Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t so much of a hard ass. Not often, but sometimes. In this particular case, I’m torn. Some part of me would like to like Saigo no Seifukfu, and the rest of me just can’t get past thinking, “bleah.”
Saigo no Seifuku, The Last School Uniform, is about a bunch of young women at a…gasp!…girl’s school. The story focuses on several of the girls who share a dorm and, in the case of the one of the stories, a room. It’s all small crushes and small dramas and small jealousies. If the girls were older, I’d probably care more. There’s nothing here squicky or icky, and the crushes *are* crushes, not just friendship or admiration.
But for me the killer problem is the art. I simply can’t find anything appealing about it. Hanakada Mera certainly draws better than I ever will, but the huge heads and lack of depth in character design just puts me off.
Ratings:
Art – 2
Characters – 5
Story – 5
Yuri – 5
Overall – 5
I just don’t really think the art in Saigo no Seifuku is cute at all. The setup really isn’t that different from Aoi Hana, but the art just puts me off.
This reminds me of the critique of ALIEN 9’s art.
Woo, lookit dem heads!
Even looking past the art, it really IS all that different from Aoi Hana. Well, maybe not all *that* different (the concepts are, after all, functionally identical), but in terms of quality…
Say we were to grade them on a scale of Strawberry Panic to Marimite (which, now that I think about it, makes a really good scale for these kinds of stories). Aoi Hana would be just a few notches short of Marimite, but Saigo no Seifuku would be much further towards the Strawberry Panic end of the spectrum.
Well, that’s just my opinion (and for the record, I enjoyed all four series). Now I’m going back to my recently-discovered volumes of Haru yo Koi, the manga which asks the (terribly pressing) question: just how much lesbian sex can you cram into a manga without it *quite* becoming porn?
The answer, by the way, is an awful lot, and yet not nearly enough ;P
Alien 9’s art was better. I like saigo no seifuku, though; I have high cute tolerance. ^^ It’s nothing special, but it’s okay.
OT, but did you ever review Alien9? Definite Yuri, but really kinda depressing overall. Sniffle.
> Say we were to grade them on a scale of Strawberry Panic to Marimite (which, now that I think about it, makes a really good scale for these kinds of stories). Aoi Hana would be just a few notches short of Marimite, but Saigo no Seifuku would be much further towards the Strawberry Panic end of the spectrum.
Clever, but I can’t agree with it. Saigo isn’t bad or cheesy or a rip-off, it’s just not interesting or charming of unique. I maintain its a ‘5’.
I bought this on a whim when I was in Tokyo and finally got around to reading it and had to check out what others had said :-) I must pretty much agree with the review, it’s pretty nice, actually better than I expected, but not particularly special. My main complaint are the rather blandly drawn yet excessively loli-esque characters. Indeed, the uniform fetish is also quite prominent, but it isn’t particularly disturbing for me, if not particularly interesting either.
I’ll also place it about halfway or a bit on the high side on the Strawberry Panic-Marimite axis (though I like the official Marimite manga’s way-too-shoujo designs approximately as little as SnS’s style; Marimite as manga is best served as doujinshi :P).
Fortunately Aoi Hana 3 is in the mail and likely arriving this week..