Nov 23, 2022
I can tell you took the school prompt into full consideration. I'd say it fits the prompt pretty well. Friendships, bonds, memories, school life in general, all of which are displayed throughout the story and its characters.
At first, I thought it was just going to be 'ordinary dude meets supernatural people', which is a pretty generic idea imo. But what matters is how you execute said idea and give your very own unique flavor to it. Shun's constant memory loss is a great way to add that mystery spice to the plot and left me asking questions and wanting to know the answers by reading further. The secrets revolving around his past relationships with the other characters reveal themselves at a smooth pace. The interactions between characters are pretty funny, the dynamic between trying to balance SoL and the Supernatural creates wacky wholesome unordinary experiences that are fun to read. Such a great appeal to the school genre in my opinion.
(Amateur Critique/Gripes Section: I may or may not be right on this)
I'd say the supernatural aspect of this story is rather weak. In the first chapters, they were pretty interesting, but it starts to fall off during Hiro's part. From then on, it's pretty much just repetitive antics of them fighting whatever it is they're fighting and asking Shun to help out. I get that this is supposed to be more like a school novel, but it sounds more interesting for me if the supernatural stuff had more significance to the story other than just mostly being in the background of the main plot.
Another is Saori's personality. I found it weird that her personality shifts from sassy badass exorcist to a seemingly passive soft and clingy girl that loses the initial aggressive dominant personality that she once had.
Pope mentioned the last thing I had to say, so I won't mention it anymore.
Other than that, I can see why your story made the finals. It's well deserved and I believe you have a shot at winning. Good luck.
One last thing, I really love the way you named your chapter titles. Pretty underrated imo.
