Japanese Title: Shitsurakuen

 

Genre: Yuri Action Fantasy

Length: 6 volumes

 

Positives:

• The art is good for the most part.

Negatives:

• The premise of the entire school is rubbish, especially since the writer did no world building beyond the premise.
• Where is the government?
• Where are the parents?
• If the protagonist, a girl, can fight, why don’t the other girls fight as well?
• They fight with virtual weapons. Why doesn’t anyone bring a real weapon to kill their opponents?
• What girl would sign up for this place if they are going to be a slave?
• What stops people from simply leaving?
• No effort applied to explain anything.
• No understanding of human nature.
• A last ditch attempt in the final volume to inject depth. Fails.

Again, lowborn girl entering new elite high school. Protagonist Sora wants to be a dashing knight who rescues people. In the school, male students duel each other using virtual weapons supplied by the girls. The winner of the duel gets ownership of the loser’s weapon and girl. Not “ownership.” Actual slave do-whatever-you-want-to-her ownership. Shitsurakuen tells us that they get away with this treatment of the girls because a girl-hating douche owns the school, or something (see my negative points above). It clearly states that this system only applies to this school, so how do they get away with it? (Again, see above.)

Only the girl’s owner may touch her. If anyone else touches her, they get migraines and the owner can do whatever they want to the guy. Sora is somehow given the ability to wield these weapons and fight despite being girl. She allies with the only good guy in the school and they set out to beat the student council and free the girls.

The brutal nature of the premise on its own doesn’t make Shitsurakuen bad, it’s the lack of effort put in to explaining why and how. Take Japanese classic film Battle Royale, for example. That has a ridiculous premise (a class of students is shipped off to an island where they must fight to the death; the winner gets to go home – all for population control and oppression of the youth). Though it is ridiculous, it explains how they get away with it and how the system works, allowing for suspension of disbelief by the audience. Here in Shitsurakuen, no effort.

The more I read of this manga, the less I liked it. I can’t recommend it to anyone.

Art – High

The only good aspect of Shitsurakuen. All the effort went here. Would have been nice if they hadn’t copy-pasted this one expression of hysteria a hundred times.

Story – Very Low

With no world building, the story falls apart from the get go. The characters are rubbish as well.

Recommendation: Avoid it. What nonsense is this?

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