Recording Notes #38 Bokkesan (Patreon)

Complete recording notes for episode #38 Bokkesan

Manga Details

• Author: Nishi, Yoshiyuki
  • He is the former assistant of Takeshi Obata creator of Death Note and Hikaru no Go
• Author’s other works:
  • Most notable is Muhyo To Rouji which got a two-season anime adaption which he made before this but was adapted into an anime after this series came out
  • He’s made a few other series so he’s kind of a treasure trove of series to cover
  • Former assistant to the death note artist
  • Apparently nowadays he makes hentai on Twitter
• Run dates: Dec 15, 2008, to Apr 27, 2009
• Chapters/Volumes: 18/2

About the Manga

• Plot
  • A little girl’s mom is murdered by bokke, who are like shitty yokai or something
  • Flash cut to Hino Kimooka, a quiet kid with telekinesis whose only friend is Sayu, a girl whose life he saved when she fell out of a Ferris wheel ten years ago using psychic powers. She’s got huge boobs because it’s that kind of series. He then finds out he’s the cat bokke nekogami and fights off the bokke who killed the girls mom.
  • They live in a weird town where the north and south districts hate each other. The south is made up almost entirely of bokke and the north is mostly humans, so the south wants to murder all the humans in the north. They meet a bokke guy named Abel who is a rock star until he isn’t and he teaches Hino how not to suck.
  • Turns out the little girl is actually possessed by Akebako, the most powerful bokke who is a cow that causes natural disasters and the south wants her so they can genocide the north.
  • She unleashes her powers to save Abel, who double-crossed Hino and Sayu only to then triple cross and help them but gets his arm cut off by his senpai. The little girl’s powers are transferred to Sayu cuz apparently you can only use them once and she was nearby when it happened.
  • About now is when we find out that Hino has a creepy long lost brother
  • Sayu turns into a dragon version of akebako and depowers all of the bokke in town when Hino asks nicely. Also, the bokke who murdered the little girl’s mom was Hino’s brother surprise, but he’s weak now.
  • Oh shit, I almost forgot at one point they meet a pervert frog kid but he dies real fast so it doesn’t matter.
• Characters
  • Hino Kimooka
    • People think he’s a loser
    • Has magic powers
    • Can turn into a cat thing
    • Was part of some experimentation program?
    • Has PTSD
    • Is he an air elemental? Electric elemental? They imply it.
    • Lives alone cuz his dad is a deadbeat and it seems like that will mean something but it doesn’t
    • We have to talk about the game show here
  • Shijiro Sayu
    • Childhood friend?
    • Good at bowling
    • Schemes with Hino to shark people
    • Very caring for Hino
  • Abe Kakeru aka Aberu
    • Eyepatch
    • Has ice powers
    • Baby
    • Mentor to Hino
    • Musician
    • Glen Close from Dungeon’s and Daddies
  • Ame Ike aka Meke
    • Frog person?
    • Looks kinda like a clown-like we are for reading this
    • Was bad now good
    • I think is german?
    • Dies lmao
    • Pervert
  • Kokuto
    • Part of south head group Yonnigumi
    • Big bad I guess
    • 90% sure this character changed gender
  • Reporter lady
    • The fuck is her deal?
    • The writer couldn’t think of how to progress the plot so made her important for five seconds

Why it failed

• This art is...rough, background characters are half-drawn
• It kinda looks like Dungeon Meshi art but not as good
• This feels really cramped, everything hitting you at once even the panels feel too tight like in the 4th page you don’t even get a good look at the teacher’s face cause it has too many panels
• Back to teenagers with giant boobs
• The plot is a mess, like why does a cop mention bokke and explain them for no reason and then need the corpse to confirm it instead of reversing the order of events
• Why is everything so slow I legit am on page like 12 of the second chapter and I have no idea what’s going on
• None of the backstories makes sense and is presented very randomly
• This series is legit incomprehensible
• There is no overarching plot to this series it’s all just one-of adventures
• So much text
• Holy shit this does the defeat means friendship trope so much
• Why did they set up this like crime-solving element then drop it? They literally meet with the police and then just part ways?
• Sayu talks about being a burden and she literally is so great job author
• Stop killing off your fucking characters
• Did it kinda soft reboot itself in chapter 15?
• The bokke have SO MANY FUCKING POWERS! New shit is STILL being introduced towards the very ass-end of the series.
• It will set things up and try and pay them off immediately. Because there’s just way too fucking much.
• Wait so do humans know about the bokke? What’s the human to Bokke ratio in the south district, because if there are a lot of humans then why are they focusing on the north, and if there are no humans then why do very few people in the north know that Bokke exist?
• He introduced a deadbeat dad and THEN that wasn’t enough so he introduced a deadbeat crazy brother. The dad was RIGHT THERE you didn’t need to do that!
• Very generic MC, fights for “damsel in distress” trope till the very end never has actual motivations
• Very poor ending.

What it did well

• Things are nicely stylized
• Having a mute MC is a unique idea
• The shot on page 2 of the boke world looks cool
• I can respect they set up the out of nowhere savior moment in the fight with the sword lady by having a huge explosion by another bokeen alert everyone and having Abe know where they were training
• The monster designs are genuinely pretty cool sometimes.
• The art gets better as the series goes on but the fact that the series is so hard to follow and so fucking cluttered ruins any goodwill
• There are some very cool aesthetic choices.
• I like how the evil southern bokke just kind of meet on the subway
• The hideaway world is cool. I like the idea of it also being run down and rotting. Most shows that use this trope make the hideaway world pristine.

Where it could have gone

• Focus on the detective element I do not care about the MC but detectives solving bokee crimes could actually have been pretty cool
• The entire structure of this series needed to be redone, this really should just not have existed
• Play up the PTSD element about the main character suffering mental trauma from his powers
• Had a bokke vs yokai war
• Introduce the little girl/akebako plot earlier and let it exist longer instead of revealing it right before letting it dissipate.
• Instead of everyone losing their powers, it could’ve just been an Isaeki where the MC just goes home instead of all the glaring issues with the ending

Misc Thoughts

• It certainly is unique in its approach to well everything
• Why is bowling talked about so much
• When they mentioned he turned into a cat god I just thought about rap god by Eminem
• Why is the orb from berserk in chapter 3
• In chapter 5 the frog dude legit looked like his pissed paper
• The villains are all “killed” at the end by MC’s brother, except MC says “All the bokke will turn back human” so they’re still alive?????
• Is the author a westaboo? The bad guys calling themselves “The South '' and believing in (and this a direct quote i shit you not) “Racial purity” might be a US civil war reference??

Final Verdict

• Six-Word summary
  • Bokke-mon Go read something that’s better
    • Twolfwood: nigh unreadable, not scary, extremely forgettable
    • Tucker: Too bad to be kitty litter
  • Mob Psycho 100 if not good
  • Dandadan it’s pretty much this but like good
  • “Everything happens so much” -Horse ebooks
• Flop or not
  • Certified flop
  • Literally, anything else ever made
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about
  • Might be the worst
  • Build king was worse. I genuinely might prefer this to Phantom Seer. None of this is high praise.