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GAP Formerly G.G. Since: May, 2011
Formerly G.G.
07/04/2013 13:59:36 •••

Its a fun series but still not for everyone

Medaka Box is the story about a first year student named Medaka Kurokami and Zenkichi Hitoyoshi and their misadventures in Hakoniwa Academy. It is also a no holds barred satire of Shonen Jump manga although it doesn't mock every trope, it still plays its tropes fairly straight and often to their ridiculous extremes. The story is fairly good but to really understand the satire, you need to look at it from a metafictional perspective. There is so much that can be taken from this manga that it would take up this whole review but they are there if you are willing to look.

Medaka Box deals with the themes of the hero never loses, the villain who destined to be defeated as well as the friend who can never catch up. While the Student Council arc up to the Minus arc address these tropes, it wasn't until the Not Equals arc where the series decides to take off the kids gloves and really start taking shonen apart at the seams. Medaka herself is a critique of shonen main characters both old and new and takes the concept of the main character taken to its logical extremes. Like most shonen main characters, Medaka is strong, charismatic, enjoys a good fight, can perfect anything just by looking it and she is just plain amazing but its those very same traits that alienate her from other people. She is perfect but is being a perfect a good thing? Is there even such a thing as perfect? And how everyone else react to such a being?

In contrast lies Misogi Kumagawa who is the most popular character in the manga, he is the ultimate underdog in that no matter how competent 'destined' to be defeated in the end. Kumagawa is the biggest loser to extent where even Charlie Brown is cooler than him. Kumagawa is also a critique on villains or antagonists where they are destined to lose no matter what cool powers they have. In middle lies Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, he is the sidekick who just cannot seem to catch to these crazy characters no how hard he tries.

As fun as the series is, it still has some flaws and those can prevent your enjoyment of the series. It has a tendency to repeat the same plots with the same conclusion but in different ways. The art is fairly mediocre, it doesn't stand on its own as a battle manga and if you are looking for something more typical, I suggest you look somewhere else. This series like most others by the author is a love or hate it series.

doctrainAUM Since: Aug, 2010
07/03/2013 00:00:00

After reading the whole thing, I find the story rather indecisive at times. Sometimes (especially during the Not Equals arc), it's extremely obvious that the author is deconstructing Shounen and Mary Sue tropes. Other times, the author plays those same tropes seemingly straight, without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness.

I also felt that most of the character development. Characters seemed to alter major viewpoints suddenly and for little apparent reason. When characters did go through major epiphanies, they make a big deal of it, but it later turns out the characters barely changed at all. Since the manga started, it greatly supported "tell, don't show" in this regard.

I didn't like the manga's ending much at all, but there are a lot of reasons for that. Maybe I should write my own review.

"What's out there? What's waiting for me?"
GAP Since: May, 2011
07/04/2013 00:00:00

Agreed mostly. It just seems as though that manga keeps retreading old plotlines. Medaka Box does have soem good points about shonen tropes but it nevertheless plays them so straight that it is kind of predictable that Medaka is gonna win in some capacity. The ending basically sucked not because it was bad ending but because the previous arc's ending brought so much closure to the series.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

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