A Girl on the Shore

Umibe No Onnanoko is quite possibly the worst piece of literature that my hands have touched in the past decade. Now to be fair, I knew absolutely nothing about this manga prior to buying it. Perhaps I should have done my research. When the first sex scene came by I was surprised because, again, I knew literally nothing about the manga. But it was fine. Sex scenes aren't that bad right? I'm sure they have meaning. Oh look another sex scene. And another one. Another one. Another one. Dj khaled can't save me here this book is literally sex and bad story telling. The actual storyis quite ridiculous and while the characters hold resemblance to what real teenagers feel at certain times- how they act as a whole is entirely exaggerated and unrealistic. You'd think that the author is a dinosaur based on their interpretation of teenager relationships. Yeah yeah, maybe I was the only teenager in highschool to not have sex every 5 minutes, but to be fair their rampant sexual behavior isn't the only problem. These kids are assholes to each other and its a wonder why any of them interact with each other. The only reason I recommend you to pick up this manga is if you want to watch teenagers have sex. Well.. that's actually a pretty sketchy reason to pick this one up. I found no redeeming qualities in this book- no deep symbolism (wow people get sexually frustrated 2deep4me) and in general this was a bad and awkward read. This is basically porn- bad story and characters but okay sex scenes.

I'm writing this review completely fresh, having finished A girl on the shore just a couple of minuets ago, and it left such an impact on me that I felt I had to come straight to MAL and write my first review in over 3 years. Not because this was such a thought provoking or inspiring work that I felt I simply needed to tell everyone to read it as fast as I could, no quite the opposite, I feel as if this is one of the most DISAPPOINTING Manga's/Anime's I've had the displeasure of watching/reading. I honestly can not believe this is written bythe same author of Solanin, which I love to death even though it did have it's problems. "A Girl on the Shore" is nothing but problems however. Where do I even start? Well I guess I'll start on a high note and say that the art is average. Scenes are well drawn and detailed, however (and this is a problem I have with all of Inio Asano's works) the faces -specifically the eyes- give me a weird uncanny valley feeling. So that's the best thing I can say about this manga. Buckle up because now we 'bout to get super negative. The plot could not be any.... you know what I can't even finish this sentence because too many negative adjectives come to mind. It's all over the place, it has abysmal pacing, terrible direction, and even though a lot does happen, the plot never, ever, EVER, feels like it's going anywhere. I never felt like tension was building, or any conflict was moving the plot forward. If I didn't know any better I'd say that the plot only existed as a vehicle to move the 'story' between the sex scenes. Oh yeah, the sex scenes. There are sex scenes. So be prepared for that, because I certainly wasn't. Now I am no prude, and I am not one to just turn my eyes the second something edgy or challenging get's presented to me, but this manga was just too much. I don't want to spoil, but there are some sex related scenes that just serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever and only seem to be in there to shock you. If the blurb for this manga makes you think its a traditional romance, well it isn't, so if that's what you want, look elsewhere. Now then, the worst part, the characters. Again, the only other work I've read by this author was Solanin, which had (in my opinion at least) EXTREMELY well done and realistic characters who where all relate-able in one way or another. "A Girl on the Shore" however, is the complete opposite. Absolutely none of the characters left an impact on me in any way shape or form. I don't remember a single name, and like I said in my first paragraph, I literally JUST finished this manga. Not only are they not relate-able or memorable, they aren't even LIKE-ABLE. A bad story can really be saved by good characters, but in this case the characters drag the story down EVEN further. EVERYONE is an asshole. EVERYONE. Everyone treats everyone like shit, so you don't root for anyone, so you don't care about anyone, so you just start speed reading to get this fucking drag of a book over with. It isn't like the twists near the end are unpredictable. Fucking hell you know the ending word for word by the 5th god damn page. This is not realistic character depiction Inio! No one acts like this even in middle school! Overall, all I can say is do not fucking buy this. It's a waste of money and a waste of paper. My heart goes out the the tree that had to die just so it could produce this fucking mess. Even reading online is a waste of time, and if it's porn you're after, well buddy if you haven't heard you can find tons of it for free without a fucking tragically retarded story blocking everything. I'll be honest though, near the middle of the book there are 1 or 2 moments that had me thinking "My god is this finally going somewhere". But obviously no, it went right back to being shit. It gets one point added to it just because it fucking trolled me. It's safe to say that I'll continue to cherish Solanin, forget this exists, and never take a chance on Inio Asano again.

I feel like "Umibe no Onnanoko" is the most telling of inio asano's issue in his writhing. Which is that if you don’t have some sort of direct connection to the ideas he tackles you are never going to like the story. Unlike most stories, where the point is to introduce an idea to the reader. Asano's writing feels more like a depiction of feeling that use the experiences of the reader as a way to connect them to it. This is why "a girl on the shore" is so impactful for me, while being so boring or disgusting for other people. I feel drawnto the story of 2 people so desperate to feel wanted in a world that rejects them, while being unable to accept each other, because I understand those emotions and have felt them. But for a person who has not felt these feelings before, or has felt them but does not feel driven to them, the various depictions disgusting of sex scenes, the snail pace plot and the abrupt ending become unable to be overseen in order to enjoy the story.

this manga was practically just porn straight porn the ending was even more atrocious that what i was looking at do not recommend this book it is nothing like any of his other works which are 129 times better. most of the book was just sex scenes between middle school children its rweally not something nice as they are underage and sexualises them of course sex scenes have their meanings but these however i felt did not i could not work out how they meant anything and the story would have been better off without them. the plot was not something that gets you hooked andwas confusing at times.