Dead Tube

Story: it's quite unique in a way, overall for the genre, it starts on shockingly on hold but the director and teacher arc's do save the day

Art: stunning, refined and very ''beatifully made'' it will catch your eye

Characters: impressive development during the so far published material, much more than you can count on at first glance

Enjoyment: if you're into the genre or the story and characters interest you to keep on reading or you love series with many twists, it will definitely entertain you

Overall: if you're not into a bit of gore and nudity then stay away however if you want something in the category that can be refreshing, then recommended, Final Score: 8/10

Spoiler free!

I REALLY liked this manga, why? Cos even tho the premise is somehow not so unique, the way the characters are, it makes me want to know more about them, specially Mai, I'm a sucker for horror/wtf stories so that must be also a part of why do I love it so much.

I love how it starts pretty gruesome quite soon letting you know what are you getting in, the way the story unfolds is, to me, quite creative, specially the "crazy rascal" arch, seriously, horror movies should do that stuff more often.

After reading Ana Satsujin the whole murder and sexyness together is quite interesting, I also have particular interest in the fact of the 2 leads, Machiya and Mai being as pure physically as fucked up in the head, it's almost a reverse proportion... who knows. I am eager to read more

Breakdown:
Story 3/10, Art 6/10, Character 2/10, Enjoyment 3/10, Overall 3/10

Overview:
It is another situation where skills of a very experienced artist are wasted on a poor story, unconvincing characters and weak and unimpressive attempts to shock the viewer with gore, violence, nudity and sex. There's rape, murder, dismemberment, gore, sex, but somehow it avoids becoming Guro or Hentai title.

In essence, this is somewhat similar to Kakegurui(anime) or Mahou Shoujou of the End (manga) and is as bad as both of those. The central idea of the work is apparently to demonstrate "horrible" and "monstrous" qualities of a human, i.e. how greed and fear turn humans into monsters, so they start killing/raping anything that moves. As it often happens with such works, it is full of "Jester villains". A jester villain is a villain who acts in the most despicable way possible, dealing as much damage to anything he or she can, all the time laughing like a lunatic... except they look like a caricature seem to have no motivation of any kind, and do not resemble a person. A purpose of a jester villain is an attempt to shock the viewer, but this usually fails. In addition to jester villain there are supposedly "horrible" scenes of dismemberment, bunch of crazy faces (you know where character smiles in a crazy way and is made to look as disgusting as possible), etc.

Except that none of this works. They author(authors?) went too far going after shock element, and as a result the world does not look like a real place, and characters do not resemble real people. As a result none of this is scary or believable or "disgusting", and most of the time I felt nothing.

To be honest, second arc felt like it was going somewhere interesting, but then it had to do a "major reveal", after which it very quickly became quite stupid, and everything that was good about it shattered.

Detailed breakdown below:

Story: 3/10:
As mentioned above, it is never ending stream of attempts to shock the reader. However, because of how far they go with their attempts to depict "horrifying" scenes, the world does not look like a real place, and look like a decoration. The first and second arcs for a moment looked like they were going somewhere, but at some point in the second arc where they performed "major reveal", it fell apart and became a farce.

Art: 6/10
The art is quite good, and well drawn. Well drawn, visually interesting characters, nice and interesting designs (except that those characters are often wasted as cannon fodder, almost on Terra Formars level), filled backgrounds without any obvious attempts to cut the workload. The situations with excessive gore or when somebody is covered in blood from head to toe usually look worse, because blood is not really drawn well and looks like dirty splats on pages (ton of them), aside from that it is quite well drawn. Not the supreme masterpiece level, but good.

Characters: 2/10:
Do not resemble real people, are not sympathetic, and are not believable. Too many people flip into "crazy mode" too often, and as a result they look like caricatures and it is not possible sympathize with any of them. Main character is especially bad, because it switches between at least 3 different personalities, neither of which are well written.

Enjoyment: 3/10:
The art is good. Anything that is not art is not.

Overall: 3/10:
If you want to read it, the best idea is to shut off your brain, pretty much. The work is of poor quality story-wise, but has nice visuals. It probably won't appeal to anyone who wants even remotely believable characters or a story that is actually scary, and it doesn't work as a farce.

Honestly... I've seen "shocking" material handled better. For example, "Black Joke" worked incredibly well for me as "over the top" farce with fights, slaughter and sexual or near sexual situations. This title didn't work for me.

Essensially, this manga is for those who love gore, extreme nudility, and horror. If you can't take any of these things, stay away from this manga at all costs or you will have wierd images burned into your brain.

Story (6/10): I'll be honest, the plot isn't great. Once you get into it (around 25 chapters in) the story begins to get really repetitive. Outside of deadtube videos and events, the story of the characters in school (without the gore) is seriously medicore. Even Tomohiro Machiya's main goal in deadtube is really not written well (not explaining the goal due to spoilers but yeah). There are a few inconsistencies and questional points in the plot (again not going into details due to spoilers). However besides this cases, the story of the deadtube videos and events are made reasonably well. There are plenty of plot twists in that make you appreciate the author's creativity (or what seems to be mental insanity to some). Overall, the story wasn't great, but it wasn't exactly bad either.

Art (10/10): The art is simply amazing. The art is clearly refined down to the detail and the art quality is really consistent throughout the all of the chapters. The extreme gore and death scenes are all done flawlessly with extreme precision. The art does a great job of displaying the character's emotions such as pleasure, insanity, questional mental states, and anger. The quality of art is so good that it makes me question Kitakawa Touta's sanity. If you can stomach all the gore, I would honestly recommend reading this just for the art.

Character (5/10): The character development wasn't great either. The characters are really only developed through deadtube and gory events. Although the character's fetish's, insanity, and enjoyments where very well characterized, everything else about the character was practically ignored. Thus, I gave the characters a really average score.

Enjoyment (5/10): I believe the amount of enjoyment for each person will vary drastically due to the differences in taste. Personally as someone who doesn't love extreme gore and death, naturally a manga such as this wouldn't give me much enjoyment. My enjoyment mainly came from the amazing art and some interesting plot twists through the story. However, if you're someone who love gore and messed up scenes, this manga would become your favorite very fast.

Overall (8/10): Although my enjoyment wasn't very high, I still have to give it to this manga for the fantastic art and beautifully constructed scenes of mental insanity. The overall high score largely came from the extremely accurate descriptions of messed up sh*t through the flawless art. This manga is most definitely the most messed up manga of everything I've seen.

TLDR - Like gore? Read it. Don't like gore? Don't read it. Indifferent? Read it cuz art is cool.