Real Account

This manga feels like a lobotomised version of Mirai Nikki, which is bad enough already. Most of the reviews, so far, for this manga have been extremely positive, this review serves to open the discussion of this manga.

The premise is actually quite good, a death game with a twist that what's keeping you alive are the followers on your social media account who die if you die. Only certain people are forced to play the death game, but people in the real world can still follow the players' social media accounts. The games the players are forced to play vary, with death being the seemingly only punishment for failing. The games are very poorly done and never provoke any tension, most of the games involve people being so idiotic and retaining their pride even if it causes their death.

(Spoiler)The story is broken up into two parts, they follow twin brothers, the main character changes between parts to the other twin. One of these stories is 10 chapters long, the other is incomplete at 60 chapters. I believe they didn't plan to carry the manga on for so long and the second part is just being expanded in order to obtain more revenue.

You will likely feel confused whilst reading Real Account, not because the story is hard to grasp, but because so much information is withheld from the reader. This technique is not uncommon and can be used to good effect, however here it is used so much that illogical twists seeming come from nowhere, the reader doesn't have the required information about the characters or the story to deduct the upcoming twists themselves.

The first major twist of the story is utterly asinine and I feel encapsulates the whole manga. The main character is not who he says he is, he is in fact the twin brother of the person who he pretended to be, his brother died(not really). My problem is that identical twins don't have identical DNA as it mutates based on lifestyle and we see that the other brother was more outgoing and athletic, whilst the main character was a lot less active. This would likely change their skin colour slightly, one is more exposed to sunlight, their builds are going to be different one is going to have more of an athletic build with more muscle. The manga showed the brothers switching places often, leading each other's lives and actually had the main character scrutinising over the fact people realise he is not acting like usual, however no one puts two and two together, because of plot convenience and it is never mentioned again, he went back to his old lifestyle with a new name. I believe this so flawed because no one even his sister who is extremely close to him could distinguish him.

After backstory is given to key characters their previous actions and reactions seem completely out of character, it also renders any promise of the characters developing impossible, as we weren't seeing the actual character the whole time. When giving backstory to the characters nothing is hinted at and it isn't given to the reader at a smooth pace, the manga has an expository dump and gives the reader a lot of information in a short space of time, which is jarring.

The manga has bog-standard, at best, art and you will not see any screenshot worthy pages.

I believe Real Account to be a chore to read, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, even if you're a massive fan of the death game genre.

Real Account started out a real good Manga, I never used to read a lot of manga unless I've either stumble upon it, get it from the library or if I've heard a lot about it. Real Account was a manga I've stumbled upon, I'm really into these survival game type manga/anime and I saw Real Account being tagged as a Survival Game somewhere, and so I gave it a read.
And for a while I was really hooked on it, I checked for updates regularly on it while it was being released, was hoping to buy it officially in English once it was released, and was even holding out hope for an anime adaptation.
But sadly I had to drop it.

Real Account starts out almost immediately interesting. We have an interesting main character, and than that character is sucked through to what I call the Internet World and than we have survival games with a lot of social commentary and clever strategy involved with these games. The strategy element I've felt was very well thought out, most of the time, but there were times I felt like a new element of the game being played would come out of no where. But I still highly enjoyed this manga. it was really intense at times, and sometimes shocking. Up until the point that I'm not going to spoil. I'm not going to give anything away but there is a certain point where they sort of get rid of the Survival Game aspect in favor of Action. There were car chases and monsters, and that wasn't why I was reading that.
Maybe that's a shallow reason for dropping it, but I felt like I wasn't reading the same manga anymore.
I'll maybe finish it when the manga finishes it's run or if it gets adapted into an anime but for now I will give it a break.

This manga starts out guns-blazing amazing. I'm really into psychological thrillers where there's a twist at every corner, and death games like Liar Game, Tower of God, and Darwin's Game really appeal to me. This one turned out to be a horrible disappointment.

STORY - 3

The author definitely has the genius for it. The strategies and revelations shown through the games actually reveals a lot of forethought and planning on his part. You'll never be sure of anything. However, questions are constantly appearing, and answers are never given. Characters drop like flies or get put on a bus, and what started out as an excitingly paced dark-but-fun story turned into a depressing read that doesn't pull at my heartstrings anymore. You stop caring about the twists too - they start growing out of control, and I've lost faith in the author's ability to turn it around and untie this knot.

ART - 9

Really good, imo. Nisekoi-ish art, the characters, their expressions, landscape and shading, incredible detail, etc. are all on point.

CHARACTER -1

This is what really sinks this manga. By the time you're caught up, most of the characters you've known to love are either gone, on hiatus, or just a completely different character from what you've come to know. I've really stopped caring about most of the characters and their suffering as I no longer find them relatable. The actions of many of the people in the manga are absolutely unrealistic, and it gives off the impression that even the artist has stopped caring.

Overall, I think it takes a special kind of reader to really enjoy the series more beyond its crucial turning point. As someone who usually remains faithful to the story and has become disillusioned, I believe most readers will only find themselves increasingly disappointed as they move forward.

Well usually I didn't giving a review to a series before but because of some reason for the currently chapters (Chapter 102), I will giving my review about this manga.

Story: 4/10
For the Chapter 1 through 62 (Ataru Arc and Yuuma Arc), I will giving a 10/10 because the story was really nice, good and interesting because of those setting: the main characters and the others are getting caught in a Social networking site and they have be forced to play those game or will getting killed, those game are really nice because it need using a brain to thinking how to play to survive in this networki and a good friendship to work together for win the games and survived from being killed. But for the Chapter 63 onward (Final Arc), I will only rating a 2/10 because the story and setting are so boring and awful (Sometimes it even make no sense and having a plot hole), most of the time was just giving a fan service more than a story itself, sometime the game was even ins from other Anime series and game it make even more boring. So the full story rate will be 4/10.

Art: 8/10
I don't need to explain since most of the reviews in this manga has explain it so I have no word giving about the art.

Character: 3/10
Similar to my review about the story I will giving 8/10 for the first two arc, the characters are really nice and smart in order to survive the game and the most important is have a nice development, but for the Final Arc I will giving 2/10 only like how I review about the final arc in story review, most of the new characters are not interesting, annoying and the new characters are even nearly get NO development. (The only one who has actually get development the most in final arc was Yuuma himself and sometime Ayame, the other characters are only appear briefly in 95% of the story plot at the time in final arc.) The full rate is 3/10

Enjoyment: 5/10
Same with my other review, but it still enjoyable sometime in final arc even through sometime is not enjoyable because of the awful story.

Overall: 6/10
So I will giving a 6/10 cause I really like this manga once before the final arc was started, as far I'm still reading the manga currently but I think maybe I will stop reading this manga later if the story become worst and even worst. I recommend you guys don't read the chapter 63 onward or don't use your brain to reading the final arc's story to avoid those plot hole and bad storytelling. Of course this is just my opinion so maybe it wasn't good reviews to most of you guys. And maybe I will change my review once this manga is ended so it have to wait my full review about this manga.

I really wanted to love this manga, which is why I stuck around for so long. It started off solid enough, with an interesting (if cliched) set up. The best thing this manga has going for it is it's message. Because, contrary to what you may initially believe, or what you may see people assume after having read a chapter or so, the manga does not take an entirely one-sided stance on whether "online bonds" are real bonds or not. It dissects what it truly means to have an honest, personal relationship, both with people you know in the real world, and also those you have met online. It wants you to look at how you treat other people, and what you display to those you consider a "friend". Can, in actuality, you find bonds that are stronger then those towards people close at hand, over the internet? Is it possible for online friends to be bound with you by fate, wheres people in the "real world" simply don't care if you live or die? What would you do if you couldn't unfollow that one person on your social media, because if you did, you would die alongside them, making the two of you bond via your online relationship?

It is interesting to imagine yourself in the situation, and to wonder, "what would happen to me? Do these people I know online actually, truly, matter to me as people? Do I matter to them as a person? What'd happen if my life literally depended on theirs, and theirs on mine?". But unfortunately no amount of messages and an interesting set up can save Real Account from the utter mess that it turned into. Bare in mind there's there's some very vague mentions of the direction the narrative heads in here, but it's important to say this to give the idea of why I'm rating this pile of crap so low. After a while the manga begins to shift gears, and not at all in a good way. What was at first an interesting, if bizarre, psychological horror, changed into a ridiculous, over the top, free for all story line, with the death game suddenly spilling out into the real world around Japan, and the players being hunted down by civilians all desperate to make a quick buck by killing whoever they can.

The illogical holes, and utter chaos just completely fall in on themselves. There's no rhyme or reason to what's going on with the world around the characters, which despite having a death game going on with innocent people getting killed by mobs on the street, seems to be operating like nothing is going on. The police and the Japanese Self Defense Force are also nowhere to be seen, and don't seem to care about trying to help in any way. this is probably intentional as there's hints that there's some big conspiracy behind everything but so far there's been nothing explaining why there's no authority figures trying to sort out what's going on. It didn't seem out of place when everyone was in the "Real Account Dimension", since there's not a whole lot that could be done at that time, but after things spilled out into the real world, it becomes a bit glaring that they're not even bringing up that there doesn't seem to be any type of authority trying to help the players or stop the death game from continuing.

And this is just one of many issues. I won't go into all of them, but needless to say there's just way too many stupid elements, or elements which they're leaving hanging, and the manga isn't satisfying the craving for answers to them. That's if they even have the answers to them in the first place. It's gotten to a point where I just can't be bothered to continue on reading in the vein hope that they actually explain everything. What had previously invested me into the manga is no longer there, and the claustrophobic feeling that the death game previously had is no longer there.

A harem element has also been forced in for next to no reason. I didn't read Real Account to see a guy gain a harem, yet the manga seems insistent that this is what the readers want to see, constantly forcing the angle. Romance is fine, but even the early chapters felt like it was being far too forceful with this, and it just got worse after the 30 chapter mark. There's also forced yuri. Although I may be a fan of yuri, I didn't sign up to Real Account to see a girl perversely check out another girl's body, with the narrative excuse being that she's looking for a mark-of-death. Narrative elements in the last 10 or so chapters I read kept forcing fan service into every corner, with narrative excuses for why it's there. Why are they in swim suits in a spa, surrounded by women in bikinis? To blend in of course! Why did they strip naked? To use their clothes as stepping stones! (which doesn't make any sense but I won't get into that) How can we have one of the female cast wear skimpy clothes while erotically peeing to satisfy all the urolagnia readers? It's a prank by a kid! Yeah, it just got way too much, and the last straw for me was when chapter 54 (44, excluding the ones before the number reset) had an part where a young girl was being spanked as punishment for trying to murder the three mains. Not only is the entire idea surrounding it stupid in the first place (what little kids would suddenly become murderers over the prospect of the equivalent of just 8800 dollars, and why is it just brushed off with the manga basically going "look at the naughty kids about to MURDER three innocent strangers for money, they deserve a spanking"), but it's also disturbingly sexualised. Then halfway through the next chapter when it become clear that it was focusing on trying to force more of it's harem bull down our throats (the entire notion of which in the chapter came out of left field,), I just completely had enough and stopped reading. I could honestly forgive the "romance" element being so forced in if it had at least been handled well, but it isn't at all. It does what all the bad manga and animes (and fiction in general) that try and have this "group of people who all love the same person" thing do. It tries to have it's cake and eat it, trying to ship tease for every possible pairing while still attempting to have genuine heart and love at the core of the romance, the two of which don't gel together at all. Pick something and stick with it, I can't take it seriously when you're expecting me to care enough for someone's feelings towards a person, when it's clear the writers themselves can't give less of a crap.

And this is a running theme. The writers just seem to be doing whatever the hell they want to now, and this comes across glaringly in the complete mess that the story's become. There's zero sense of a solid direction in anything, including narrative elements, character relations, them knowing what they even want the character relations and narrative threads to be...Nothing gels at all any more. It's a complete shame, because I was really enjoying the manga to a point. It wasn't anything special, but it was a solid idea, with a serious (if bizarre and fantastical) horror theme, which made me genuinely horrified at times. But after the direction it spiraled into, I can't at all find myself to like reading it any more, let alone take it the least bit seriously as a "psychological horror".

If you're like me then you know that the people you hang out with in real life and make an effort to be around are your true friends. This means that when you get sucked into a sadistic video game that kills you when you run out of followers you know that you will have at least a few people that have your back. Yet these people that had 2000 followers act surprised when people don't want to risk their lives for you. All you did was click to accept a friend request dude. If we haven't at least run from cops together I'm not risking my life for you.

Now that they're in the death game the story revolves around showing off the true depth of its characters while being put into life or death situations. Now it is a strange mixture of talented story telling mixed with mediocre characters. If it continued that way then the story would be somewhat enjoyable but not living up to its true potential.

Then I can only imagine a thought appeared in the creator's head. "Jeez I can do way better than this!" The story then takes on a game of thrones style and switches viewpoints. The new cast appeal beats the old cast appeal like Batman against street thugs. Poor old cast never stood a chance.

However while the story does manage to do things right it also has its shares of faults. One is it has one of the biggest plot holes I've ever seen. You could see it from the freaking moon without squinting. I'm talking Harry Potter Time Turner could solve every problem plot hole. While it didn't ruin the series for me it has hampered it greatly. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I won't reveal it but ask questions to yourself and you'll find it quick. A second is that the author doesn't really have a mastery of foreshadowing. Plot developments come quick and from nowhere. Last there have been characters that rapidly shift in personality which would be great, IF IT WAS FORESHADOWED. Hidden Depths only work it there was some indication that something was hidden.

As it is the series isn't bad but with a few tweaks and edits could've been great.

Imagine.

You're sitting there, phone in hand and scrolling through your social network, following people, adding people, commenting on things, your general everyday thing (facebook, twitter, etc).

Suddenly, you're teleported into cyberspace, into a room with people you've never met before.

Pretty cool right? yeah.

You are then greeted by the social network mascot. He then announces that you and the people that were using the social network at that time, are to play social network games. "Heh, I can do that", is what you're thinking. The mascot then continues to tell you that these games you will be playing is for your life. He proceeds to tell the whole world that you must have people following you.

If you have no followers, you die.

If you fail the mini-game, you and your followers die.

Ask yourself this. How many people will really put their life on the line for you?

Watch how far we humans will sink to grasp onto survival.

The person next to you. Will you exploit them for your own survival? How far will YOU go to survive?

What do others truly think of others?

Though this manga is new and only has 15 chapters so far, it is absolutely gripping. Read as a twin, after losing 99% of his followers, rise from his tears, wills himself to live and fight to win, use his brain to save others, not just himself.

The story really gets you thinking, would I have done that? But most importantly, How far will I get in this scenario?!

If you don't have followers, you die.

At first when I started readin the manga, I thought— ‘What the hell! Is this another versiomln of SAO except that it has nothing to do with swords?’ But 3 chapters into the manga and I was proven wrong. It does not revolve around a single game, it is a social trap. REAL ACCOUNT is a social networking site where having followers is a must.

Just so you all are not confused, I would like to tell you that the manga has 2 volumes right now. Volume 1 has 10 chapters and the protagonist is Kashiwagi Ataru. Volume 2 has 5 chapter (still publishing) and the protagonist is Mukai Yuuma. They are related and stuck in RealAcc but I won't tell you anything else. Lets start the review~


ART- 8.0/10
The art work is well done. Detailing is impressive but basic level. There is no problem in differentiating between different characters. Each have their own characteristic way.

STORY- 9.0/10
Superb story! I loved the concept of getting caught in a Social networking site rather than in a game (which is quite common). They play different games inside the RealAcc and the different, unique quizzes and dares make you see yourself in place of them.


CHARACTERS- 8.0/10
Normal characters. The type with whom one can relate. They think not differently than us normal people do. Nothing extra ordinary about them (except for being cute) :P


ENJOYMENT- 9.0/10
The manga is filled with excitement. You can't put it down unless you read it till the end. The games played to survive are both psychological and social. The whole world watches as the characters play to save their lives. No followers means you are dead. If you loose a game, then also you are dead— added that all your followers die to.

Now you see the problem behind having followers?

Over all, I give this manga 9.0/10.

Keep in mind when you're reading reviews, how many chapters the reviewer has read. This is displayed in the top right corner of their review. You'll notice for THIS manga - that higher reviews are often made by people who have read fewer chapters. This is because they haven't gotten far enough to realize how disappointing this manga really is.

The outcome of a manga can almost be more important than the journey - but in this case, I couldn't even muster through the journey. Everything began quite clever - but ultimately turned into ridiculous plot twists, unanswered questions, and so much fan service that I had to double-check that this manga wasn't labeled "ecchi" (and frankly - I really should be sending an e-mail to "MangaPanda" and "MyAnimeList" to add "ecchi" as a genre). In fact, I'm surprised it's labeled "shounen" instead of "seinin" for this same reason.

If you want me to elaborate (spoiler-free) - see below.

Art - 8

The art style isn't bad. It's not super-realistic, but it's also not super-cartoony. The artist knows what they're doing, and the art style used for the manga seems fairly mainstream and likeable.

Story - 5
Enjoyment - 3
Character - 3
(all explained below)

I would've given the story a lower score - but I'm trying to keep in mind that the series did BEGIN very clever. Many people being dragged into a dangerous game of life or death because of a social media app - it sounds cliche, but the writer managed to pull it off and make it fairly interesting and entertaining. The sections of the game were very well-written and strategic. It seemed genius, like the game was nothing but a battle of wits and the author was not afraid to do what he had to do to make it work. Could it have taken a place in my top-5 favorites? Perhaps not - but nonetheless it was clever, entertaining, and interesting.

However - it does not take long for the reader to get the sense that the author doesn't seem to care anymore. As other reviewers have said, characters seem to randomly disappear without another mention of their existence, and the whole tone of the manga changes. This also is very abrupt, so you'll know it's happening when you get there. To me, it felt as though the author was getting bored of writing the same characters over and over again, and so he made up an excuse to get them out of the picture and somehow replace them. It was to the point where I'm going through the pages waiting with baited breath for some characters to reappear (because of an unresolved cliffhanger) - and even after 30 chapters (each chapter is about 40 - 60 pages long, mind you), I'm still wondering if the author entirely forgot about them.

On top of that major flaw (which in itself was almost enough to make me stop caring about the story), things go from being based on intelligence to seemingly being based on a lot of action - and as I mentioned above, the amount of fanservice shoots through the roof. In the beginning there may have been some things here and there that were a bit suggestive or inappropriate, but it was not too much more than the amount shown in other shounen manga. However, eventually it seems like they try to find more and more excuses to insert suggestive (and more than suggestive - outright visible) scenes with girls' bodies - and keep in mind, I'm talking about NAKED. I recently read a scene where two female characters "had to" get naked, in order to carry out a plan that was actually physically impossible in reality (yet it works anyway), just as an excuse to add naked girls. Recently it has felt common-place to see girls in skimpy bikini's, underwear, or just flat-out naked (and it seems they can only keep the 'shounen' tag because the important areas are simply not colored in, which makes it a bit less detailed.)

While once or twice might be forgivable, it feels constant now - and that isn't what I came for. That was about the point that I dropped the manga, because it went from a psychological/shounen to an action/ecchi/seinin (with characters that are randomly gone and plot-twists that are ridiculous and make me care even less about the characters) - which I did not sign up for.

Overall - I'm giving it a 3.

It could've been lower had it not been for the beginning chapters which were fairly well-written. In the beginning it was very intelligent, and there was one twist in particular that I found extremely clever and interesting - but it doesn't matter, because after a while, the manga practically acts like the beginning never happened.

This manga heavily disappointed me. But if you like action and ecchi - this might be your manga once you get past the part where the author drops characters out of existence and changes the tone of the story.

This was an awesome manga to read. So far as i can tell since its still ongoing its an amazing read. The suspense and at the right moments the comedy i think its amazing. The way it can be serious and then comedic right after is the best. The story is really intersting and the character devolopment was nice and it kinda surprised me that it went so deep into devoloping the characters The art is very good and fits my tastes and i think it is above average in drawings. Overall i think this would be a great read for anyone who likes the survival game type mangas and for people who love gore with comedy and i will definitely say this is up their in my favorite mangas