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Final Girl


My Review:

Classic slasher flicks have become a cultural touchstone in horror cinema that has spawned a number of tropes that define the genre: final girls, deadly shower scenes, and the slut characters dying first. Though slasher stories can at times be ludicrous they continue to engage audiences after decades of films. The genre has become the perfect vehicle for comedy and satire, and Final Girl is a silly little one-shot that tackles these tropes.

The story follows a young man that finds himself transported into the plot of a slasher flick that is reminiscent Friday the 13th. He wakes up in the body of Summer, the “slut” character, doomed to die first in the group. “Summer” is familiar with these tropes that are thrown at him at every turn as he scrambles to survive. Despite the constant danger that the main character finds himself in, the other characters barely acknowledge Summer and are unconcerned about her safety.

As a satire, it’s a silly little short comic that can maybe be appreciated by fans of classic horror slasher flicks. It’s a simple and absurd story that is good for a few chuckles and actually features some decent art. I don’t feel that it’s very memorable or anything great, the characters aren’t all that important but it was an amusing short read.


“Final girl!? In a horror movie, that’s the term for the female character who survives until the end!”


Trigger Warning: Nudity, Violence


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Sweet Poolside

Also by this author: A Trail of Blood, Happiness, The Flowers of Evil


My Thoughts

The premise for this manga was ridiculous enough to pique my interest and I honestly don’t know what I expected. A teenage boy who hasn’t grown any body hair meets a girl with a lot of body hair, and the two band together to shave. There is some good commentary about the way that society judges both men and women about body hair underneath the obvious ecchi scenario of a boy shaving a girl. This little manga would definitely appeal to folks with trichophilia, particularly the ones that find shaving arousing.

Ayako actually has a normal amount of body hair, but like many teen girls is embarrassed by it. I could relate to Ayako in that way because bodily hair can be a source of teasing from other teens. When I was in middle school I didn’t shave my legs or my armpits, my mother had warned me to hold off on shaving as long as I could so that my hair wouldn’t grow hard and thick like hers and she was right, I had soft baby hair. I began shaving in seventh grade, after wearing a shirt vest that had no sleeves and I got ridiculed mercilessly by a boy in my class. I was so embarrassed I went home and took my dad’s razor to shave my armpits.

“Even though our genders are different, Gotou and I might actually be similar…”

Ayako struggles with shaving, cutting herself left and right. It sounds ridiculous but when you first start, especially when nervous and ashamed, it’s understandable. I too used to get tons of nicks and cuts because I was clumsy and would push too hard, so in a way the manga is not entirely unbelievable. Like many slice of life manga, the story does not really go anywhere beyond the strange shaving friendship shared between the two main characters. However, I liked the message that body hair is natural and beautiful, it is a message of body positivity that I didn’t expect to find in a silly ecchi manga but here we are.


Warnings: sexually explicit content


two-stars