From the moment one finds out that Onanie (or onani) translates to masturbation, it is expected that this manga is yet another silly ecchi addition to the high-school genre. That is not the case. Instead we have a manga that, like its protagonist, takes itself very seriously.

Specifically, our protagonist, Kakeru Kurosawa, takes two things seriously: His teenage angst and his everyday, ritualistic masturbation session. That doesn't sound very serious, I know, but please bear with me. His apathetic middle-school life is forced to change when he witnesses both the bullying of a classmate and the indifference of the rest of the class, so he decides to... take matters into his own hands (Oh no I didn't!) and deliver punishment in a way that suits his interests. That, maybe selfless, act will trigger the events that will force him to confront the realities of his everyday life and grow as a person. Or at least that was what the story writer intended. The degree of his success is debatable.

The story consists of two parts. The first part is pretty good. It captures the misplaced malice and poor judgment of the two main characters in an unapologetic way, avoiding the common (and annoying) pitfall of presenting the main characters as blameless and their evil actions as justified.

So after a good misanthropic first part, it is now time for our raunchy protagonist to face the music. And that's where things start to decline. It is true that when you exact revenge you can become the same (or even worse) as the one who wronged you. But that does not mean that the victim of the revenge is absolved of its sins. That is something the writer completely forgets and offers a clean slate to the wrongdoers of the first part, focusing only on the revenge what was exacted upon them. Around that part of the manga, the handling of various events starts to appear sloppy and unrealistic. That decline in pragmatism seems to be due to the author's desire to conclude the story in a predetermined way and he does not hesitate to force events in order to achieve his goal.

The writer is partly successful, the end of the story offers closure, but I wonder if you can consider it a happy (or interesting) one. Is regression to the mean a happy outcome for an individual? Should that individual find peace in the fact that the mean welcomes him? Becoming the thing that you used to resent is a sign of growth or resignation? I do not have the answers, but Onanie Master Kurosawa offers one set of them. Those answers even seem to resonate with the majority. Still, my question in the first line of this paragraph stands.

Concluding, Onanie Master Kurosawa, despite the shaky plot leading to the conclusion and the average drawing style, is a good read, but fails to become extraordinary. 7.0/10.