Book reviews

Gin-iro14
Apr 09, 2021
No Bra review
Yet another Manga I have no clue how I found randomly but I remember reading the scans of way back when I was in high school as they were being translated for the first time and since my last cram session made me want to revisit something to see what I thought in retrospect I figured I'd go back and give this a re-read and well here I am a few hours later and all i can say is eh.

The plot simply put is a dude living alone has a cute girl move into his apartment who claims to be a long lost childhood friend looking for a fresh start who while appearing to be the perfect woman is actually a dude and from there you get a fairly underwhelming but interesting harem with a host of characters that are semi bland and one dimensional but overall still not entirely unlikable and as for the lewdness it's fairly tame when you really think about it with the only real nudity being shown via a woman that's very legal and everything else just being more situational humor or pantie shots which is aright I guess.

The concept was there but it didn't really expand much beyond a surface level be yourself and don't lie kind of slice of life story with some fairly underwhelming artwork and character designs, but like the last manga I reviewed this was still an amusing read that left me wanting to finish it and see if it ever took off but judging by the fact that the majority of reviews on here are pretty old and all over the place I'd say that there's a reason there's never been an animated take on this 5 volume series nor any attempts to seemingly translate it for western audiences.

I'd say if you want a short trashy romance novel kind of love story that won't make you think too hard then you could do much worse but overall this was a fairly rushed piece of literature that I'm not sure how in the hell I ever was interested to read it in the first place let alone actually finish it twice but even with that in mind I still did finish it twice and being that I normally never delve into the subject matter of dude on dude awkward romance situational comedy things I'd say this deserves a bit higher on it's overall score for that.
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iridi12
Apr 09, 2021
No Bra review
Please take into consideration that this series was not my style and this review is simply to explain why. Many others seem to enjoy it; unfortunately, I did not.

So it's about a boy who winds up having a cute girl for a roommate...except the girl is really a boy. What I expected to find was a romance coupled with a bit of difficulty and lots complex emotions. What I got was a very basic plot with shallow and flat characters.

Contrary to what the synopsis says, Yuki is not a crossdressing boy who enjoys wearing womens' clothing. He is a biological male who self-identifies as a female. He doesn't simply dress like one, he lives the lifestyle of a female and wishes to be accepted as a female. This alone should be enough to build a spectacular story around, but there's simply not enough substance and it only plays a surface part in the overall storyline.

Masato has to cope with his emotions while he lusts after two girls he likes (and any character who will show him their panties). He is constantly wavering between whichever character is currently showing him attention. The relationships aren't very fleshed out and contrived. Ultimately, it was a light/quick read from start to finish.

If you are wanting to read about the complexities of teen romance, the social difficulties of being genderqueer and the search for understanding and acceptance, look elsewhere. If you want to read a typical school life ecchi comedy that's almost-sorta-not-really yaoi, then you'll probably like this.
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czxcjx14
Apr 09, 2021
No Bra review
Story 7/10 - The story was good, but if you are looking for a "Tale of Two Cities" or "Brothers Karamazov" then you have picked the wrong genre. It's a about a guy, Masato, whose not at all very charismatic and kind of socially clumsy and a trans-gender(not transexual, huge difference) guy, Yuki, who falls in love with him when they were kids. The story can be flat at times and rely on not very 'intelligent' subject matter, but it was part of what made it so funny.

Art 7/10 - Not going to lie, don't know much about the art side of anime, it wasn't extremely detailed, but it wasn't messy and cluttery. The text was pretty well organized and it made for easy readability. And that is how I'm going to do write ups on the art aspect.

Character 8/10 - The main characters Masato and Yuki were dynamic, they change through out the series and keep things interesting. Masato progressively becomes more mature and starts taking other peoples feeling into consideration and Yuki's conflict of gender identity slowly becomes more apparent and unraveled. But the supporting characters were very flat and plain, one dimensional as MTV's "Undergrads" Jess' friends.

Enjoyment 10/10 - I really enjoyed this manga a lot, it made me laugh and question what may happen next, considering their are so many different plot twists through out the chapters.

Overall 9/10 - I loved this manga, it was cute and funny and it had some pretty good romance scenes. If you can stand through awkward humor about sexuality and like a good comedy-romance then I highly recommend it.
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Elegade9
Apr 09, 2021
No Bra review
[Finally read all: Now updated.]
Chapters seen:31/31
[Genre ratings]
Yaoi:2?
Man... one of the 2 guys "in love" has 90% resemblance to a female?
Ecchi:6
Mainly "panties"... what else can I say?
Harem:7
Well, mostly it is about 2 girls who fall in love with a guy who has little attributes, flirtatious, horrible etc. mainly because of reasons the guy did not deserve (aka misunderstandings the guy did not clear but instead let them continue)

For a first, this is the first review I've doen that I will separate into 2 parts, 1-18 and 19-27. Reason being, these 2 portions seem to be totally different.

[1-18]
Story:8
Amazing storyline, I was so surprised at the twists to the story, although there were some irrelevant parts. 1 great point was the teacher staying with the main character... but it was strange that the teacher did not discover anything amiss.

Art:8
A lot of effort in drawing the stuff, even with many characters, and it was clear.

Character:7
Some were a bit blur... their personalities. The main male character was not expressed very well, although the main female characters were better expressed. Side characters played their roles well too.

Enjoyment:9
The plot was exciting, some jokes were made and it is quite an enjoyable gender-bender series compared to some others (especially with harem). Originality made this a whole lot enjoyable.

Overall:8

[19-27]
Story:3
2 words: Harem. Fillers.
The main male character became very horny and went out with the 2 main female characters at the same time, more female characters came into the picture and arouse him. Chapter 27 was a detective story (a lot of mangas have that==), which ended with what they sort of started (thus no plot).

Art:8
Same art.

Character:4
Some had a personality change i believe, and the main male character became downright horrible... dating both a male and a female lols. Not much character development.

Enjoyment:3
The word "panties" came out much more in 19-27. Yeah... and it was too much a harem story without a plot that I am kind of thinking to put a hold on this series, I thought the plot would deepen from chapter 18 D: .

Overall:2

[28-31]
28 is like the start of an ending arc. It seems to flow back to the original story, starting with some school probs then to some personal probs. But seriously, it was too rushed and too easily resolved, not much value added at the end. But it was concluded, definitely. Not exactly good, but still an acceptable one.

[As a whole]
Maybe read 1- 20 then skip to 28 or something?:D
Overall:5
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ReaderElaine5
Apr 09, 2021
No Bra review
Well,
First of all, before I start my never ending rant about this one weird piece of work, I must warn you. Review starts in the next paragraph.
This manga has some (a lot?) of Yaoi content.
This manga has lots of Ecchi moments (some of them are going overboard imo).
I dislike the MC (Main character) so i'll be chewing on him throughout the review (just to warn you that my opinions are mixed just because I developed a pretty solid hate-hate feelings towards this specific MC and I'm not sure if it is justified. Oh well just see for yourself).
I will try my best to avoid any spoilers.


Actual Review:
Story: 5/10.
IMO: Story's pretty original. Nothing innovative of some sort, but the bizarre setting that the story evolves around is pretty amusing and kept me going even when the rest of the manga's aspects lacked.
The story starts to change pretty drastically after the first volume. More depth is added and as a result I couldn't stop reading until I finished it. More problems and complications appear and the MC doesn't seem to keep up with most of them. keeps you more interested in the plot itself.

Art: 6/10
The art is FINE imo. The first dozen of chapters might look and feel a bit lacking and Brute, but It does get better as the time goes by, whether if you get used to the old style or stay long enough to see the style blossom into a less awkward product.
The design of the characters is pretty consistent but you may see some improvements with the details and body physics which made me very happy at the time.

Characters: 6/10
I'll say this now and I wont repeat myself again in this review.
- I personally hate the MC so much that my mind is automatically avoiding the "better" qualities that he possesses and is focusing on his WAY more obvious ugly qualities, which, as a result I ended up giving this section a 6. -
But! I will do my best to keep everything subjective.

So first of all the characters are very interesting, Everyone has a good and deep back story and pretty defined qualities.
Almost every new important character that is presented into the story will get a good background-informative chapter/s and some fanservice derived content. Everything is pretty solid in this aspect.
Main character....:I'll just get straight to it. The Decisions he makes throughout the story are just so unfitting for my style that sometimes I just wanted to give up on reading the rest of the chapters out of frustration. His personality is very unbiased and boring and his artistic design could make you feel disgusted when you read the romantic and sexy moments (Remember these are only opinions and thoughts that I adopted by reading the manga). But the obsession I developed towards Yuki made me stay, in addition to the weird interesting plot ofc.

Enjoyment: 5/10.
Ending and MC related events Killed me. Rest is gold'ish.

Overall: 5/10.
Enjoyable manga all in all.
It has some awesome and funny characters that I will probably remember even after finishing it and some characters that I'll do my best to forget about.
Finishing it left me with a bad taste so I would suggest preparing some sort of a comforting material to wipe the excess bitterness.

Can't say I recommend reading this manga, but just from checking out the first few chapters will probably be enough for anyone to decide whether to keep reading or stay away.
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No Bra
No Bra
Author Kawatsu, Kenjirou
Artist --