Lady Masquerade

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Nom nom nom nom ouo
Today I bring you..
Lady Masquerade~


Lady Masquerade


Story & Art: Chiho Saito
Publisher: Shougakukan
Rating: Mature (18+)
Synopsis: (http://manga.animea.net) The distorted memory becomes a masquerade. Everyone hides behind a mask and performs the wildest acts with no consequence. But, life is not a masquerade. The main character is a girl who suffers daily from what she accidentally witnessed years ago. She keeps having flashbacks of a gruesome scene. It always starts with her as a little girl following a black kitten, and suddenly the black kitten turns into a panther! A woman welcomes the panther to join her and the rest of the panthers. And then, unaware of the presence of the little girl, the group starts having "fun." The girl becomes horrified by the scene. She makes a noise and they notice her. "Hunt her down! Kill her!" the woman says to the panthers. She managed to escape from the pack, but they got to her parents. In her flashbacks, her parents were chased and fell off a cliff. The authorities told her that it was a car accident. She has lived on the edge of illusion and reality until she sees the photo of the woman on a magazine. A photo is all she needs to confirm what her flashbacks tell her. Now, she is ready to get even.


Art Review: 2.5/5


I kinda disliked the style, the eyes were too dramatic, everyone had the neck of a giraffe, and some of the facial expressions remind me of Guru Guru Pon-Chan. The backgrounds are kinda pretty and I liked Rei's hair. Although at times the hair in this manga seems to have a mind of it's own, like Medusa's hair or something.


Story Review: Ok, if I said that a manga previously was the most retarded manga ever, I take that back. THIS is the most retarded manga ever. The first line is 'I lost everything in my ninth summer' while the kid runs after a cat. It really sounds like you just ran into a forest after a cat and got raped. Or kidnapped. But no, she just catches upon an orgy of some sort. Poor kid. The story fast forwards to the present where we see the heroine just standing there all grumpy like. Throws a blanket, sees the illusion of dead people in it. If that's not telling you you're fucked I don't know what can. I got an error page while reading this and all of a sudden Setsuna is massaging a naked woman. Did I miss something in the last page..? She was doing laundry a second ago... A little further along someone offers her a present. Setsuna makes an annoyed face. A dude randomly calls her pretty, makes a WTF YOU STARIN' AT face. Doesn't know how to be sociable, no wonder she's spent 15 years in a rehab facility. A hospital where the phrase 'hurry up and get better' is an insult. A couple pages forward and Setsuna nearly gets raped and a bishie arrives and takes a picture. Uhm... Why...? Shouldn't you, y'know, be all muscly and punch the other guy in the face and say,"Are you alright, miss?" And then Setsuna should say... You get the picture. This manga is so badly pulled off it makes me want to slap someone, and we're not even in the second chapter yet. Somehow, after 15 years, the people who were involved with the death of Setsuna's mother and father look exactly the same. What are the odds? And I lol'ed when Setsuna was going to second base and she cries out for her mother. That's kind of awkward, even more so if you're a girl. I laughed even harder when people showed up like yakuza when Okada went bankrupt and came with samurai swords. Oh, manga... I love the irony in this manga: Okada was innocent, and HE gets hit with a car. And while Kenshou and Setsuna romantically embrace you see his blood seeping down his hand. A little forward into the manga a guy in a trench coat (wait, didn't we make this joke already?) takes a crucifix and kills her with it. Hm, the 'crucifix serial killer'. That seems really redundant. It's like ordering a delivery to your house just so you can tell him you didn't want it and then have your dog chase the mailman and rip his junk off (all male readers have cringed by reading this sentence.) As a stereotypical manga, every time Setsuna does something stupid Kenshou just comes running out of nowhere. She's lucky she lives in the manga word, otherwise that would never work. Also, as they mention the crucifix killer again, I think to myself why bother with a crucifix, just get a knife and stop trying to be special. Now, here's something that bothered me. Right when Setsuna confronts the second man involved with the death, she tells him that she is God. I'm pretty sure God doesn't have a vengeful streak and have sex issues. Oh wait, he does. I keed the Catholics. Rei's kind of a whore. Her first actual appearance in the manga consists of someone groping her for a position in a movie. And in the next scene Shirou and Rei are literally dryhumping each other while Miwa awkwardly stands right beside them. As I continue on I wonder to myself if her quest is to get laid or to get revenge, because it seems to be both with her intertwining her fear of sex with revenge. At some points she made it sound like she walked in on her parents 'hugging each other a little too hard.' Rei thanks her masseurs by kissing them? Poor Setsuna, as if her sexuality wasn't threatened enough. Now you're going around confusing the poor girl. And soon it is found out that all the people involved with that orgy were SIBLINGS. That's just a little more than creepy. And speaking upon creepy, why is it that every male in this manga is a rapist? The fighting scenes in this manga remind me of the last scene of Hamlet. EVERYONE DIES EXCEPT FOR ONE PERSON! (no spoilers cause that play sucks, anyway.) And I still have no idea what's going on here. Kenshou's dad is the father of the four people who were involved with the death of Setsuna's parents? And apparently the dad gave them all those aphrodisiacs on purpose? And gave them to Kenshou and Setsuna too? And ate it himself? It's like someone was passing around a bowl of Viagra mistakenly thinking that the 'V' was a special skittle flavour. Kenshou's father is clearly insane as mentioned in the manga 1231931893 times. He chains them both to a post, puts the keys on a desk, offers a knife so one of them can chop off the other's arm to escape, drops gasoline and sets it on fire. That's like saying 'I'll let you escape but I'm going to chop one leg off and stand irritably in your way.' Everyone gets a happy ending! The seriously horny guy dies and Setsuna can finally get sweeped like your mum's chimney. Ok, no seriously, obviously this manga is confusing, and weird, if I may be so kind to say so.


6/10