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yetanotherseasonalblog · 1 year

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finally got around to reading Romantic Killer and have thoughts

saw the trailer on Netflix and figured the manga would be better, so I spent last night reading a bunch of chapters. i like it overall and will try to finish it tonight, but there are some.....issues.

(if you read til the end there’s some recommendations too :3 )

1 the pacing is bad sometimes. like, REALLY bad

nearly two volumes are spent on Anzu and Kazuki exclusively. you’re emotionally invested in them as a couple, the end game is in sight. and just when the plot is entering the “obsessed fangirls find out about their relationship” arc....it’s dropped. they pick THAT moment to introduce a new guy. and not even one that makes sense, like a friend of Kazuki or another student - they go for the “childhood friend” route that’s canonically ripped out of their ass. its insanely disruptive to the story and almost caused me to drop it then & there.

2 if you think about it longer than 10 seconds, it becomes a horror manga

Riri the fairy is genuinely the most evil mascot character since Kyuubei. their antics very quickly stop being funny and start veering into “objectively horrifying”. we have total mind control, brainwashing, driving people into homelessness, and eventually just forcing hot guys to fall in love with Anzu. lives are either up-ended or destroyed, and Riri doesn’t even try to hide the fact that this is for purely personal gain.

3 the root cause of Anzu’s problems is never talked about

i went into this mostly on the curiosity of why Anzu was so against getting a boyfriend. maybe she’d gotten hurt in the past, or her resistance was a mask for low self-esteem? nah, turns out she’s just lazy. Anzu is addicted to sources of instant gratification (video games, junk food, pets) and has no interest in a boyfriend purely because social relationships take work.

in the long run Riri is right to stage an intervention...but it’s undermined by all this romance cliche bullshit. it would’ve been easier (and more impactful to the audience because, let’s be honest, a LOT of us here are Anzu) if they’d just called Anzu out on what a spoiled and lazy brat she is and say they’re doing this before she ruins her own life.

4 its a satire of shoujo romance tropes...but makes fun of the outdated ones while being unironically full of the current ones

this takes decent amount of knowledge of manga history to notice. a lot of the tropes Riri is trying to pull off were common in manga from the 20th century. those were the days of the skinny, princess-like manga heroine who falls for the manly hero who protects her from danger (even when she has g-d superpowers and he doesn’t). a good example would be Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. but, starting in the early 2000s, manga heroines started getting more realistic - more tomboyish, average looks, and simply more independent in general. this describes Romantic Killer to a T.

everything that’s supposed to make Anzu an “anti-shoujo” MC...i’ve seen MCs do in other shoujo. none of them super recent either. in fact, her whole character could accurately be described as just a spicier version of Haruhi Fujioka from OHSHC.

as i mentioned i’m not saying Romantic Killer is bad, it’s just Not Perfect. even with the above issues, it’s still a solid read. other titles you may also enjoy would be Ouran High School Host Club, FIVE, Boku no Orion, and Skip Beat.

#manga #anime #romantic killer #shoujo manga #romantic killer spoiler #manga review

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yetanotherseasonalblog · 2 years

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