OTHELLO.
STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
7
RELEASE
September 13, 2004
CHAPTERS
28
DESCRIPTION
Yaya’s high school friends haven’t been very nice. They call her “Yaya the cry-ya! Yaya the misfi-ya!” But no matter how badly they act, Yaya is just too naïve and trusting to believe the worst of her friends. Hard-rocking, butt-kicking Nana is just the girl to grab hold of Yaya’s timid demeanor and turn it upside down. Nana exposes Yaya’s “friends” as slime bags, doles out punishment, and does it all with style. Can there be anything that terminally shy Yaya and hyper-confident Nana have in common? Well, for one thing, they’re the same person...
(Source: Del Rey)
CAST
Nana
Yaya Higuchi
Moriyama
CHAPTERS
REVIEWS
RoseFaerie
43/100This was definitely a manga. That someone wrote. It eerily reminds me of my stories from elementary school.Continue on AniListI am an aspiring author, and I've been writing stories since elementary school, beginning with Beezus and Ramona fanfiction that I dictated to my mom because I was still only learning the basics of writing. (I think I was in kindergarten.)
I can't say that my stories from my childhood were the peak of fiction. My personal passion project from that time was about Jaminica Johnson, who was very much "Lolz so random" and "Not like the other girls", all while having very, very bizarre misadventures. (Justin Bieber is an antagonist in this three part graphic novel series.)
Unfortunately, Othello really channels the stories I used to write. I just wanted to read something new and I randomly started this one. I wouldn't have if I knew the route things were going to go. This review will have spoilers, because I don't exactly recommend it, and I've really got to expose the insanity that is Othello.
So, our lead, Yaya, is constantly being bullied by her so called friends, who constantly put her down. One day, her alternate personality, Nana emerges to teach her bullies a lesson. Nana appears whenever Yaya's under a lot of psychological stress or goes unconscious. (As a side note, this manga does not accurately portray DID in the slightest.) Yaya also is falling in love with her classmate Morimiya, who knows her secret, but she can't understand why she's having all these black holes in her memory.
So...Othello has an absolutely insane plot. It begins with Nana getting back at Yaya's so-called friends in absolutely ridiculous ways, which usually involves beating them up. She also flirts with Morimiya, who is a bit confused at first since Nana and Yaya carry themselves and style themselves differently. The bullying was a bit extra, but I could live with it, and I was curious about Morimiya's band. Nana was just a bit much.
Then, the second arc takes things up a notch. Nana becomes friends with Yaya's celebrity crush after he kidnaps her. (He saw her sing and wanted to take advantage of her stage presence.) Yaya befriends a new transfer student who wants to date Morimiya. I really appreciated the way they portrayed her bullying of Yaya, since it's more subtle and true to life.
But then... the transfer student starts a human trafficking ring where she prostitutes girls out under the guise of giving them show business jobs to meet their celebrity idols. And Yaya gets duped, and then there's this whole sky-diving battle between this girl and Nana to try and get the contract back... This is the part of the manga where the bullying gets super dramatic and over the top to the point where you can't suspend your disbelief.
The end of the manga where Yaya realizes that she has an alternate personality was actually much better. I actually became invested in the end of the manga. (It literally ended once I started to like it. Such a shame.)
As for the characters: Yaya could have been a very interesting character. I wish the manga actually showed Yaya become stronger as a person and not have to rely on Nana, but unfortunately I didn't get to see that. Yaya spends most of the series stuck in a cycle of abuse, repeatedly rescued by Nana. Heck, she didn't even have much chemistry with the other characters. She became interesting at the end, and it was interesting to explore her psyche, but she really doesn't do much.
Nana on the other hand really annoyed me at first, but then she grew on me towards the very end. She was just so loud and unbelievable. Like this character was as hyper as Jaminica Johnson, but with the power of my self-insert Mary Sue OCs from like sixth grade. I do feel like the confident, more self aware Nana was more endearing than the overbearing beat-em up Nana who becomes rivals? with an alligator.
Morimiya was kind of bland, and I got annoyed with him for not telling Yaya about Nana because it wasn't apparent until the very end that she would go into such strong shock over her discovery. I didn't care about him until the end.
I didn't really like anyone else. Everyone else was either a bland side character or horribly unlikable (mostly the latter).
The art was also really ugly. When I went in, I was expecting cute art and fashions, but I didn't get that. Nana could be nice looking from time to time, but I really was unimpressed.
It's such a shame that it ended once I finally started to like it, but at the same time I can't say that I want more of it. If you want horrendously out of control, hyperactive shoujo manga where the characters are more likely to jump out of a plane rather than have a normal conversation... read this. If that isn't what you're after... Avoid it. Avoid it please.
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SCORE
- (3.3/5)
MORE INFO
Ended inSeptember 13, 2004
Favorited by 17 Users