Hinowa ga Crush! · review
Hinowa, the weird uncle of the AgK universe mangas. Its ok, but it seems to be picking up pace in the latest chapters! TLDR: Hinowa is a pretty flawed manga, that is loosely connected to AgK. If you've got an open mind it's worth checking out. If you are the type of person who cant stand any really big flaws and is thinking of just checking it out since you like AgK don't waste your time. It doesnt even vaguely feel like AgK or AgKZ, and there are very few story links, as Akame herself has taken a spot in quite the backlines. So anyways - feel- Hinowa feels different to AgK in outright everything, the atmosphere is completely changed, the battles focus a lot on strategy and teamwork rather than the superpowered duels of AgK and teigu are nowhere to be seen. The artstyle is not a welcome change in my eyes, but to each their own. I think like half the characters look like strange frog creatures. Though the panels flow much better and the overall detail has been improved by a good amount.
There is also a genuine problem with sex scenes - yes really! "Sex scenes? That seems like such a menial thing to care about" you're thinking - exactly! It is! So imagine how bloody bad they must be for me to have to mention this! There is fanservice like *never before* in AgK and it's there constantly and it absolutely KILLS the tone every time this happens!! It's horrible, there are times where we get full three page scenes with different poses and ahegao not even 2 chapters apart! And my god is it uncomfortable! Strelka and Takahiro are some absurdly horny dudes! Luckily this dies down in the later chapters.
A welcome change is in the characters, there really isnt any moseying around with half-baked villains. From the get-go we get a much more colorful array of characters, and especially the villains, I was glad Hinowa skipped the filler kills and went straight towards well built-up intimidating people with plenty of quirks to their name who get a nice amount of time on-screen.
A big change in content shows up in the manga's latest 15 chapters, as the non-stop fighting stops and the characters split-up into 3 main storylines, and we start getting a nice picture of the inner workings of everything and everyone.