Girl May Kill

This is the only series I've ever read in its entirety in one sitting.

Girl May Kill is a bloody, dark, gangster mafia manga. The situations presented in the story are already disturbing enough. And then when you take in the fact that one of the main characters is just a fifteen-year-old girl, it makes it even more so.

The story is told mostly told from Aki Gohongi's perspective, a 20-something-year-old guy returning to his childhood hometown to work at a video store. He thinks he's coming back to familiar territory, but he quickly learns of the underworld and dealings that goes on behind the scenes. He promises himself that he won't get involved. But if you know how these stories go, you can probably guess how well he keeps his promise...

Girl May Kill is very reminiscent of classic gangster films; one scene even symbolically pays homage to the film Scarface. And although it draws from these older gangster films, the story itself is far from cookie-cutter. One twist in the plot in particular caught me completely off-guard.

From what I drew, two themes are blatantly evident throughout. The theme of everyone having harboring evil inside of them. And "scorpion and turtle" theme (you'll know this is about when you get to that point in the story).

It has been rumored that the story was meant to be much, much longer. Somewhere around 100 chapters instead of the 23 we ended up with. That being said, the last few chapters feel rushed and I admit that the ending is very abrupt with many questions left unanswered. If it had kept going, this had the potential to be a 9 or maybe even a 10 in my book. I highly recommend it.

You might read this series, perhaps get drawn into it, and wonder what the hell all the people who gave it such a low rating were smoking. Did they expect something else? Were they prudes and objected to some of the content? And then you come to the ending and it all becomes clear.

There are happy endings, there are melancholic endings, there are tragic endings. Any of those three types would've worked here if done well. What we got instead was a troll ending, a big middle finger thrown to the reader.

This short series started out as a 7/10, became a strong 8/10 towards the end, and ended with the dumbest finale imaginable. I'm talking Gantz TV or Mai Hime finales dumb here, though in a very different way from both. Instead of the premise spiraling into dumb, here the main character does something so ridiculously stupid that you just stare at the page in shock and think WTF??

So I was enjoying it a lot until then, it had a lot of promise, and was only getting better, and then it got a rushed final arc leaving lots of unresolved plot points and ending with ... dumb.

Okay let me first give a disclaimer that this manga is basically for a mature audience completely. Not that it's constantly involving mature themes, but rather dealing with concepts that are distant from the innocence that you would expect from modern anime & manga.

I read this via Crunchyroll manga, and after about 10 chapters I ordered the Japanese manga.

The story: is about Gohongi, a man in his mid-twenties without any real family left, moving back to his hometown, working and living at a movie shop in chinatown. He suddenly gains new roommates to later find out they are all involved in the mafia named "Lovely Hometown". One of the new roommates, is a fifteen year-old girl named Mei which Gohongi constantly tries to convince to try a new lifestyle. He eventually steps too far into the mafia life and ends up involved. He is constantly struggling with the concept of death, and worries for Mei while she finds solace in hanging around Gohongi.

My opinion: Although at 23 chapters and 4 volumes, this series was somewhat brief, I am astonished at the character development. In both a good way and bad way. I say this, because later on certain characters make decisions which seem rather "out of character". I mostly enjoyed it regardless, because it made everything more suspenseful. I thoroughly enjoyed the manga and am very surprised at the lack of general attention this series has received. There are some parts that kind of made me uncomfortable, but I was able to get through it. The ending left me sad and slightly confused, but it was also beautiful and I don't think I will read another manga like this in a long time. I imagine this will eventually become a cult hit.

This manga had interesting aspects but it completely squandered them. The setting and premise was interesting, in that it was a town close to the underworld with a major conflict unfolding, seen from the premise of someone normal that due to various circumstances gets involved. The characters were also interesting, in that they had interesting personalities and motivations, with Mei being the most interesting. However, most of the characters felt like they weren't used much at all other than Gohongi and Mei, and with the latter two while it was proceeding in an interesting direction, in the end it was nonsense. Mei's ultimate goal ceases to matter in a way that made it feel pointless and like things were not resolved at all. Her new goal is then set up in such a way that I felt that while not really resolving the plot threads already established, it could end the series well enough, but then that gets thrown away too. Rather than take the path of trying to grow beyond one's sins, the path taken is one of forcing oneself to forget them completely, which just felt completely dumb and pointless all around to the point it put a damper on the entire manga. The art felt like it was pretty low quality and the style also didn't fit the atmosphere so that was also an issue.

tl;dr: An interesting premise with train-wreck level writing.

girl may kill, an understated little manga. this manga provides a strange and insightful look into the life of a mafia gang. the characters could be better, granted, yet the prospect of a fourteen year old being recruited into a cruel world prematurely is an interesting idea. it really makes you question society as a whole. this was a very curious manga, but one of my all time favourites. this manga is still in production, the second volume hopefully being published soon.

the character design isn't brilliant, but mei herself seems so merciless, working as a hit...girl? sometimes i wish the writer had maybe made mei a little younger, as she is drawn to be, as she seems extremely kawaii and childish, but in one scene ( i dont want to describe because... well, spoilers) you really get reminded that she is actually quite mature. i guess that is an inconsistency in the art style as mei always looks about between 6-10 years old in my opinion. but although seeming dark, there is some fun humor sprinkled in between the main, gohongi, and his homosexual housemate, katsura, who from the very start, all the way through has a strange one sided love for gohongi, and expressing so wildly. it provides some much needed lightheartedness to what is a very dark twenty chapters.

its not so much off a commitment as you might expect, with the grittyness of the series, in fact it is very enjoyable and easy to get into. currently as it is only 20 chapters long, it is a short manga you can just jump into, and read in about a week.

overall "girl may kill" is a very dark, yet somehow light reading that will have you glued to the pages (or screen) until you finish it.

This manga had some real potential, and I was like WOW how are they going to end this the next three chapters?

Now I feel like I should've skipped the ending and stayed with that feeling.

I would suggest this manga, but more in passing than as a priority read. There's a real issue where you don't realize this is a MATURE story till about chapter 7~9. That's when you have to move from the living room to your cell phone in your room. I would argue that if you can make it to that chapter you see the story and art style dramatically increase in quality.

Then you should skip the last chapter. It feels rushed and out of character, and yes they do HINT at the twist but it just doesn't sit right. Not only that there are a TON of loose ends.

I like that the manga starts taking it's mafia themes seriously towards the middle, but I just feel like the end doesn't offer any redemption.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW
Girl may kill is a "drama" using mafia ambientation,if you're expecting blood and a show of extreme violence in each chapter, just calmn down, this manga is not a gore thing. But a good drama need good characters and this manga fail on it. It's a cool to spend some time, but nothing great.

Story- 7
The idea of use mafia to create situations of conflict and exploring the dangerous aspect of this side of society is pretty well made, the reader understand that the characters are in a dangerous place and their life is in a constant risk, however the story doesn't have a defined plot, an end to aim, we only know a bit about Mei's goal and the others characters just follow the mood. The author make very strange moments, the characters take unatural actions without much background to explain it and the end is just ???? YOU DON'T THROW AWAY THE WHOLE NARRATIVE PROGRESSION IN SUCH A SIMPLE AND INCONSEQUENT WAY it looked like the manga was canceled or the author get tired of it, but the final makes sense with the "Scorpion and the frog" story of the beggining of the manga.

Art- 4
It's not bad, but is nothing special and the scenes of fight seems "steady" to much to a person in movement.

Characters- 5
The characters doesn't look like humans many times and are hell weak.
Gohongi: The nice guy, with some values but with ??? motivations, but the author uses him in a good way to show the perspective of a normal person in such extreme scenario.
Mei: She has a motivation in the manga and guide the whole narative. *****SPOILER But damnit she throw it away, her goal is what made the story go for 19 chapters just to vanish in a strange manner and after that the thing get out of hand.****** END OF SPOILER
Katsura: Exists to be our hotblooded onee-chan.
Kuzuki: A good oldlady i like her, one of the few "normal" person here.
Ristu: She's here just to create conflict to others characters solve.
Manome: A good guy, but one detail of his past just turned the whole series bad :(
The other characters are not so good and have little timescreen, but with a potencial to be good characters if the writer wouldn't have been such a moron creating a plot with such shallow end.

Enjoyment- 6
Even with such weak story the manga is pretty good to spend some time and is cool how the characters deal with this dark side of society.