Ijimeru Yabai Yatsu

NON-SPOILER

Oh boy, you look at the front of this book and once you chest-deep into the manga you realize that you really SHOULD NEVER judge a book by its cover. It has a HUGE plot twist and it's great honestly. It's captivating in the sense that it's so disturbing that you can't stop reading. It's the same as if you're witnessing a horrible tragedy happen and you don't wanna look but you can't stop yourself from doing so. For anyone who likes psychological, thriller and gore this is the read for you! I recommend it, beware there is a lot of explicit stuff int it that may trigger memories, especially have you have been bullied before.

It's actually really entertaining psychologically captivating. The dynamic between the two main leads is just fascinating and the mangaka keeps throwing greater and greater obstacles for the MC to overcome, all the while being completely screwed. It's quite exhilarating to see how the MC makes it out of each hurdle. The way he plans things out is perfect. It's just so screwed up that you just want to read more and more. Kind of reminds me of Flowers of Evil, in that sense, but less poetic and more psychological. The art is also really good too. I would hella recommend it.

“I can’t process what just happened” -Katou

Unironically this quote ripped directly from the anime is pretty much a complete description of the entire manga and for some reason I love it.

Venus Puts Fur On Me is one of those manga that confuses you just as much as it entertains, questions fly in and out of your head as you read through each page which weaves an ever-growing net of in your mind. As a warning, in order to actually be able to read and enjoy this you’ll have to be able to sit through some pretty messed up stuff and be able to leave a bunch to the imagination, as I’ve noticed that these are the things that put people off of the most.

Minor Spoilers Below, Skip to the end for a basic tl;dr

Story 7

The story is a mess of ideas that sometimes, if you’re lucky, MIGHT make a little bit of sense, but it is worth mentioning that the manga is still being updated so these loose ends might eventually be tied up. My personal favorite parts are those little glimmers of hope, things start going well for the main character and for a brief moment (usually less than a chapter in length) it seems like the future is looking up only for it to come crashing down immediately. (It’s kind of like the good scenes in Re: Zero)

Art 8

There’s a lot to be desired, the characters are bland and generic and most of the characters look exactly like each other with small details. The largest example is between Shirosaki (main antagonist) and Aoyama which are direct copies of each other with the only change being the color of their hair. That being said I only gave it an 8 because Nanakajima’s face is 100% the best part of this entire show. His switches between villain and victim are perfectly displayed on his face.

Character 6

No one in this manga is normal, even Tanaka who seems like he has his head on straightest has a couple of problems. This is the core of the manga’s largest issue: its believability. Of course a work of fiction doesn’t need to be the most realistic thing ever but when it’s obvious that there’s almost no reason for a character to act the way they are or when the explanation is flimsy at best it serves only to pull you out of the story. I’m the kind of person that can overlook such flaws as long as the series isn’t finished and can eventually be explained but if you aren’t that kind of person you probably won’t have that good of a time.


Enjoyment 10

Despite how screwed up everything is and the manga’s blatant flaws I really can’t help but read it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve actually enjoyed theorizing about a manga. Trying to predict how a character will act and how it’ll influence the story is the best part about reading an ongoing series and for now this remains among my top 5 favorite manga of all time.

Overall 7

TL;DR I really didn’t expect to enjoy a mediocre manga as much as I did. As I said earlier there’s a lot you’re going to have to overlook and stomach in order to enjoy this manga. That being said once you get over the original shock of the first two or three chapters it really becomes a solid read that captivates your attention. I’d recommend this to the people who unironically liked “Happy Sugar Life” but didn’t think it was wild enough.