Sometimes, the smallest spark can burst into a huge flame. This is exactly what this story is about; a small crack/hole in a wall that will drive two unlike people into sorrow, sadness, joy and lastly, love. Neighbors divided by paper walls, witness each other's true selves. It is an odd story indeed, a love born out of a
Peephole.
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| Nozoki Ana Volume 1 |
I'm on an ecchi manga binge. Well, to be exact, it's a seinen romance manga. Tons of love-making scenes and heartbreaks. I just read this today, the entirety of it (2nd of July, 2014) and I have some sort of a lingering headache from reading on a tablet all day.
Honna Wakou is a female mangaka who drew this seinen manga. WHO WOULD'VE KNOWN? Wakou does sound a bit female so I saw this coming. Sort of. From what I've gathered, this is her first published work which is not so bad considering it ran for 13 volumes. It is nice to see that it's an adult love story that leans towards the female side of a relationship. Enough jibber-jabber, let's get to the review.
Spoiler Alert! If you are gonna read this post, please read the actual manga first!
Warning! This title contains mature themes and nudity. 18+
Summary: It's the story of Kido Tatsuhiko, an 18 year old freshman in college who just recently moved near Tokyo. Out of curiosity, he looks through the crack on his wall and sees a young woman pleasuring herself. This scene did not pan out the way he thought as the woman in the other side of the hole saw him. Kido then went to warn his neighbor who is this cute girl named Ikuno Emiru. She shoots a blackmail photo to threaten him with. She laid "peeping rules" and their twisted days began.
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| It = The manga I bought from a seller on an auction site |
Kido gets himself a girlfriend in the form of Kotobiki Yuri who has a killer body. He got ambushed and now he has a big problem, a peeping and masturbating Emiru on the other side of his apartment wall. Kido's current girlfriend however, has a strange secret and it may or may not skew Kido's view on women.
Throughout the story, he gets to make love with various women except for one specific girl. He goes through life, experiencing bliss, love, lust, sorrow and depression. One way or another, Emiru has something to do with it. Expect some psychological mind-truckery and heartstring pulling.
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| She's Kotobiki Yuri. |
Art: Shonen but with the delicacy and detailed work of a female mangaka. I'm not gonna justify it, the female characters greatly cater to men and look beautiful. The male characters on the other hand are the standard cardboard cutouts that shounen-romance series' produce. This title, I assume, can still garner older men into reading it specially it has a voyeurism as a theme.
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| I forgot to remove the watermark.... sorry. |
Story: For me, it felt like a psychological drama because most of the time, I'm scratching my head thinking of the dialogue and the character's inner monologue. It is really confusing but I got the gist of things slowly. The drama really weighed a lot in this title. I did not expect my heart to get played and broken by this manga. I went in expecting a manga that will feed my lust. Not only did it deliver but it went to such lengths to make me fall in love with the drama.
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I forgot to remove the watermark, again.
It's an important thing. |
Okay, I admit that I was looking at another ecchi title to read and after I got to 23 pages of search results, I went and looked from the start again and I saw this. It is ecchi alright, especially with voyeurism and netorare (it's a common tag on hentai doujinshi's which basically means one's partner gets satisfied by another person in front of the subject) as a theme.
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| It's important I tell you. |
Characters: The characters that you get introduced to the reader play a special part in the story one way or another. They don't just get introduced and just fade out slowly, they actually do something in the story. My favorite character is Kido's first girlfriend; Yuri. She's your innocent girl who just wants to love but her secret is gets in the way. It'll be spoiler city if I tell you guys anymore but once you get to know her, you'll like her too.
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| Broken. |
Except for Emiru, Kido and his friend; Yoneyama, most of the characters are just a little bit on the unique side. Each one has a background that makes them feel like they're 3D. Emiru however is the unique one because her background story is complicated and her thought process, I still don't understand even though Kido explains it to me, she's still a mystery.
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| Begging will only get you so far. |
Bottomline: Read it. It's a seinen romance series that will possibly make you go "WTF?" and question what you just read but it is an amazing series. Sometimes it will get a bit confusing (because that's how the story is told and is seen by the main male character. You know, for something I just saw by chance, did made my heartbreak. The images that you see here are proof but don't worry, I'll remove their dialogue so you'll just be left wondering. Hopefully you will find this manga, amusing and exciting because I enjoyed it so much that I made a review for it.
Addicting level: 8/10
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| Back to one square. XD |
So that's your second Friday with a review. Yeah, I only just finished it tonight (July 10) but you know, this series is worth reviewing. I'll be doing the next published work by Honna Wakou which has a similar theme to this series but it leans towards the shonen audience. Anyway, thank you guys for reading and see you guys next time!
Ja ne!
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