Murcielago Volume 1 – 20 Question Manga Review

What’s the manga? Murcielago – Volume 1.

Oh? Sounds exotic. You’re a straight white dude; everything remotely foreign sounds exotic to you.

Quiet you! What’s it about? Well first of all, let’s get a big ol’ TRIGGER WARNING up there, because I know it’s bound to trigger someone, cause it sure as heck did me! (Note: For the sake of a more pleasant reading experience for all, images of extreme gore or sexuality are not imbedded in this post.) 

She… has some issues to work through…

You? Triggered by something? Wait, don’t tell me, was it sport? No! Trigger Warnings are about content not genres.

‘Kay, so what is it about?! So Kuroko is a serial killer, she’s got 715 names to her belt to date, so what’s a girl on death row to do? Why join the Japanese Police Force as a ruthless hired assassin, to clean up the worst filth on the streets, yes worse than herself! She’s partnered with bright and bubbly Hinako, a driver who gets where she needs to go by any means necessary.

She’ll get where she needs to be no matter what it takes or how improbable!

Serial killer who kills serial killers, huh? Sounds a bit ‘Dexter’, yeah? I don’t know what that is.

Well anyway this certainly seems like a change of pace from the things you’re usually into. Don’t you hate violence in anime and manga? I don’t hate violence, I just don’t really care for it. And this manga is no exception to that, well except…

I cut this panel short for a good reason, you don’t want to see the state of the dude she’s talking to…

Except what? Kuroko is just so f**king cool! Like I know its in our stupid f**king DNA as a species to idolise serial killers for some dumb reason, but seriously Kuroko is one of my favourite main characters in anything ever.

Elaborate. Well, she’s a deranged serial killer but she has a sense of right and wrong, she’s got a twisted sense of humour, she’s unconventionally attractive like a Tim Burton heroine on steroids and she’s smart and savvy to boot. Oh, and did I forget to mention she’s a perverted, horny lesbian who’s super into cute girls?!

Even in the middle of high speed pursuits of ‘bad guys’ she still takes the time to chat up cute girls!

So basically she’s you except not a serial killer and also not a girl. This manga made me want to be a fictional cute girl just so I’d get the chance to be in the same room as her.

In the same room and doing? *blush* a lady never tells!

Okay that’s weird, even for you. Judge all you want! Your words are but scuffs in my armor!

Hinako provides an accurate incident report to her superiors.

Right, so enough of this creepy hero-worship. What’s the manga like? What kind of things happen in the first volume. Have you ever seen the movie ‘Crank: High Voltage’?

Uh, I don’t know, probably not, more importantly—why—have you?! The why’s not important, but basically take that film in all its cartoonish, gory violence, its rampant libido, its fast-paced story and its off-kilter humour and supplant Jason Statham for a Kuroko, a lesbian, sex-obsessed, serial killer!

Just casually discussing what to do after work while chasing down a subway carriage. No biggie!

O…kay then? So what about that trigger warning you gave to yourself and others like you? I take it’s not related to the sexual content of this manga. As much as I love this manga, some of the violence and gore is just relentlessly confronting. Maybe I’ve just got too much empathy but even seeing a nameless background character torn in half with their intestines spooling out behind them was enough for me to need to take a breather occasionally.

That bad, huh? It’s graphic and unforgiving, but I kinda get what they were going for, it’s the whole ‘it takes a monster to defeat a monster’ kind of thing.

Her facial expressions are gold.

So how do you go about recommending something like this? It seems dependent on the individual’s tastes a lot. Yeah, I mean there will be those who are the opposite of me, for whom the gore is no problem but the sexual content is too confronting, there’s all sorts out there, but I think in this particular instance the setting and situations and especially the characters make it an easy sell, as long as you’re in the mood for something very subversive. In fact, just so you know what you’re getting into I’ve prepared some super NSFW images from the manga below, click at your own risk!

CLICK HERE FOR AN EXAMPLE OF THE GORE IN MURCIELAGO

CLICK HERE FOR AN EXAMPLE OF THE SEX IN MURCIELAGO

Should we be worried about conflating sex and violence like this? There’s already so many troubles in the world. Disclaimer: This is a product intended for adult audiences only; if you are young and impressionable do not read Murcielago.

Yeah… that’ll work… Well what do you expect me to say, this a review for entertainment purposes, I’m not responsible for what susceptible individuals make of someone else’s content.

Meeting girls online is tough. If you clicked the ‘sex’ link above this was about 2 pages before they did the deed.

Fair ‘nuff, so final score and recommendation? If graphic, disturbing and explicit violent and sexual content is not your thing, then this isn’t the manga for you. If, however you like things a little more wild, a little more dangerous and yes, a little more perverse, then Murcielago may be just the book for you! Personally, despite being “triggered” a couple of times due to the violent content, I was enraptured by this world, this story and especially the protagonist Kuroko who is the perfect anti-hero. 91 out of 100.

Shimoneta – 20 Question Anime Review (Moderate Spoilers)

What’s the show? Shimoneta: A Boring World Where The Concept Of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist (2015).

A title and a plot synopsis in one, huh? Well, makes my job easier. ‘Tis but one in a plethora of Japanese anime with exceedingly long titles… speaking of exceedingly long…

Oh no, is this review going to devolve into 20 Dirty Jokes instead, I don’t need my job to be any harder than it already is. You’re making this too easy…

Fine, I’ll admit that one was my mistake, but let’s at least try and be professional about this? Fine, I can do this.

Okay, so what is the show about aside from being set in a world where dirty jokes don’t exist? Well it’s set in a sort of alternate reality Japan where everyone is enforced to wear devices called ‘Peace Makers’ which analyse and monitor every thing people say and even their gestures to make sure nobody is doing anything that the government considers ‘lewd’ or ‘immoral’.

Wow, sounds kind of dark. I thought it was a comedy from that title? It is! And a very funny one at that!

Explain? Okay, so let’s start off with the three main characters, there’s Tanukichi, a typical teenage boy who’s torn between living a law abiding life and following in his father’s footsteps as an outlaw erotic novelist. Then there’s the object of his unreturned affection student council president Anna who is very by the books and all about the rule of the law. And then there’s Ayame, vice president of the student council who in her spare time is secretly an erotic terrorist named ‘blue snow’!

Stop. What’s an ‘erotic terrorist’? Well she runs around the streets wearing nothing but a bed sheet and a pair of panties on her head while dispensing lewd pictures to shocked bystanders and shouting dirty jokes.

Interesting angle. But how does she do it? Doesn’t everybody have that monitoring thing that tracks what they are doing and saying? Good, your listening. She has a device on her phone that blocks the signal of the ‘Peace Makers’ for 3 minutes per day, in which time she can lewd up a storm!

And what’s her goal in all this? Is she just an anarchist who gets off on being able to say and do things in public that other people can’t? Well that’s probably a part of it, but her main goal and it’s a lofty one, is to eventually overturn the laws, which have turned Japan into a country so afraid of sexuality that even students in school don’t know what reproductive sex is or how it happens.

So it’s a story about the ills of mass censorship? Broadly, yes. It’s also a show about saying ‘dick’ a lot and talking about bodily fluids. Lot of bodily fluids in this show.

I’m almost afraid to ask. Well not to go into too much spoiler territory because it does take a couple of episodes for it to come about, but perfect student council president Anna, through various ways discovers what lust is and confuses/rationalises it as love and persists in trying to get Tanukichi to drink her “love nectar”.

So she’s a pervert? But that’s what makes her character so interesting and complex, is that because of the society she’s grown up in, one that disavows any kind of healthy sexual exploration she doesn’t even realise that what she’s doing is so far removed from ‘normal’ because what is normal is never a part of the curriculum or even taught by parents because of the laws of the country. Also, fair trigger warning because it is something worth mentioning, Anna does attempt to rape him.

Oh boy. It goes there? The show treats it in a semi-serious way, the way it’s animated and the tone of the scene it doesn’t play it for laughs, which is good. I personally didn’t have a problem with the way it was handled but I can understand why some people might feel uncomfortable about it.

Fair enough! Well, this review went to some unexpected places. Well you wanted to me to be professional, didn’t you?

Yes, and I’m very proud of you, well done. Thank you oni-chan!

I’m sorry what did you call me? Nothing!

Why do I get the feeling you’re being lewd? I don’t know why you’re always so hard on me; it’s not my fault if my words are coming off rude to you, maybe you should have a long look at yourself in the mirror and see why you spout off at the most innocent of comments.

Are you quite done yet? Penis.

Right. Final score and recommendation? Shimoneta is proof that even in a show filled with dirty jokes and rude words there can be a genuine and well-developed discussion about censorship and the implications it has on developing minds and society at large. It also helps that it’s a very funny show at times, as long as you’re prepared for a lot of immature gags. 83 out of 100.