Manga Review: River’s Edge

Title: River’s Edge
Author: Okazaki Kyoko
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Josei, Slice of Life
Art: F
Originality: B
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a bunch of screwed up teenagers at a school in some random town that a river runs through. The story focuses mostly on the friendship between a girl in a dysfunctional relationship with an insecure jackass and the gay boy ostracized by said jackass’s gang along with several other members of their peers. A friend recommended this to me a while back so I should tell that if it weren’t for her recommendation, I wouldn’t even be going near this series on account of the horrible artwork and the angst filled premise. A little angst goes a long way in terms of characterization but nobody actually wants to see a bunch of teenagers feeling sorry for themselves doing stupid self destructive things. Thankfully though, the angst is played off quite well here. The setting and society shown in the story certainly justifies it since the bleakness of their lives is just absolutely depressing. Nobody seems to be anywhere near the well-adjusted mark in this series so it’s a little hard for me to take this story seriously. The author probably didn’t mean for the teens’ antics to be humorous but I found myself more amused at how silly they were rather than appalled at their behavior. Things do make sense and the themes of the story are done quite nicely but I honestly just cannot take this story seriously. Still, I enjoyed reading it so maybe you will too.