Sugar Dark: Umerareta Yami to Shoujo

Sugar Dark. Neither very sweet. Neither very dark. If you don't consider the topic about death dark.

Seeing as how this LN doesn't have a review, and I prefer to write reviews for stuff that have few/no reviews, here it is.

Do note it contains my raw, biased opinion, but no spoilers because there isn't much to spoil. Having read the manga and this, I will compare them but after the review of the novel itself.

Sugar Dark is an interesting story to read. It may say 3 chapters, but each chapter is divided into sub-chapters and all in all will probably take about 4 hours to finish. That said, the story itself is pretty interesting. It isn't light hearted but nor is it dead serious; just that the MC doesn't have flowers inside his head. If you're looking for something deep in the abyss, this isn't the story for you. But if you're looking for a change of pace from the typical shounen story, this may just suit you.

The characters aren't a lot, which makes remembering them easy, and they do play their designated roles perfectly. Character development was there for the characters that mattered and that was pleasing. Now onto the plot. The story isn't particularly long (its only 1 volume) but it progresses nicely. There're isn't any particular repetitive things that make it dragged out. The way the translator(s) did the structuring of the sentences reflected a more mature tone, which was befitting of the story.

And finally the ending. It was bittersweet. It felt satisfying to read. I'd rate it higher if the canon continued, but that said, I'd still recommend this story if you're looking for a seinen that isn't so serious.

On to the comparison between the manga and the novel. If you prefer pictures, you'll like the manga. If you prefer text, you'll prefer the novel. It sounds obvious but I'll explain. The manga doesn't show his thought process in detail, the novel does. But the manga is easier to follow and visualise because pictures.

Now which do I prefer? The novel, but only because I'm a novel person. When I read the manga I was still pretty fresh so the mature part hit me because its pretty graphic.

I guess that's about it. Hope it helped someone decide whether or not to read it.

A short, but brilliant manga that combines horror, mystery and romance together in an awesome package. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about this story is that the protagonist is a relatively smart and decisive type of fellow - he doesn't sit back and let events happen around him only to be drawn into them, instead he figures out what it is that he wants to do and then pursues it. After reading so many crappy romance manga with wimpy or sad-sack protagonists, Muo from Sugar Dark is the type of guy that you really want to cheer for.

I particularly loved the spooky atmosphere of the earlier and middle arcs of this manga and how the mystery around everything unfolds at a steady pace. I never felt like the story despite being short was too rushed, and while I did predict what the ending was going to be, I felt satisfied seeing it play out.

If you're looking for a good short read, I highly recommend this manga. You won't be disappointed by it.

tl;dr: A short and sweet romance in a dark setting that's a bit rushed towards the end and kind of narrow.

This manga is pretty short. It's four volumes but it's the type that you sit down reading and before you realize it you've already reached the ending. There are only a few characters, and the story is primarily centered around the relationship between the protagonist and the main heroine and the circumstances surrounding both of them. It is ultimately simply the story of the hero saving the heroine, but I think it does a really good job with how it goes about this. It does a good job of slowly revealing what the situation is exactly, leaving things quite mysterious and not revealing everything until the climax, and does a good job of using that to have the relationship between the protagonist and heroine develop in an interesting manner.

The protagonist is a very interesting character, in that for most of the manga they seem to be the type of protagonist that's pretty weak willed and just goes with the flow, but in the end show that they actually have a pretty strong-willed personality that makes them likable and easy to get invested in. The heroine doesn't have that much to her in that she's mainly just a really kind girl that was in an awful situation, but the horror aspect of the manga is used well to really convey how awful of a situation it is, and thus though it is based on pity that is enough to make the reader heavily invested in her, which is fine for the type of manga it is. The story manages to hit a lot of good emotional notes, and as a result of the strength of the two main characters the plot itself is also really easy to get invested in, and thus these emotional moments manage to have a lot of impact.

Still, it felt like the manga was too short which manifested in two issues. The first is that the ending felt quite abrupt and rushed. It's a really solid ending in and of itself, and the last couple of pages manage to capture an incredible amount subtly, but I think I would have really enjoyed it spending more time on it and fleshing things out more explicitly. The other issue, though this is one that's more of a double-edged sword than just an issue, is that the story managed to capture so little. There is some really strong world building and the manga also does a really good job of establishing the dark tone and atmosphere surrounding that. It shows a lot of things slightly and alludes to quite a bit more, but in the end doesn't really flesh out anything other than what's immediately relevant to the story of the two main characters. Thus, it feels like there's much more story that could be told for this world that simply wasn't. The benefit of this is that the plot of the manga got to focus solely on the two main characters and managed to develop that incredibly well with good pacing. But at the same time, it does kind of feel like we're not getting the whole picture.

The art was pretty good in that it wasn't overtly good in quality or style, but did a decent job of being nice looking when it needed to and an even better job of being horrific when it needed to.