Anne Freaks certainly isn't the best of Yua Kotegawa's works. It lacks and interesting quality which Arcana has. If you liked Arcana you may not like this. But if you like Anne Freaks I would recommend Arcana. It's much better.

I really disagree with people here. This manga isn't about the conclusion but about the girl and the boy. A girl that is quite psychotic in a very functional way. And the boy that sort of gets tangled in her quest. It's a weird mix of him needing her because he killed his mother and crossed a line, and now doesn't know what to do, and finding her attractive. It's like he's the keeper of a devil. It's more effective than the omen(remake). The more you read, the more you realize how evil she is.

... Last updated on June 1st, 2011, 6:02pm

I used to really like this manga a long time ago when I first read it, but rereading it nowadays I realize it’s mediocre at best.

The pacing is pretty terrible especially in the first few chapters when it skips a chunk of time to introduce another main character, Mitsuba, not showing what the first two, Yuri and Anna, went through as they first started traveling together. At this point it also switches character perspective from the main character, Yuri, just as the story started, after which perspective didn’t remain long on any one character until the very end, making it hard to sympathize with or understand the motives of many of them.

The characters themselves were rather flat and mostly used for the plot without being much explored. What could have been interesting devices, like Yuri’s guilt about his mother, remained shallow. It also skipped over a lot of parts without explanation for convenience, half the time I found myself thinking, “How do they know that??”

What had really brought me to love the manga is that it’s one of the only of its genre; a gory view from the other side of the good and evil battle with a character unapologetically indifferent to murder, it’s not something that’s super common.

In the end it was a fun read if you like short gory stories but just was not executed well enough for it to be a serious favourite.

... Last updated on July 29th, 2015, 9:04pm

The story
The story doesn’t start bad at all. Yuri tries to bury his mother's body who committed suicide (probably). Scratch that, he obviously killed her, but it's never stated. But he was seen. Anna is a f*ed up girl who wants to help him with the body and Yuri joins her in her revenge. She grew up in the Kakusei group (some kind of cult) and wants to kill her father. There will be many murders. Yuri of course falls for Anna… I hated the ending. Oh wait, it didn’t end at all. Everything I wanted was for them to rot in hell (dying a horrible, slow and painful death would be an extra). But no, it ends kind of romantic. I think the mangaka even thought they were good. The nerve of some people.

Art
Flat. I didn’t like the faces.

Characters
F*ed up. Anne – stupid evil b*tch who collects guys to protect her and kills people with a smile. Yuri – schizophrenic boy who sees his dead mother and can’t do anything without Anne’s instructions. Some of the supporting were fine in contrast with the main “couple”. No character development. Hated them.

Enjoyment
Not at all. Okay, first volume or two were fine, but the ending, then the thing Yuri did… stupid brat… It made me angry.
I hope they rot in hell.


... Last updated on July 19th, 2015, 4:09am

and i love it. there is no redeeming value at all in any of the main characters. anne is a complete psycho. it is never explained fully how she attain that level of insanity, however much like any good horror stories, we really don't need to understand the monster to know they are evil and beyond redemption. yuri is love-struck teenage boy who do anything for the love of his life, he have no outstanding quality except the insanity streak that make him just stood and watch his mother kill herself. another memorable one is the police that conduct her investigation like a soldier - she really don't care who get killed, as long as her job is done. she's the type of cop i always wish for whenever i read detective manga and just angry at the limitation of police work, but when she do it coolly and carelessly, it kind of irked me. on the whole, the casts are great.

the other good thing about this manga is it is not afraid in killing people off, even for the slightest reason. i love that it doesn't try to soften up anne or the other two guys making them only kill the bad guys - no, they are real killers, and they will kill whoever on their way. but, they don't kill for killing sake, every death have a reason, they are not drawn out or explicit for some perverse fan service.

but that also probably due to the art. however much i love the story and the characters, the art is pretty bland and 2dimensional. there is lack of tone or shading, that make the characters and the surrounding look flat. the characters have no outstanding or distinguishing features except their hair, and even that sometimes don't help. yuri, for example, is a failure of a main character for looking so bland and boring. sure, he is a straight-edge kind of guy, but at least make him look a bit memorable.

even though overall i love the story, i couldn't help but noticed there's a lot of things that don't fit, or not included enough, but if you just ride this insane roller coaster ride, those don't matter. the ending is the best i have ever read in a while. i love open-ending like that, because it promises new excitement and adventure than if it is spelled out.

this manga is highly recommended for anyone that love insane characters.

its quite different from the type of mangas i usually read. The girl, no matter what people say is full on psychotic and its hard to sympathise with her. She truly has the psyche of a killer and her reasons for killing just doesn't seem good enough for me. Yuri has fallen in love with her and well love changes people and this time for the worse. She influenced Yuri totally and this is shown by the ending which saddened and surprised me because at the beginning Yuri wasn't a murderer at all but at the end he developed into a cold blooded murderer whose only source of warmth is Anna and she is the only one he cares for. This also shown by the fact that the two felt no connection to others and Yuri felt no remorse. So there is character development. I thought that the comedy was out of place but perhaps it was there to point out how insane Yuri and Anna was. The art was great and the plot was mediocre really. I found the characters to be interesting enough.

... Last updated on April 5th, 2010, 2:08am

Art was okay, I give it a 8 or a b+.
The characters were fun, especially the bits of comedy scattered throughout.
What I really loved about this was the ending.

Yua Kotegawa is good at concepts and at creating interesting characters. Although she has improved significantly from her previous manga(see Ottori Sousa) where everything was extremely bland, she still has problems ending her scenes and therefore, her stories often suffer from lack of closure.

Still, many mangaka started out with decent to borderline serialisations. Thus, it remains to be seen whether she will improve in her further works.

... Last updated on June 23rd, 2007, 8:05pm

Ok, this manga wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. That however changed after the third volume.
Really, the ending and the things leading up to the ending doesn't make much sense. The main objective were lost pretty quickly, and then everything went downhill...
I'm a real fan of dark thrillers with anti-climatic "sad/dark" endings, but this clearly proves that it doesn't work in a manga.

The story runs like bumps without direction and the ending is more or less left open. Not that it's bad to have an open ending but it does not leave any room for redigestion.
The violence is presented in a hideous. And the level darkness is half-toned, making it feels itchy but not painful or anything clear. Obviosly she is not good enough in this field.

... Last updated on March 25th, 2007, 9:21pm