saishu heiki kanojo 最終兵器彼女
Author: takahashi shin (高橋しん)
It's about time I actually talk about this manga on this site. You can tell I really love the manga, because I made a site dedicated to it.
It's the first time I've encountered Takahashi Shin's work. Actually, I saw the anime serie first, and fell in love with it head first. I ran out and bought the entire manga serie in Japanese. Hence, this is the only complete manga serie in Japanese that I own.
It's easy to be put off by Takahashi Shin's artwork at first. Saying his strokes are unrefined is an understatement. Even his more detailed images are filled with broad strokes of watercolour, and I love it. His squiggly and rough outlines of characters though, have a charm of their own. Sometimes, they can be quite stunning.
Saikano is all about intense emotions. The characters laugh and cry, stringing the reader's emotion with them. Since this is a pessimistic story, the sad moments far outnumber the happier ones. Even if there are happy moments, they will always be used to hammer away at the reader's heart later on in the story. Many times I was thrown into the pit of despair, it's unbelievable how sad the story can get. There was a moment in the anime fansub, where after 2 heart wrenching episodes, a message appears from the fansub team: "This is the end of happiness in saikano, further watching will only bring you pain and despair..". The episode was so tragic that it almost killed me, and yet I was to expect even sadder story development? Unbelievable!
Make no mistake, I'm not complaining about Saikano at all, I loved every minute of it. Look at the list of mangas that I recommended, I guess it shows that I enjoy sad stories.