Himitsu no Reptiles

This review mostly concerns the horrific portrayal of reptile care of Himitsu no Reptiles—something deeply important to the purpose of this manga.

For clarity's sake, I got my leopard gecko a week ago—I'm not an authority on reptiles. If you doubt anything I say, feel free to do your own research. However, before purchasing mine I had done dozens of hours of research and I can tell you this much: The mangaka of Himitsu no Reptiles doesn't give damn about proper reptile care or, at the very least, they are extremely uninformed. I don't know if it's just a matter of Japan's practices but, for a manga that's dedicated to the love of reptiles, some of the portrayals of reptiles care was horrifically uninformed and near abusive. The degree of foolishness from this manga rivals PetCo, and that is a terrifying thought.

What are some examples? Well, within just the first arc of the story, which focuses on a leopard gecko, there's three HUGE problems.

1) Using sand as a substrate for a leopard gecko will almost certainly kill it due to impaction. I have no idea why someone that doesn't know at least this much is writing a manga about reptiles. Please, if you get a leopard gecko, use reptile carpet, title, or (if you still want loose substrate) eco earth if you must.

2) Keeping it in a cage smaller than a shoe box is terrible. Adults need at least 20 gallon tanks and babies need 10. These are living creatures that will want to explore at least a little. Keeping it boxed up like this may fit the Japanese life style of "smaller is better" but it does not fit the life style of leopard gecko. Also, they need more than one single hide. They need a warm hide, cool hide, and moist hide.

3) Feeding it a reptile powder rather than live insects is just fucking abuse. Often, leopard geckos won't even eat insects until they see them move. Perhaps some will eat a powder (especially if raised on it) but many probably wouldn't. Besides, they need a variety of insects: crickets, mealworms, dubia roachs, etc. are required for a healthy and happy leopard gecko.

These are three critical things the manga gets wrong about leopard gecko care and that is important because the whole point of the manga is reptile care. The mangaka seems more inclined to show how easy it is to have reptiles rather than actually giving good information on how to properly take care of reptiles. If anyone actually applies what they learn from this manga, they will kill their animal out of sheer laziness. I wouldn't care so much if this weren't a manga that has actual ramifications on how people may end up treating their animals. Because it paints reptiles as super easy animals to take care of, a reader might impulse buy a gecko, fail at taking care of it, and ultimate kill it.

This manga blows. Beyond fucking annoying characters, it teaches readers how to lazily take care of reptiles in ways that will result in the animal's poor quality of life or death. I rarely feel this livid about a fictional story, and I'm the type of guy to yell about anything I dislike. This is an insult to people that actually cared enough to do their research and, even worse, a worrisome advertisement of reptile ownership for people that might fail in caring for their reptile.

To follow up on NinjaMushi's excellent review which you should absolutely read if you're considering reading this abomination of a manga, here are some more things Himitsu no Reptiles gets wrong:
1. handling amphibians without washing hands with dechlorinated water: amphibians like frogs absorb chemicals including water (but also including deadly toxins) through their skin so before holding them it is IMPERATIVE that you spritz your hands down with dechlorinated water lest you risk transferring some dangerous chemicals into their bodies.
2. saying adult pacman frogs can live in a 7x10 inch container: no. adults need at LEAST a 10 gallon aquarium, and bigger is better.
3. not even giving pacman frogs loose substrate to burrow in: this one just hurt my heart. horned frogs LOVE to burrow almost as much as they love food (more on that in a sec) and putting them on a mat for their entire life is just abuse. it's a totally natural behavior for them and they should be allowed to express it.
4. not even providing the frogs with hiding spots: jesus christ how wrong can you get? just a fake plant would've sufficed.
5. saying the frogs can live on preprepared foods: aaaaand this might be the worst one. frogs need INSECTS. LIVE INSECTS. just like the geckos. it can have the paste foods as like an occasional treat like it can have fish and pinkies as treats, but its staple diet needs to be gut loaded, calcium/vitamin-dusted INSECTS. sorry, gujira.
so in conclusion i pray to god nobody reads this manga and thinks reptiles are actually this easy, buys one, uses this as a care sheet, abuses it, and winds up killing it. thank you for reading.