that's the intention, isn't it?" Yes, the guy wanting to fuck MC's little sister is an intended aggravation, but that's it.
So, TLDR time. Basically, the entire story so far (that's translated, at least) is: MC wakes up, immune to man-killer virus, we find out it's manmade, only 5 alive, latest chapter includes MC unlocking a thesis by his lover Elisa, his sister is about to be NTR'd by one of the other 5 guys, only 2 of the 5 seem to be fine people, one of those being really good (MC), and the other two are absolute dickheads who should be put down at the world's earliest convenience, as well as the people who run the onahole hellhole (I had to make that joke, I'm so sorry but it's genuinely true).
Basically to the basically, the story is good, but after an entire year, when you sum up the entire plot, it's literally just "immune man wakes up to find the world is full of girls who want to fuck him but he refuses because he wants to find this one girl who not only does he love but has potentially uncovered the secrets of this virus that wiped out all of 'man'kind."
Extremely shortened review and recommendation: Stay for the art, leave for literally everything else, ever.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Aug 4, 2017
Obligatory "It's my first review, reader-kun, please b-be gentle!"
That aside, I'll put aside the seller-style description of this story to get to the juicy parts. Just know that there will be very slight spoilers about the start of the story, but honestly, you can probably tell who's who and what'll happen at the start just by looking at the cover image.
This story is mainly about the Demon lord, Maou, and the Hero, Yuusha (In this case, Yusa). Forced to set aside their differences for the time being, they work in Tokyo to try and make a living, while they make a few friends,
...
most who end up being from their own world anyways.
But it's not just about two strongly opposing forces becoming "friends" and making friends. Behind the thin veil that is a friendship is lots and lots of (mostly) internal conflict, which comes from both of the pasts of these two special individuals.
You'll have to read the story yourself because if I were to say any more I'd be spoiling a whole bunch, and I don't want to do that.
The story (Which, apologies, but I refuse to explain further due to big spoilers) aside, let's talk about the other aspects.
Fan service is low. Now, personally, I'm no fan. I love fan service. However, I don't love pointless fan service, and Hataraku Maou-Sama! is perfect in this aspect. The only unnecessary fan service in this story is Chiho's massive jugs, and even then, the writer (Satoshi Wagahara) manages to actually add plot advancements with those very jugs.
Yes, there is romance in this story. However, the romance isn't the primary focus of the story, and I can respect that greatly. Maou-Sama offers a good story that uses every single aspect of it to advance its plot, and it does it very effectively. It answers all your questions, only leaving behind ones that are meant to be left behind. The plot of the story isn't too elaborate, and it doesn't involve any logic that's out of this world, save for their own language. Even their belief system is loosely translated from ones that are of this world, simply taking metaphor and turning it into a reality inside the story. (Of course, by "belief system", I mean "the people believe in it as myth, but it's actually real")
The art is extraordinary. Seriously. Fine detailed fights and fine detailed tiddies, I have not a single nanogram of complaint. It's got a simple yet complicated feeling to it which in the end makes it feel glossy, refined, yet still innocent.
Character development is very good. Even our comedy relief characters (Chiho, Ashiya, etc.) have backstory and have serious personalities when they need to. The characters don't take shit pointlessly and don't feign ignorance when something seems off. Nobody is an absolute airhead, basically, and I absolutely love it.
And last but not least, the enjoyment. It's great. I had a fun time watching the anime and had an even better time reading the manga. The fluidity of the plot, the interactions between the characters, the pleasant art, and the comedy is great. What I love the most, though, is that the story manages to have romance and comedy in it, but not convert into a typical romcom, even though the story could totally allow that to happen. While the comedy is playful and highly sarcastic, the romance is deep, rough, and not at all a thing that could be joked about to any of the characters, lest they felt the need to be cynical and suicidally sarcastic about it.
Overall, Hataraku Maou-Sama!, or The Devil is a Part Timer! is a hands-down must-read if you enjoy a good story with a steady plot, as well as a good bit of comedy to go along with it all.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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