Mugen no Minamo ni · review
Spoiler warning
This review may discuss plot details.
Let me just tell you, it's an abysmally boring story. It was sort of fun at times but it was really a nothing in particular drama. Developing literally any of the characters to give them chemistry and give us insights into their motivations before the last few chapters probably wuold've help a lot. Spoilers below; I think there comes a point in which you just gotta stop making fucking wishes? Like seriously, fuck is wrong with you? One of the worst things in fiction is characters who make wishes continuously as though they are free, even though they are obviously not free and there will be consequences.First she wishes to be with her friend forever and becomes immortal. Then she wishes to keep some girl alive, and she has to kill people to maintain it, then she wishes for her cat to come home, and the cat opens a rabbit hole which wrecks her aforementioned relationship, then she wishes for the same girl to be resurrected. Obviously she will pay for that too, she just doesn't know how yet.
I didn't hate reading this but it definitely wasn't good. All of the characters were totally undeveloped except for our protagonist. In terms of personality, every character we see has an interchangeable personality except for one girl who offhandedly murders her lover when she refuses to commit suicide. Every other action was something which conceivably could've been commited by anyone else. Their lovedy dovey romance was sort of fun but the lack of personality meant that they didn't really have any chemistry either. Then it's implied that Minamo was sexually abused by her father which is never addressed after that. I feel like if you're going to include a detail like that in your story, either address it, or don't include it.
Then there's the question of themes and motifs. There don't really seem to be any. If there were, I'm not familiar enough with japanese literature to glean what the message might have been. A drama is honestly nothing without motifs and there didn't seem to be anything sticking out. It was a boring story which was a chore to read through. It was only finishable because it was only 8(10) chapters. The reveal that Nino was not a time merchant but a wish granting goddess made sense and solidified her behavior throughout the series. She felt almost like a deus ex machina who was guiding all characters involved towards their ideal outcome. Perhaps that's the problem with having a wish granter with a strong attachment to one of the characters in your story.
The art was alright. It gave the work lolicon undertones, which also took away from the story slightly. I try not to judge art on its quality, but rather how the artstyle itself, use of angles, distortion, etc adds to the narrative or expresses the author's points. That said, this artstyle didn't seem to match the story.
The ending was also clumsy and should've been longer or had less information. All of the information made sense to include, so I guess just longer.