Japanese Title: Mare

 

Genre: Yuri Smut Horror Supernatural

Length: 1 volume

 

Positives:

• None.

Negatives:

• Busy and unappealing artwork.
• Sadistic in nature with no purpose.
• Incoherent storytelling, jumping from key event to key event with no subtlety.

(contains high levels of nudity and graphic sex)

Is this really made by Milk Morinaga? The Morinaga of Girl Friends fame, which I praised? Apparently it is. Mare is her first solo manga and without a doubt her worst – not just by her standards, but by all manga in existence. Hell, even the art is nothing like her signature work.

Mare is a witch girl who delights in tormenting students in school who partake in carnal relationships – a couple who raped a girl, a teacher who exploits his students, and so on. She uses black magic and demons to torture them. Each relationship is based on a different sin, in line with the catholic school setting. The story telling is confusing. I had trouble understanding how scenes were related, at times, and where they took place. If at school, how did they get away with these heinous acts?

This really is just torture smut. Most of the sex scenes serve no purpose beyond sadistic sex. There is only one scene that defies the rubbish narrative, thus out of place, when Mare summons a demon to cheat on the school exams for her. Why wasn’t the whole manga about her using demons to solve school problems instead of this arse? Everything else is awful.

After reading Mare, it’s incredible to see how much Morinaga improved over the years, developing her own art style and interesting characters.

Art – Low

The art is messy, inconsistent in proportions, and the ‘horror’ shading is lazy.

Story – Very Low

Smut that garbs itself in torture and magic as it pretends to have a purpose.

Recommendation: Avoid it. Let’s not pretend that this is any more than sadist smut.

(Find out more about the manga recommendation system here.)