Well, in this month of firsts, we have another first! Today’s review has been sponsored by a brand new Okazu hero, Christopher S! Christopher, please email me at yuricon at gmail dot com so I can send you your Hero badge! Seriously, what a month this has been – what  a month this is going to be.

Thanks to Christopher, I have had the chance to read the first volume of the Kampfer manga. The Kampfer anime came out in 2009 and was a hot mess. ^_^ Nothing was explained, and frankly, it wasn’t like it was worth really knowing. The manga, which appears to be an afterthought, doesn’t really give us much more to work with.

High school nice guy and resident nonentity, Natsuru, who is in unrequited love with his neighbor and  childhood friend, Sakura, suddenly turns into a girl and is commanded to fight. Why, for whom, and what the goal is, is almost entirely left out of the narrative in Volume 1.

In the anime, we had the limited pleasure of the entrails animals being voiced by popular voice actresses. In the manga, we don’t learn much more, except that the “Moderators” are the ones who have sent our unpleasant little mascots and required the fighting. Why, we still don’t know. Neither do the girls. Some of them don’t much care.

Volume 1 focuses primarily on Natsuru’s concern that he has suddenly become female and can’t control his switching back and forth. And the fact that he’s being attacked for no apparent reason. With his life on the line, of course the thing he’s most concerned with is that he doesn’t know when he will suddenly become female. As a result, the opening chapter is chock full of really random service, lots of panty shots and Natsuru fondling himself to make sure that those breasts are attached to him. I guess visual confirmation wasn’t sufficient? ^_^;

As a girl, Natsuru saves Sakura, who promptly falls in love with her savior. She asks for a date but of course the date is interrupted by a Kampfer attack. Yuri is wholly in Sakura’s insto-crush with girl Natsuru…. This becomes a multi-partite plot complication, by damseling Sakura and also giving Natsuru another reason to be nervous about switching to girl-form.

I’m actually interested in reading more, because I’d like to see if the manga actually gets the opportunity and/or impulse to tell us anything about to the situation. I’d like to know what the plot is or whether there actually is one, or is this just the thinly connected conglomeration of ideas it appears to be.

This emanga from DMP is as okay as the manga itself. It functions, one can read it, but nothing impresses, really.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Competent
Story – 4 Not so much
Characters – 4 At the moment, they are the same 2-dimensional creations of the anime. If the manga gives them a chance to develop, it would be nice.
Service – 8
Yuri – 3

Overall – 5

I can’t say the manga is bad, although it sure ain’t good. I went into it knowing it was going to be fairly craptastic and I wasn’t disappointed. ^_^

Thanks Christopher, welcome to the Okazu family!