First chapter
May. 5th, 2010 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shaolinaHello and welcome to my spork. Lately I've been feeling the need to tear apart something that pisses me off and nothing pisses me off more than the mangaka Shinjou Mayu. This woman leaves me with no words, and the genre is no excuse. She writes the same shojo story over and over again with the dumb heroine and the abuse jerk of a boyfriend. But this story called Haou Airen is more Shinjou Mayu than the usual fare. To top it all up it's apparently licenced by Viz and heaven knows I still don't get that one.
The manga starts with our heroine holding the world on the hands with this quote:
And for a moment I thought I was in a magical girl manga. She looks like the savior of our world of something. I’m glad she’s not; we would be dead by the first attack.
Our manga really starts with our main heroine (I use that word lightly) called Kurumi-chan! Although doormat would have been just as effective. She’s a hard working girl with a sick mother and two younger siblings, or so we’re told since we never really see them in the story as characters. She works at a store to help pay for the bills ever since her father died. We see her leaving her work place at night to go home. All pretty generic stuff, but not so bad. All stories must start somewhere and I’ve seen awesome mangas start with this type of boring opening. Sadly this manga is not one of them.
Kurumi suddenly bumps with our... our... o-kay, I need to level with you guys here. Technically I should say “hero”, but this guy is no hero. He’s no anti-hero either. He’s the devil basically. There’s badboy and there’s the splooge-drinking asshat of a main character that we get. His name is not said yet so I’ll call him Asshat for now. He’s running from some people who I guess want to kill him, too bad they don’t find him.
He’s “tall, dark and mysterious” and has a dragon tattoo on his face and because he’s all that we’re supposed to ship them, I guess.
So Asshat drags Kurumi to a dark alley to keep her from talking. She’s rightfully in “WTF?!” mode. She even slaps him away and yells to leave her alone. Enjoy this moment folks. This is the only time her mind works on an average level.
Asshat then takes this moment to kiss her shut. Add to my annoyance the fact he says “I finally got you quiet...” Page 12 chapter 1 of a 50 chapter manga.... first action he takes, his introduction even and I already want to punch this guy’s teeth in. That’s got to be a record with me. And because he senses my displeasure he tears her shirt open and on the next page threatens to rape her.
Our dear heroine is horrified at this, as she should be, and thinks of screaming the next page but he intimidates her into not.
Look at this scene folks, right at the "I'm gonna rape you eyes" Remember it for future reference.
Asshat then begs her to let him stay there as the unseen mobsters keep searching everywhere except the alley where they are. They’re not even hiding behind trash cans or anything. They’re in clear view and yet they haven’t been found yet. Worst... mobsters... ever!
So pages of hiding like this and it’s supposed to be all sensual, I guess. Our heroine’s mind certainly went from “HELP! Rapist! MUST GET AWAY!!” from “Wow, he’s hot.” Face may I introduce you to my desk.
Rapist then collapses and Kurumi starts running but she takes pity on him and asks him if he’s ok. He’s like “Just leave as I lay here looking all tortured”. Or heroine, being the big sack of dumb that she is decides to, drumroll please, take him to her home. Let me repeat that:
She takes him to her house!!
She takes the man: looked by dangerous people, who kissed her by force, teared her shirt open and threatened her to her house. Her home where her little siblings live! Do I even have to say why this is a retarded idea?! And funny thing is that’s not her most retarded choice. If there’s a stupider main character than this girl I really don’t want to know.
But this manga is playing it up as her being super mega kind. Yeah, there’s a difference between kind and too dumb to live.
Look at those kids sleeping and look at how he looks at them and tell me if this is a good idea. This chick is the worst sister ever! Oh, but it’s ok because he’s handsome and has kind eyes (I still can’t figure that one. He looks like a smug dick every panel I see him)
Then we have this:
She’s undressing with him next door. Guy tells her “I’m going to rape you” after assaulting her and she’s undressing with him right there. To top it all off she’s wondering what kind of guy is he... the guy who attacked her. You can’t make up this level of stupid.
Anyway he shows up shirtless in front of her, she blushes and that’s the end of part one, chapter one of this recap.
The manga starts with our heroine holding the world on the hands with this quote:
And for a moment I thought I was in a magical girl manga. She looks like the savior of our world of something. I’m glad she’s not; we would be dead by the first attack.
Our manga really starts with our main heroine (I use that word lightly) called Kurumi-chan! Although doormat would have been just as effective. She’s a hard working girl with a sick mother and two younger siblings, or so we’re told since we never really see them in the story as characters. She works at a store to help pay for the bills ever since her father died. We see her leaving her work place at night to go home. All pretty generic stuff, but not so bad. All stories must start somewhere and I’ve seen awesome mangas start with this type of boring opening. Sadly this manga is not one of them.
Kurumi suddenly bumps with our... our... o-kay, I need to level with you guys here. Technically I should say “hero”, but this guy is no hero. He’s no anti-hero either. He’s the devil basically. There’s badboy and there’s the splooge-drinking asshat of a main character that we get. His name is not said yet so I’ll call him Asshat for now. He’s running from some people who I guess want to kill him, too bad they don’t find him.
He’s “tall, dark and mysterious” and has a dragon tattoo on his face and because he’s all that we’re supposed to ship them, I guess.
So Asshat drags Kurumi to a dark alley to keep her from talking. She’s rightfully in “WTF?!” mode. She even slaps him away and yells to leave her alone. Enjoy this moment folks. This is the only time her mind works on an average level.
Asshat then takes this moment to kiss her shut. Add to my annoyance the fact he says “I finally got you quiet...” Page 12 chapter 1 of a 50 chapter manga.... first action he takes, his introduction even and I already want to punch this guy’s teeth in. That’s got to be a record with me. And because he senses my displeasure he tears her shirt open and on the next page threatens to rape her.
Our dear heroine is horrified at this, as she should be, and thinks of screaming the next page but he intimidates her into not.
Look at this scene folks, right at the "I'm gonna rape you eyes" Remember it for future reference.
Asshat then begs her to let him stay there as the unseen mobsters keep searching everywhere except the alley where they are. They’re not even hiding behind trash cans or anything. They’re in clear view and yet they haven’t been found yet. Worst... mobsters... ever!
So pages of hiding like this and it’s supposed to be all sensual, I guess. Our heroine’s mind certainly went from “HELP! Rapist! MUST GET AWAY!!” from “Wow, he’s hot.” Face may I introduce you to my desk.
Rapist then collapses and Kurumi starts running but she takes pity on him and asks him if he’s ok. He’s like “Just leave as I lay here looking all tortured”. Or heroine, being the big sack of dumb that she is decides to, drumroll please, take him to her home. Let me repeat that:
She takes him to her house!!
She takes the man: looked by dangerous people, who kissed her by force, teared her shirt open and threatened her to her house. Her home where her little siblings live! Do I even have to say why this is a retarded idea?! And funny thing is that’s not her most retarded choice. If there’s a stupider main character than this girl I really don’t want to know.
But this manga is playing it up as her being super mega kind. Yeah, there’s a difference between kind and too dumb to live.
Look at those kids sleeping and look at how he looks at them and tell me if this is a good idea. This chick is the worst sister ever! Oh, but it’s ok because he’s handsome and has kind eyes (I still can’t figure that one. He looks like a smug dick every panel I see him)
Then we have this:
She’s undressing with him next door. Guy tells her “I’m going to rape you” after assaulting her and she’s undressing with him right there. To top it all off she’s wondering what kind of guy is he... the guy who attacked her. You can’t make up this level of stupid.
Anyway he shows up shirtless in front of her, she blushes and that’s the end of part one, chapter one of this recap.
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no subject
on 2010-06-12 04:04 pm (UTC)Yes, it is really dumb that the "heroine" takes the guy home immediately after he assaults her. Not to mention that she doesn't even know him at that point. Even if he was a truly nice person, unless he was in some sort of serious trouble, I wouldn't take some random stranger into my house.
And yes, the "heroine's" stupidity knows no bounds. She tells herself that she should run away once the "hero" collapses, but what does she do? She stays there, like the idiot she is, and tries to help him. This guy just attacked her and threatened to rape her. The only reason he kissed her was to shut her up (which is sexist in itself). Yet instead of running home and calling the police, she *stays* with him?
Even if she was concerned about him (which I don't know why she should be, since he's a complete stranger who *attacked* her), she could have called the police anyway and said something along the lines of, "There's this crazy guy who attacked me and threatened to rape me, but just to let you know, he's wounded, so could you pick him up? Thanks." She has no reason to want to help him (unless she's an absolute saint).
And I can't believe some of the comments on the MangaFox forum either that justify this nonsense (although, to be fair, there are some who protest against this manga's usage and depiction of rape). "Oh, it's not supposed to be a fluffy story" or "it's supposed to be dark." Excuse me, since when did heroines have to be brain-dead stupid in order to star in non-fluffy/dark stories? Besides, from the very beginning, the heroine spouts some nonsense about finding her soul-mate, so it's clear that the rapist is supposed to be her love interest. Gee, that's a nice message for men and women: "It doesn't matter if a guy treats a girl like garbage and rapes her! She should love him anyway, because of the way he looks at her!" Dear Lord.
no subject
on 2010-06-12 04:12 pm (UTC)Why does the heroine have to be so stupid to get a dark story?! Although there are parts that are so "traumatic and dark" that I just laughed because they are just too darn silly.
Plus the manga-ka is repetitive. All her stories read the same, with this one being the worst.
Thank you for reading.