Story - 5/10

Yaotsukumo begins with Tsukumo, a seemingly normal high school girl. She is skilled at some kind of sword fighting which she practices with her father often and has a best friend named Chii-chan. One day on her way to meet up with her friend, Tsukumo is attacked by a mysterious slasher. She is barely saved by an immortal boy who she met years ago, named Yao. Yao tells Tsukumo (can you see where the title comes from yet?) that she is the Tokijiku, a being with the power to bestow immortality to a person. Yao was originally given immortality by the first Tokijiku. Yao asks a simple request from Tsukumo: "Kill me." Being immortal, he wishes for nothing more than to die and return to his deceased childhood friend, the original Tokijiku.

While the plot is not really that bad overall, there are many things in this 10 chapter manga which I think could have been removed. I think it would have worked fine with only 4 chapters instead of 10 as a lot of what happens between Chapter 2 and 7 is more or less filler. There are many elements in this story which do not contribute to the ending at all and many characters serve almost no purpose.

Art - 6/10

This manga contains a fair amount of gore, especially involving Yao since he is immortal and can survive being cut in half as his organs are spilled all over the ground. The art is very dark and tries a little too hard to make characters look dark even when they are supposed to be good. The character designs are simple (Tsukumo looks similar to Yui from Yumekui Merry and several other characters I can think of). The characters' eyes are drawn strangely as well as they are just 3 or 4 circles surrounding where their iris should be. It gives kind of a demonic feeling to some of the characters who are supposed to be human.

Character - 5/10

Really the only important characters are Tsukumo, Yao, and a god who's name I don't remember ever being said. Tsukumo and Yao make a good couple as long as you forget that Yao is 800 years older than her. Tsukumo is a fairly good female lead. She doesn't always sit on the sideline while Yao saves her (in fact Yao is actually pretty weak) and instead saves him a couple times. The drama between the two involving the original Tokijiku, who Yao loves, is also kind of interesting but is a mostly addressed during what I think could have been taken out of the story altogether. And lastly, the god is just your typical supernatural, mediocre villain. His motives are never explained and the only thing they ever tell you is that it's because of "karma." Other than that, there's just a few pointless supporting characters who gets shoved aside like the minor characters in Sword Art Online to make way for the main plot and characters.

Enjoyment - 6/10

I would not recommend this manga. It's just slightly below average all around and does not have anything special. It's a little similar to Nabari no Ou, but not as good, and I really believe that over half of this story could have been removed, and it would not have affected the ending at all.