Akutou Danshi Collection is a Shoujo, Smut, Romance, Comedy about the challenges of dormitory life. Well that’s what I thought at first but the short story really has no focus and just does things has it pleases.

The story follows our heroine (Suzuno Himura) who had to give up the life in an all-girl school & expensive dorm and downgrade to a co-ed school & cheap dorm, due to her family’s financial problems. Being the only girl there, things could get rather difficult for her and it is then that she gets mixed up with the fierce dorm leader (Kazuomi Shinriyuuji). This set-up is made specifically for the reader to sympathize with Suzuno but to me it is ridiculous, especially when you include the ‘save the dorm’ plot. Although the main focus of the story, through these 3 chapters, tends to easily lose focus and randomly move onto others things like: Suzuno’s well-being, the school Principal and the growing relationship between Suzuno & Kazuomi.

When talking about Suzuno, she seems to fit the bill for the standard ‘naïve girl’ role well and her only special trait has to be her absurd strength, which is really the only reason to justify her being in so many dangerous situations. Kazuomi also fits the bill for ‘tough-guy with a heart’ role well, making the pair very unremarkable. The other characters were not even important enough to be given names and if they were given a name it’s easy to forget it straight afterwards.

The artwork for this shoujo manga was really good, when it came to the way the characters & scenery looked during close-ups but was really average when it came to anything else, including the crudely drawn comedy.

Overall Akutou Danshi turned out to be an uninspiring manga, which not only did poorly with the simple story it had but it failed in both smut & comedy. The romance was one of the redeeming factors but it was still too common for any shoujo manga reader. If you’re not a fan of short manga then this one certainly won’t change your opinion.

^_^