The manga definitely had a wonderful premise for a story, with a mutant species that seems to be a Missing Link in the evolution, but can also lead to advancement of the human race and a Diclonius protagonist, torn between her murderous side and her innocent, child-like amnesiac self.
Unfortunately, that sort of stopped being the focus of the story and quickly devolved into lots of gorn, lots of harem clichés that seem to be seen as deconstructions, but it's done badly.
It's impossible to feel sorry for anyone in this story. Because everything sucks foreveryone. Not a single character has not got some issue that involves a bad background, a bad present or other issues that make them seem horribly pitiful. The body count gets high fast and then we get Lucy's background, which seems to be nothing but "Let's make her appear as miserable as possible, so the reader will feel sorry for her". Which is difficult to do when I felt like saying the Eight Deadly Words about this story.
The art-style is actually a bit creepy at first, with the humongous eyes on the girls and off-modelling in several panels. Thankfully, the art evolved nicely as the story progressed.
And as the reader, I felt like I was never clear what I was supposed to be feeling at several scenes. Any sexy-funny or romantic-funny scene just came across as awkward on both sides, which made me wonder what I'm supposed to experience right now: Arousal? Hilarity? Awkward Giggles? A desire for Brain Bleach? This isn't counting into the fact how the characters keep overreacting to the tiniest of things.
The story, as mentioned, had a good premise, but then seems to have lost what it was originally going to tell. Necessary evolution? The bad side of science? A lovestory between a human and Diclonius, which never came to be, anyway? It seems to want to take an approach of Diclonius VS Human views, including racism towards the Diclonius, but given how majority of humanity is presented as consisting of nothing but jerks, it's difficult to feel like you got a proper, balanced view on what the good and bad sides of both were. How can we stand for humans, when we are shown to be jerks who try to kill others for being different? How can we stand for Diclonii, when they are presented as nothing but omnicidal murderers?
A so-called Cult Classic
The manga definitely had a wonderful premise for a story, with a mutant species that seems to be a Missing Link in the evolution, but can also lead to advancement of the human race and a Diclonius protagonist, torn between her murderous side and her innocent, child-like amnesiac self.
Unfortunately, that sort of stopped being the focus of the story and quickly devolved into lots of gorn, lots of harem clichés that seem to be seen as deconstructions, but it's done badly.
It's impossible to feel sorry for anyone in this story. Because everything sucks for everyone. Not a single character has not got some issue that involves a bad background, a bad present or other issues that make them seem horribly pitiful. The body count gets high fast and then we get Lucy's background, which seems to be nothing but "Let's make her appear as miserable as possible, so the reader will feel sorry for her". Which is difficult to do when I felt like saying the Eight Deadly Words about this story.
The art-style is actually a bit creepy at first, with the humongous eyes on the girls and off-modelling in several panels. Thankfully, the art evolved nicely as the story progressed.
And as the reader, I felt like I was never clear what I was supposed to be feeling at several scenes. Any sexy-funny or romantic-funny scene just came across as awkward on both sides, which made me wonder what I'm supposed to experience right now: Arousal? Hilarity? Awkward Giggles? A desire for Brain Bleach? This isn't counting into the fact how the characters keep overreacting to the tiniest of things.
The story, as mentioned, had a good premise, but then seems to have lost what it was originally going to tell. Necessary evolution? The bad side of science? A lovestory between a human and Diclonius, which never came to be, anyway? It seems to want to take an approach of Diclonius VS Human views, including racism towards the Diclonius, but given how majority of humanity is presented as consisting of nothing but jerks, it's difficult to feel like you got a proper, balanced view on what the good and bad sides of both were. How can we stand for humans, when we are shown to be jerks who try to kill others for being different? How can we stand for Diclonii, when they are presented as nothing but omnicidal murderers?
Very confused story, at best.