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Nov 9, 2025
As the sequel to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, My Solo Exchange Diary basically follows it up, with more insight into other aspects of Nagata Kabi's life.
While my Lesbian Experience with Loneliness might have been focused on her realization towards her sexuality, loneliness and so on, My Solo Exchange Diary focused on the impact of success on her life, and the bigger realizations she's made in retrospect of what she's written.
One of those realizations had to do with her family's love towards her. It was pleasant to see Kabi reassess her feelings towards them and truly see how they cared for her.
This, in
...
itself, was a sign that she had healed.
Not only did Kabi heal from the impact of her family, but she was able to amend her feelings of loneliness around them.
By taking the act of moving out by herself and spending time away from them, she actually, ironically, grew to miss them.
It may not make much sense as a reader, but knowing that it's a true story drove home the fact that she was writing this as her life progressed.
Nagata Kabi still struggles a lot with loneliness in this book, as well as the repercussions of a lack of physical affection in nearly 30 years of being alive.
One of the biggest takeaways I had, amongst others, was this:
You can never truly love others, or feel loved by others, until you learn to love yourself.
Nagata consistently misinterpreted what it meant to interact with friends romantically, and gave up altogether. This and the notion that her family never treated her with kindness added up to make her see that she had actually been a bit selfish in the way she behaved.
Ultimately, she healed from this.
On the positive side, a lot of good things take place here. She starts hanging out with more people, receives praise from the success of her first manga, is more open with her sexuality and attempts going on dates with women, and celebrates her 30th birthday, albeit with her family.
To summarize, My Solo Exchange Diary was a deep, raw and gripping read. On its own, it is just as touching as My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. As a follow up however, it opens up more on Nagata Kabi's story, and will be just as relatable for anybody reading this after appreciating My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Nov 7, 2025
This is more or less a story that people would find hard to relate to, and for good reason.
Unless you've gone through the same experiences or felt in any way similar to the themes explored in this manga, the point may well fly over your head. Still, I recommend it.
It perfectly captures hard-to-talk-about and deeply emotional themes so well (I'm sorry to admit but at a point I almost shed tears, I could relate), and it's an understatement to call the author very skilled.
Some of these themes include an overwhelming need to please your parents, so much so that you don't even know what you
...
truly want in life. Such is but one of the main character's struggles in life.
I wouldn't go too deeply as it would spoil the work, but the depictions of mental health, self harm, lack of physical affection, to name a few, are all narrated with such expertise that you wouldn't find it shallow or on-the-surface, as with the majority of manga that attempts to tackle these themes. The fact that it's based on real life really shows.
I think the biggest takeaway from this would be the author's realization about midway, that being happy doesn't come from making yourself appear good on the outside, or from abiding by society's (or your family's) standards, but from being who you want to be, abiding by your own standards, and doing what you want to do.
As for the ecchi parts, they are less about the ecchi, and more about how she felt regarding them, which isn't something you see very often, and is very witty too.
To sum up, this was a well-written and deeply emotional read, at least for me.
It may not be for everybody, and that's okay, but if you're looking for a short and funny (and non-superficial) read, this is nice.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Nov 7, 2025
An unfinished rant/review from my Notes app:
Made in Abyss bites off more than it can chew. Its opening montage promises a huge mystery, with its explanation of the Abyss and how no one knows how it came to be.
But the show in and of itself, lacks any subatance, exposition, or worldbuilding.
To start with the good things, however few they may be, there's only the voice acting and soundtrack.
Its soundtrack, though nice and fitting to the show, isn't exactly memorable but isn't bad either. Most of the songs sound similar, and are made more so due to the show's inability to create any emotional connection
...
to its characters. If I were to go through the songs from made in abyss, I wouldn't be able to pick any one and state with utmost sincerity any of the scenes it plays in, or any moments it's associated with. Like how "Low of Solipsism" is associated with Light's monologues and using the Death Note, or how "XL-TT" plays during Titan invasions in AOT, none of the songs in Made in Abyss have any defining moments.
I was also really hyped because it's by Kevin Penkin, and I hadn't watched any shows scored by him up to this point. I'm a fan of his music, especially "Old Stories". Hearing Kevin Penkin's music and wishing I could watch the scene "Old Stories" plays in (it doesn't) are the only reasons I watched all 13 episodes.
The voice acting on the other hand, is impressive. Whatever personality/trope had been decided on for the characters was performed really well: Ozen's emotionless, supposedly hateful, and stuffy nature, Reg being the voice of reason, and Riko, the main character's energetic nature.
It also shines through in the 'emotional' scenes, but however, this is pretty much where it ends.
There is zero character and plot development to be seen wherever you look in this show. The characters' abilities and dispositions are still the same at the very end, as they were in the beginning. Plus, they all simply do what's written in the synopsis, with no further action, there's no opportunity to feel connected to them or sympathize with them.
Which is why any 'emotional' scene is completely lost on me, and has no effect. It's completely downplayed by the fact that we don't even know the characters to begin with. Why should we feel bad for them?
The final episode, where the 'darkness' promised by this show actually takes place, is actually a backstory for two characters we only just met. I can assure you you'd be okay just skipping to that episode, the synopsis and character info is exactly what happens and will even be more than enough to help you grasp what you're watching.
(what takes place from here onwards are spoilers, and personal rants on the boundless number of plot holes to be found in this series)
('initial thoughts' interlude - begin)
- Characters: every single character is built to fit into a trope you haven't already seen a gazillion times in anime.
Ozen is the dark character with dark eyes, an unemotional demeanor and...I actually don't know. She's meant to be one of the most important characters in the story, yet there's no backstory to her, except for some reason, her relevance to Riko. Which bugged me for reasons I'll explain in a bit.
Roboto-kun is the fix-it-dude with a long robot arms, a super destructive superpower he can use on a whim, a cloudy backstory (guess what, it's never explained), and a human penis, who's only there to undo Riko's already unavoidable (but because she's the main character they happen anyway) mistakes.
Asides the main character, Riko, these are the only characters that matter. Every other character is only plot fodder that either assists the main character... because they're the main character, does something weird and unexplainable, or both.
Oh wait, there's Nanachi (she does both). This person's introduced towards the final episode. And at this point I couldn't bring myself to care about their existence. She's literally on the fucking cover image for the show, and I looked at that image and expected her to be a very important character (I was genuinely waiting for her to show up), only for her to show up in the final episodes, do the bare minimum, and then have her presence 'justified' by a legit backstory in the final episode. This random girl gets a backstory??? But the people who we've been watching over the past 9 or 10 episodes are still equivalent to cardboard???? Yeah right. Of course I'd remember she exists.
And finally, there's Riko, the mc. The stuff of nightmares if I'm being honest. She's your classic over-the-top energetic, doesn't think at all, always-getting-into-trouble, reckless and selfish character. I'm personally always against reckless and irresponsible characters who give no thought to anything but themselves, and have no reason to. And that's exactly what Riko is, and her personality is so magnified it's less endearing and simply a nuisance.
Her personality is continually oscillating between tsugoi-ing at something she should already know, and running to hug a character for literally any reason imaginable
I mentioned how it bugged me that the only important things here are what's relevant to Riko, and that brings me to my next point:
- Main character syndrome: This is a term I came up with after watching Made in Abyss, to describe something I'd only seen happen in Made in Abyss. It refers to a situation where the main characters have NO reason to succeed, absolutely NO special abilities that should put them above others, and NO reason for anyone to trust them. Yet somehow, they always succeed, everything is easy for them and everybody trusts them.
This is a humongous problem in the show and encompasses so many issues, like the plot itself:
- The introductory monologue literally tells us the Abyss is this really deeeeep and mysterious place and so many people risk their lives and blah blah blah looking for relics (minor digression but we spend 60% of the show in the literal Abyss and the mcs don't come across any relics at all, only when they stop to meet Ozen and that's in a camp constructed within the Abyss, not the Abyss itself). And how you need a whole lotta certification to be allowed to go deeper and deeper. It also seems to show us that age is just a number, seeing as kids are also cave raiding in the very beginning, and would be allowed to go deeper the more relics they obtain.
But all of this is kicked out the window once Riko decides to go.
- WHY was the Abyss hyped up to be so dangerous if it's going to be so easy for literal children? You would think the show would introduce some plotline relating to how people get into the abyss, and people who have gone there illegally. But it doesn't, it's only hinted at. And Riko only finds out about following a different route because her friends thought she wouldn't be able to follow the normal one, which Riko tsugois at and doesn't seem to know. And the only reason they know this alternate route is because of one's literal backstory, which she also doesn't know and goes 'wow' over. It's obvious at this point that Riko didn't seem to have any plans for how they'd go 7 km into the Earth.
('initial thoughts' interlude - end)
The aforementioned darkness is actually just one of them (the two characters introduced towards the end) getting tortured. Of course that's dark. In the great scheme of things and the group of people who can handle gore, there's an even lesser minority comprising those who can handle it when it involves children. It seemed like the show itself was aware of its own lack of substance, and throws in the torture scene, just so people can emotionally react towards the show.
- There is literally NO explanation as to why the children have to be tortured. It's shown in that episode that the 'bad guy' kidnaps children and uses them in experiments in the second to last known layer of the Abyss. But...WHY does he use children? WHY couldn't it be adults involved? Even the motivations and personality of the 'bad guy', because he isn't even established as an antagonist, are left for us to figure out.
Riko getting injured is the same, it could have been totally avoided. She bumps into an animal nest and forces Reg to use his power, they run and run and are still being chased but are able to take a break, just enough for Reg to fall unconscious. And then she just gets up and goes 'I'm hungry' and starts exploring the same supposedly deadly Abyss. If the Abyss is as big and spans as much as the show makes it seem, then there were probably a gazillion other routes Riko and Reg could have followed to keep going deeper. But Riko recklessly goes off track and pays no attention to their surroundings. She's spent her whole life learning about the Abyss in school, yet they still wander into animal lairs and territory. And before you know it, she and Reg are in front of a humongous monster and she gets injured. She doesn't even get any of the food she was looking for. I couldn't grab why Riko was so brainless. She even stands beside Reg, the only character who's been established as strong enough to defend the two, instead of behind him. What did she expect????
- it isn't even condemned. There is nothing and nobody in the show that opposes ANY negative acts that take place. And the show utilizes the greatest examples of plot convenience and plot holes known to humanity.
In the torture episode, the two characters Nanachi and Mitty are held on to because the 'bad guy' Bondrewd had never seen the results of using two children in his experiment. But he only ended up using two out of Nanachi coincidentally walking in to the lab, and then he sporadically decides to use two of them and show how the 'full force of the Abyss' will pour down on only one of them.
This episode in particular has a glaring plot hole. Throughout his past experiments, he'd only been using one child. Yet he has two tubes available. None of the other children were ever tortured in a pair, and he was doing everything one by one, so what's the point of having two tubes?? Unless of course, you're the writer of this show and you're aware Nanachi will walk in and that would create the perfect opportunity for not just an emotional✔️ but also torture✔️ scene, there is ZERO necessity for the second tube.
Would the 'full force of the Abyss' not affect the experiment if it was only one tube? There's no explanation for that.
When Riko gets injured, Reg blames himself for not making Riko stand behind him. She could have literally done that HERSELF????
In other episodes, an example would be Ozen beating up Riko and Reg. WHY does this woman who is supposedly many many many years old beat up two 12 year olds?? Apparently it was 'just' a test. Riko herself seemed to have been unaware of Ozen's existence until her uncle happens to mention it to her, but that aside, Ozen beating up kids is just brushed aside for the next weird thing.
In that same episode, Reg also contemplates literal murder. While watching Ozen 'test' Riko, he thinks about shooting her with his superpower, but is worried because it makes him faint soon after, and doesn't know what'll happen in the period he's unconscious.
Well the woman whose stomach you shot a HUGE fireball through would probably BLEED THE FUCK OUT AND DIE!!!
The most important example of this is actually in the show's entire premise itself. Riko's mother has been missing in the Abyss since Riko was 2. While cave raiding, Riko's uncle (I was also concerned about why Riko had to be raised in an orphanage when she had family around and in the exact same town) recovers what are believed to be her mother, Lyza's belongings, which were basically findings on the Abyss, and her Whistle (the certification needed to explore the Abyss). Because Riko is more or less her next of kin, she's allowed to view it first and in secret. Which Riko takes advantage of by stealing a 'letter' that says something like "I'll be waiting for you at the bottom".
- first point is how inappropriate it is that Riko steals a vital element of a confidential document
- next is that immediately after, she decides it's time to go to the bottom of the Abyss, because of a letter that she 1) isn't even sure is in her mother's handwriting 2) doesn't even know if it is addressed to her. And after that, nobody tries to stop her because she'll 'go anyway'. Like the Abyss is the street you shouldn't go to late at night and not a 7km hole filled with unspeakable monsters, curses and horrors.
This show is so one-dimensional and doesn't even attempt to utilize anything asides cliches and unbelievable plot conveniences. Like no mention of a possibility of the group of cave raiders creating a team to aid her(for example). Her own uncle, who has witnessed whatever unspeakable horrors lie within the Abyss with his Black Whistle (the second highest level of adventurer) gives a thumbs up and comments on Reg's penis. Plus,
Fin.
To summarize, Made in Abyss is a cheaply written and incoherent show. It promises the revelation of certain plot points and mysteries, only to drag itself all the way to the end with happenings that are, alll in all, irrelevant to the main pLoT (if there was one).
If you possess any media literacy even in the slightest, do NOT watch this. You would be better off, as I've said before, skipping to any parts you'd like to see (for example if you're here for the gore).
However if you're looking to waste a few hours well be my guest and watch this terrible show.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 14, 2025
The story of Tsuyoshi follows Kawabata Tsuyoshi, who is challenged day to day by different fighters, martial artists, delinquents and all sorts of people wishing to ambitiously test their strength, against a man who has never been beaten, Kawabata himself.
Its starting point introduces two very important characters, Hoshizaki and Teru, best friends and technically-former martial arts rivals. Teru, having been beaten by Kawabata, has lost all will to fight ever again, and Hoshizaki upon hearing this, resolves to challenge Kawabata himself, and loses.
Wanting to understand Kawabata's strength himself, Hoshizaki resolves to get closer to him. Eventually, this resolves into friendship, and along the way
...
Hoshizaki learns that Tsuyoshi is approached every single day by the most random people looking for a fight, his coworker is a spy from a different country and that Tsuyoshi himself has piqued national interest, without his knowledge.
During his fights, Tsuyoshi always sets rules: no rematches, and don't spread his name after. Of course everybody who fights him disrespects his wishes, and ask for rematches just to prove to themselves that their impossible to beat.
To be fair, the whole story almost revolves around disrespecting and mistreating Tsuyoshi, as ironic as it sounds. And not just this, but the characters themselves, are major problems.
Hoshizaki is the only character worth liking, he is the only one with Tsuyoshi's best interest at heart, the only one Tsuyoshi can confide in without being judged. Sadly, with each passing arc, he's pushed farther and farther away from Tsuyoshi
Everybody else, with the exception of Teru due to certain reasons, is only interested in how beneficial Tsuyoshi's strength is useful to them, or their country.
The story progresses and gets crazier and crazier, with Tsuyoshi at the forefront of competitions between even countries.
Basically it follows this formula throughout:
- Let's hold certain competition to determine who is strongest// who gets control over Tsuyoshi/the situation
- Tsuyoshi goes into a rage and doesn't want anybody to control him and goes home
- Other character takes advantage of Tsuyoshi's feelings and kidnap him
- Repeat
Most of the characters introduced have seemingly interesting backstories, but they're easy to forget after every arc, especially when the baseline for everything is ownership of Tsuyoshi, which Tsuyoshi himself doesn't want in the first place. Sometimes the characters even go on their own side quests and hold their own personal competitions, which are only beneficial for the sake of power scaling and nothing more.
The story quickly devolves to one simply about bullying. After a while it's more: Just how much can we mistreat Tsuyoshi? If it's not enough that Tsuyoshi has to accept fighting commands from people he doesn't know, he also has to contend with kidnapping and basic denial of rights. His mental state is constantly getting frayed by the situation that is apparently his fault for being so strong. And just when he's able to find his way out and seems to want to get back on his own feet again, someone jumps in and makes things two times worse.
In a particular arc, he's falsely arrested and hounded to admit to crimes he didn't commit, or get the death penalty (whut?) and in another, he's kidnapped after being glued to his own bed (don't ask how that's possible...). To be honest, there isn't anything wrong with mistreatment of a character in fiction, what's actually wrong is a lack of condemnation for acts like that. There never seems to be a voice of reason, or rather, an opposition to the mistreatment that takes place. And this is what I particularly dislike about Tsuyoshi. It seems to me that it depends too much on the reader's want to sympathize with the mc
For example, after having Tsuyoshi arrested and completely changing his personality to make Tsuyoshi side with him by convincing him it was a prank (you don't have to believe me), one of the characters partakes in a competition to determine who 'controls' Tsuyoshi...again.
During the competition, the only character who even mentions Tsuyoshi's arrest is one who literally just shows up for the first time in the manga, and only mentions because of their relation to Tsuyoshi. Every other character either brushed it off, blamed Tsuyoshi, or stared in confusion. Tsuyoshi doesn't even like this character, and so directs all his anger and confusion at them, instead of the one who's actually deserving of it.
Another example would be the female characters who deceive Tsuyoshi and utilize his personality for their own goals only to attempt to insert themselves back into his life like nothing happened, and with no indication that they ever did anything wrong.
In the present arc, or at least what I'd read up to this point, we see a certain character use Tsuyoshi to fulfill his delusions of what he believes Tsuyoshi to be. Once again, he is put in a situation where he has little to no control of what goes on around him.
To summarize, the plot: is basically inexistent. Read this if you're just looking for something to pass the time. There are a lot of comedic moments that make the story seem worthwhile though. The story follows a sort of 'progressive' style where things just happen with no foreseeable conclusion or direction.
Characters and character development: Asides Teru, Hoshizaki and Kawabata, the rest are just there. Sometimes they just do the most inexplicable or frustrating stuff.
The character development can't even be called character development, as any change in Tsuyoshi's personality was completely forced on him.
Overall: Tsuyoshi is an unsatisfying martial arts comedy where the OP MC is mentally tortured and antagonized, while the true antagonists never get what they deserve, and continuously have the blame pushed off of them and onto the main character himself
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 8, 2024
If I were to summarize Read or Die in one word it would be: 'disappointing'
If I were to do so in one sentence: 'It could have been better'
To summarize its issues separately, we have:
Characters: The characters are probably the biggest issue in this story. Every single one of them was one-dimensional, shallow and had zero motivation for their actions whatsoever. This made them hard to remember in following scenes, as it was very hard to connect with them in any way. They really just seemed to 'show up'.
Also, this meant we had no idea of their 'inner voice', which is one of the most
...
essential points in characterisation. Sometimes panels would be drawn and I'd have absolutely no idea who was speaking.
Art:
Read or Die's art style only shined through in its characters. I was especially impressed by this in the first chapter, as Yomiko's face was drawn to be very expressive. However, that's about where it ends.
Asides the characters, not much attention is paid to any other aspects, such as the surroundings. About 60% of the time the characters were drawn against a grey background, sometimes with smoke effects, and most times just blank, which makes its scenes hard to recall as they are drawn in such a forgettable manner.
There was also the issue of poorly drawn fight scenes, which is pretty much an understatement as they were totally unreadable. It was always unbelievably hard to tell what was happening during a fight, what direction things were coming from, and so on.
Lastly, I'm not sure if this counts as an 'art' point, but some times the speech bubbles were drawn without the little pointer to indicate who was speaking. Now of course this isn't something new, a lot of stories do this. But I'm pretty sure those stories include a change in emotion on the face of the character speaking, or at least draws them with their mouth open. (It actually works in these stories because one gets familiar with the character's 'inner voice')
As if this wasn't enough, the speech bubbles were pretty much drawn anywhere on the page/panel. Sometimes the character speaking isn't in the same panel as the speech bubble, or the speech bubble itself was drawn beside someone who, in fact, wasn't speaking, making the situation more confusing. Of course this is entirely normal, but Read or Die's underdeveloped and unrecognizable characters made this unbearable.
Writing: Where do I even start with this?
To be honest, Read or Die's writing isn't exactly bad in any way. At least, if you excuse:
- It's inability to tell us WHY characters were doing what they did, thanks to their bland and corny monologues. This also made things very forgettable. As by the time I put the manga down to go do other things with my life and came back, I couldn't understand what was going on anymore, or remember who certain characters were.
- The endless, painful dialogue:
Now this was BAD. Imagine a standard 5 or 6 paneled page of manga, with at least two speech bubbles in each panel, filled end to end with dialogue. And not just any dialogue, corny, exclamatory dialogue (mostly monologue though) that has zero bearing on the plot or situation at hand. Lines like "the egg shall crumble, and the flower shall be as incense before a tombstone" during a fight. I have no idea what that means. I was almost led to skim my eyes across the page. It was pretty painful to read. (Now add this to the fact that the fight scenes were poorly drawn and the characters were shallow and it was hard to even tell who was talking and I had enough motivation to drop)
- The random introductions of VERY serious themes, only to throw them away a minute later.
In one arc, there's mention of sexual violence towards a teenager, in which the one attempting the r*pe designs an entire wedding hall and somehow even dresses the girl up. This is after the girl wakes up to find herself handcuffed to a bed. And also after she is somehow off the bed but this time with a choker on her neck. And once again, after the man touches her provocatively. I guess it's also worth mentioning that her reaction to the situation is bare of any fear, and more of wonder. Upon having the choker on her neck, she goes wide-eyed and says "what is this thing?" and gets upset that he is ignoring her to ramble crappy monologues.
It should've ended right as her 'saviour' appeared, but instead it was the perfect moment for the 'discuss our motivations while powering up' trope, as this saviour didn't make a move to help the girl because they were 'too tired and injured', and decided to make dialogue with the man instead, until he trapped them, and proceeded to continue with his monologue. Even in such a tight situation, nobody seemed to pay any mind to the fact that this girl was on the verge of being violated.
I was honestly deeply disturbed by this arc in particular. I found it to be poorly handled. Though I guess it's my fault for not seeing the ecchi tag, I couldn't have expected it to be this bad. I'm not even a fan of ecchi in the first place, and I ended up hating it even more.
There's also an indication of a potential love interest between the aforementioned savior and the teenage girl, which is completely stupid, as the savior is an adult and the girl is only in high school.
Another was the beating up of some girls, and I have no idea whether this was fleshed out as it was around that chapter that I finally dropped it.
All in all, Read or Die was a manga that was supposed to be a short, light read, but instead ended up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I really shouldn't have this much to write over a 30 chapter manga in the first place. It put me in a reading slump (I think this came from my acquiring the habit of skimming across the page, which I could not stop when I picked up other stories), when in reality, I always see short stories as having an added advantage, as their length means there's less time to find an issue. Sadly it had many.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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