Jul 23, 2023
it was like 3 am and I couldn't sleep because my asshole neighbors don't understand the concept of basic decency still to this day, so to kill time as it killed me, I listened to ppl roast my latest 'idk' read that everyone seemed to love for some reason (for some reason = they were quite big at the time so everyone wanted to be their bff, and it was either praise their book, or else...)
one of the reviews had this guy start off by saying that the he liked the book, but that it was kind of 'too perfect', which is a weird criticism to have, but with time I have come to understand
back when everyone was jerking off chainsaw man (they still do but you don't get hatecrimed for disliking it anymore) I felt a similar thing as I did when I read this, in the sense that it's obviously pretty well made and has edge and wit and quirk in all the right places, but at some point I couldn't help but think that, well... okay, so?
with CSM I was initially very charmed by the characters, art and sense of humor, thinking that, yeah, I see where everyone's coming from, holy shit, gonna be one of my top 10 mangas, wow, aki's so hot pls do me aki
as time went on and ppl started falling like flies, stakes soared, shounen powercreep loomed at the horizon, I kind of stopped giving a fuck
it's weird that escalation would have the opposite effect, and in its case I cant talk about it without spoiling (like most ppl don't know what happens anyway), but it's what finally made me realize that sometimes, eherm, GrEaT fIcTiOn's achilles' heel is itself
at the beginning I was charmed by your writing, world-building, premise, characters and the way you construct scenes, but the unfortunate thing of hitting every tick like a metronome is that it gets predictable
I think I began to see less a story and more a Story around the time priscilla showed up
priscilla ruined my life pretty much
it's like after that scene where she delivers Exposition through Dialogue to Tell not Show in a Clever way all this snappy dialogue was like... ykno... Dialogue
oh look, character said something sassy!
oh look, scene ends with a cool one-liner!
oh look, somebody (probably) died! so sad... very sad... the death of all time...
idk, I could NOT for the life of me focus and get immersed into the story again
everything felt so perfect it was like when someone tells you a lie and you can tell they've been practicing a lot so they can cover as many holes as possible, but the overexplanation gives them away even if you can't technically prove they're wrong
I think storytelling is as close as you get to lying without actually doing it IF you do so based on truth
it's what separates great from Great, I think
I feel like if I watched this as an anime I'd be like 'ah. that was nice. 8/10' because 7 is my average and it was 'well-done' enough to warrant a point above that. I might recommend it if someone asks for something fitting the tags and tropes this has. If they ask me 'did you like it?' at most I'll say 'sure' and at worst I'll shrug. I just could not find the truth in this :P
why, outside of them having Goals and Motivations on their OC Sheet, should I care about what these people are up to? Going back to Midsaw Man, I cared about Denji because the truth I could find was a lil asshole with simple motivations not because he is simple, but because he never felt like he could get more. Power was an arguably simple asshole that got nakama'd into caring, Aki a complex asshole that couldn't keep the edge up for long, and like... I've seen all these people in fiction before. All the time. It's just that when you put the puzzle pieces together all these nature vs. nurture malignant coping mechanisms end up melting into the same thing, and the same goes for the villains, side characters, even the way the story itself is like, mocking the ideas, presented, but not really? But kinda?
Some other supeficially edgy stories I love are Vinland Saga and Berserk which also mock the ideas presented, but kinda, but not really? Not really. It's the 'not really' that makes me care, question mark or not.
So all of that is for me to say that... yeah, couldn't see it here. No emotion. Yes Emotion, no emotion. It's very Sad that x event happened. The Parallels between the mc and the Arc Villain are like, very Chilling and stuff. So many Themes. Philosophical conversations to Showcase the Themes and Conflicts. But no emotion.
I mean, I cared about the characters because I always do because I am a wuss that can't kill npcs without feeling bad, but it's just not a high bar to reach, ykno? like I can follow that one farmer in skyrim to save him from getting swallowed by a dragon until the ingrate tells me to fuck off, but it's not as comparable an experience as finding that one companion I'll end up hiring until I forget skyrim is a thing for another couple years
I think, and this is the weirdest comment I've given someone yet, that it'd help you to be less perfect
not everything needs to be snappy
not everything needs to be a [insert narrative/literary device] here
not everyone needs to talk like they're Characters
give me more (metaphotical) ums, and by this I don't mean A Moment Of weakness (w doesn't work so I have to keep alt+1+1+9ing and don't want to look up the uppercase code pls forgiv), but, idk man, somebody farting
like do these people ever have a bad hair day
do they forget to wash their clothes so they end up turning their underwear around for the day
has any of them ever laughed so hard they spill soda from their nose
cuz it doesn't seem like it, and I don't like it
uwu
8/10 very Good could recommend to someone maybe if they ask I think like if I can't think of anything I enjoyed this might be the default and it might sound mean but I did say it was Good, so
P.S. this is unedited and I don't feel like rereading/making it more coherent so I'll just post this as it so I might come back to... reread it... or make it more coherent... maybe idk this is already finished and the criticism itself might not even be helpful in which case rip bozo u read all of this for nothing
