A familiar but well-executed tale.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Meiyamamoh
Translation/Adaptation: N/A
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Kousake-san and Saitou-kun is the debut of a new creator as serialized in Comic Kairakuten from the June 2015 installment from Meiyamamoh. This particular installment of the magazine had three new creators appear so there’s definitely a lot to like from there. Every artist brings their own particular flair to things and when it comes to hentai there’s an even greater sense of detail being paid attention to, particularly for one-chapter stories like this one. Meiyamamoh certainly comes across well here with a distinctive enough style in some areas to warrant more attention, notably with how Saitou-kun is presented with hair and his face as it feels a bit old school in a way, while also showing some good costume design elements and some decent background settings. If anything, that’s an area that I’d want to see more from in order to make the various settings have a bit more impact in helping set the mood and atmosphere as a lot of them are bland or non-existent here.
The tale here is a familiar one as we get Kousake-san, the smart and proper female student that does all the right things and often comes across as annoying to others that are less serious in their studies. When she overhears that another student, Saitou-kun, is doing poorly and may have to repeat the year, she steps in to help out by offering to tutor him. He’s not exactly thrilled by this considering his view of her and even less thrilled when he realizes that she wants to do this tutoring every day. So what’s a young man like him supposed to do to get out of this? Make a blatant pass at her, of course. And he does so in order to offend her significantly so that she’ll just drop the whole thing. Naturally, she takes up the challenge in order to help him focus and regain his studying ability.
Amusingly, she doesn’t do this with a promise from him to actually study. No, she goes all in to help out in a basic sense and because you get the idea that she really wants it herself, though with her somewhat quiet and more reserved way she’s not actively shouting it from the rooftops. Nor is she resistent to it, making it something that’s uncomfortable to read. Kousake-san is fully invested in it, knows her way around the equipment, and just enjoys it. A lot of the dialogue is from Saitou-kun’s point of view though and not too much from her doing the actual act, which lessens her involvement to a degree. But there’s some fun material to be had here as the two enjoy the moment and Saito-kun almost realizes that he’s been tricked in a sense at the end and that he may have found something even more fun for the future.
In Summary
The one-off debut chapter is pretty fun overall, though there’s not much here to build out a lot more from without some reworking and real expansion. But what this chapter does is present Meiyamamoh’s artwork in a good way to get a feel for them and their design aesthetic. I loved the attention to detail in the costume design as well as some great panels for Kousake-san, such as page nine and the top panel of page fourteen. I think they’ve got some good camera angle placement here and the right feel for the character side to be an artist to keep an eye on and see how they grow. But there’s definitely work to be done when it comes to creating inviting backgrounds to give it a lot more impact. And a little better dialogue wouldn’t hurt either, as the last page just feels like a bit of a mess with how it plays out.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: FAKKU
Release Date: October 28th, 2015
MSRP: FAKKU Subscription