- Last OnlineYesterday, 6:26 PM
- GenderMale
- BirthdayJul 20, 2008
- Locationmy bedroom
- JoinedOct 26, 2025
Evil Spirits Begone! The Witching Hour You Should Read This Manga
Also Available at
RSS Feeds
|
Sep 8, 2026
PROS:
1. The drawings are really cool as it blends graffiti and street fashion. Some of the backgrounds are quite detailed too.
2. The series has a lot of black or darker skinned characters, which is nice since a lot of manga tend to be "witewashed" as in having too much light skinned characters. This one having a bunch of darker skinned ones are nice.
CONS:
1. The formula looks like generic battle shonen, and it takes a lot of volumes to end a fight. It seems like not much happened in 8 volumes, and the stuff that happened is quite forgettable. Probably because there's not much pannels in
...
each page, so the author sacrafised story progression with "shocking pannels".
2. There are a lot of characters, and it's hard to name 3 traits for each major character without saying their name, apperance, gender, sexuality, role in the story, and relationship with another character. A lot of them are just one trick ponies, filler characters, or mascots. Some of them, like Semiu, Guita, Zanka, and Dear, are there because they're there and not really any importance to the story so far. The author seems to have made too much characters compaired to what they can handle.
3. The story is "pinterest shonen" just like Blue Lock and Wind Breaker. All style and no substance. Any page looks good if you frame it as a photo for Pinterest, Instagram, Xiaohongshu, or whatever, but once someone analyze the story, it looks shallow and not worth the re-read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Sep 8, 2026
The MC (Riiko) is basically a spoiled brat who should be nominated as one of the top three for "worst girlfriends in manga" (I'm not sure who the other two are, but still), and Night only loves her because he's programmed to. She's shallow, entitled, and treats Night like a toaster that happens to look hot, not a person. She literally returns him when she gets bored, then wants him back when she's lonely. The tragedy of Night's existence (he was literally created to love her unconditionally) isn't played for existential horror—it's played for romantic comedy. And Riiko has no character development. In volume 5,
...
the author admitted in the first chapter of that volume that the series had already ended in the magazine, but she's still going to keep making it. So that means the story suck so much that the magazine doesn't want her anymore. It was initially in Shojo Comic magazine (weekly), but Shojo Comic canceled her, so she negotiated, and volumes 5 and 6 are in Petite Comic magazine (monthly). Volumes 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 all got reprinted in 2022. 1, 2, and 3 are the 7th print in 2022; 5 and 6 are the 5th print in 2022; and volume 4 is still from 2014 since that print didn't finish selling for a decade because they printed too many. That proves that fewer people are reading this series the further it gets.
And her neighbour Soshi is basically this diehard nerd who likes the MC for no reason. Why does he like her? No reason. They grew up together, sure, but we never see a flashback of her being kind to him, saving him, or doing anything that would warrant his undying devotion. He just... does. Because the plot needs a love triangle. He's a nerd who tinkers with robots, which should make him the perfect foil to Night (a humanoid robot). But does Watase ever explore that irony? Does Soshi feel threatened by Night because Night is literally a better version of what Soshi builds? Nope. Soshi just mopes, gets jealous, and occasionally punches a wall. And that employee (Gaku) who sold Night to Riiko appears less in volume 4 and ends up being a straight up antagonist in 5 and 6. Gaku doesn't have a character arc. He doesn't get a backstory. He doesn't become a friend to Riiko. He's not even a comic relief character—he's just a delivery man who overstayed his welcome.
And it's unrealistic that checking all the personality boxes on the sheet will cost a million dollars. It's just personality. And nobody wantss someone to have only one personali,,ty even if that's the cheaper option. Here’s the setup: Riiko fills out a customization sheet for her ideal lover. She checks off boxes like "Kind", "Gentle", "Cooks well", "Protective", "Handsome", etc. And the total comes to one million dollars (or 1,000,000 yen, which in 2003 was roughly $10,000 USD—still a ludicrous amount for a teenager). But here’s the catch: She can only afford the "base model"—which means Night gets zero personality traits. He's just a blank, obedient shell who loves her because he's programmed to. No humor. No quirks. No opinions. No preferences. Just... a warm, handsome toaster. Personality shouldn't be a checklist of premium features like heated seats or a sunroof. Personality is the operating system of a human being. Without it, you don't have a person—you have a mannequin. The idea that a multi-billion-dollar tech company (Kronos Heaven) would sell "personality" as an optional upgrade is absurd. It would be like Tesla selling a car without a steering wheel and saying, "Oh, you want to turn corners? That's an extra $5,000."
And if someone has the money to buy a robot boyfriend but can't pay the scalper price for personality, don't buy that robot boyfriend. Use the same money to get a dog, and dogs already havee personality in them. The dog has personality baked in—no DLC required. Some are goofy, some are grumpy, some are cuddly, some are independent. You don't have to pay extra for "playful" or "loyal." That's just what dogs are. The dog's love isn't programmed. It's earned. You feed it, you walk it, you pet it—and it loves you back because it chooses to. Night loves Riiko because Kronos Heaven typed if (user == "Riiko") { love = true; }. The dog doesn't run on batteries. It runs on kibble. And kibble is cheaper than a million dollars. The dog will never have an existential crisis about whether its feelings are real. Night, on the other hand, spends half the manga angsting about whether he truly loves Riiko or if it's just his programming.
And what does robot boyfriends from Kronos Heaven run on? Batteries? Solar power? Food? If they run on batteries, the person who get the roboboyfriend will end up paying 10 pieces of batteries per day, and it's bad for the environment and bank account. If solar powered, he'd have to sit in the sunlight for hours everyday, which nobody can interact with them for hours. If it's food, how can robots digest food? Do they poop and pee too? The story said the robots can bleed, so maybe they can pee and poop. But that's an extra mouth to eat, etc. Let's say Night runs on, say, 10 AA batteries per day (generous, given he's a full-sized humanoid with moving joints, facial expressions, and enough strength to carry Riiko). At $1 per battery, that's **$3,650 per year** just to keep him on. That's not counting the high-capacity lithium-ion batteries he'd actually need, which would be closer to $50 per charge, multiple times a day. 3,650 batteries a year per robot boyfriend. Multiply that by the thousands of Kronos Heaven customers, and you've got an ecological disaster. That's not a romance manga—that's a Greenpeace warning. For solar power, Night would need hours of direct sunlight daily to function. That means he'd be standing outside like a lawn ornament while Riiko is at school or work. If he eats food, he must have a digestive system. That means stomach acid, intestines, nutrient absorption, and—yes—waste elimination. Night poops. Night pees. Night has the same biological maintenance as a human, which defeats the entire purpose of a robot. If he can digest food, why does he need batteries? Is he a hybrid? Does he run on glucose and electricity? That's not a robot—that's a cyborg, and a badly designed one at that. Now Riiko has to feed two mouths. She's a broke high schooler working part-time jobs, and she's buying groceries for a robot who doesn't even need to eat—but if she doesn't, he might shut down? Where does the food go? Does he have a waste tank she has to empty? "Night, I love you, but please stop clogging the toilet." Or maybe he has a charging port like a laptop or headphones. But Watase probably won't do this since it's not "romantic".
And Night somehow turns micro sized as in 12cm in the first chapter of volume 5 without any explanation, and Riiko just let her classmate borrow him. Why? She said she love him, but she's so willing to ditch him. That is a point blank selfless brat behavior. So in Volume 5, after the magazine cancellation, Watase is clearly running out of ideas. She's already stretched the "girlfriend returns robot, then wants him back" plot to its breaking point. So what does she do? She shrinks him. No explanation. No foreshadowing. No in-universe logic. Night just... wakes up small. He's now the size of a ruler. And Riiko has to carry him around in her pocket like a Tamagotchi.
And the parents just suddenly show up in volume 4 (when in volume 1 said her parents work abroad a lot of times, business trip) and the dad said the boyfriend can't date the girl, and is mad about it, and suddenly not mad anymore, and leave for work stuff again. And why does her parents always work arboad and only come home every few weeks or months for a day or two and leave again? If they are abroad this much, why not just take Riiko abroad and live in Germany or whatever together. Watase probably needed Riiko to be alone for the plot, but she also needed parents to exist for the "parental disapproval" drama in Volume 4. She wanted to have it both ways so she ended up making this type of mess in the story.
I noticed that 2000s shojo tend to always have the "dad who dislike the boyfriend" thing, which is one of the laziest clichés. The other example is Love Attack from Tokyopop. And for the angry dad thing, why does the dad always hate the boyfriend? It's like, it's not necesarely the "we're dating" type thing, it's more like "I hate the entire person of the boyfriend, expecially if you (my daughter) is interacting with this type of person". Logical answer: The dad has fragile masculinity and can't stand the daughter care about another dude as much as the daughter care about the dad.
The ending in the story is too rushed and volume 6 is a scam too. You'd buy volume 6 thinking it's a full volume of story and 200-ish pages of the story's conclusion. No. Only 1/3 or less of that volume is Absolute Boyfriend even though the cover said "Absolute Boyfriend", the rest of the story are 2 short stories made by the author, and those stories has zero relation with the main series. Those are just padding material when the publisher realized that there's not enough stuff to fill a new volume and they already published volume 5. It's the same as Punch!!, another series from 2000s Shojo Beat. It'sa romance trilogy, but it actually looks like 2.5 volumes since the second half of volume 3 are filed with random short stories.
In the author chatting box of chapter 30 (in volume 6), Watase admitted that she doesn't even like romance stories and she doesn't even read shojo manga either. The last time she read it was 10 years before she wrote that blurb, and she reads seinen and shonen more. She also said she doesn't like romance movies either. So if she doesn't like romance, why is she making a romcom (Absolute Boyfriend)? Watase made Absolute Boyfriend while she was making the prequel of Fushigi Yugi (Fushigi Yugi:Genbu Kaiden) (that saga took a decade or so).
The characters are shallow too. It's hard to name 3 traits about each character if we ignore their name, their apperance, their gender, their role in the story, their sexuality, and their relation to another character. So all of them are either blank slate one trick ponies or archetype filler.
Overall: This series feels pointless and is not worth reading if you want tight plotting, minimal logic leaks, actual stakes, and interesting characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Sep 4, 2026
This story is quite a typical action shonen and it reeks Shonen Jump formula. When someone already reads multiple SJ action series like Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, Black Clover, Food Wars, etc, reading Jujutsu Kaisen will create a bunch of deja vu. There's that nice guy main character who ends up being roped into chaos, the serious rival, the odd mentor, and that girl who probably will be sidelined later on.
The premise of JJK is quite fun (a random guy gaining powers by eating a finger), but it's basically 30 volumes long and some people say the second half of the story is
...
filled with one on one gauntlet fights.
That girl character seems to stand up for herself a bunch too, so she probably has potential.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Sep 4, 2026
You might find a few volumes of this at the library or bookstore and think it's probably a dark and gothic type of story like Dracula, but no. It's actually a romcom. The story has a small cast, at least based on volume 1. And the maid seems to like to s*xually provoke Victor somehow because she likes him. One thing that doesn't make sense is Victor's family left him in that castle in the middle of nowhere since he was a little kid just because he got the death touch curse. It's like, how can a little kid live and speak normally when he
...
lived alone for years? The story just looks different from its premise, since the storyline is on the "slice of life, ecchi, romcom" type. Not everyone would enjoy this story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 28, 2026
This story is not that memorable to the point even after reading the volume, a person might forget they have read it. The premise looks similar to Men In Black, which are a group of people who regulate alien stuff on Earth. The library (at least in Richmond Hill, Canada) has 1 volume and nobody requested for more volumes, so it's a sign nobody really bothered to read more. This series is like "eeeh, it ok" after reading volume 1 and doesn't really make people ask what would happen next and want to read it. Even if someone ask questions, it can be answered with
...
a brief online search, and not really read the next volume. Cosmos has potential story-wise if it's your cup of tea.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 23, 2026
The background tune sounds very Vocaloid, which might sound quite sloppy or messy, so anyone with hearing sensetivities might not like hearing this. The lyrics are clear and doesn't hurt the ears that much. The background tune sometimes feel too overpowering compared to the lyrics. The lyrics sounds like a cute girl but the background sounds like "metal spikes having a crazy party" sometimes. It's not really suited for listening to when you are trying to reorganize stuff, do chores, or draw stuff, since this song is quite distracting. It feels like the lyrics are going one direction and the instrumentals are going the other.
The
...
song is 4 minutes and 24 seconds.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 23, 2026
MUSIC:
The song is very calming and has piano tunes in the background. It suits people who are having a spa day and trying to relax. It's probably not really one of One Ok Rock's best songs, but the song is still good. It is a deeply emotional, introspective track centered on profound loss, regret, and the agonizing finality of saying goodbye to a foundational figure in one's life.
VIDEO:
The video has a black background with simple animation on it that's plain white. It looks hand-drawn and simplistic. It shows time passes and growth, which suits the theme of the song. There are also Japanese lyrics on
...
it even though the song is in English.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 23, 2026
The song is quite powerful. It's the type of song that a person listens to when they do ISPs and stuff for high school. The background tune has a bit of mixtape-type stuff, so if you have hearing sensitivities, you might not like this. It's odd that a Japanese band ends up singing mostly English stuff. The drum beats feel like heartbeats sometimes, which is interesting. It probably means being stuck in the past, trying to overcome nostalgia, and the urgent need to let go of past glory and live in the present.
The video has simple line art, and it's quite monotone, with black and
...
yellow and a few other colors. It's basically greed, Wendigo, devour, and stuff. It fits the song well. The animation has a bunch of cryptids in it.
It's nice.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 23, 2026
STORY:
The story is very fast and repetitive at the same time; that is because the plot structure is stuck in an endless loop. Every few chapters, the story sprints through the exact same beats: "monster appears -> transformation -> Tuxedo Mask cameo -> victory". It is exhausting. And it looks like the student girls just see a cat saying they have powers now and instantly accept that they are Sailor Planets and try to fight villains. And they somehow became friends / a team too fast; like, they didn't even try to get to know each other. It's like someone made Power Rangers have 10
...
times the speed.
ART:
The characters have the same face syndrome. If we remove the various types of hairdos and outfits, the characters have the exact same face shape, eye shape, nose shape, mouth shape, and body shape. It looks like someone got multiples of the same doll and dressed them up with different outfits and styled their hair in various ways and claimed they are various people. But the reality is, it's the same doll being styled different ways, not different dolls. The skirts are ultra-short too; like, the bottom edge of the skirt is not even covering 1/3 of the thigh. That can easily expose their underwear when they're fighting monsters. So if kids mimic their outfits, it's technically bad for kids, because there are creeps in this world.
CHARACTERS:
It's hard to know who is who since the characters seem to be avatars and not distinct people. They are basically one-trick ponies who just shout catchphrases and do transformations. Not really show what they like, what type of people they are, and stuff like that. They're bland.
DIALOGUE:
The story tends to use the rabbit emoji to replace Sailor Moon / Usagi's name when anyone mentions her. And it seems like the story uses it way too much. In chapter 10, Luna sits on someone's lap and thinks, "It's so warm and soft in 🐰-chan's mom's lap. ❤️". And right after that, the dad said, "Sometimes 🐰 looks like an entirely different person." Then the mom said, "🐰 will always be our sweet, spoiled little girl." And this is just one short scenario. There are more rabbit emojis in other parts of the story. That's already 3 emojis in a row. If they keep this up, the world should have Emojese as a language where "👁🐐🐐🐐🐐" means "I forgot".
FUN FACT (this is just a joke):
Usagi's full name is 月野うさぎ, where usagi means "rabbit". But if we use the Chinese pronunciation of her name (月野兔) instead of the Japanese version, 月野 (月 = moon, 野 = wild) sounds like 越野 (cross-country, off-road), so add her name rabbit (兔). That means she's the cross-country rabbit.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
Aug 22, 2026
STORY:
It is extremely slice-of-life, and it's just a bunch of girls chilling and having fun. It is also very episodic. If you don't like seeing a bunch of little kids fooling around, skip this. Everything is quite disjointed since they skip between scenarios, and each chapter is an incident. So it's hard to see full arcs and character development or whatever.
ART:
The art is simplistic, and the characters have the same-face syndrome. All of them have the same face outline, and their hairstyles are quite similar too. And they all have these bulging chihuahua eyes and empty mouths. It's quite hard to know who is who
...
just by looking at them, and the only differences are some minor details. The backgrounds are quite detailed, though. The book is like any other typical book, vertical. But the cover art is horizontal, so you have to tilt the book horizontally (like the way a person flips the calendar) to see the cover in the proper way. But the story pages aren't flipped like calendars; they're read sideways and horizontally like normal books. So it's quite jarring
CHARACTERS:
Why are a first grader, fifth grader, seventh grader, and eighth grader hanging out with each other? Different grades have different classes and timetables; the kids in those grades tend to have different interests too. So why are they hanging out with each other? People across grades can be friends, but they literally hang out in the same classroom all the time, when I'm pretty sure they can't be in the same course because of the huge age gap. So it's quite jarring/unrealistic.
THE LIBRARY:
In the libraries of Richmond Hill, Canada, there is only volume 1, and it was logged into the system in 2016 (ten years ago). And nobody requested volume 2 for basically a decade. That's how unpopular this series is. People just borrowed volume 1, saw the thing, and didn't think it was worth the hassle to ever get volume 2.
OVERALL:
It's a slog to read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|