Some weeks ago, my parents were visiting and my Dad, as he is wont to, was going through my piles of anime and manga looking for something crappy to read. (Me, with crappy manga? How utterly likely.) So, I pulled one of the manga off the pile and said, “Here, I’m told this one is dreadful. I haven’t read it yet. You can be my sacrificial reader.” And with that I handed him Shin Megami Tensei Kahn.

Twelve pages into it he looked up and said, “I feel my brain crinkling around the edges.” Halfway into it, he gave up. I said cheerfully, “But you didn’t get to the lesbian rape part – keep reading.”. Manfully, he churned away at it and when he was done, he handed it back and said, “I think the panel on the bottom of Page 59 sums it up nicely.” I took the book, opened up to page 59 and read the bottom panel in which Nobu, with a completely slappable expression says, “It stinks.”

So, here’s the first review on Okazu ever done by my father – Shin Megami Tensei Kahn stinks. ^_^

To be fair to Dad, it really does stink. This series takes place some time after a previous series. The synopsis of the previous series is written on the first two, almost completely unreadable, pages of the book. At first I thought it was just meant to be jumbled up letters that were artsy, but after a moment I realized that those word jumbles contained actual information that was kind of crucial to understanding what had happened previously. Assuming one wants to understand.

In short – terrible things happened in the past, leaving Nobu and Yumi the sole survivors of the demonic destruction of their former school. Nobu is instantly unlikable. His expression made me root for the punks who tried to beat his ass in the very first chapter but, sadly, he’s the hero and we’ll never be rid of him. Yumi was a typical two-dimensional, uninteresting shell of a female character who mostly spends her time obsessing about Nobu. Nobu spends his time complaining that things stink.

In the second half of the volume, Yumi is trying to forget what happened and move on with her life, but sadly her life doesn’t want to be moved on with. Her questionably lesbian roommate Saeko (the traditional name for the classmate with “issues”) is first “seduced” by the “sexy” demonic teacher who vomits worms into her mouth and then Saeko tries to turn her wormy seduction onto Yumi. Amazingly, Yumi does not succumb. The volume ends with lesbianism-inducing worms all over the place and Nobu on the run, suspected of killing his mother, which he didn’t, not that we care all that much.

Ratings:

Art – 3
Characters – 3
Story – 3
Yuri – 6, but…worms
Service – 4 for the guro set

Overall – 3

As bad as this manga is, there wasn’t anything bad enough to make me want to read more. I’m with Dad on this one. Nonetheless, my sincere thanks to Bruce M. for sponsoring today’s review and opening up a whole new world of bad for me to enjoy. ^_^