Konya wa Tsuki ga Kirei desu ga, Toriaezu Shine

Alright, so I finally finished Konya wa tuski. It's only 35 chapters long, but I say "finally" because I had to struggle to reach the end. Not because it drags on, but because it wasn't much of an enjoyable read. I honestly considered dropping this manga many times, but I continued going since I felt I just had to write a review for it.

Oh, also. This review might contain spoilers. Not too much, though. I believe.

There's also a TL;DR in the end, because it ended up being too long of a review.

--STORY-- 6/10

The synopsis seems to be a little vague, so I will try to explain a little about the premise. I might spoil, but most of these things are explained near the beginning.

It starts with a young guy who is meant to be seen as a freak, since he is obsessive with cleaning. We see him around school, trying to confess to his childhood friend who everyone loves too! Either way, after some time, he realises that his love has turned into... bloodlust?! What?!
Apparently it's a virus that has been going around that turns your love into bloodlust. (That's it. How do you get infected? Through the air? Through touch? No idea! It is never addressed.) They also get incredibly strong and get an "unexplained ability" depending on who their loved one is.

Overall, an interesting premise that I haven't seen before but it wasn't really that attractive.

-After chapter 9, the school setting is dropped and we have to deal with a fight between two organizations that head towards the same thing: finding a cure to the virus. This, of course, isn't a new thing seen in manga, but at this point I really didn't care. It also changes from a gore manga to a shonen style.

--ART-- 7/10

The art is probably one of the good aspects of this manga. It is quite polished, well defined and detailed in gore scenes. The expressions characters made were alright. I liked when the protagonist smiled in the gore scenes, he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Backgrounds looked really nice too. Later on, the gore is almost completely dropped or changed to your usual shonen amount of blood.
It's nothing from another world, especially in parts centered in dialogue, but I might say it's, generally, above average..
Fights are easy to follow, and are just alright. They usually get a power surge from bloodlust or love.

--CHARACTERS--

This is where things get... a little more complicated, I'd say?
Now I'm gonna talk about protagonist, members of his team, members of the enemy team, and lastly, love interest and Mastermind. Most of these guys appear after chapter 10 so watch out for that, I guess? It came out really long, so I will do a TL;DR at the bottom.

⨀Kamishiro, the protagonist, has an okay introduction. We are supposed to see him as kind of a weird, weak, and scaredy guy. He is afraid of confessing, he likes cleaning a lot and might be pushed around but he is the janitor of his class. He is also seen as timid in comparison to his best friend and love interest, Hanazono.
-Character development: He gets some development, but it feels like it comes out of nowhere. After chapter 10, aka only a 1 month timeskip, he is suddenly more serious, not scared by anything at all, nor is he afraid of confrontation. He now believes in the "power of love" and friendship and basically becomes way more average of a protagonist than before. If I recall correctly, we only see him cleaning like three times (even when that used to be his main character trait), so he even lost that.
-Character design: average hair, average height, average weight, average face. He likes cleaning though! 3/10

⨀The members of Rudiment, or the protagonist's team, are also a bunch of stereotypical or average guys. We have the energetic, short tempered guy who believes in friendship and has spiky hair. The quiet, intelligent, glass wearing guy who is the strategist. The short girl who had a traumatic past and looks kinda average too but loves the protagonist. The doctor is also the "older woman who drinks but can be serious" type. Then we have Neibu, who is probably the only interesting guy in the team. He is foreign, has kind of a weird hairstyle, is the leader and is really smart but isn't afraid to show his feelings for his teamates and always seems to think ahead. Before chapter 9, he is seen as a very dangerous man, someone who is linked to many deaths and also makes a scary and threatening face towards the protagonist. He never makes this face again. He also has some kind of... keychain thing? It is never explained but it is shown a lot.
-Character development: I don't think we ever saw any development. I guess the glasses guy learnt to forgive the one who hurt his love and to control his bloodlust, and the girl was starting to leave his ex behind and started loving the protagonist. Is it really a spoiler? It's obvious the second time we see her.
-Character design: Besides Neibu, who I already described, the doctor is the second one in terms of interesting design. And that's because she has a black lock of hair! The others are very average. Character tropes that I've already seen countless times. 5/10

⨀The members of C.I.D, or the enemy team, is actually the only interesting one in terms of design. The leaders are almost never seen, except the head of the organization and the fact that they know Neibu. I don't remember if their connection was actually ever shown. I will be talking about the Zero Squad though, since it's the only one we actually ever really saw. We have Hayashi, a girl who has been apathetic her whole life, and was never bothered by killing. A guy with no name who goes by "Human", Punkyuu a goth gamer, and the weird doctor. None of them are infected with the virus. Weird, since they are always in contact with the infected. Again, how people get the virus is never really specified.
-Character development: Hayashi, the main character from C.I.D learns about her own feelings, and becomes some sort of... Yandere? But she wants to kill her beloved who, gasp! Is the protagonist. Punkyuu also seems to have some feelings for him after losing. She doesn't know why, and it is never really developed. Human is shown to be a *spoilers* cyborg who was heavily experimented with. Besides that, nobody really gets much backstory or development.
-Character design: Seems like the author finally decided to let go with creativity and ended up designing some cool characters, at last. First, Hayashi. She does have plain black hair and bangs, but she has really deep eyes and seems to be forcing her smile quite a lot. She is always rubbing her cheeks which I find kind of... intriguing? Punkyuu is, quite literally, a goth gamer. I love that definition. She spouts game combos while fighting, and she can see her HP levels and Power ups and stuff. I like her. Human is also an enigmatic character. First, his name. Well, he doesn't really "like names" so he calls himself human. He doesn't have a reason to fight and is so often bored by it, stopping in the middle of a fight. He is incredibly strong, since his body was modified to have "12 different attack strategies", from guns in his fingers to knives and a weird vertebrae tentacle thing? He also has a knit chullo hat. I like his design too. The doctor is quite fascinating too. He has a mohawk, and seems to know about everything happening around. He doesn't really interfere, he is just there to see what's going on. This type of character is not uncommon, but it is well executed. 7.5/10

⨀Hanazono, the main love interest, is plain. Her introduction shows her to be strong, she just kicks Kamishiro in the back, and we get an idea that she is sporty and a childhood friend. Everyone seems to be attracted to her, so naturally, most infectees want to kill her. I guess that was the sole point of her existence in the first place. After chapter 9, it is revealed she is also infected! (Big surprise!, especially since literally everyone is infected over there.) She then needs to be saved by Main Character. It ends up being the "I used to protect you when we were kids but now you (mc) ended up saving me" situation.
-Character Development: As I stated, she starts being quite energetic, forcing Kamishiro to go out and being nice to everyone who confesses to her. Basically, perfect popular girl. After chapter... what, 2? She ends up getting partial amnesia; after chapter 9, she gets infected and is terribly strong. She is then quiet and reserved and is barely seen, since she needs to be rescued from the hands of The Mastermind.
-Character Design: Just like Kamishiro, Average face, average weight, average personality. She has blonde, medium lenght hair. That's.. what else can I possibly say? 3/10

⨀The Mastermind (so as to not spoil who they are, though at this point I guess you don't really care about spoilers). When we are given a hint about his identity in chapter 14 I just found myself yawning. If you have read any manga similar to this, you would inmediately know who he is. It's not a surprise at all, and his character is unoriginal. He is the usual "bastard" character. His visual design is plain too. He is shorter than average though! 1.5/10

--TL;DR--

Story is above mediocre, at best. Starts out like a gore manga, ends up being average shonen. Art is above average too. The fights are alright. It has "power of love" shenanigans . Main characters are very unoriginal. The "villain" team has very good character designs, but no backstory whatsoever. Many small things are left unexplained. Yes, I am aware there seems to be a sequel, but as of now, I will not bother reading it.
Is it worth it? Depends. If you're here for the gory, well drawn scenes, then I would recommend reading up to chapter 9 and then the one-shot in chapter 13.

***UPDATED***
After Chapter 14 the story shifts, bringing in more drama and suspense. At this point the character growth and story progression begins to slow down. The main focus is rebuilding the manga to shift the story from the initial outbreak to finding Hanazono, along with the two groups fighting for power. The blood and gore gets toned down a bit, to really focus redirecting the story.
This is still worth the read even with this shift in the story.
***END OF UPDATE***
A mysterious outbreak that turns love into bloodlust that begins to run rampant. Kamishiro (MC) has a vivid hallucination of stabbing his childhood friend, Hanazono through the throat with an umbrella. Without a clear understanding of what this bloodlust and struggling to control it, the real story and mystery begins.

Kamishiro is nicely developed over the 14 chapters that is currently published. He learns how to control and manifest his power for the "greater good". After the massacre at his school, Hanazono goes missing and now he is tracking down any information he can to find her.

The artwork is fantastic, it is nicely detailed, bloody and on point. I enjoyed reading this to the point that I couldn't stop until there was nothing left. If you enjoy a violent and gory manga, this one needs to be on your list. It is highly underappreciated and will probably go unrecognized but it is well worth your time to read.

**Newest update**

Honestly, this manga had such great potential and once the second arc kicked off, no clue what had happened, what is going on and seeing all this great start go right downhill. Right now with the way the story development stands, if it continues on like this I will drop it.

I wouldn’t have minded the edge and the raging puberty in the plot – I came for them: one has to read teen angsty action sometimes to mantain the balance in the world – if not for the absolutely disgusting and out of place torture imagery. I am not sure why it’s suddenly acceptable to have spreads with main heroine being strangled on her own intestines and dragged along the street by a car in shounen now. Even if these are “visions”.

So basically right after the start it’s what this manga focuses on. We have bog standard everything – a main goody two shoes hero, who suddenly can crush buildings because of some violence “virus”, an awkward teen love, a secret society of the infected, every figure of authority being conveniently nasty-lip-licking-evil (cus you know, everyone “lies” to a teen). The only original thing is that our hero constantly sees “visions” of murder, mainly violent and disgusting murder of his beloved bubbly school-beauty-queen childhood friend girlfriend.

The issue with this is that you, a reader, also have to watch them and they are a) unpleasant, b) out of place. In my opinion, you can have the nasty in your manga, but you have to work for the inclusion of the nightmare and/or sick fetish fuel – it has to be consistent with the tone and the goal. Which doesn’t seem to be the case here, especially considering that it’s a work published with teens in mind.

So yeah, the art is pretty good, but the tone is very imbalanced in a disturbing way. The main narrative is immature (those who are able to enjoy this say that the plot devolves even more later after a timeskip), and the only thing that stands out would likely be off-putting for most. (My example in the opening is relatively easy on the eyes, the rest is much more gross.)

I normally don’t write reviews for things that haven’t clicked with me, and I can barely call this text a review, but I wanted to warn other readers.

So, unless you are into seeing female bodies mutilated, and not even random bodies, but a body of a character with whom you’re supposed to have a positive emotional connection – you should probably stay away from this manga. The imagery here goes way beyond what you would expect from the demographic or mainstream manga in general. This work also doesn’t offer any supporting structure for this, like horror does, nor does it belong to genres where it’s par of the course (hentai, eroguro). It’s just a damned usual power trip shounen with zero subtlety, which thinks it can pull off torture porn.

Simply put, this manga’s plot is cheap fastfood, even if wrapped in a pretty plastic wrapper (art), and torture porn is not mainstream and shouldn’t be mainstream, whether the author enjoys fapping to it or not. I do not and I see no reason to look at this for zero plot gains. So here you are, now you know what to expect and whether you really need it.

Story 6/10 - Hmm... it's an interesting take on what has been used many times.
Art 8/10 - Nice and a fine art style, definitely a redeeming feature. However, certain faces often look like clones of each other, so negative for that.
Character 6/10 - Again, kinda interesting, but cliche all the way.
Enjoyment - Friend lent me first volume, next day bought all 5 volumes on a whim.
Overall 7/10 - Not a bad read, but it won't be stringing you along in anything special.

First of all, I'd have to say that the story is very and I mean very reminiscent of ''Alive'', another manga which has a very similar plot device. Ironically both titles never managed to gain mainstream media attention even though they tried very hard. So if you have read ''Alive'', you will feel very much at home here.

Basic lay-it-down-to-me plot of both titles (possible spoilers)... The nation one day becomes infected with a strange disease, where everyone starts dying or killing each other on mass. Main character somehow overcomes the disease to some degree, lose the girl and goes on a journey to become stronger fighting off strange organizations.
Having said that, it's also very similar to Kiseijyuu and Tokyo Ghoul; probably another half a dozen other titles with similar plot lines...

Simply said, it's nothing new. Fortunately, the story is rather well paced. There's not too much going back and forth, making needlessly confusing turns, it's rather straight to the cut and simple. The story advances at a nice steady pace, which can also be a bad thing. As most manga titles tend to have their climax at the end of the chapters, this title keeps the climax in the center most of the time. Which may be a turn down for some people. Personally it was kinda refreshing.

Art. Hmmmhm. The art is very nice. Easy to read. Not much to complain. Except for one flaw. Male characters tend to be a bit more varied in terms of facial design, however female characters suffer from the ''same face'' syndrome, where it looks like the same person with a different wig. It's not really bothering too much, I just personally take more attention to the art, so occasionally I see 2 different characters and notice they look identical. But shouldn't be much of an issue for most people.

Character... Fair I guess. Nothing special. Pretty much like every other main hero. Lame and bland high school student with a obsessive trait. It's sorta like, you know who everyone is before they are properly introduced. Not a bad thing really, but as you know what to expect, the character development (where there is a pretty good one) becomes poof. It loses it's meaning.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this *overlylongtitleIrefusetowrite*. The art can be eye candy sometimes and the story has it's interesting parts despite part of it being fairly obvious. Will I continue reading? Yes, but it's probably one of those titles I completely forget about along the way, only to start reading it again in a year or two. Just like how ''Alive'' managed to barely stay alive.
I think this is an (not underrated), but rather under appreciated. If you have some time to spare, take a look. Might be in for a good ride.

Okay so there are only 4 chapters at the moment, but I'm hooked. To put it briefly, you have your typical setup with childhood friends and the girl is popular with guys and in this case the mc has a cleaning addiction. One night the mc contracts a bloodlust disease and internally struggles with his uncontrollable bloodlust.
*Spoiler*











A fact about the disease is that you want to kill your loved one the most, surprise surprise. However, it also applies to other people as well in general (example: people who piss mc off). As to be expected, the mc also develops superhuman strength among other abilities. Overall (so far) the mc could qualify to be a male yandere which is very unique. I'd say give it a try, especially since its so short; it won't take up too much time. Oh I gave it a 6 because I'm harsh with ALL of my reviews. It means its an interesting read and all but I probably will not go back and reread it after its finished.

Knoya tsuki wa kirei is an action/psychological/thriller manga , and it's one of the first mangas i started reading , but i stopped because of slow releases . The story is about a new disease that turns emotions of love and affection into blood lust and desire to kill , which is a new idea but sadly it wasn't well executed . They introduced a lot of super powers down the line which turned the series into a battle shonen and the power scaling was all over the place , another thing is that in the middle , the plot got messy with the introduction of some crazy cult antagonists that i didn't even bother to remember their name let alone . I liked the metaphors a lot and the character of yuna which imo saved this manga from being an absolute train wreck . To conclude i did enjoy this manga at the beginning but the later arcs were not that good , but i will definitely read part 2 when it gets completed , overall score 6/10