A couple weeks ago manga subscription service Mangamo launched, which, well…we think you already know. And in fact the CEO of Mangamo, Buddy Marini, is aware of the issues. So hopefully they take care of them because after two weeks, there’s certainly titles to check out. But as you’ll see after Justin’s thoughts on the manga titles, its current tech issues are a major hindrance.
TheOASG’s Coverage of Mangamo
[Part 1 | Please Save My Money Column | Part 2 | Part 3 ]
Yonemaru’s Kanata & Konata
Kanata and Konata are sisters with the ability to see yokai. After an event three years ago, however, something’s changed between them. The younger Kanata still interacts frequently with the supernatural, but Konata claims she can’t see them anymore. Whether it’s her trying to grow up or whatever that event was three years ago still haunts her, she’ll soon have to fess up when Kanata agrees to help a mysterious fish spirit find its real body, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be safe to do so!
While Yonemaru’s The Little Succulents is about as off-beat as it can be, Kanata & Konata is straightforward as a genre (supernatural, horror) and with its characters (sisters). But this manga is such a fun read that it’s clear Yonemaru knows exactly how to create compelling tales. In this case, Kanata has no recollection of what happened three years ago, but not so for Konata, who becomes exasperated anytime Kanata tries to interact with yokai. Now it’s nice to allude to the event three years ago, but after 7 chapters, the manga has been scratching the surface of what truly did occur.
Whatever it is was enough to get Konata to continue lying to her sister about seeing spirits, but that’ll have to change since trouble’s approaching them. The two, alongside maybe a few others, are gonna have some things to solve, and quickly at this rate. Accompanying this story is the art, which is nice enough to get by, but it’s in key moments — the reveal in a later chapter of a person showed some true terror — that stick out like a sore thumb. The way this manga ended only means I have to know what happens next. And hopefully, it won’t take too long to be added.
Tobi’s You Guys Are All Annoying!
Kunihiko is a teacher who has a problem: one of his students is very anti-social. Kazumi just can’t seem to find a friend at all, and he’s not sure how to solve it. That’s when instead of finding a friend in her class, she wants to be friends with Kunihiko. And thus begins a tale where this passive-looking teacher only wishes that befriending Kazumi was the only thing to happen to him.
You Guys Are All Annoying! probably has an alternative title somewhere: “JK Wanting To Date Their Teacher.” After we see Kazumi thinking about dating Kunihiko, a new girl arrives that declares she wants to date this teacher. We then get the Student Council President, who seemingly had pure thoughts in befriending Kazumi, also wanting to date the teacher…and to conclude, we get the Student Council President’s older sister also wanting to date the teacher (for reasons that are not love, but to make someone close to her mad. Oh wait…).
Needless to say, why. Not only is there nothing remarkable about Kunihiko aside from being the typical nice guy, he’s their teacher. One can only hope he instead gets together with one of his fellow colleagues, buttttt the doubts. The doubts are many! It is early, but the playbook seems crystal clear right now!
…Then watch as it turns into a manga that actually properly handles students falling for their teacher somehow.
…At least the art looks good?
Yako Gureishi’s Somali and the Forest Spirit
While surveying the forest as usual, a Golem stumbles upon a mysterious girl in chains. The two then end up traveling together and arrive in a place full of different creatures and cool buildings. However, one day on a trip through a forest they end up meeting a human — rare in this manga! This eventually gets the Golem to reveal his mission: deliver the human Somali to her parents before his expiration date of a year and 112 days is up…and not have her find out about that last part.
It might be because I saw the anime, but after reading the first 4 chapters I found this more enjoyable. To explain, the first episode of Somali was pretty, but didn’t feel engaging. The second episode was more of the same until it finally gave us a starting point: Golem needs to bring Somali to her parents before his time is up. Reading it in manga form felt smoother though. Maybe it helped that Somali talked back to him (“I’m not a thing, I’m a person!” she says after he asks if she’s damaged after a fall). Whatever the case, this made me want to read a lot more.
Of course, the real intrigue aside from us going “why should this Golem venture to give this girl back to her parents” is this Golem knowing he doesn’t have much time to do so. Along that way (which will be filled with trials and tribulations) he’ll have to learn how to care for Somali, which he struggles to do. So in a way, this manga is about parenting. Just note that this is a fantasy series.
Anyways, I’ve been meaning to start Somali in manga form since the anime was good. After giving it a chance, I’m sorry I took so long.
Ritu Amamiya’s Nice to Meat You: The Origin of Food
It’s time to journey into the distant past and discover why we eat sea cucumbers today. Or Yamaimo. Or any other food that way back in the day, you couldn’t even tell if it was even edible. So mixing current times with the days of old, it’s Nice to Meat You: The Origin of Food!*
*Which quickly states in its splash page these are all fictional accounts.
To clarify, the manga is just making up the origin stories of the first person to eat a certain food. So when you Google, “First person eat sea cucumber revenge since dad killed by sea cucumber,” you’ll know it’s not true. Also that’s lots of keywords, even in broken English!
Anywho, I was happy to randomly discover this manga, but after three chapters, I lost interest real quickly. The set up lets us follow an unknown person who may or may not be masquerading as a descendant of one of those food people in modern day Japan. The food this person’s about to eat is chosen, and then the manga takes us back into the past where we see how it all happens. If the stories make you laugh then this will be worth a read, but if not, it’ll be a struggle. The concept is neat, but the execution of said concept is boring. Maybe having different hosts or just better stories would’ve worked.
But unless someone informs me the format changes later on in the manga, this is an easy pass.
Yutori Houjo & Mochizuki Kako’s Horror at Doll’s Village
Jonan High School has an annual four-day, three-night trip to Kojin Village to farm, learn about countryside life, and survive with no internet or cell phone service. In other words, a retreat! Most of the students aren’t happy about this, but they aim to make the most of it. For the group we follow at the start of this manga, they are to live with the Hasekuras, who seem like nice, charming people who only want you to follow one rule: don’t go to the shed.
…Well what’cha know, someone of course goes to the shed!
Horror at Doll’s Village does a lot to keep my attention. That’s great because the art’s hit or miss. The character designs and expressions are fairly generic and unmemorable. It becomes clear that the more you read this manga, you realize the story is going to have to be on point to be engaging.
When the art does work though, it works extremely well. Like when the boys have to sleep in a room full of dolls. Or when one of the protagonists lets his friends know about a girl the Hasekuras have been hiding from them, but when we see how she looks from his friends’ perspective, it’s totally chilling.
Well, relative to what’s going on at least. You feel these students, who, unbeknownst to them, are trapped after the tunnel they went through to get to Kojin Village caved in, have noooooo idea they’re in deep trouble. And the story leaves us to guess if there is actual supernatural stuff at play or there is an actual murderer on the premises. All of these elements means I’m in for the plunge! This is not very original, but it’s engaging enough and has enough mysteries to keep me going.
Yukitaka Oze’s Kybernetes
First note: the logo for this manga is super cool. Outside of that? Not feeling what this manga is selling so far.
Kybernetes is your classic robots and humans saga where everything starts out well — heck there’s even fairly tall robots programmed to never kill humans. This all changes when, during a planned power outage, the robots go out of control. They take over Arc City and change everything forever. We follow one of the survivors, Masa, who attempted to save the Prime Minister (his mom) but got shot by a robot. When he wakes up, he finds out he’s been converted into a cyborg called a Logergik after he was “chosen” to have superpowers.
Not gonna lie, this was a disappointment. There are some cool ideas thrown in here and the art for certain moments looks stunning. But so far there’s no character to like because there are a lot of them. After it starts off with the robots controlling everything and showing some mysterious people rebuilding Masa, the story jumps seven years later. Timeskips are fine, but there has yet to be an explanation as to why they had to turn Masa into a Logergik, or a really great reason as to how he got superpowers after getting shot. It’s very shaky character/story building, and jumping in with little to rally around leads to me losing interest real fast.
Unfortunate, but yeah, gonna pass on this one.
Ao Kutani’s Haita the Invisible
After 5 chapters, I’m not sure Haita the Invisible is good or bad. BUT…it is at least intriguing.
Yuzu Mizusawa is mute, which leads to her being bullied by her classmates. She has not told her parents or her brother, whom she seems very close to. However, after an incident where her birthday gift was thrown in the fish tank by a bully, she’s distraught enough to throw up her own self. As in, she…threw up someone who looks exactly like her? And now while that person is real, she herself is invisible?
So the obvious intrigue is how Yuzu can overcome all this bullying by her classmates. The worry is whether all these other elements will prove detrimental to that cause. In 5 chapters we see her classmates bullying her and at the apex of it, she throws up. And after throwing up she also throws up a person that looks like her, and who later calls herself Haita. But in quick fashion, Yuzu seemingly embraces being invisible and takes advantage of it. It’s only when she thinks about her family that she realizes this can’t continue. But then she randomly meets a doctor that can not only see her, but tells her she can be fixed…?
Yep, too many questions and lots of worries about where this is gonna go…and not in a good way. At this point, we can assume Yuzu wants to change being bullied, but it’s not shown so far. It seems her brother suspects Yuzu has not had a good time in school, but she won’t tell him. So what’s with Haita and being invisible? Maybe have a part where we get Haita’s perspective?
In general, it feels like starting small would’ve been the better play here. But in the end, the premise is good and this was a thrilling read. There’s also few manga that involve people that are mute. Because of that and the pleasing art style, I will certainly continue reading this.
So, to sum up two weeks of reading Mangamo in short fashion: it’s a thoroughly tiring experience.
In longer fashion: The way that Mangamo exists now is unacceptable for anyone to pay for. The good news is that you don’t have to pay, since you’ll have a free trial for two months. The actual having content is good, as there’s much to read. The fact that it keeps track of what chapter you’re at makes catching up seamless, and feels preferable to something like how Crunchyroll manga has it.
But outside of those, it’s hard to see anyone having the patience to read anything because of severe performance issues. The pages don’t just load immediately — it can take anywhere from four seconds to an actual minute without refreshing the app for a page to load. There has been plenty of times where it took over 30 seconds for any page to load. To defeat piracy the idea is to provide an optimal service, but making people wait that long consistently is sub-optimal.
Other than a misspelling and maybe a part that could’ve used some English adapting for a title or two, the manga’s professionally done. Like lettering, editing, translation wise — that part’s worth paying for. The issue is everything around it: there are numerous manga where the summaries have typos and/or are poorly edited. When reading any manga you can see it’s cut off in a bizarre way. A good majority of the read it’s unnoticeable, but you’re bound to find plenty of pages where the page does not fit. This is the first time I’ve ever seen that in a manga.
This is also the first time for a subscription service I can remember catching chapters uploaded improperly. Chapter 2 of Haita the Invisible begins with its proper first page, then goes to the middle of its chapter, and then gets back on track…and I have to go back to page 2 to read it properly. There’s a ridiculous geezer wielding multiple farming tools in Horror at Doll’s Village at the start of page 1 of Chapter 7. That was the last page. While I completely acknowledge it’s a wild thing to see, I can imagine how much wilder I would’ve thought about that moment if it was read in its correct sequence. You can likely assume these aren’t the only two manga that are like this. Cannot stress enough that for no one to notice this at Mangamo is a shame.
Also, some manga might not be ready for scrolling. Back to Haita the Invisible — it went from Chapter 1 to Chapter 5. Chapter 2 would go to Chapter 4. Horror at Doll’s Village would go from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3. Chapter 2 would go back to Chapter 1. This was not a problem when read last week, so whether this is a new problem or was already a problem is questionable. Though bringing it up now means that’s a problem, and likely other titles are also the same too.
So, all of these issues ultimately wear you down. Reading manga should not be much trouble, especially since this won’t be an issue if you read it physically. And it’s weird that this is an issue for Mangamo, when these are not experiences I’ve had with CR Manga or MANGA Plus. Now, CR Manga has a different set of issues (and well, it had one that ultimately got me to uninstall it once but it did get an update), but when working, reading was never tiring. Reading Mangamo titles is tiring.
Now, to conclude: the service can only go up from its launch. As mentioned, starting out with a two-month free trial is great, and one big thing is that it essentially being a global service is a helpful way to defeat piracy. While there are numerous problems to fix and things they sorely could add (like an update schedule or better ways to search for manga), the goal should be to make reading an enjoyable experience, which means the performance speed must be a priority.
Until then, you have to basically review who’s backing Mangamo and their aspirations and conclude this: after beta testing privately and in Canada, this is what they’ve released publicly? Pretty disappointing.