4-koma, and super easy to read. The protagonist is an idiot, and I can't figure out how anyone's logic would lead them down the same road as Sotomura-san... but a lot of the gags are quite lightly humourous, so it served it's purpose well. However, there were a few that I thought were a bit too cliched and not surprising enough to be funny, so minus one point for that.

tl;dr If you read much manga, you should be used to irrationality, but note that there is a large amount of it in this. Otherwise, get over how extremely repetitive the content is, and you'll probably enjoy it.

Initially, it's an amusing and cute story about a socially dysfunctional girl who is seen as a delinquent despite actually being innocent and cute. Why? Because she mistakenly acts like a delinquent, and despite two normal people in her life willing to help, she cannot change her behavior. Furthermore, both of these normal people are evidently incapable of directly communicating with others and telling them the truth. Instead, they beat around the bush with, "Ah, she's not that bad". Well, idiocy and excessive misinterpretation aren't new for manga, even if it's an exceptionally high level of it. That much can be overlooked. Then, 75 chapters of virtually the same content go by. At the end of every chapter involving an attempt to improve the protagonist's typically angry-looking smile, her friend thinks something along the lines of "I'd really like to see her cute smile" while staring off into the distance. In the background is the protagonist, and of course, she's smiling properly. Every time. Several chapters. Well, that's it at its worst. Other times, you just find a repetitive format. Generic format example: [Classmates say "X" rumor about protagonist. Protagonist does something that seemingly verifies "X". Classmates are scared].

... Last updated on March 8th, 2015, 1:31am

...because man you'll be seeing them a lot.

Mind you, I actually do like the setup for this manga. Not the most original thing in the world, but I enjoy these sort of stories. My biggest problem is that the author recycles the same few jokes over and over and over. Yes it's a 4 panel gag manga so that's forgivable to a degree. You're not really intended to marathon through the series in one sitting (seriously, don't) but rather enjoy it a little bit at a time. Even so, the level of repetition I see here can compete with newspaper strips like Garfield, but that took 25 years to reach that degree of joke recycling.

As far as the characters go, Sotomura is pretty cute...actually, too cute. The whole premise is that everyone is supposed to be afraid of her because of how scary she is but there's a gap between the explanations and the artwork here. Sotomura just doesn't look scary. No matter how much I'm told that she's scary it doesn't really work well when I can see her myself and can't agree. I realize that an actually-scary female lead in a lighthearted story like this might be a tough sell, but I feel like this could have been handled better...

I suppose all that sounds pretty negative, but if you can get past those two points then what's left is actually quite enjoyable for what it is. It's funny and cute, just don't expect much more than that.

Are you familiar with Angel Densetsu? How about Komi-san wa Komyushou Desu? Alright, you're familiar with the plot of Waratte! Sotomura-san! Sotomura is a gentle school-girl, but she is somewhat gruff and impersonal. Owing to trivial circumstances, others' preconceptions of her color their perceptions of Sotomura's actions and overall behavior. Irony is loaded onto the narrative, and comedy is delivered straight to your door.

This light 4-koma does work. For a while. However around the 4th volume or so it starts to become increasingly clear that there are no further ideas to be explored here. The same fundamental misunderstanding happens over and over again. Angel Densetsu actually contains a plot where the protagonist's circumstances and other characters' perceptions of the protagonist and situation change at a continued pace. Komi-san is a rom-com and can lay some narrative tension there, but otherwise continuously expands its world to explore new comedic situations.

Sotomura feels like those series on training wheels which never get removed. There are multiple opportunities for it to grow as well. New characters flow in, they get some new insights on Sotomura, but things always must return to the same state. Relationships are not developed into more nuanced, informed ones, and because of that the comedic set pieces can never mature into more robust, interesting ones. Reading any random sample of pages from Sotomura is just as rewarding as any other. The only really enjoyable expansion of the series is learning that Sotomura's mother was a delinquent and her retained attitudes have inadvertently affected her daughter. What a rich vein to mine if it really wanted to.

Maybe this static narrative is completely intentional and criticizing it for it is a touch misguided. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to put it along side something like Garfield where you are supposed to read one strip a day and think, 'ho-ho-ho, oh that Sotomura.' Perhaps. But even then, every Garfield strip isn't Garfield eating Jon's lasagna.

It's a decent series but it does get fairly boring as it goes a long. Very few new things are introduced, and the jokes get similar enough that you feel you've seen it 20 times before in just the last few chapters.

It's a good if somewhat predictable premise but not much is done with it here. The jokes are not very creative and the humour falls a bit flat at times when you see some jokes repeat. The protagonist is also one-note and doesn't add much. The characters are not very interesting or diverse either. On the upside the art is pretty good for a 4-koma.

... Last updated on March 17th, 2018, 8:22pm