Kill Me Baby/ Baby, please kill me (キルミーベイベー) Manga, Volume 1

October 19th, 2011

Volume 1 of Kill Me Baby/ Baby, please kill me (キルミーベイベー) is a 4-koma comic with an exceeding simple premise: School student Sonia is a professional assassin, and her classmate Yasuna wants to be her friend. This leads to 14 million ways in which Yasuna almost gets killed by Sonia. For instance, Yasuna touches Sonia on the shoulder, and has her arm broken by Sonia. Or Yasuna throws an eraser at Sonia, and has knives thrown back at her.

They are joined periodically, and for no particular reason, by Agiri, who is a ninja. She is frequently drawn appearing hanging from the ceiling, also for no reason.

Anyone who is a fan of Noir will probably instantly liken Yasuna’s basic character design to Kirika and therefore Sonia’s to Mirielle, but personality-wise, they couldn’t be more different. Sonia is taciturn and humorless, Yasuna is goofy and endlessly incompetent.

Kill Me Baby is about to become an anime. I hope they consider doing the super-short Morita-san ha Mukuchi treatment on it, because seriously, there’s one joke here.  It’s a mildly amusing joke – you keep hoping that Yasuna will break through Sonia’s seriousness and maybe they can become friends…but, by the end of Volume 1 they don’t. I’m reading Volume 2 and basically nothing has changed. It’s fun for a few pages, then it gets repetitive and I stop. Then I pick it up again in a few days. Personally, I can’t imagine 22 minutes of this one joke staying “heh”-worthy in anime form.

The one joke is the only joke, so there’s really no storyline to speak of, and the characters don’t develop or change – with one exception. Yasuna begins to study self-defense. It doesn’t help her, but now she can at least *try* to fight back.

There is no Yuri, either real or imagined. One might, if one were truly desperate, concoct a story about why Yasuna is so determined to be Sonia’s friend, but one would be working way too hard. It’s a mildly amusing story idea, good for a “heh” or two, then a few days off.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – There isn’t any, but the Setup is a 5
Characters – 5
Yuri – 0
Service- 1

Overall – 5

Unless something significant shifts in Volume 2, I won’t review that…but I’m still reading it. There’s also a Volume 3, in case you find this setup hilarious.

5 Responses

  1. DezoPenguin says:

    Frankly, this sounds like a much better candidate for the “Morita-san” treatment than the actual Morita-san (which I’m constantly wishing would have one of those three-minute shows 3-5 times per week instead of once). I must say, though, the three-minute episode does work very well for the 4-koma type of gag humor that would fall flat if stretched to a full episode.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Speaking of tiresome gags getting animes… am I the only one who could barely stand the Yuru Yuri manga, but find the anime version fairly entertaining?

  3. @Dezo Penguin – I’m going to continue to disagree on this. i like the short treatment for Morita-san. It make me want more, rather than getting tired of it.

    @Anonymous – I don’t think you’re alone, the anime is quite popular. I found the manga deadly dull and the anime even worse, so I’m not with you in that particularly corner, but I know you’ve got company there. ^_^

  4. Anonymous says:

    @Anonymous & Erica
    I’d say Yuru Yuri belongs in the ‘Troll’ genre niche, along with the likes of PSG, Puni Puni Poemy, Excel Saga, Maria Holic, Shinobuden, etc.

    Oh, and quite a substantial amount of Monty Python’s entertaining works as well (Mr Creosote was a memorable example)

  5. applezoid says:

    I haven’t read the manga, but I did rather enjoy the anime series, which was a surprise to me. I wasn’t that impressed when I read the premise, and wasn’t terribly into it at first. Ten minutes later I was in stitches – I think it’s just wacky enough to hold viewer interest. Maybe its the voice acting, or timing which isn’t as easy in a four-panel manga. Anyway, my review here: http://www.jgeeks.com/?p=2644

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