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Review title: When it is hard to make an original story in current age

Ow boy, I have some default search for new stories, that takes the filter of 40+ chapters. That should be about the bare minimum for any story to be reasonably told and completed.

Below 40+, I think its a huge risk of having some series being axed due to many reason, mainly quality so I consider length is an acceptable metric for quality

Summertime Render kinda impressed at first glance when I saw a whooping 138 chapters of it. Meaning it could sustain itself for year in a competition that is manga market.

But all this kinda frustrated me after just about the half way, and from there, at least for my tastes, it went straight downhill. At some point I was giving this series 6/10 because it wasnt the most interesting, but ok, I wanted to read till the end, but then so many shonen-sec stunts were pulled that I went for like 50 chapters just wanting to this to end fast.

I named the reviwe title as "When it is hard to make an original story in current age" because it kinda gives me the perception that, as its difficult to make something "new" nowadays, when everything was used and overused already, one need to really go out of the way to make up a story to be somehow unpredictable and less cliched.

Well, Yasuki Tanaka (the author) gathered some different topics in this one: mandela catalogue, time travel, tribal religion, aliens, childhood friends, Nonary Games, dang, even the concept of save/load state from emulators seems to have been leveraged in this story.

The story starts like exploring the mandela catalogue part of it, with some mystery and suspense till the point where people starts dying and the time travel starts to kick in.

The time travel is quite unique though, as the MC dooesnt have control over it, so it can only return to a "load state" thats just a couple days before, and can only "save state" a couple of hours ahead, so that create a time limit of his actions: the overall concept here is that he can redo some stuffs, but if he takes too long, the "save state" will happen after some bad decision then that path is closed for good: the MC will need to start from it.

It is not a bad idea per se, and is actually well explored till the half way, when the MC can use his save/load states to find clues and unreveal the plot behind the deaths that have been happening in place.

But the problem is that after most of the mystery is solved, then it starts to kick in the shonen-esc part of the story: stuffs starts to be pulled out of author's @$$, everytime the bad guy or the MC pull some stunt to make it like some unexpected twist happened. But in reality there is no twist. To begin with, the readers never gets the full grasp of the cast capabilities so there is nothing to expect of it most of time, so its weak the effect of surprise for the most part.

Also, the story went toward some fighting themes because shonen reasons. The manga wasnt written to cover fights so its all a mess of weird strategies being pulled out of nowhere, red flags being distributed to make it artificially important some stunts. By the last fight, we simply have a JET FIGHT against a BIKINI GIRL in the FOURTH DIMENSION WORLD, just to see how things went south during the story.

Pros:
- The art is quite good. Nothing major from the average shounen style, some (most of them) design are quite generic, like the girl with short hair, the blonde with long hair you probably seem like in dozen of different series.
- While the story was about mystery, I guess it was interesting the concept of Nonary Games, where you need to go the bad route just to have a glimpse that will help you make a better decision in the next hop

Cons:
- Too many stunts pulled. Thats simply the worst part of it. It made the end of the story too messy for my tastes.
- Fighting part: the story never had the background of fights. When it went to that route, it ended with repeated fights against the very same character. Also, as it wasnt a fighting story from the start, it had to make up some rushed power scale to confront each character. As there was only actual enemy in the story, that enemy became way too overpowered for its own good. As result, the protagonists had to have some bizarre power up to even out the fight.
- Shallow characters: while the serie had enough size to make some good character development, as the story per se only takes turn in like 4 days being looped over and over, in a sense, there wasnt any real time for development: all the cast were constantly in action without any intermission. Without any development during the story, they also started quite generic like some teenage coming back from home, little sister with a crush for the MC guy, MC girl being the hot and stupid chick that loves the MC making some average love triangle. The bottom was the main villain deciding his goal was destroying the world. Yeah, the cast wasnt good to begin with, but when I saw the final boss motivation, it was the point where my evaluation of it almost went to 2/10.
- Tried too hard to be smart: yeah, given the MC wasnt the strongest guy in the story, so he had the role of being the "smart" guy in the cast, the one making the "strategies". But most of those "strategies" were so unnecessary convoluted or based in some pulled out stunt that I never felt any actual intelligence for the most part, only convinience (like the guys decides some bizarre stunt, and it works just because everything works as he expected).
- Cliched: there is no shonen without cliches, and this one had a good amount of it. Like the shallow love triangle, stereotyped cast, the need of everyone being alive and well in the end, the concept that the bad guys arent bad, but they had to be bad for N reasons, but they will join the "good guys" later, bikini girl, etc

Conclusion:
Well, skip this one.

Title: Some stories that arent written to entertain

I think there are some stories that arent meant to entertain, but to stimulate certain feelings in the reader.

For those stories, imo the correct metric to gauge how successful the story is, is how much the reader can feel empathy to what is being told. Or how much they can feel sorrow, angst, sadness. The most you feel bad for reading it, the most successful is the story.

Trail of Blood belongs to that category: the moment you feel the angst of reading a new chapter, probably youre already deep into it. Otherwise, probably you gonna drop it at some point, thus why its really hard to rate this kind of story.

I consider Trail of Blood follow a framework based roughly in the 5 stages of grievance. Each stages represents an Arc in the story, and each arc tells us the context following the thoughts of Seiichi Osabe: a normal kid that lives in a context of bullying and unhealthy relationships, what per se isnt anything really uncommon. Added to that context, there is a traume in Seiichi, that will only be explored later in the story, and a crime, that will be a topic for the omost of story. This bit seems derived of Crime and Punishment, to name some references that make up the universe of this story.

A second main character in the story is Seiichi's mother, that will stimulate a miriad of feelings in Seiichi, which answers to those feelings gonna make for the most part of the story. The mother figure plays a central role in all Seiichis maturing. She is the foundation of Seiichis mind. Given the mother also has lots of psychological problemas, we can see Seiichis foundations as quite weak, and that will be crumbling during the story.

Quickly recaping the story:

First stage: denial - probably the most important arc in the story, this is the moment the kid where he denies everything that seems against his mother's word or the mental image he has of its mother.

During this stage, Seii shows signs of abnormal oedipus complex, what imo really adds some layer of discomfort in the reader.

Second stage: anger - as Seiichis starts to mature, his massive love for his mother also makes him feel incredible anger when he feels maybe things arent like he suppose they were.

Third stage: bargaining - this happens post the event of crime, where Seiichis and his mother are being judged for the crime, and Seiichis tries to resolve his internal conflict about the love and hate he feels for his mother. Sometimes giving up to the despair, others reaffirming his love for her.

Fourth stage: depression - after some time skip, the story is focused on Seiichis trying to make a sense for his life. Living a boring life, still traumatized for all events in his childhood, now Seiichis is living one of his lowest point in life, including thinks and attempts of suicide.

Fifth stage: acceptance - finally, Seiichis find his mother again, where he must put an end to his internal conflicts to have a chance to find peace.

This arc is probably one of the most beautifully written in the story, and nicely brings Seiichis final conclusion. What would it be???

Pros:
- Well written story
- Fitting art
- Good storytelling
- Good atmosphere

Cons:
- Its hard to read in some points
- Some arcs could be expanded a little
- Some aspects dont really depicts correctly the reality, like the judgement, trials

Conclusion:
This story made me feel angst by the last arc, when the author made superb job in the final stage of Seiichi's maturing and acceptance.

At some moments, it hits me home more than I would like. I can symphatize with how children are subject to the vices of society like bullying from kids the same age, emotional abuse from relatives, unhealthy environment due to parents conflicts, etc. Its really hard for a children that has barely any knowledge of the world to respond to those hardships. So, its also very understandable with how many succumb to those feelings, becoming emotionally unstable adults, repeating the same vicious cycle with their children.

Having divorced parents, after living with my stepmother my entire childhood, my own reality not being the most harmonious one by dealing with stepmother frustrations and fathers aggressiveness, I symphatize with Seiichi story. I also felt bad with the Seiichi's acceptance arc. In the end, I believe the author was quite successful in his intent, he pulled out of me all those emotions I really didnt want to pull.

Title: When even good jokes can go too far

Sakura Tsuushin is one of the first romance anime I watched. It was a time when animes werent that mainstream yet. Internet wasnt good, neither had that much content like nowaday. Animes used to arrive in a country by complete chance: often some TV asking some VHS to broadcast to partners, and most of time unknown series were given.

But despite being unknown in japan, many of those series were an important chapter in western countries, and normally had more success in those than in their homeland.

Sakura Tsuuchin was certainly one of those.

At that time, very little anime outside shounem were broadcasted here: Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya and a few others that were based on those two more popular ones. So, there was room for some romance here, and ST came to fill part of that gap.

The anime version of it just tells the love hina-esc part of the story: Touma Inaba and Urara Kasuga are two cousins and students in the context of doing university exams. Touma is a hick coming to a big city. Urara is a 3rd year high school girl, thats madly in love with Touma because circunstances.

Naturally, Touma fails in the acceptance exams, and begins his life as a rounin.

Being a hick, Touma have very little resistance to most big city vices what normally becomes a huge hurdle for him, what leads to poor performance in studies and lots of problem in his relationship with Urara.

Then the story goes on in the romance of Touma and Urara while trying to be accepted to university.

The series is composed by many and many arcs that are hurdles in the couples way, that also serves to make them grow and their love to mature.

BUT... this is no Love Hina, nor U-jin is Ken Akamatsu. Ujin background is hentai. And hes also some sort of depraved author. Most of Sakura Tsuushin arcs are simply going too far for most people tastes. Ujin made like 90% of the characters pictured as the scum of the scum in society. Including Touma, for the most part.

Without spoilering too much, some of the themes covered in the arcs: unexpected pregnancy, drugs, murder attempts, prostitution, rapists, with minors included... even the fact of Touma and Urara being cousins having a love relationship shows how perturbed is Ujin tastes.

All of those arcs mostly involving some sort of explicit (though censored) hentai scenes. Generally involving prostitution or Toumas infidelity.

Pros:
- There isnt any idle moment in the series: Ujin makes each arc being followed by the next, so we hardly see the MC in their confort zone
- Art is ok, for the most part
- We can see some development in the MCs during the story, mainly Touma: he really goes from a despicable guy to a somehow acceptable person
- Also, the maturing of him seems quite natural for to many hardships he faced, so I think this part was really well done
- Urara Kasuga: yeah, I love her

Cons:
- Some arcs are really hard to read. The drug arc was imo the lowest part in the entire serie.
- Its awkward how much most adults are pictured as despicable perverts, normally involving minors. Most of those parts are kinda unnecessary, neither they need to have so many of those in the story.
- The hentai part can be bothersome for most readers. And some sex scenes dont feel natural

Conclusion:

This serie has highs and lows. It begins in a high note, leaving the impression it would be a sweet romance story, then Ujin drops a bomb on the readers with his worst arcs, where probably most of them will simply drop the serie. After the worst is passed, then the story picks up and ends in a high note, imo at least.

One thing for sure, the one factor that makes this story somehow good for the most part is Urara. She is really a flower in the desert. She manages to always be likable despite so many wrongs Ujin throwns on her.

By the end of the serie, I suppose the story had more thought on it than what I give it at first. I thought the serie was worth 2/10 by the time of its lowest, then Urara only made it a 5/10, and by the end, 6/10 is a good rating because its somehow a coherent story.