July's manga / #School Life(28)

A boy kills his teacher when he sees the teacher sexually assaulting his classmate and first love, but instead of being thanked or recognized for his heroic deeds, he's been condemned as the worst kind of child killer by the media. It's even weirder that the boy has zero anonymity, and basically it's super easy to look up his name and his photo, so anyone can find him, despite him moving to a different prefecture. Usually, the system protects the identity of minors to not ruin their potential future opportunities, even if they did commit a crime. It's also kind of ridiculous how the police did zero investigation work, and assumed he killed the teacher because he hated him, that's pretty weak for a motive. I feel the manga spends too much time looking at how outsiders view him, and not enough on the boy's self-reflection and emotional turmoil at ruining not only his life, but everyone around him. The girl he saved is utterly useless and didn't even bother to come to his defense, despite him doing so for her. Update: It gets better with each new chapter. I want to see what happens next. Update #2: I've reached the end. It was bittersweet, no one was truly completely happy nor sad, which I thought was realistic. Honestly, this is one of the better tragic slice of life mangas I've read. Although Solanin and The Flowers of Evil and The Girl by the Shore all won awards and such, this manga was more compelling to read, with appropriate pacing and resolution. It's definitely worth a read.

A ditzy, high-energy girl has a one night stand with an introverted guy who works part time as a costumed mascot, but it turns out they're classmates. They fall in love too quickly, in my opinion. The girl gets on my nerves, she's so stupid but everyone says she's the top student, what? Also, she's from a privileged family, so she is of a different social class from the male love interest. I don't know how the two of them will get along for a long-term relationship. I like the artwork a lot, it's very pleasing to read through, even if it's not the best art for a webtoon. Update: It doesn't get better, I honestly didn't care for this couple after several chapters of them arguing and whatnot, and then they magically work out their differences. It's just unrealistic. This couple wouldn't work out in real life at all, since their backgrounds are way too dissimilar, and personalities are completely incompatible. The girl has no motivation outside of chasing the male lead everywhere, like she has no life of her own to live, while the male lead just works all the time to save money. I've seen my fair share of real married couples divorce over money issues, and it's obvious that the webtoon is just pretending like this isn't a serious problem here. Update 2: Thank god it's over. I read the overly long author's photo essay, and that just confirmed why Yuna is a failure of a character. It's obvious that not much thought was put into her, and she just came out of nowhere as the author let go of all their worries. She's not a breakthrough female archetype, because this bubbly, stupid happy-go-lucky little girl as the lead character is overdone in the shoujo genre. It's even more problematic when you know that the author initially wanted the main character of Yuna to be a male, because they're more comfortable making a false male character over a female one, where they'd face criticism. That just goes to show you that the gender of this character isn't important at it, it's the whole concept of it. That's why growth was completely impossible for Yuna, regardless of whether she had been male or female, since there was no intent to develop an organic, multi-dimensional person. And to have to explain that in so many words tells me this author doesn't know what they're doing. Hopefully, they can produce something better next time, but this particular one was a failure.

Male lead lost his parents in a fire when he was young, and he was permanently disfigured and blinded, but he still can live on because he has an adorable black blob that guides him. Seriously, the black blob is so cuteeeeee. But there's more! It turns out the black blob is suppressing all the black monsters that are bubbling beneath the surface, and there's other people who are like him. It's really interesting, and there are definitely a bunch of twists that keep you guessing. It's been a while since I've read such an interesting webtoon. The art is quite good, and very well suited for this genre. I have no idea what that other person in the top comments is saying, that this is a 13 year old's wet dream because it's so much deeper than that. They dropped the series before it reached its full potential. Update: The first chapter for Season 2 just got released, and it looks like a bummer right now. I hope this series doesn't go downhill, because I really liked the first season... Update 2: Finished. Season 2 was awful, as I had feared. Nonsensical plot, flat characters, and Kkamjang is barely there. Ending was rushed and silly. Got a lot of shounen vibes from this type of conclusion where every is happily married after a timeskip. Sigh. Disappointed.

The female lead is cute and quick-witted, allowing her to escape a dangerous situation all on her own, which I like. It reminds me a little of Fruits Basket, because she's joining a new school, and meets a delinquent fellow who's actually not a bad person on the inside. The art is very clean and aesthetically pleasing to read through, with great utilization of panels.

Ohhhh, a new work by the mangaka of "Boku no Namae wa Shounen A"! I did enjoy his last work, so I have high hopes for this one! The opening so far is great, easily establishing the important characters and motives. It makes you wonder if the bullied person will take revenge on the bully's daughter, since he's now in control of the situation, because he's her teacher. I haven't been disappointed by the twists in the other work, so I'm sure the mangaka won't let me down this time, either. Maybe I'll like this even more...?

Ok, I'm pretty torn about this webtoon. What it does well, it does very well. What it doesn't, it fails pretty badly. The good thing about this webtoon is the comedic elements, especially between Intae and his friend Chulsoo. Their relationship is dynamic, and they play so well off each other, with Intae being completely crazy and Chulsoo being the straight man. Their reactions seem natural, even if they're completely over the top, and I did laugh out loud a couple times reading this. There's also a lot of nerdy or wink-wink-nudge-nudge bonus things scattered around, like manga trivia and stuff. But the bad thing about this webtoon are that it's very unbalanced. It tries too hard to be dark and heavy, with some meaningful message hidden underneath, but it's not executed well, and there's zero resolution. Honestly, nothing bad happens to any of the characters, and no one gets punished, even when they should be. Also, the comedic parts clash way too jarringly with the dark parts, and it's not pleasant to read. I had to take a lot of breaks while reading this webtoon because it just didn't hold my interest, and I didn't want to continue reading to see what happens next. Some of it is due to the characters. There are maybe only three compelling characters in this webtoon, at least from my perspective. That would be the nurse, Intae, and Chulsoo. The cast of characters is extremely limited, it only shows the same couple of students and two other faculty members throughout, but it fails to develop anyone else in a meaningful way, because they're used as plot accessories. I know the author tried to tack on sob stories to these other characters too, but it just doesn't work. It makes everyone in here seem crazy, and they're all angsty teenagers or disturbed individuals, and how can a school function normally, if that were the case? I think the webtoon should just have stuck with one genre only, either comedy or psychological, but not both, like it tries to do here. It can't be expected to be both deeply serious but also ridiculously impossible at the same time, and that's the main problem with why it ultimately fails, in my opinion. The art style is very stylized, using bold colors and thick lines , which I think suited this particular webtoon, but honestly, it's not very appealing to look at. Most of the colors are dark and dull, so it's a big downer while reading. However, the author made good use of their panels, and the space was used very effectively in webtoon format. One other thing I disliked about this webtoon was there was way too much LGBTQ in here, it didn't add anything to the story or the characters themselves, and it felt like the author just made literally every other character (especially the minor ones) not straight just for the sake of inclusivity, and that's just wrong. I wish people stopped using sexuality as a characterization because that's not what makes a good character, there's much more to a character than that alone. I did like Intae's sister somewhat, but the romance was out of nowhere, and resolved in the most unsatisfying manner, with them dating in the next chapter after they talk stuff out. The plot twist weren't that surprising to me either, since the author did it way too often, with the misleading conversations and cut-aways. It gets predictable once you've done it more than twice.

The first chapter makes no sense. Too many characters are introduced at once, and panels are too small to make out who is who. The comedic timing is completely off. Is this supposed to be a gag manga? I didn't laugh at all. I don't even understand what they're trying to accomplish. The art is so unappealing. The shading to over the top in some places, and it's just very hard to process.

It's a pretty cute 4-koma type manga. Art is very simplistic, but it gets the point across. There are only three characters which are properly developed though, everyone else is rather two-dimensional. I enjoyed it and it made me chuckle at times. The romance between Ayako and Hayato, or lack thereof, was amusing. I think it ended at a good point and didn't unnecessarily drag things out too much. Cons were some of the jokes or references were hard to understand, as in, how point A led to point B which led to point C. There are sudden jumps in plot and swings of emotions which were a bit hard to understand. Overall, a decently good manga.