Renai Shijou Shugi

I struggled to read it all the way to the end. The plot is basically cyclical- someone wants to break them up, assaults the girl, they overcome it, and then it all repeats. If you like smut, there's plenty of it, and if you like the typical shojo couple then that's there too. But beyond that... the suspension of disbelief for the sake of smut is a little too much. Can you buy that a girl who it supposedly great at karate would only wait to be saved by her boyfriend each time she's sexually assaulted? Can you believe that a girl would be assaultedmultiple times by five different people in less than a year? That two teachers would independently be trying to break up the couple? Beyond that, the characters border on irritating. As I said, the girl seems to magically forget her karate training and act like she's completely helpless without her boyfriend. And again, the story seems to be constantly repeating itself which can only hold your attention for so long.

There’s only one way to describe this manga: Warning! This manga is NOT suitable for people under 18. This Manga Contains One or More of the Following: Graphic Sexual Situations Non-Consensual Sex (you might as well just say rape) Well, they have an active sex life. I don’t know if to be appalled for the students who sat and touched the desks they got busy on or applaud them for getting it on in almost every room in the school. It starts with Seri, who has been doing karate since she can remember. Now a high school student she wants nothing more than to have a boyfriend. Apparently guysdon’t like a girl who can defend herself and who are strong. Wanting to find love she quits karate in order to become girl-lier or at least make people believe she is. Everything was going according to plans. She had changed herself and had a group date where she would hopefully meet a nice guy and fall in love…yeah. She is surprised to see Tamaki, her ex karate partner from when they were kids is there. Weird sparks reunite and he forces her hand to a karate match. If she wins he’ll keep her secret, if he wins, Seri becomes his slave/pet. Now, I’m not against smut but there are some things that have to be said, so readers be warned. You will not only get your eyes de-virginized by reading the manga but also your innocence taken away when you decide that some characters have no purpose and might as well walk into an oncoming train. Too harsh? It starts of as a regular story where they boy likes a girl and girl is oblivious. It’s all fun and games until they get sexual. The story is nice at the beginning and at the end. The middle was jumbled and repetitive. Seri and Tamaki’s relationship is hot (in all sense of the word). They even have scenes where Tamaki forces Seri to do things, sometimes sexual, that she doesn’t want to do but ends up wanting to do (let‘s call that, sort-of-rape?). But since she enjoys it at the end, it’s all good? The manga then tries to get serious about the rape theme, sort of, by bringing in characters and giving them a reason and a rhyme for their evil-ness and calling the rape, rape. Only that when certain characters rape it’s bad, but when others do it, it isn’t. Get it yet? Yeah the manga is a smutty one The girl who is known for her karate training does next to nothing to stop or get away when she is being molested. Maybe there’s a pain threshold that activates her skills… It’s a revolving door of guys wanting Seri. They want her so bad they can’t help themselves and they try to get her by force. Tamaki saves her at the last minute and is the epitome of a perfect boyfriend by not caring that Seri's body enjoys it (it meaning rape-sex). Same goes for the Tamaki-- girls get smitten, try to kill his girlfriend and it ends up putting them in the mood, because nothing puts someone in the mood more than psychotic girls bound to get in your pants and kill your girlfriend. Let’s not forget the characters that try and break up the couple because of an old grudge, every manga needs one of those. There’s a plot in there somewhere, hold on let me move all the sex scenes aside…there it is. Love. They love each other and can’t keep their hands off. It gets back on track in the last two or three chapters and the ending was beautiful, now if we could only change the characters, except Tamaki. The characters started out good. Some of them had the ability to be great actually. Seri and Tamaki began strong. Literally, she was top girl in karate he was the best. You could tell they liked each other and were sweet about it at first. Before it got very sexual and it took over. All the characters that appeared had an ulterior motive and were after sex, not love. We had characters who were great in a way, they were evil and did evil things really well. To the point of you disliking them. Then it gets turned around and you hear their story and you can’t help but feel bad. They just play with your emotions. Which is a quality of a strong character. The art is nice and average. Nothing overly beautiful about it, but the characters are drawn nicely. Though it is the type of manga where some characters look the same. Even being rated R I don’t recall it showing nudity at all, so it at least was true on that. Would I want to see the anime version? Not really, well, if it‘s one of those anime that is nothing like the manga, YES. It’s also not a manga I’d recommend to someone who wants a romance or a comedy. The romance is there but it’s second to other things (sex). It’s not an innocent love. It did start out that way, kindda, sorta, maybe. But at the end all you remember is the warning labels and the sex. It’s just ecchi with a sweet ending. Love's Supreme Principle? Really?

Short and simple review: A smutty shoujo manga about a girl and a guy who are both into Judo. If you like shoujo, high school themed, and smutty mangas then this one is suitable for you. But if you're looking for a manga that you want to be attached to even after finishing it, then this is clearly not it. Even after reading about 8 chapters of this, I'm still not sure why the girl ended up liking the guy or exactly why the guy made her his "toy" in the beginning. If he liked the girl, why didn't he just confess? (Of course, this was probably theauthor's intention all along.) And of course, the girl succumbed to the guy's sexual desires. Both characters simply don't have enough depth for me to continue reading this. Therefore, dropped.

The manga started out very good in my opinion. After reading a couple of chapters I thought this would turn out to be a very good story. But the manga soon takes a turn for the worse: it's very repetitive (always more or less the same things seem to get in between the main characters and they.just.don't.learn.) and overly dramatic. One could argue that most shoujo manga are overly dramatic or not realistic, but Ren-ai Shijo Shugi really stands out. Sadly, that's the only aspect where the manga is outstanding. The characters are mediocre, don't really develop and don't have any significent character trades. The artworkis good and "typical shoujo". Last but not least: There's a lots and lots of smut, so anyone who's mainly looking for that should be quite happy with this series (you should be prepared for various rape scenarios, though).