Good-bye Geist

by Ryo Hanada

GEN Manga is Indie Manga from the Tokyo Underground .
GEN Manga was made to give fans an exclusive look at real doujinshi, otherwise known as indie manga, that they had heard about, but until now, unable to get their hands on. In its essence, doujinshi is manga traded among other manga artists. Manga for manga lovers!
Mystery is engulfing the face of Yuki's high school and Yuki is caught in the middle. As she battles the exhausting crowds during her daily commute she, like many other young girls in Japan, is sexually violated. Meanwhile, a boy is secretly filming her and someone is brutally slaughtering cats. What does it all mean? Enigma spins into ever darkening chasms in Good-bye Geist !

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Comics

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Also known as Ryou Hanada and Ryoh Hanada.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yuki is just one of too many Japanese schoolgirls who get groped on their commute to and from school by total scumbags on the trains. As if that weren’t bad enough, some weird male student is “secretly” filming her on his phone and some psycho calling themselves Spirit is murdering cats.

What does it all mean? Good question! A mystery should keep the reader in the dark but Goodbye Geist does this too well unintentionally by being poorly drawn and written. Besides Yuki, a lot of character designs are generic making it difficult to tell who’s who. Also, certain crucial panels are utterly puzzling because you can’t tell what they’re supposed to be.

The cat killer is supposedly revealed but it’s near impossible to tell what they look like when the page is in black and white and their uniform is white, with little black on the page. It’s like looking at a blank panel! Or the panel where Yuki’s groped – what was that supposed to resemble exactly?

Then there’s the unclear story of how the cat killings, groping, and awkward teenage romance meshes together, or rather fails to. Matsuhara, the male lead, is the Japanese version of the plastic bag camera guy from American Beauty, and the focus seems to be on his budding relationship with Yuki. But we keep flashing back to the cat murders, there’s a sub-story about another romance, we jump from the city to the country, and it ends very unsatisfactorily with what seems to be a series of disconnected scenes because the conclusion leans heavily upon the art which is severely lacking.

I kept hoping that Hanada would find a way of tying it all together but it just ended up an uninteresting mess. And why was the book called “Geist”, the German word for “spirit”? I know the cat killer is called Spirit but why use the German word in the title instead of the English word as it appears in the story? The book closes out with even more confusion as an unconnected short of two teenagers flirting with each other is tacked on after the main story!

I usually enjoy Gen Manga but this one was easily the worst one I’ve read yet. I wouldn’t recommend it even to fans of these kinds of comics.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. Made 3 attempts to read. Very bored and confused. this made no sense from the beginning and quickly gets worse.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good-bye Geist by Ryo Hanada and Julianne Neville

1 star

I’m honestly not sure how to describe the storyline of this manga. It’s not because I don’t want to spoil anything or because the storyline was so complex that I just don’t know how to word it. It’s because I didn’t know what the fuck was going on throughout all 176 pages of it.

I’m not sure what the purpose behind this manga was. The plot was confusing and convoluted. I wasn’t able to keep up with where the story was going with weird character breaks and storyline jumps. I used to be a huge manga lover. It was all I read at one point, but I’m honestly questioning my sanity it my manga tastes or if all manga I read was like this. Here’s the art (decide for yourself if you want to be tortured):

Whimsical Writing Scale: 1

Art Depiction: 1.5 (not really my style)

Character Scale: 1

Plotastic Scale: 0

Cover Thoughts: This cover is weird. I like the pink, but the longer I look the cover the more I dislike it.

Thank you, Netgalley and Gen Manga Entertainment for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[marky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got a little bit lost at the beginning of the story. Because the transition of the places were just so sudden plus the fact that the illustration was quite chaotic. So I was confused where the characters were and I also couldn't quite distinguish who this certain character was from the others because for me, they all pretty looked the same. Things would somehow get better if the illustrator/author just drawn the manga nicer with some details.

But I liked how the simple love story presented in here despite with the dark atmosphere. And the conclusion was a flashback and it was, I don't really know what the proper word to use, but I was taken aback. Still recommend this to manga lovers out there.

[Adela Bec · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why I didn't like this:
- confusing
- unnecessary story elements
- characters drawn too simplistic (couldn't tell them apart)
- unclear relation between different story elements
- and last but not least, I didn't care for anything that happened as I couldn't connect with any of the characters or the story

[Loredana (Bookinista08) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little taken aback by this manga because it is not what I usually tend to read in terms of manga (shoujo, school life, romance, one-shot, yaoi), but it was a really good read nonetheless!

I must say, I liked the story, it was very suspenseful and intense, and all throughout this manga I felt as if I was watching a thriller/horror movie, which says a lot!

The only bone I have to pick is against the characters' design. Except for Yuki, who is "special" because she is the protagonist (i.e. she stands out from the crowd), the other characters were basically identical to one another. I had trouble telling Chiba and Matsuhara apart, as well as Yoriko and what-was-her-name. Some scenes (that were crucial to the story!) I did not understand at all, simply because I couldn't tell who was who and what they were doing. The speech bubbles were in the wrong frame, and so on and so forth. I wanted to understand this manga from the first reading, but I guess I'll just have to re-read it in order to do that...

Even though the ending threw me off a bit, I put 2 and 2 together and I understood the motive behind the spirit's actions (or I think I did...). That was the point where I told myself: this was a great story! So all in all, I truly appreciate this mangaka's work and I am curious as to his other works as well! Good-Bye Geist really deserves its 4-star rating from me, no doubt about it!

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Good-Bye Geist' is part of GEN Manga's indie manga line. It's part of a series of manga that are usually only traded among manga artists. This one left me a little flatter than some of them.

A young high school girl named Yuki is being filmed on a train by a mysterious boy. She is also groped on the train one day. She has her friends ride along to watch over her, but they can't always do that. Along with these events are a series of animal murders. These also occurred seven years previously. Could all these ominous events be linked?

I found this story to be a little harder to follow. Part of it was an art style that made it tough to decipher what was happening, and part of it was a story that was a little incoherent in places. The art is good enough, and the story premise seemed good, but when it was all done, I couldn't piece it all together. Your mileage may vary.

I was given a review copy of this manga by Diamond Book Distributors and Gen Manga Entertainment in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this manga.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good-Bye Geist is really hit-and-miss. I love the premise, and expected the story to be wonderfully creepy, but there’s just one memorably disturbing scene among quite a few boring chapters. The art is similarly mixed - at times it’s so bad that I wasn’t sure just what I was looking at, but there’s one beautiful section with several lovely sun-dappled drawings.

I enjoyed the mystery element, but the story feels disjointed and very unresolved at the end. It’s still a decent manga, but I’m disappointed because it could have been much better.

Thank you to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Aleria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a bit random, an a little odd, but still a good read.
Everyone had such large heads! Lol. But I did kinda feel like the story was rushed a bit, could've added a few more pages. Still liked it though :)

[grayreadsmanga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich fand die Idee des Mangas sehr gut und die Geschichte wichtig, und da mir Devils' line von Ryo Hanada sehr gefallen hat habe ich mir den Manga gekauft. Der Anfang der Geschichte war gut und verständlich, auch wenn es schwierig war zu erkennen wer wer ist. Leider habe ich ab der Hälfte nichts mehr verstanden und konnte dem Verlauf der Geschichte nicht mehr folgen.

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weird concoction of thriller, with a school area hit by a cat-killer, and a student stalked on her daily train ride. It's a shame then that the premise isn't dealt with at all well, with indistinguishable characters, some weird dialogue (that again is very hard to apportion to the speaker) and a plot that loses any kind of spookiness in favour of modern teen romance stuff. The coda is a case in point, as it came across as needless and a waste of time. The pages before then aren't that exactly, but are a long way from where they should be.

[Alisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasn't particularly amazed by the premise of this, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

The art style is okay at best, but the plot was just confusing. There were too many things going on that were supposed to relate to one another, and it didn't work.

Put simply, it was just incoherent and unrelated, awkward plots, that didn't interest me. Sorry.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy and confusing. I didn't understand all that happened and it was really difficult to tell the characters apart, but I am still left with a feeling of dread. That means that I was definitely affected.
Received from Netgalley. I must say that I really appreciate that I have a chance to read dojinshi.

[amanda s. · Rating 3 out of 5]

****An ARC of Good-Bye Geist by Ryo Hanada was generously provided tot me via NetGalley in exchange for honst review.

Not really my favorite because I'm not a fan of this genre. I enjoyed it, though.

[P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one to read over again.

[GONZA · Rating 2 out of 5]

A YA manga, nothing spcial.

Un Manga Young Adult, niente di speciale.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND DIAMOND BOOK DISTRIBUTORS FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Saretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recensione su: http://wp.me/p3X6aw-tW
Review at: http://wp.me/p3X6aw-tW

[Rosie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.