After School Nightmare Mini Review (manga)
October 10th, 2007 by Lianne
PG-16 for sexuality, violence, creepiness, etc.; official series website
A young man with a vagina is, predictably, having gender issues. All his problems are compounded when he discovers that the only way to graduate from his school is to fight off the other students in a school-sanctioned dream world where everyone manifests as his or her inner identity (aka he shows up in a dress, somebody with identity issues shows up with no face, etc.). Also, both a girl and another dude have the hots for him. This manga is crazy, but it was a good kind of crazy…in the beginning, anyway. The manga starts falling into “bad shoujo mentality” cliche around Volume 3, and by Volume 4 the good parts of this manga are eclipsed by surprising stupidity. As in the dream mysteries and the characters with interesting development are largely ignored while one of the stupidest, most female-belittling love stories I’ve ever read takes center stage. Maybe things pick up again after Volume 4, but I’m not giving this series any more of my money. I wish somebody would import one of Setona Mizushiro’s short story collections or one of her very short series (other than X-Day, thank you). She can write some great stuff…as long as she doesn’t try to extend it for more than a volume and a half.
Educated impression: It’s a trap! Read at your own risk. (Lianne)
OH MY GOODNESS! Please give it a chance! It gets much better (and very femal un-belittling) I was dubious of it as well, but I kept on reading… it ends so well! Please PLEASE keep reading it!
I have to agree with you, except the parts about the first few books being intriguing. Right off the bat, the main character’s whining about being a girl and his/her selfishness towards others pissed me off. Having researched intersexuals, hermaphrodites, and others like that, the boy seemed unrealistic compared to those who actually are like that. Specifically that he’s been on this earth for 16 years and he STILL hasn’t dealt with his male/female emotions. I’m not saying he should be completely all right with being a man on top, girl on the bottom, but there’s no reason he should saying things like, “The reason I lost this fight is because my female characteristics are surfacing sob sob sob, it’s not my fault, it’s my vagina’s.”
I’ll be honest, though. I skipped a couple books ahead and saw his other female self smack the shit out of him for never taking responsibility for anything and always blaming “her”. That was awesome. Then it went right back to misogyny, and I threw the book across the room. I cannot figure out why anyone likes this series.