   Girl-chama
2007-01-06 . chapter 20On the whole, I was not impressed with the story. Your writing style was very good, the analogies were grand as was the dialogue of the characters on which you lavish obvious attention- those being the ones you yourself created.
However, your characters seemed rather one-sided and you did none of the senshi any justice. Yamito is the angsty one, Kage is the angry fighter, Suteki is a ditzy pervert, and Kurai is the timid one. And there is no character growth from any of them to let the reader understand otherwise, not in internal reflection or thought, and not in deed either.
My biggest pet peeve was with Makoto, who seemed a vapid, lovesick ditz, and entirely too infatuated with a strange man simply because her friends were obsessed with his companions. At least, that was your justification for making her follow after him in the first place. She's never taken offense well and definitely never chased after anyone who insulted her or her friends, except to give them a beating. As this was the only real basis you created for any kind of attraction on her part it seemed really implausible. Minako and Ami were the same way, one-dimensional with only their respective cuteness or intelligence displayed, and neither of those well. You reference other qualities they have, but never create situations that would reflect them. The senshi are constantly overshadowed by their male counterparts and I think it detracts from what could be a very good story.
I think that the way the senshi interact with one another was done very well, except for the unbelievable jealously between Rei and Usagi. Again, this was because the way you made them attracted to Yamito was without foundation- because he was attractive? I'll be the first to admit that girls can be attracted to men on the basis of appearance alone, but you yourself should know that their is far more to loving someone than that. The love that you managed to portray between the two girls, though, was good, and I think clearly showed the loving relationship that they share.
My main problem with the story, I think, stems from the fact that you're a guy writing a guy's story with some characters that have turned out to be male Mary Sues. They do everything perfectly from fighting to angsting. Everyone likes them and the ones that don't like them can't conjure good reasons as to why they don't. They do everything better than the established characters and don't need any help from them. The only two times that this was not the case were when Usagi defeated the Higekitai and the passing mention of spars when Haruka defeated Kage. Even in the end, Usagi defeats Anubis because Yamito defeats Rei.
You don't write women very well. I think you write women with a very shallow understanding of them. Whenever I was reading the reaction any of the girls had to the Scion group or the reasons in their own head that any of them were falling in love with any of them- it just seemed ridiculous. There was no development, no lead into it. They met them, spoke with them, and then loved them. Even Usagi, who couldn't understand Yamito but loved him anyway, or at least loved him enough to be unfaithful to Mamoru in that she spent secret time with him. Women think ALL of the time, and justify things to themselves all of the time and have fears and insecurities, but don't automatically throw themselves at a man just because he looks good, especially not women like Rei who would not go from hating a man to loving him, just because he condescended to look at her.
I feel like I've started to ramble, but all of my misgivings are justified. I read the entire story and tried to be objective in the end, but while there are good points there are many, many holes, some of which I have addressed. I don't expect you to re-write the story or even care what I have written, but considering how much time and effort you put into this, I would like you to know that if you did, it could be something much, much stronger. |
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