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HEAVEN'S DESIGN TEAM - 2017-2022 (Japan)/2018 - 2023 (US)
Amount read: 4.5 of 8 availabe
Official description: (from Barnes & Noble) "God created the heavens and the Earth — but, little-known fact, he outsourced the animals to the office of Heaven's Design Team! This hilarious and educational manga features weird real-life animals and puts even some humdrum critters in a strange new light.

THIS ISN'T YOUR AVERAGE DESIGN AGENCY!

Their assignment? Make the animals that will populate Earth to God's exacting specs! As their rejected designs pile up (literally), the team may worry that they'll never get it right, but that's often when inspiration strikes. The result might be a giraffe, a koala, or something new, weird, wonderful — and real! Welcome to the wild thing factory!

Now a hilarious anime!"

Weeb rating: 4/10. Maybe 3/10? I mean, it's got the Japanese work-life balance (or lack thereof), and tends to focus on Japanese animals, and Japanese food made from those animals (what do you mean, sea cucumbers are delicious. WTF, Japan).

Ass rating: 2/10. There's literally one point where a character describes the team as 'the place where romance goes to die.' They discuss animal reproduction, but not usually in anything even like a fun way.

Shit rating: 5/10. More discussion of this in the full review.

Violence rating: 3/10. Look, the test phase for designing new animals involves making them and seeing if they die - or try to eat the designers.

Crack rating: 5/10, just based on the premise.

Actual opinion: I got out six volumes of this manga from the library. It looks cute and low-drama, I said. This should be fun, I said.

After one volume, I wanted to give up.

After three volumes, I was enjoying myself.

After four and a half volumes, I'm giving up again. Occasionally the mangaka will insert something vaguely resembling a plot, but it's awkwardly done, doesn't last long, and feels tacked on while it's there. The manga as a whole feels like this is something I could safely give my nieblings, who are in elementary school: a combination of enough cuteness and enough gross-out details that they'd probably love it. But for my taste, it's too Educational, and not in a fun way. Maybe the anime is better, but I won't be looking to try.

Oh well. I've got a couple more series also out from the library still to try. Maybe something spooky for Halloween.