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A series that quite clearly seems to be trying to ride the isekai wave after sword art online made waves with it's debut, this one attempts to market itself as new and unique and different, but in reality is rather bland, and it's attempts to do so are rather pathetic.
The series describes the main character as being transported to a new world with his video game avatar and NPC's but the only relevance of video games here seems to be to justify the main characters asspulls as "video game logic", or "because it follows video game rules" etc.
The main character being evil seem to be the gimmick this isekai decided to run with but apparently it is simply the gimmick, and not an integral part of the story. The initial volumes see the MC doing little to no evil, instead it almost feels as though the author is testing the water on how much evil (or in this case jerk behavior) the audience can stomach before they drop the series entirely, but he spends so much time doing it, that by the time we actually get around to the MC doing "evil" stuff, it literally contradicts prior written character behavior and the "evil" seems to come from the most contrived and senseless scenarios.
It is true that this series seems to follow the "villains" as the main character, but make no mistake, this is not the kind of villain that is understandable or interesting or charismatic enough to hold the weight of a franchise or move a story forward. This is the kind of disposable, bland villain you find in B movies. Look past the gimmick and the aesthetics and you see a series that is particularly bland and has little to no substance.

If you're looking for a horror manga with nice art and gore, you might enjoy this manga. If you're looking for a horror manga with decently written characters along with nice art and gore, pass this one over. THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS AND MENTIONS OF RAPE/SEXUAL ASSAULT, so don't read the rest if you want to avoid those.

The premise isn't anything unique (and its certainly not fleshed out beyond 'avoid the killer giant insects') but it's enjoyable for what it is, and its evident at least some research went into the various species included which is nice. The art is nicely done and there's an impressive level of detail put into the insects.

Unfortunately, the actual writing isn't as good as the art. Characters are shoehorned into specific roles (the strict class president, the arrogant punk, the promiscuous alpha bitch, the wimpy idol and so on) and are never given any development beyond that and never actually learn from anything they go through. The stunning lack of character development makes it hard to care about them at all or be invested in their survival at all. The writer invokes 'anyone can die at any time' frequently, which makes it even harder to care about the cast - Why bother getting invested in flatly written characters when half of them will probably end up dead? - and even worse, it's usually the only vaguely likeable ones that die. The chick who was going to rape one of the other female characters when she was tied up and who is one of the closest things to a hate sink in the manga? Still alive. The idiot who insisted he was the leader only to be a selfish, useless waste? Still alive. The group that barricaded two others outside to die? As of writing, still alive.

This brings me to other major qualm with the writing: The use of rape and sexual assault for drama. In a manga about man eating insects, you'd think the drama would revolve around survival and the insects. Instead, in the span of 22 chapters there have been three onscreen cases of rape and attempted rape and one case of dubious consent along with the instances early on where larvae eating people read uncomfortably sexually, complete with focus on bare breasts.

All in all, I can't recommend Kyochuu Rettou to anyone. The art and research aren't worth bad writing and unappealing characters.

If you think that raping a girl just because you're irritated with her is fine, then this manga is for you.

Then there's the couple falling in love for no particular reason. It's a classic deus ex machina. Who needs a reason? Just throw the couple at each other and that of course results in love.

The story also tells you about one particular relationship fairly early on. Then, surprise, one of the girls involved drops a bombshell by informing the main character, who already knew what was going on, about what was going on. And he is surprised! It doesn't work folks. It's only two volumes. Nobody did any checking of the plot to see that they were repeating themselves before it was published.


Spoiler of sorts:



The most disgusting thing of all is that the guy attempting the rape, even though he's stopped, suffers no consequences. After all, it's the girl's fault cause she ticked him off.

I don't usually do reviews but seeing as the only other review is rather negative and a bit ignorant I'll say this:

The story is interesting, like pokemon go but with real people. Some people like to say the mc is dumb but after learning his backstory his actions make more sense... I'll admit the story is a bit predictable at times but I found it over all engaging.

The art and character design is very good in my opinion and the overall world is very believable, If you don't like gore or dark stories this definitely is not the manga for you.

Yukito Kishiro was forced to end Battle Angel Alita prematurely in 1994 due to personal issues. However, he returned to his manga universe a year later with Ashen Victor; a short piece chronicling the exploits of Snev, the so called 'Crash King' of Motorball, the series' deadly extreme sport.

The story - 134 pages in length - is sufficiently developed, but could have been constructed more efficiently. The plot relies on a lot of coincidences, and I feel there was more room to explore Snev's psyche, along with the Scrapyard setting and Snev's place within it. Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable read and a lovely little detour away from Alita's story, though the lack of detailed Motorball sequences is disappointing.

The characters, when compared to Kishiro's other work, are fairly simplistic. There are no interesting cyborgs or devious villains, and the Motorball players barely differ from one another. Snev - a deeply flawed character with extreme inner demons to conquer, who looks like an electrified version of Blame's Killy - is rightfully the most interesting. What is shown of his back-story is absorbing, but I wish the character had been offered a little more depth.

The artwork is fine for the most part, but a significant drop in quality compared to Battle Angel Alita. Certain character designs are very shallow and the most threatening villain is incredibly underplayed. The action sequences are short and rather uneventful, the backgrounds are at times non-existent and there are also scenes where certain characters are silhouetted for seemingly no reason. Kishiro is a talented artist, but Ashen Victor - bar four or five pages - seems like it wasn't given his best attention.

All in all, Ashen Victor is an enjoyable companion piece to Kishrio's flagship series, though with a couple of notable flaws. It's a nice look into the escapades of other characters living in the Scrapyard - whose lives are unaffected by Alita - which conveys a short-lived, but complete and satisfactory plot. The lapses in quality, however, leave a lot to be desired and I can't help but feel the manga - short as it is - could have been so much more.

After stumbling upon this series and seeing a couple of pages I decided to check it out because it looked gory and the name sounded interesting. It's a good thing that I didn't expect much, because that's just about what I got. This is one of the edgiest manga I have ever read.

Story: 2/10
The story revolves around the main character who is bullied for whatever reason by various classmates. It's not really explained, she's just really bulliable I suppose. She holds no dislikable qualities, and hasnt done anything to harbor any ill feelings from her classmates. She passively takes it until she's nearly killed by being pushed into traffic. This enlightening experience pushes her punish all of her classmates, whether involved in her bullying or bystanders, thus the name "Revenge Classroom".

The main character uses various methods to ruin the lives of those around her and destroy the class. She wrecks her classmates socially, psychologically, and physically. One surprising thing is the list of targets excludes her teachers and school staff. You know, people who directly observe school issues and have the authority to deal with it. But somehow the girl so passive about her bullying is now decides to go after those who were as powerless to save her as she was to save herself in the start. Her first realization after getting hit by the car was "kill or be killed" but screw that let's take everyone out whether they intend to harm you or not.

Characters: 1/10
The characters are just plot devices to drive the edginess of the story. There is nothing here. Everyone's crazy, an asshole, incompetent, or a coward, actively screwing themselves over.

Art: 4/10
The art conveys what it needs to in no exceptional fashion. Not terrible, not good either. Fails to convey emotion and is unappealing

Entertainment: 4/10
Will prove to be the manga's only redeeming quality. There is some entertainment to be had in the crazy events of the novel, but they'll grow old quickly because the story backing it is so weak and nonsensical. The main character hatches various plan and is maniacally manipulative which may hold reader's interest and serve as the main reason to read

Overall: 2/10
I'm not going further because the manga just loses it's appeal. And when translations take time that becomes a huge issue. If the whole thing was done I may have finished it to see how everything turned out. Dumb fun at best, this is nothing to look to deep into.

Mai the Psychic girl without a doubt is one the the strangest manga series I have encountered so far, and there are times where it doesn’t make much sense to me either. And I have came arcoss some pretty strange series that at least make better sense than what Mai tries to tell.

Story: The story starts off pretty decent. You have Mai who happens to be a pretty normal kid except she happens to have psychic powers. An evil organization working behind the sense trying to collect all the kids in the world with psychic powers for their master plan. Eventually the organization goes after Mai because of power. So far it seams all fine and dandy, but as it continues things tend to get downright bizarre at times to me. An example (if I remember all of this right) would be the one giant, almost naked, monster-like dude who they sent after to kill Mai, who later he is wearing clothes while driving a truck, helps out Mai and we later find out he happens to be the son of the one old guy as he was a victim in some short of failed experiment or something.......I really fail to see the logic in all of that.
I find the enemy’s master plan on creating a perfect world kinda dumb, and Mai’s role in it makes it seam even more ridiculous. Please also bear in mind that this was also written during the era of the Cold War (you should have been paying attention in History Class if you don’t know about it), because knowing when this was made might help you understand things a little better, especially about the enemy’s plan. The ending I felt was alright, but could have probably been much better. I feel like a topless Mai flying around was unnecessary though, I felt like the artist threw it it as nothing more than fanservice, but then again i’m just pleased there wasn’t much fanservice in this series to begin with. Theres enough strange crap going on in this as it is.

Art: What baffles me about the art is that it looks realistic, yet at the same time its not. Its drawn with a style that is very similar to the comic books here in the US, but in the form of manga, which I find quite interesting. What I don’t like is how, even though it tries to be realistic, theres a bunch of strange-looking people running around in this series, which kills the realistic-ness of the art. it also doesn’t help that to me the people seam pretty stiff as times because of how they are drawn, perhaps this is just because i’m used to seeing so many other manga artists having such a nice flowy feel in their art unlike here.

Character: Thoughout the series you see a change in Mai as she grows and matures, as well as some of the other characters, but as mentioned, theres some pretty odd people in this series.
Its also not very often when somebody manages to create a character in either manga or anime who truly scares me or creeps me out. Yet here we have german girl, Garten, with a very twisted mind who also has psychic powers, and can kill with ease, and boy does she really give me the willies! She scares me as much as Light Yagami from Death Note. So she is definitely someone you really don’t want to mess with!

Enjoyment: Enjoyable to read? Kinda. I found this series pretty amusing for the most part. It managed to grab and maintain my interest better than some of the other series i've read in the past. Theres many series out there I found much more enjoyable. I thought Mai’s battle against the Garten the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. But overall, I thought this series is pretty mediocre.
(One thing I thought was interesting was how the artist managed to throw in a Mickey Mouse plush toy and an apron with Garfield on it in here. Now that you know that, and if you want to read this, you now know some Easter eggs to look for.)

If you're bored, willing to read just about anything, looking for a short series to kill some time, Mai the Psychic girl wouldn’t be a bad series to pass the time with. But if your looking for a series with a more interesting plot, better art, and a series that makes better sense with all of its strange logic, keep looking elsewhere.

As a guy, I rarely read shoujo mangas. The only time I read them is when it has become really popular to the point that I would have either read/heard about it, or stumble upon it. But nevertheless, due to extreme boredom, I started on this manga. At first, I thought it would be an exciting, light-hearted story of childhood friends unexpectedly meeting up for a gokon with a "slice-of-life" touch. However, I expected way too much.

I'll begin with the negative aspects of the story. Firstly, there is a lack of character development. It never explained how the two fell in love, why there's a ridiculous amount of people against their relationship, and why the main female lead allows herself to be manipulated. Frankly, I think it's retarded that the main female character has some knowledge of self-defense and fails at protecting herself from being harassed. In fact, not just harassed, we're taking about boundaries of rape here, which is probably what makes this manga so engrossing. The description listed by Shoujomagic was spot-on: sex, make-up sex, sex outside, sex inside, sex is everywhere here. Aside from the typical stupid and useless female lead and her jealous, overbearing boyfriend, cheesy storyline, add in a supernatural occurrence at the beach with some hot sex to fix that drama, you got yourself Ren'ai Shijou Shugi.

This manga is extremely smutty so if you're into that and harassment-type drama, feel free to pick this manga up. But if you don't have anything better to read and you're looking for a more realistic storyline with romance, I suggest something else.

Hmmm. I'm not sure about the plot in this. It has some good concepts, the Yam tribe is particularly interesting. But, like a lot of the manga I've come across lately the plot seems overly stretched. Every chapter has different characters which we don't see again. But, unlike some other mangas that do this, there is good continuity.

The main characters do develop and I think there is a lot to learn about them. It's nice to see the change in Marlos attitudes.

This series contains some very nice artwork, especially the colour inserts at the start of each manga. The characters are well defined and they can easily be distinguished from each other.

I admit that once or twice I had to flick back some pages to re-read, but overall its easy to follow.

I think this is a light series, good for a bit of fun. It could've had more yaoi, but I'd always say that! If you like any of the genres it covers I'd say to give it a read.

Nanashi Moriko
17/7/05

My first foray into Kago Shintarou's work, as well as into the eroguro-horror genre in general. I picked this up late at night thinking: how bad can a manga really be?, at most it's just images on a page. Little did I know, this thought of mine would come full circle in my reading.

Turns out a few scenes in the eponymous story "Fraction" did send my heart racing. But guts and gore aside, what struck me more was the meta-commentary on the manga form itself. The story is presented as an alternating double narrative, between a serial killer's murders and a fictionalised Kago discussing his next project.

Even as "Kago" is walking his readers through common devices used in mysteries to create suspense, you still never in a million years could've guessed the plot twists. He gives examples to illustrate his techniques but they are almost tangential and serve only as oblique red herrings.

It reminds me of a riddle I heard in childhood, about a man at a funeral. Apparently if you solve it correctly it somehow "proves" that you "think like a psychopath". Except in this case I can't imagine *anyone* actually anticipating Kago's thought process. He reveals himself to be a perverse genius, as well as a perverse jokester;  his humour is evident even in the glossary inserted in the middle of the volume.

I'm also reminded of the many issues I had back when I first started reading manga. Small and/or unclear frames where I wasn't sure what was happening. Unattached speech bubbles where I wasn't sure who the speaker is. Manga has its own set of conventions and codes, which you learn implicitly as you stumble along.

In order to follow a manga's plot, on some level you need to suspend your awareness of the limitations of the comic-book format and subsume your attention wholly into the story itself. "Fraction" pulls you away from that. Its horror is hiding in the gap between content and form, waiting to ambush you unawares and gloat over the satisfying result of your dumbstruck manukezura.

I felt unexpectedly enlightened after reading "Fraction", if "enlightened" is the right word for this sort of anti-revelation.

The one-shots that make up the remainder of the book are a mixed bag. "The Returned Man" continues to subvert expectations. I couldn't help but read some kind of social commentary into "Collapse", perhaps a rebellion against the cultural edict to put on a brave face and soldier on in trying times. The final story, meanwhile, carries notes of the nightmarish confusion in Yumeno Kyūsaku's "Dogra Magra".

I can't recommend this book to everyone. But those who can stomach it, should read it. You might get a sense of how caged-in our realities are, and perhaps take a step outside of the box, discover hitherto unknown directions.