Review 60: Tokyo Renaikitan

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Art: 6
Plot: 8
Characters: 6
Sex: 5

First off, I know what you're thinking... 'What, no picture!? How is this possible?' Well, I just couldn't find a good picture of the cover, and I don't happen to own this one (I know, you're all shocked). So you'll have to trust my word on this own and check it out if it sounds good to you.

Well, let me just start by saying that whenever a manga has the line "You are my destiny" I tend to die a little inside. This one has it within the first chapter, and up until that point it had seemed pretty interesting. What a terrible waste...

Anyway, we start off with Chizu (what an unfortunate name... it's either 'map' or 'cheese') who is a teacher at a delinquent high-school. He's roughed up, sexually-harrassed, and understandably sick of his job. One day, of course, he finds some weird but sexy guy sitting on the sidewalk, whose name turns out to be Natsume (hands-down, that's the girliest name for a seme I've ever heard... or remembered, I suppose). This guy is naturally 'destined' to be with Chizu, and he's some sort of other life form. My bet's on 'demon' so far.

The art is pretty sub-par. If you actually look at most of the drawings, they aren't as nice as, say, Minami Haruka or Nitta's. Bleh.

The plot, as mentioned above, takes a curve at the end of the first chapter. It's not bad, though. The whole 'guardian demon' concept is pretty overused, but it's not one of the cliches on my pet peeves list, luckily. But it isn't a terribly fancy plot, so no extra points.

The characters are just ridiculous. Chizu is likable, sure, but he's also an incredibly typical little uke. In the scene where Natsume wants to kiss him, he basically throws out every single excuse possible (talk about overreacting). "We can't! We just met! We're both men! I left my, uh, parrot in the oven!"
Natsume himself is also cliched and basically like a gutted Dark from DN Angel. Meaning, without the charming personality. And the other 'demon', which is really confusing in a lame way, is basically a horny jerk with very little in the way of character.

Although Chizu gets kidnapped/semi-raped quite often, actual consentual sex doesn't occur until page 150ish. Which is pretty rare. Unfortunately, during the sex scene Chizu turns into the spirit of a woman from the other world or some such nonsense, which is extremely irritating and makes me roll my eyes like never before. I have nothing else to say - this is just... urgh.

All in all, 25/40. Not gonna say anything, not gonna say anything...

Recommendation: Unless you don't mind horrendously cliche characters - and dialogue! - then don't even bother. But who knows... maybe it's your destiny.