Reading Club

Story: An inundated mess. The first few chapters do a terrible job of setting things up, the middle is bargaining on the exposition to carry a wave, and the finale is such a mess of convoluted choices that I couldn't wait to finish this manhwa. There's no real clear-cut main character, so when the complicating incident hits, you don't really have an idea who it happens to, therefore you don't really know it's importance. That's rather technical, but in reality, the problem becomes, "What's the complicating incident?" For the most part, I knew what was going on because I read the manhwa's description, but the story shouldn'tbank on people reading the back of the book to figure things out. The story needs to plainly describe what's taking place so things make sense. Characters are caught saying things that don't make any sense. They're merely saying it because it'd be 'funny' despite there being no in-world reason for it. For instance, a detective (or is she a coroner? Do coroners carry gun now?) asks suspects if they think the place is haunted. If you read in later, they had no idea that things were due to anything supernatural. So, why does it happen? It's just poor writing. Not to mention, it's comedic. It omits the horror of the events that just took place and replaces it with some levity. Whenever something horrific happened later, I wasn't scared because I expected levity to come right after. Now, there IS a story here, it's just translated poorly from the author's mind to the page. If this were rewritten by a better writer, I could see this being quite engaging, but the pacing issues, the confusing events, and the ridiculous dialogue make for a boring, tiresome read. Art: Not terrible art, but proportions are absolute crap. Scenery is usually turned into white backgrounds, and I don't really think I can envision any locations other than the school library. The setting never really matters. Characters have changing proportions, abdomens are uncomfortably long, arms super lanky. Despite their skeletal issues, the characters still look fairly good. I can tell when there are different characters in a panel. I only had one problem with that and it totally threw me off. Character: I was bored and found nobody interesting. I found their individual arcs unrealistic and abusive to my intelligence. I would have been better off not reading this at all due to how uninteresting everyone was and how none of them could carry the narrative. What a mess. Enjoyment: Marginally enjoyable, but not something I would make time for. I read this to kill time until lunch. Nothing more. Now I'm glad it's over. ((If you liked this review, check out my other reviews by going to my profile and clicking the 'reviews' tab. I review virtually all anime and manga I find!))