From all the bad manga that ended up being axed, Shichiha Gojuuroku, a title that esoterically translates to "7x8=56" (Is that true? Can any STEM nerd check for me?) might be my favorite. I'm not even being insincere here: somewhere else, someone smarter than me once said that we can all find charm in the imperfections of something good - reciprocrally, I say that we can find some solace in the very few qualities of a deficient work, and this supernatural/action/mystery shounen manga, that I've read ages ago and randomly remembered today, presents us with an opportunity to exercise just that.
When I say "very few
...
qualities", I'm being a little mean, because I found a decent amount of things to love in the four or so volumes the writer-illustrator duo managed to painstakingly craft before the proverbial axe came down the work's proverbial neck, or in the very least, in the few chapters I could find in english - I can't read japanese (a work in progress), and besides, the scanlating group dropped it when they realized there wasn't that much to salvage. Maybe, when pouring over the raws, they saw something horrible that I didn't get to see, maybe it did get worse as it went on. I'm sure the rushed finale forced upon the duo by the inevitable coming of the axe didn't contribute to the quality of the B-side, but again, I didn't get to see that. Let's get into the positives of the few scraps I did get to see, and which the reader can probably find with a few Google searches.
For starters, the art is pretty good. Sure, it isn't extremely detailed or realistic, but it is quite balanced - I found it stood above the shounen average. The illustrator presents us with very readable and tightly composed panels during the action scenes, and, most importantly, manages to bring to life a cast of characters with distinct stylings, while keeping them from being exaggeratedly quirky. If you've ever read Watamote, which is another bad manga I kind of dig, while knowing fully well I can't really recommend, you might have felt that it became harder and harder to distinguish the characters as the cast grew. This isn't the case here, and despite its short duration, I have the impression it wouldn't have become a problem as it went on. I've seen some other art by the author, he's got the chops and creativity to stuff plenty of good designs up his sleeve. There's some fanservice too, that's a given, but it's kind of tame? That might depend on what you call tame, I admit I'd scrap it, being something of a prude, but I know there are other thoughts on this as well. Moving on.
The generally poor writing, surprisingly, didn't permeate every scene or botch every single one of the main characters and their personalities. I might be misremembering here, and I sure as hell won't read it again just to set the record straight, but the main kid - naturally, a high school student - acts the part: he is kind of stupid, impulsive, is obsessed with getting into any girl's pants, sticks his nose where it doesn't belong and, while he's a good kid at heart, is also kind of a wimp and fails to keep some of his promises. Many manga fail in this regard when they present the heroes as flawlessly brave & selfless and the villains as irredeemable & pure evil, or when they have the high schoolers act either with the maturity of adults or the naivety of elementary school kids half their age. I do recall the author striking a good balance, and it's a surprise to find the occasional realistic portrayal of a teenager in this manga, out of all places.
...And with that, we're more or less done with the good bits. So far I've given it some consolation praise, but man, things really begin to fall apart when it comes to the plot and any other character that drives it. Even if there are action scenes, some flowing more like shounen battles, this is still a mystery manga at heart- and if a work of this kind fails at presenting interesting cases and solving them to satisfaction, everything else is made pointless: the occasional good moments of characterisation and the eye candy visuals start to just feel like a waste, and I could not recommend this manga solely on that basis. So, mystery manga, can you guess what happens next? It's a mess. The cases the main cast solves (when they don't just mill around, trying to survive while the case solves itself) do not make that much sense when you look half an inch beyond the surface, neither in motive, cause or solution. Some decisions taken by the rest of the cast are nonsensical as well: I think there's a chapter in which two of the supporting characters stumble upon a gruesome scene in a classroom, and rather than notifying some teacher or the police, they instead seek the main guy, which, if I recall, had been drugged to his eyeballs and was passed out in the infirmary...? How did they even know he was there? I don't recall anyone else being around when the kid was injected with barbiturates or something. Maybe they called him, but how did he conveniently wake up from just in time to pick up the phone? And again, why him, and why not any adult?
Right before that scene, and right after it too, there are some plot twists, for which there are no foreshadowing events at all. To be fair, there is no setup for any of the other plot twists in this manga, which makes them feel completely unnatural. To justify said plot twists, the writer has to constantly pull stuff from his ass, but he doesn't do it in the tongue-in-cheek "I will bullshit you, you will know I am bullshitting you and the two of us will like it" manner some authors do - it really comes across as if he's trying to come up with good explanations and utterly failing. With that, we're pretty much done with the bits I did get to read. Tried finding the rest of it outside Mangadex, didn't try that hard, couldn't find it in any language I know. That's fine, 13 or 14 chapters are enough for our purposes. Often its been said that, in order to write a good detective novel, you ought to be kind of sharp yourself. It upsets me to say it, but from what I gathered, the writer just doesn't make the cut.
Speaking of cuts, did I mention it was axed in the end? So I've heard. No shit, but I still wonder what the duo is up to nowadays. I think the illustrator did another work a while after they were done with this, but even that was years ago. As far as I know, the writer never did any work again. Did he give up for good and resign himself to a salaryman's life? Is he still trying his best, but even his best has no chance whatsoever of being published? Did his editors kill him? Considering he butchered a manga with this much potential, maybe they should.
Sep 1, 2025
Shichiha Gojuuroku
(Manga)
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From all the bad manga that ended up being axed, Shichiha Gojuuroku, a title that esoterically translates to "7x8=56" (Is that true? Can any STEM nerd check for me?) might be my favorite. I'm not even being insincere here: somewhere else, someone smarter than me once said that we can all find charm in the imperfections of something good - reciprocrally, I say that we can find some solace in the very few qualities of a deficient work, and this supernatural/action/mystery shounen manga, that I've read ages ago and randomly remembered today, presents us with an opportunity to exercise just that.
When I say "very few ... 
Jul 20, 2025
City The Animation
(Anime)
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Did you guys ever play that “Klonoa: Empire of Dreams” game? The one developed by Namco. It was a side-scroller platformer for the Gameboy, and it was pretty good - or so I’ve heard - but it flopped, partly because they coincidentally released it in the States on September 11th, 2001. Even then, I’m sure the two or three people that played the game remember it fondly. They may have written essays about it, maybe they’ve even put together elaborate videos on the game that are like an hour long.
This is a review of an anime that has nothing to do with that game. Did you ... 
Feb 21, 2024
It's a one-shot manga about some astronaut guy who lands on a planet inhabited by intelligent animal-like people, which proceed to study him like we would study an alien. The manga is written from some feline spokesperson thing's point of view, and there's actual care put into imagining how animals with intelligence and knowledge of (fictitious) natural science would react to seeing a human for the first time. That's one valuable exercise to partake in whenever you risk forgetting how remarkable humans are when compared to other animals. But no, wait, that's played for gags. The author also gets a romance thing going and revels
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Oct 2, 2023
Uso no Kodomo
(Manga)
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Considering Kawamura's track record, which consists of painfully average manga centered around some uninspired gimmick ("Kawaii Kouhai ni Iwasaretai" comes to mind) and somewhat decent works that are weighed down by the tropes they're riddled with, such as the recently adapted "My Clueless First Friend", what the author has put forth here is very unusual.
Uso no Kodomo (hereafter "False Child") is really the first manga in which Kawamura breaks ground, stripping away most gimmicks and tropes to present an original idea amongst the increasingly saturated world of manga themed around childcare and executing it with cleverness, sincerity and an instantly recognizable art style. What's more, ... |
