Ryu’s Musings – Climb On To My Shoulders

9781613130643 ISBN-13: 9781613130643
Language: English
Direction: Right to Left
Pages: 163
by: Yuhki Takada
Publisher: Digital Manga Guild
Type: One-Shot
Genre: Romance, Yaoi

Synopsis:

Trey and Paul are up-and-coming programmers with their minds set on fame and fortune! However, they need to actually finish writing a program first. The two decide to make a program that can play tic-tac-toe, but all their hard work is destroyed by the clueless yet smooth-talking MJ. In spite of their rough first meeting, MJ turns out to actually be useful to Trey and Paul. He even manages to land them the intimidating job of making class-scheduling software! Misadventures and romantic tension abound in this adorable comedy that’s set in the 1960s.

When I first sat down to read this volume I was a little biased. From what I’d seen already the art was bad and the story didn’t have anything to make it worth reading. However I was pleasantly surprised when I actually sat down to read it. The story was mildly funny, and was able to carry it past the failings.

This one shot has a huge failing though, the art is bad, and it feels like someone just scanned the pages in from a manga, rather than working from the digital raw’s. This was compounded by the art style, light and airy. At times the art just looked horrible. In a print release, this would be less noticeable I think, however on the eManga site the flaws are all the more noticeable.

What’s more is that the characters themselves aren’t very memorable, individually. And that’s where this volume does get it’s strength. The banter between the three characters is rather funny to watch.

Sadly though the setting doesn’t really do the story justice. In fact you could have set this story in any age and any setting without it impacting the story. the fact Yuhki chose this time (60’s) and set in a computer setting is rather bizarre.

Character wise, as I said, they aren’t very impressionable. In fact it’s now been a little over 20minutes since I read the volume and I’ve already forgotten so much about it I have to keep going back and refreshing my memory writing this. Truth be told the sole saving grace is the banter between MJ and Trey.

Although this is considered a yaoi volume, it’s not really. There’s no sex or anything even close to it. It’s all very soft innuendo. At best I’d say this was shounen-ai, but more like shounen. Overall, it’s an average volume that I did find mildly funny for a while.

This is the first release I’ve seen from Digital Manga Guild, DMP’s answer to scanlations, and I have to admit so far I’m not to impressed. Quality wise the translation was pretty solid. The editing was average, but at times very hard to read due to them being to faint, or small. I also think the quality side of things, the art raw’s, needs to be improved greatly in the future. Hopefully it’s just one of those things that gets fixed over time.

There’s no print release for these titles at the minute so they’re only available on the eManga site. Not sure if it’s worth double paying to permanently rent, but it is worth renting once to read and throw away.

Once I’ve read a few more of their releases I’ll give my thought’s on the DMG as a whole.

Author: Ryu Sheng