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A review by ellelainey
Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan 1 by Gaku Kuze
2.0
** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley
~
Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan 1, by Gaku Kuze
★★☆☆☆
278 Pages
Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. I was actually tempted to DNF a few times, but persevered to see if the story could improve, or turn the story around. I'm sorry to say, it just never happened.
I think it's supposed to be satire, adult humour and dark comedy, but it just...isn't? It fails to make me so much as smile about 80% of the times, and didn't ever make me laugh. Also, what's with that weird triangle shape imagery? Does it mean something, that I just don't understand?
It felt a bit endless and repetitive, with phrases and scenes repeated almost exactly, just with different words and costumes. Monotonous. It feels like it got lost in translation, somewhere, like an inside joke between friends that, when explained to someone else, just isn't funny. Instead of being funny, it just feels like an insult and making fun of people with depression.
It kept breaking the 4th wall, to refer to “chapter” and “this book” which I always find irritating.
The names and appearances of the two male leads are so similar that it's often hard to tell who is talking, and who is who, until one starts thinking about triangles and one starts acting depressed.
It seems there were Translation Notes at the end, that explained every character's name was a pun of some sort – my absolute worst style of humour is puns, so this irked me – but it bothered me that they waited until the END of the book to tell us. It would have made so much more sense to know this beforehand, the way the original Japanese manga readers would have. It also waits until the end to explain some of the cultural aspects which really didn't help my understanding. In other manga's I've read, there's a line or small print paragraph beside the panel that references it, and that's much better than leaving it until the end of the book when it's out of context.
Overall, I thought the artwork was stunning, and typical of what I expect from manga and the yaoi I read. However, the story was abstract and strange, with an abrupt ending. The plot went nowhere and failed to sum-up or build towards a “reason” for the story. I actually found the kids to be the most mature characters, and funniest people of the story. The rest was just lacklustre satire.
Copy received through Netgalley
~
Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan 1, by Gaku Kuze
★★☆☆☆
278 Pages
Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. I was actually tempted to DNF a few times, but persevered to see if the story could improve, or turn the story around. I'm sorry to say, it just never happened.
I think it's supposed to be satire, adult humour and dark comedy, but it just...isn't? It fails to make me so much as smile about 80% of the times, and didn't ever make me laugh. Also, what's with that weird triangle shape imagery? Does it mean something, that I just don't understand?
It felt a bit endless and repetitive, with phrases and scenes repeated almost exactly, just with different words and costumes. Monotonous. It feels like it got lost in translation, somewhere, like an inside joke between friends that, when explained to someone else, just isn't funny. Instead of being funny, it just feels like an insult and making fun of people with depression.
It kept breaking the 4th wall, to refer to “chapter” and “this book” which I always find irritating.
The names and appearances of the two male leads are so similar that it's often hard to tell who is talking, and who is who, until one starts thinking about triangles and one starts acting depressed.
It seems there were Translation Notes at the end, that explained every character's name was a pun of some sort – my absolute worst style of humour is puns, so this irked me – but it bothered me that they waited until the END of the book to tell us. It would have made so much more sense to know this beforehand, the way the original Japanese manga readers would have. It also waits until the end to explain some of the cultural aspects which really didn't help my understanding. In other manga's I've read, there's a line or small print paragraph beside the panel that references it, and that's much better than leaving it until the end of the book when it's out of context.
Overall, I thought the artwork was stunning, and typical of what I expect from manga and the yaoi I read. However, the story was abstract and strange, with an abrupt ending. The plot went nowhere and failed to sum-up or build towards a “reason” for the story. I actually found the kids to be the most mature characters, and funniest people of the story. The rest was just lacklustre satire.