Reviews for Majime na Jikan
Back to MangaNot as good of an afterlife-and-living-world-connection story as AnoHana, but it's not bad. It just seems like some things at the end are not fully wrapped up very well, and I just did not find it all that entertaining. Story - 8/10 Majime na Jikan (in English "Serious Time" though I don't really understand the title after reading it) is a story about a girl named Kazusa who is one day killed in a car crash. In this manga, it turns out the first stage of the afterlife is right above our very heads: ghosts move about observing everything that goes on from a distance (or sometimescloser as with the case of the one perverted ghost as well as Kazusa).
The story basically just follows Kazusa as she tries to cope with being dead while at the same time trying to somehow find a way to help living mother cope with her death as well as helping other ghosts that she becomes friends with.
Art - 8/10
The character designs are good and the town that is often shown below when the ghosts are flying looks very nice. Nothing really stands out that much though, so there's just not much to talk about with the art.
Characters - 7/10
Being only 9 chapters, the characters do not develop much. It's more about them dealing with what has already happened, but as I mentioned before, it ends a little too soon to really clear up things for a few characters. About the only connection with Kazusa is when her mom is talking about all of the great things about her. Aside from that, she's not all that interesting of a main character. The other characters mostly have sadder pasts like a boy being beaten by a parent, 3 children burned alive by their mother who did not want them, and a man who got in trouble with the yakuza (borrowed money and lost it by gambling).
Enjoyment - 7/10
I did like it, and the part where Kazusa's mom was talking about her while looking at scrapbooks was really well done, but I was glad it was only 9 chapters so I could just finish it up in a day and move on to something else. It didn't provoke any emotions in me unlike AnoHana (sorry only other similar thing I've seen so I can't make any other comparisons), but I would recommend it if you like short stories about trying to cope with sad and sudden tragic events like the death of a daughter. It does have some comedy that made me smile, but not a whole lot.
Story (7) - This story is from the viewpoint of a girl who just died and it is all about her trying to come to terms with the fact that she really is dead, and her trying to get her family to realize that as well. The story has a bittersweet, yet hopeful message. However, I was not all that crazy about the ending I feel like it was kind of a let down. The author could have done the ending better. Art (8) - Nothing much to say the art was nice I really liked it. Nothing all that original, simple and easy onthe eyes. The onryou were drawn creepily well and there was plenty of details in the backgrounds.
Characters (7) - The characters weren't all that fleshed out, but they were given enough personality so that I could sympathize with them. One thing I felt the author did well was concerning the main character, and how we were really shown what she was like through other character's eyes.
Enjoyment (8) - I did cry probably because I read this at 3 am, but still I cried. The message the author portrayed about death and moving on and what all those things mean was done very well.
Overall (7) - I enjoyed this it's a quick read I really recommend. The only places I really doc points are in regards to the ending, and the fleshing out of the characters, which, of course is probably hard to do in only 9 chapters.
What a depressing story. Entire time it just is sad. Even when any comedy is put into it, You will still just have this awful feeling. Having a character that dies and one of the only people that show any actual emotion too their death be their mom is even more depressing. Even more so when she learns the boy she thought liked her ended up liking someone else the entire time. This entire thing is nothing but a depressing candy store. Having a character die with few giving any emotions, Three little kids die that had an abusive mom that killed them, A wife that was forcedinto prostitution and turned into a demon that killed her husband.
Nothing about this leaves me feeling anything besides sadness and depression. It doesn't help that it's kind of obvious where the story is gonna go.
Having a character be psychic and having a girl that recently just die sounds really interesting. But the two of them never talk and any interaction is little.
The idea of having a girl die and the only one able to see her is a girl from her school. Sounds interesting. I would love to see a premise done like that. No other ghosts but the as mention girl. Have it so the girl can posses the still living girl in dosages and not have it be about a boy or something similar. Hell, Wouldn't even mind if the two of them started getting feelings for each other. Have it end on the two of them staying together from then on or have the ghost chick put into a body of another girl that just died for what ever reason.
I feel this could have been done better. But having it just end on the MC dying and that's it, Just leaves this on a sour note. I do think having something like her being in a coma this entire time or her posses some other girl that just died. Have her of been put into a coma or something. Such as her lost in the woods and she goes into a coma from something. She then get's to travel around and have her drawn to a certain girl in school. They both start interacting. Turns out that ghost chick's family thinks she is dead from finding something in the woods that would lead them to believe so. Part of the story could be the still alive girl dealing with having a ghost with her and the other part could be both of them trying to find her body before it's too late. ( Look beside the fact of the body needing food and water) In the end they find the body and she ends up waking up from the coma. Have both the girls become a couple or something.
I just thought off the top of my head and i feel that would have been better then this.
Not great but nothing awful.
What will happen after we die? A question that were asked by many, but there isn't any valid answer to that question. Though in this manga, we are going to take a lighthearted look on the above subject matter. Majime na Jikan follows a story about a girl who happen to die from getting hit by a car, the driver himself already dead because of a heart attack, leaving the car moving on its own, and then hit kazusa, who's happen to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. As a result of that Kazusa, our main character became a ghost that can fly around,and then she noticed that we've actually been coexisting with ghosts (Or i should rather say spirits) for a long time. These spirits lives on earth just as human do, but rather on a different dimension. As the story progresses, Kazusa noticed that her mom is still bothered by the fact that her daughter is dead leaving that Kazusa cannot pass to the other side because of that. (Or so i thought)
Being only a 9 chapter manga, there isn't much that you can develop such as the characters. But i think they did a pretty decent job on wrapping up the whole story, and reached a suprisingly pleasant ending.
Overall, Majime na Jikan is a pretty fun ride, there's only 9 chapters so you could basically finished it in like 20 minutes. The art was good, the building and the background was so detailed, but there isn't anything that stands out. I will give this one a 7 out 10 for being a pretty fun read before bedtime.