Shitsurakuen

A quick note at the start, I have only read 10 chapters of this manga up to this point as that's all that I can find currently. So this will be more of a first impressions rather than a review. That being said lets begin.

Shitsurakuen is a rather strange manga that I've had a hard time deciding whether I actually like it or not. The premise is pretty original (in a ways) and the characters seem likable enough, but something in the back of my mind keeps telling me I shouldn't be liking this. It is kind of hard for me to put my finger on what this nagging feeling is but if I had to sum it up in one word, I would say sexism (but not really...). Let me explain... This manga is aimed at men, and one can easily buy that. There is a quite a bit of sex appeal (and a slight air of lesbianism), a lot of action and fighting in tow. But, at the same time, the book also does everything it can to make men look like scum, and you kind of wonder how men can read this without feeling a little offended. I'm serious, I take some offense to how this manga portrays men. I know its not a huge deal, but every single man except for a social inept loser and a tall quiet guy, are completely evil sadists. Now Shitsurakuen does a pretty decent job of setting up the pretense that men have been brought up into this life style and that anyone would act this way in the given situation, but I always find it annoying when the one guy I am supposed to relate with is completely devoid of a social life. That aside, I really don't care too much about the depiction of men because it could be easily replaced with an evil empire and it would work exactly the same, Men are just used as a plot convenient evil for the protagonist to overcome. Thus the manga isn't especially sexist, it just uses it as a strange way of creating conflict.

Ok, well with that rant out've the way, the story really isn't that special. As I said, it's essentially a lone hero vs. a huge evil organization (men), all in the name to protect and save the weak and less fortunate that the organization tries to abuse (women). Its a simple shounen plot thats easy to get behind and enjoy, so its worth it for the most part to read on that aspect. The characters are interesting enough, all pretty cliche in their own right, but enjoyable to watch. Sora, the protagonist, is probably the most interesting of the bunch as she is essentially the stereotypical male protagonist of this kind of manga, only in a woman's body. She's kinda like a female robin hood, if robin hood were a bit more of an idiot and bit less witty. Again, like the plot, the characters are decent but pretty forgettable in the long run.

Now, as far as I can tell, this is the author's (Naomura Tooru) only work and as a first time project I can say that its pretty well done. The plot and characters are all straight from the book, with only a slight twist that the author added, but that's probably how one should always start writing, and I can commend them for that. This manga isn't great, but it has promise and i think with a bit of hard work out of Tooru, we may see some good things come out of it.

Overall, as an action manga, it isn't exactly great. I doubt many people would ever put something like this in their top ten, and really can complain about a lot of things. But overall if you like basic action as a whole, this will be familiar ground, and still enjoyable enough to check out. So I will end with saying, check it out, but I won't blame ya if you give it up after so long.

Story (3): It has a somewhat good premise going on, but it reminds me to much of other mangas like Soul Eater with the girls turning into weapons and the masters being the boys. It's a girl battling against sexism and bias in a school where girls are seen as nothing as tools, sounds like some feminist ideology to be honest, and that's not why I'm giving it such a low score. I did like what the first few chapters told, but as soon as it kept going, it got confusing, dull, a chore to read through and the ending just leaves us with too many questions.

Art (8): I thought it was pretty good to look at, but it's no where perfect. So not much to say on this part.

Character (6): I really did like Himoto Sora, but she seems too much as a Mary Sue later on as the story goes on, is it bad? Not really, but the other characters all have great designs of their own, but all have dull or confusing objectives going on. I feel like this manga needed over 100 chapters in order to get some justice to these characters, but since it's pretty short, it ended up doing a lot of damage.

Enjoyment (4): Well..... it's boring, not really a pain to read through but it's hard to keep your attention. It took me a long while to skim, not read, skim through a single page, and it really does suck because I feel like this manga had a lot of potential when it first started but it self-destructed as soon as the next chapter appeared.

Overall (6): Read it if you want to fall asleep, it's not a good yuri, not a good romance, nor a good story. So skip!

[Read:9 chapters + 1 Omake= 10 chapters on MU]
[Specialty: Hope + Mystery + Plot]

This series is interesting, it started off with something like a game like "Chaosic Rune", and was quite tragedic. However, it steered away from the dark path that "Freezing" took, which was constantly filled with tragedies. From chapter 2 or 3 onwards I began feeling that it would be one of my fav adventure-filled series.
Note:Abt 55 pages for first chapter, after that abt 40 and abv.

Story:10
I give 10 for story+potential and 9 for story up till now.
The story is quite interesting. It reminds me of many different storylines I've read b4, but I couldn't exactly tell which part reminds me of which manga. 1 is like "Chaosic Rune", where damage taken is transferred to somewhere (Read the mangas for more info).

Empathy is quite strong in this series. This series got off to a tragedic start, and from the beginning a lot of mysteries started happening, including future possible potential. Till chapter 9 (or or 10) it's still quite murky, but at least it's clear it didn't have a heavy/very heavy mood like "Freezing". Hope is also a strong factor, even the reader can "believe" in the future of the characters in the story. A risk is though... the story may have trouble covering all the mysteries started.

Another good point is good usage of pages. Instead of increasing characters or involving school life scenes, this manga focuses on a few characters (and thus more character development) and increases action scenes and plot.

Plot is really clear right from the beginning few chapters... although some mysteries may interfere with plot if handled badly. But, some parts of the story do look strange though.

I like the story presentation a lot, some of it looks like a show itself.

Art:7
Lots of action scenes, nice expressions, quite a few colour pages in some first few pages of a few chapters. Detail is there when needed and I could understand near all panels.

Character:9
Murky but clear that there is potential. At least 5 characters in there are shrouded in mystery... the main character is likeable but realistic, and is very unique. Characters' emotions were depicted well most of the time, and the reader should be able to feel with most characters most of the times, sometimes even with villains.

The problem is with the side characters, most of them are developed a best a little only, so their actions are usually a mystery. But to be honest, the character cast is quite special. And the mangaka didn't expand the characters mostly involved too much ,which is a good thing, since the mangaka used a lot of pages to develop bonds between the main characters instead.

Enjoyment:9
Suspense is overflowing... but it's really interesting to see the plot deepen.
Reading this is like watching a show about this hero who wants to revolutionize. Really interesting.

Overall:9
This manga is very good for me, serious when it needs to and funny when it's not. More importantly, the focus on empathy and hope makes this manga more than a "1-dimensional" storyline.

If you like this series I recommend Chaosic Rune or Freezing, though they are both heavy in their atmosphere.

To sum up Shitsurakuen: girls are just objects, guys are dicks.


Just imagine a story based on this, but instead of the girls being used sexually, they are being used as "weapons" in some bizarre game. The guys collect girls in some sort of weapon harem and only the guys that "own" their "weapon" can touch them.


This is the premise and it doesn't get much better. The main character, despite being a girl somehow is one of the "knights" like the guys and isn't classed as a weapon. So she jumps in all SUPER GENGKI and saves the day by saving all the girls from their abusers. If this is something that appeals to you, then cool, all good. I would've been into this too, if the villains were like monsters or something instead of just.... guys. I've kind of had enough of seeing guys as being instantly bad in yuri mangas.


The storyline makes little to no sense and all the other girls apart from GENGKI GIRL are pitiful. The guys are all wankers and then you have the MC's childhood friend who just sits all aloof and makes aloof comments every so often.



This was as far as I got and I don't really have any inclination to go any further.

A story with so much promise it fills me with regret every time I remember its beginning and rage when I remember its ending.

I really enjoyed about 90% of the story. The art is good; it never felt awkward or lacking; nor did it impress me though. The characters were strong and vibrant; they really sold the world they inhabited. As for enjoyment, if you can read the whole story, chances are that you will either love it or hate it. Its not the kind of story you can read without caring about one way or another.

It made my heart race with anxiety, anger, despair and joy (depending on the chapter). If you've read a lot of "knight saving damsels in distress" stories, then the path the story takes will feel familiar. Until you get to the end.

Thus I warn future readers; Most good stories have a simple beginning, complex middle and simple ending. This simple end allows the reader to feel the emotion or ask the question(s) that the author intended. However, this story's most complex part is the end which leaves the reader conflicted and or confused.

THERE ARE
MINOR SPOILERS
BELOW

It throws a fairly big twist at the end. I haven't reread the series so I don't know how much foreshadowing their was but, I know that I definitely didn't see it coming.

After the twist is revealed, the story wraps up things mostly. However, it's ending was a little lackluster. The author seemed to agree and came out with a second last chapter that has a more fan service ending (it didn't make much sense to me but it still felt better than the original ending).

The problem comes in when you think about the twist. In my option it both completely betrays the story's theme and subverts the feelings of the reader. The story is turns out not to be about a courageous knight but rather about a manipulated fool. The worst part of that revelation is that it seems to unintended. The author seems not to notice that they have corrupted their own story. Well either that or they hate their own heroin and wanted to have an ending that belittled them.

If you've read all this and still want to read it, be prepared, there are other (perhaps better) reasons to hate the ending.

Okay, let me explain my scoring.

I love the art, it's a pretty fresh take on the 'harem' genre (it's rare to find harems centered around a female character), and most of the characters are pretty interesting, even if they start off as stereotypes. It does borrow HEAVILY from Utena, however, in terms of themes, a fairytale Greek chorus, and mechanics of the game played at the school, but it does switch it up enough to not be boring. There's also comparatively less fanservice than most harem manga.

However, there's a lot of things wrong with this manga, and 99% of them have to do with the male characters and the ending.

I don't want to spoil anything in case anyone wants to give it a try, but know that there is a great deal of physical violence against women, rape threats/attempted rape, and abuse apologism, especially in the ending. I sincerely would not reccomend it if you are upset by depictions of violence against women, because this manga is rife with it.

TL;DR: Lots of violence against women, abuse apologism, and all the men suck except for Akane, who is a very good boy.

minor spoilers, mostly for the dumb ass ending

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

when abusers cry that they're the real victims and the author paints them as victims of society is where i draw the f**king line

-forced to write a longer review, the ending is actually legitimately trash, glorifies self victimization and says it's ok to be a massive abusive piece of sh*t bc lol we live in a society, romanticises forgiving people who prolly shouldn't be forgiven just like that, no further questions taken at this time

Art was pretty cute, though to be honest there wasn't even a lot of shoujo ai at all, battles were pretty cool, this manga isn't recommended for actual feminists or people who have been through abuse because this sh*t can be damn triggering

The story of this manga is based on "Paradise Story" which is often included in the story and well-made to cover the whole events in the story.

This manga is having a slow start and will leave you different perception more you dwell with the story. It's not a simple one but full of surprise and deep thought.

The art is greatly drawn and kept like that until the end. Characters, battles, and events are drawn nicely throughout the series.

Throughout the story, I don't like how they abuse the girls in the story, making my enjoyment so low but more you know story, this story is very enjoyable. Having finished 23 chapter (I think ep.24 is epilogue) I really story as the whole.

So, conclusively, just like me, maybe you will turn away from this manga in first few chapters, but I think as a whole, this manga gives a very great story.

Alright i have three words for anyone who likes this manga "Revolutionary Girl Utena" the story line and many other plot devices remind me so much of this older anime. I always loved Utena and Sora reminds me so much of this I can hardly wait for each chapter to be released. Anyway id say that this is a must read.

Feminism is one that this manga trying to bring, although not deeply being conveyed, as it is being shadowed by the premise of action, with this, the manga perhaps bring us to another perception that gender being the problems. Although that, the manga still considerable for the readers, but not for the one that had bias for it, although it is already being hinted it is shoujo ai.

For the plot in this story, basically it is the usual power up, love, although it is a bit swaying romance, it is trying to tell about how the domination of one gender toward the others trough a battle games,with a spices here and there.Arts and Characters wise, it is good, but not enough, though it could convey the meaning that readers needed to understand. As whatever swaying love is not everyone usual cup of tea, it is needed some consideration while reading this, although compare to usual stuff for this genre , it is mild one.