Rozen Maiden and Rozen Maiden 2

Author: Peach-Pit, A female mangaka duo: Sendo Banri and Ebara Shibuko. Not sure how the dynamic goes between them.



Premise : 3/5
So a doll maker called Rozen makes 7 bisque dolls, each given life and powers (naturally), and given the task of finding masters and taking part in the Alice game. The winner gets to be a live girl or the perfect girl or whatever the guy was trying to make. 

So the series for the most part follows the life of one boy and his doll and how they take part in the Alice game.
So no its not your everyday premise, Its definitely not shoujo, although I am having a hard time categorising as anything. 
Its got none of the shounen trademarks of growth and powerups, although there is the presence of magical girls and fantasy realms. It tries to be a thinkers manga but ends up feeling more like a preachy one.

Plot and story overall: 2/5
As original as the premise was the story left so much to be desired. 
The story follows the life of Sakurada Jun, a middle school buy who becomes a shut in due to some stupid incident at school (and his over-sensitive nature), and is now taken care of his sister. He becomes the master of the 5th Rozen Maiden Shinku and unwillingly becomes a part of the Alice game. 



The story doesn't really go anywhere although it had a decent tempo of sorts. The initial reveal of each of the dolls and their masters was pretty. But then as the story progresses things get kinda loopy. The narrative becomes a bit confusing and long winded. 
They even bring in the concept of a parallel universe when they brought in the Unwound world. 

The story pretty much focuses upon the questions of existence, the need to fight and the possibility of reaching the goal through other means. Elements of Alice in Wonderland were added which does not help its case with me - I hate that shitty book.

Long story short, I think the story is boring.

Characters 2/5
The characters are mostly unidimensional and very uninteresting.

The presence of the maidens gives you some leeway in characterising different kinds of feminine personality. I will give you the short versions.

• Suigintou : the first Rozen Maiden - Evil Vamp. Basically queen bitch, ends up showing her soft side.

• Kanaria : the second Rozen Maiden - The clutz. Apprently she is some battle strategist but seems to be more of an idiot.

• Suiseiseki : the third Rozen Maiden - Tsundere. I think that part of her personality was added in there to make things more funny but it left me cringing.

• Souseiseki : the fourth Rozen Maiden _ The tomboy. Even reffers to herself as 'ore'

• Shinku : the fifth Rozen Maiden - I dont know what she is supposed to be. She is more of a tsundere than anything else. And at her core the smartest and the kindest of her sisters.

• Hinaichigo : the sixth Rozen Maiden - chibi rozen maiden, more childish than the rest. Could be considered cute but is more annoying than anything else.

• Kirakisho : seventh Rozen Maiden - Crazy bitch

Among them Suigintou has the most complicated personality and is the most enjoyable to read, but in the end it seems more like she is going through the standard motions of villain turning antihero.

Sakurada Jun is the most unobtrusive main character I have ever seen. He is wimpy and for the most part unreliable and bot in the likeable way

The other characters are supposed to be important but seem to be regular add ons. 

I mean come on....

Art and design : 2.5/5
Its just ... Meh. Initial few chapters were a bit off, probably something to do with how far back they were made, but but they didn't really improve from there.
Sakurada Jun seems like a rip off of Harry Potter minus the scar. The dolls look like children, they should I guess, But may be it would have been better to show them as chibis? Nah ... I don't know, the mangaka probably had a reason for that.

Overall Verdict: 
I didn't like it, I doubt that most people would. If I am wrong please let me know.
If you have not read it, great! Don't read it.


Site map - http://bestcompletedmanga.blogspot.in/p/p.html

Watashi Ni xx Shinisai

Watashi Ni xx Shinisai

Author : Ema Toyama

Love is said to be a beautiful, complicated thing. What happens if you don’t know how it feels? How do you know what you are feeling, or what anyone else is feeling?

Premise: 2/5
This is a standard shoujo manga, nothing more crazy than a love quadrangle within its pages.

There is a girl who has never experienced love before but needs to understand it. She goes about this by getting a surrogate boyfriend and acting out things people in love would do.

I get that this is a ridiculous premise but then this is a Shoujo manga, hell it is a manga, there is no rule stating that it has to make sense.

Ridiculous premise aside there is something new to it, not the fake boyfriend thing but rather the boyfriend to understand love thing. It sets up lots of interesting situations in the manga which I don’t think the mangaka took full advantage of, but then again it is shoujo ….. so anything more would be boundary pushing.

Plot and story overall 4/5

Yukina Himuro is a junior high student who is also a cell phone novelist. She is good at what she does because she observes people and understands them. However she is unable to get along with them because of her icy gaze and demeanour, giving her the reputation of an ‘absolute zero snow woman’. Eventually it comes to her attention that her readers want more of love in her stories, which she finds impossible because she has never experienced it herself.

So she comes up with the obvious solution - use a boy as a surrogate boyfriend to experience what love is.

The major male lead is Kitami Shigure, a playboy who keeps up the façade of good guy before others. When Himuro finds out about this she blackmails him into being her surrogate boyfriend and doing ‘love missions’ with her.

The other characters are Shimotsuki Akira (Yukina’s cousin who is in love with her), Mizuno Mami (Kitami Shigure’s friend who is in love with him) and Kitami Hisame (Shigure’s stepbrother who likes Mami). See how complicated this is?

I am a fan of romantic mangas with grand gestures and flowing prose seeming like poetry but for the most part shoujo mangas tend to have more plastic pink candy version of it all complete with shinny bubbles and ribbons in the panels.

Thankfully Watashi ni xx Shinasai! Has very little of that. I really enjoyed the lines Yukina starts thinking of when doing the love missions, Even when reading the translations I can feel their depth, I think the translators deserve some credit there.

Especially enjoyable was the bit where Yukina dominates her bullies by simply looking at them attacking their insecurities. The part where she cannot decide if she loves Akira or Shigure is more than just a little irritating because it seems like she is jerking the two of them around and I have issues with that.

Other than that this is a good manga. The addition of Kitami Hisame is a good look on the more negative kind of love. And Yukina going toe to toe with him instead of submitting to his will is pretty impressive. The manga ends with everyone reaching a semi happy ending.

Characters 3/5

Each of the characters are important to the story. They are all gradually developed although the ones who show the greatest growth are the leads. Yukina is a pretty straightforward character if a little dense emotionally. Inspite of her amazing ability to pen down emotions she takes her own sweet time to be completely aware of them.

Shigure is by far the more interesting character with a façade and a more bad boy persona within. The reason for this is explored really well especially when dealing with the dynamic between him and his brother.

The rest of the crew provide amusement for the most part, Mami being cutely energetic and Hisame pulling of the villains role quite well. Akira on the other hand seems like an add on, at no point in the story do I feel for him.

Art & Design 2.5/5
The art seems hastily done, with no actual improvement over time. There are no chibi versions which show up at random - sorry.
 Truth be told the art didn’t really stand out in the manga.

Overall verdict:
It is a shoujo manga. Towards the end however it becomes interesting. Not saying that shoujo mangas are a waste of time but they have hopelessly similar plot lines.But this one is worth the read. If you can hold on for a a bit.

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