Romance at our School

Romance at our School

By Umetarou

Overall: Crap
Smex Factor: Modest
Art: Ugly
Status: 1 Volume; Complete

Review: TERRIBLE! This manga is TERRIBLE!

The transitions are bad! The art is TERRIBLE! The characters are BLAND, and their motivations are STUPID! The drama is DUMB!

There are three couples in this all-boys school "romantic drama." Two couples are students, one couple is teachers. ALL ARE STUPID.

The main theme of this manga is tattoos. One of the students is a tattoo artist (is that even legal...?) and he gives one of the other students a tattoo. Now, granted, tattoos are a big deal in Japan. They're heavily related to the yakuza (be still my beating heart), so they have bad connotations. On the other hand, they're seen as an art form, so artists are still respected.

BUT-- There are points when you can take it too far.

"My dad died protecting his tattoo! He protected it over family and friends!" He says with admiration....

HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE!? That's not GOOD! That's not something you say at a dramatic moment! That's STUPID.

S. T. U. P. I. D.

I can't believe somebody allowed that to be written down! I can't believe somebody looked at that and said, "Wow! This will make a great plot device!"

NO! NO! NO! WHY!?

That part of the story aside (I don't think I can talk about it without having an aneurysm), let's move on to another couple. I can't think of anything terribly stupid about the teacher couple (they're just boring), but the other student (I keep typing stupid instead of student) couple is DAMN BAD.

....Getting a tattoo of somebody's name on your chest...

When they don't even know you like them...

Believing that it will never work out...

Declaring your love with "I'll do anything for you,

I'll never let you go."

...Creepy. It's sudden passion out of nowhere. It's a little intimidating. In some places, we call that coming on too strong. The object of his affections is a little vexed at first, but he gets over it (as we all know he will).

But, my GOD. Every ten lines, Tattoo'd has to say,

"I have to run twelve laps to live up to this name here."

"I have to do really well on this test to live up to this name here."

"I have to never lie to live up to this name here."

"THIS NAME HERE ON MY CHEST...(etc)"

Jeez, dude.

Just, jeez.

Not to mention it seems pretty rash and immature to get the tattoo in the first place.

Convention-wise, it's also bad. The narrative weaves in and out of different people's heads without mentioning that it's doing so, so it can get confusing. The three couples' stories are going on simultaneously, and they interact with each other. We might be in one character's head, and he looks out the window. He sees another character, and suddenly we're in his head. It's all very sloppy, and the characters are forgettable and hard to get attached to, and it's all just very bad.