HENTAI - Vol. 2 Ch. 23 - Requiem
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We have to pass beyond the irony that a lolicon hentai mangaka is drawing a horror story about 2 girls who were raped continuously when they were lil girls, and then one becomes a vengeful cursed spirit, and the other her vessel to carry her ultimate revenge, because that's probably what lead to this being only 2 volumes
You see baiting people doesn't works for the long run, yes you may trick people into jumping into the first volume, with curvaceous women being drawn by an actual hentai mangaka, and with a double entendre title that in the comic industry is used for porn, but that for regular slang can be applied to out of the ordinary things and behavior, but that's as far as that goes, you very quickly find out that "oh it has nothing to do with porn", however this is a manga not a youtube video, click baiting people is not sustainable, once everyone gets the joke we are left with, well the rest
So overall what about the rest? frankly kind of disappointing
For starters the gore and brutality mellows out in the second volume, when in fact it is supposed to escalate as we enter a crescendo and stakes grow temporarily higher, it soften out so much, that the punishment dealt to the real villain was particularly frustrating and lenient, specially compared to the expressions of violence handled out towards some of the innocent residents killed in the first volume, like that woman that ended with her arm in her own mouth, using the first volume as its own standard, the way the villain got his comeuppance lacked any feeling of catharsis, and while the manga going softer on the violence makes sense plot wise, as Aiko is now merging with Yuko who doesn't wants to kill people, it just doesn't works for the manga itself, for it is a horror manga with emphasis on gore, it is a splatter show after all
Then we have the feelings of dread and horror, but those are also severely lacking, because you see half of the 2nd volume tries to reconcile the idea that Aiko is a victim and not entirely bad despite of the things that she has done, and that lessens any feelings of dread that the titular ghost could impart on the reader, this is probably something that could have been fixed with an extra volume, because very briefly for like 2 pages Aiko had a hybrid form in which she was a mass of maggots and tentacles, for a short bit she had attained her most inhuman form, which to be fair was nothing extraordinary, specially when it comes to body horror, but for people that suffer of entomophobia it may have been effective, instead, what we got was just those 2 pages, and the rest is just a lil insect girl and big boobed women, and those things are not scary they are cute, it can be argued then that the feelings of horror come from seeing the living conditions of abuse that Aiko had to endure at the hands of her rapist, abusive mother, and school bullying, but those things don't inspire fear, they incite anger, frustration, indignation, offense, but not dread, horror, or terror, they may do for some people like survivors of sexual violence, but that's a very niche audience, and remember the first volume lives on click bait so that's a very niche audence that would not have fell for the bait
Ok so what about the suspense, the mystery, the thrills? yeah... not much of a mystery here, there's 2 main plot threads, figuring out the origins of Aiko piecing what lead to her becoming a cursed spirit, and then her link to Yuko, neither of those things are properly elaborated in the 2 volumes, in the end the author just gives up and straight out tells you what happened (probably a product of the manga getting just 2 volumes, but even early on there wasn't much effort on actually building a mystery), so you can't really go around and develop a sense of suspense with this, there are 3 chapters dedicated to piecing together the entire background of Aiko, and in those 3 chapters we are pretty much told everything, we have the visit to the graveyard and the visit to the landlord, and in there we pretty much are punched with the revelation that "yeah the landlord killed Aiko, is the main reason why the building still exist, and actually has her corpse on his own garden", the moment the guy appears the writer stops any pretenses and tells you "this is the actual bad guy", how are you going to go and write a horror story, while at the same time being so damn blunt about these things? where are the twist and turns? the surprises and shocking revelations? the playfullness of luring the reader into a false sense of security about their understanding of the facts, just to then pull the rug under their feet? nowhere man, they don't even try
One thing remains consistent, and at a very high standard, it is the art, from start to finish it is very pretty and sexy, which is great for actual hentai manga, but not so for horror, you see in this genre there's the practice that if an author fails to scare they should at least aim to gross out, but with art this pretty you can't really get neither feeling out of it, and yes the second volume is less sexy than the first one, since they re no longer trying to bait people, they actually tone down the fan service like shower scenes and the like, and that's hilarious because it probably backfired on them hard, however it is never ugly enough to the point that it stops being sexy, and this is a point against
Finally about the closing words of the writer and the message about how those that are pure, innocent, and most vulnerable are the more susceptible to being corrupted and forced into sacrificing themselves in order to survive, fuck off, that's childsploitation, and a very lousy excuse to justify such a mediocre story, denouncing or trying to cover an known problem without actually addressing the factors behind it, in this case child abuse and rape, is straight out pretentious, for example what lead to the divorce of the mother, why was she so dependent on the grandmother as a pillar of moral support, what lead to the landlord to sustain a system that allowed him to rape multiple girls, what was the position of the school in aiding and perpetuating abuse, etc, all of this was superficially presented, and if the afterword is to be believed it should have been the damn focus of the story, so to not even do it is less than pointless, because it is a denouncement (if it can even be called that) completely devoid of context and ground for anyone to even come and address the problem with hopes of formulating a solution
4/10 the boobs were nice
You see baiting people doesn't works for the long run, yes you may trick people into jumping into the first volume, with curvaceous women being drawn by an actual hentai mangaka, and with a double entendre title that in the comic industry is used for porn, but that for regular slang can be applied to out of the ordinary things and behavior, but that's as far as that goes, you very quickly find out that "oh it has nothing to do with porn", however this is a manga not a youtube video, click baiting people is not sustainable, once everyone gets the joke we are left with, well the rest
So overall what about the rest? frankly kind of disappointing
For starters the gore and brutality mellows out in the second volume, when in fact it is supposed to escalate as we enter a crescendo and stakes grow temporarily higher, it soften out so much, that the punishment dealt to the real villain was particularly frustrating and lenient, specially compared to the expressions of violence handled out towards some of the innocent residents killed in the first volume, like that woman that ended with her arm in her own mouth, using the first volume as its own standard, the way the villain got his comeuppance lacked any feeling of catharsis, and while the manga going softer on the violence makes sense plot wise, as Aiko is now merging with Yuko who doesn't wants to kill people, it just doesn't works for the manga itself, for it is a horror manga with emphasis on gore, it is a splatter show after all
Then we have the feelings of dread and horror, but those are also severely lacking, because you see half of the 2nd volume tries to reconcile the idea that Aiko is a victim and not entirely bad despite of the things that she has done, and that lessens any feelings of dread that the titular ghost could impart on the reader, this is probably something that could have been fixed with an extra volume, because very briefly for like 2 pages Aiko had a hybrid form in which she was a mass of maggots and tentacles, for a short bit she had attained her most inhuman form, which to be fair was nothing extraordinary, specially when it comes to body horror, but for people that suffer of entomophobia it may have been effective, instead, what we got was just those 2 pages, and the rest is just a lil insect girl and big boobed women, and those things are not scary they are cute, it can be argued then that the feelings of horror come from seeing the living conditions of abuse that Aiko had to endure at the hands of her rapist, abusive mother, and school bullying, but those things don't inspire fear, they incite anger, frustration, indignation, offense, but not dread, horror, or terror, they may do for some people like survivors of sexual violence, but that's a very niche audience, and remember the first volume lives on click bait so that's a very niche audence that would not have fell for the bait
Ok so what about the suspense, the mystery, the thrills? yeah... not much of a mystery here, there's 2 main plot threads, figuring out the origins of Aiko piecing what lead to her becoming a cursed spirit, and then her link to Yuko, neither of those things are properly elaborated in the 2 volumes, in the end the author just gives up and straight out tells you what happened (probably a product of the manga getting just 2 volumes, but even early on there wasn't much effort on actually building a mystery), so you can't really go around and develop a sense of suspense with this, there are 3 chapters dedicated to piecing together the entire background of Aiko, and in those 3 chapters we are pretty much told everything, we have the visit to the graveyard and the visit to the landlord, and in there we pretty much are punched with the revelation that "yeah the landlord killed Aiko, is the main reason why the building still exist, and actually has her corpse on his own garden", the moment the guy appears the writer stops any pretenses and tells you "this is the actual bad guy", how are you going to go and write a horror story, while at the same time being so damn blunt about these things? where are the twist and turns? the surprises and shocking revelations? the playfullness of luring the reader into a false sense of security about their understanding of the facts, just to then pull the rug under their feet? nowhere man, they don't even try
One thing remains consistent, and at a very high standard, it is the art, from start to finish it is very pretty and sexy, which is great for actual hentai manga, but not so for horror, you see in this genre there's the practice that if an author fails to scare they should at least aim to gross out, but with art this pretty you can't really get neither feeling out of it, and yes the second volume is less sexy than the first one, since they re no longer trying to bait people, they actually tone down the fan service like shower scenes and the like, and that's hilarious because it probably backfired on them hard, however it is never ugly enough to the point that it stops being sexy, and this is a point against
Finally about the closing words of the writer and the message about how those that are pure, innocent, and most vulnerable are the more susceptible to being corrupted and forced into sacrificing themselves in order to survive, fuck off, that's childsploitation, and a very lousy excuse to justify such a mediocre story, denouncing or trying to cover an known problem without actually addressing the factors behind it, in this case child abuse and rape, is straight out pretentious, for example what lead to the divorce of the mother, why was she so dependent on the grandmother as a pillar of moral support, what lead to the landlord to sustain a system that allowed him to rape multiple girls, what was the position of the school in aiding and perpetuating abuse, etc, all of this was superficially presented, and if the afterword is to be believed it should have been the damn focus of the story, so to not even do it is less than pointless, because it is a denouncement (if it can even be called that) completely devoid of context and ground for anyone to even come and address the problem with hopes of formulating a solution
4/10 the boobs were nice
Dex-chan lover
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This series sure was something... I couldn't get around to finishing it since I got too busy with college among other things, but, especially after reading till the end, I sure am happy that this series was finished and that too by people who can actually scanlate stuff properly...
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Yeah, art is really nice. Good to see fat bastard gets done in the end.Bonus chapter cracks me up after reading through the bullying and rape chapters. Thanks Hyakuro Translations for doing the series.
Power Uploader
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A bit late, but glad you enjoyed the series! And yeah, if you ever want to get into scanlation more you can always join us. (You can find all our contact info on mDex, but the fastest way is to join our discord and contact me)
Thank you for your kind words!
Contributor
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One of the things I really dislike are last minute twists/reveals that feel like it came out of nowhere, like female lead Yuko suddenly turning out to be a child rape victim of the same pedophile who ruined Aiko's life. It reeks of a cheap, contrived attempt at bonus drama (that may or may not have been the result of editorial meddling) but it falls flat because, well, this is the end. Better writing would place such reveals earlier in the story when it could be relevant, not when it's basically over.
At least the revenge turned out to be fine, brutal and suitable enough for such a despicable pedophile villain.
At least the revenge turned out to be fine, brutal and suitable enough for such a despicable pedophile villain.
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