Synopsis
The story revolves around a convenience store "Paraiso" (paradise). The store was once very successful and attracted quite a crowd because of its "unique" employees. But suddenly, various weird mishaps started happening one after another in the store, making it lose its popularity and making the customers believe it's cursed. A fresh college graduate, Ichinotani Hikaru, going to a job interview, somehow ends up getting forced into a job in this store. What kind of fate awaits him now?
(Source: Hidoi~! Translators)
this is one of those manga that is hard to review because of its ironclad commitment to being weird as hell. its main motif is simple: normal guy is thrust into a chaotic situation where various paranormal activities ensue. of course, there's no shortage of those types of manga, but conveni-n makes one small change that makes it rather unique. in such comedic media, weird shit happens, and then everything is back to normal (e.g., regular show, where the world almost ends on a daily basis and then everything is back to normal the next episode). the interesting thing conveni-n does is simple; "what ifthe weird shit that happened didn't get undone afterwards?" for example, in the second chapter, the main character gets captured by aliens and turned into a robot. given that it's only one page, you could reasonably expect it to be a short gag that would have no bearing on the story. but nope, the whole next chapter is about him being a robot, getting controlled by cockroaches, and then dying. now you might think, "oh wow, him getting turned into a robot probably might cause him some angst, and even though this is a comedy manga, we could get some cool character interactions and development out of it!" sadly, this doesn't happen, and i think i've realized why i haven't rated this higher.
don't get me wrong, i definitely enjoyed it. the boobs are nice, the art is good, and its humor is generally the kind of absurdist, self-aware type of humor i love. however, it doesn't really DO much with its main gimmick, which sucks. the thing about most episodic, consequence-free comedies is that there is little to no character development, because the author wants to keep the environment the same, with only small changes. it's like eating a burger every day, and the only differences are that you occasionally change condiments. the characters are one-note as hell, and that does not change throughout the story. conveni-n suffers from the exact same issues of character stagnation that normal episodic manga do, but without the stability the offscreen interchapter resets provide. instead of "same shit, different day", it's more akin to "different shit, same day". having said all that, this series is still worth a read.
it's a prime example of squandered potential, but its short length and goofy humor do enough to make sure it's still a good time.
6.75
