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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 14, 2026
I’m no stranger to manga that I’m not the target audience for, but Bless is so far out of my orbit that it might as well be circling Pluto. I enjoy it just enough to keep from dropping it, but it’s definitely one I wouldn’t care if I stopped following.
The entire volume is taken up with this big make-up show competition, which is great if you care and less if you don’t. Again, I am not the reader this is aimed at, but even I recognize that you can’t just toss the make-up out of the series.
And, hey competitions are a hallmark of manga since time immemorial. Yet this doesn’t get my highest level of attention because it makes a couple missteps. Some are intentionally part of the package, some are not.
Yes, professionals are gonna professional, but this is so self-serious that it could stand to lighten up. It would cut the drama, but this isn’t a world championship of lawn bowling, it’s a mid-tier make-up event.
And again, you might be excited to see the rhinestones come out, but I am not. For some reason all I can think of is the cooking battles in Iron Wok Jan and how much more engaging they were.
Rather than focus on Aia and Jun, who are brought together by the most ridiculous bit of luck, it focuses on sub-characters I don’t care about and aims to make this outrageous, but doesn’t get there.
And it just goes on. I don’t need the backstory between the one twin at Aia’s school and the rival who popped up last time. What we got was enough and seeing them find common ground was a little drawn out.
Nakano, Aia’s rival, has his own dilemma and that goes for high drama AND an extended lesson on skin care that bored me to tears. It sits there like a lump and made me feel like a hibernating bear full of Ativan.
This series is staggeringly alive when Jun and Aia are together and they’re the focus and it absolutely struggles when they’re apart. This is bombastic as heck, but if you’re only partially into it then it’s hard to get swept along with it.
But that’s partly on me. This can only be made so interesting to me and I do wonder if this is genuine on my part or just being a jerk because I’m less enthralled with it than other manga. I do think some of these criticisms are legit, but it’s important to know where I’m coming from.
This kind of needs to recognize that these two achieve more as a team and then just accept that. I do think Aia only working with Jun and vice-versa would create some interesting dilemmas, but that’s just me. Instead we have to wait until narrative happenstance brings them back together.
3 stars - I’ll still see where we go from here, I am not entirely disinterested, but I’m not expecting this to knock my socks off any time soon.
The entire volume is taken up with this big make-up show competition, which is great if you care and less if you don’t. Again, I am not the reader this is aimed at, but even I recognize that you can’t just toss the make-up out of the series.
And, hey competitions are a hallmark of manga since time immemorial. Yet this doesn’t get my highest level of attention because it makes a couple missteps. Some are intentionally part of the package, some are not.
Yes, professionals are gonna professional, but this is so self-serious that it could stand to lighten up. It would cut the drama, but this isn’t a world championship of lawn bowling, it’s a mid-tier make-up event.
And again, you might be excited to see the rhinestones come out, but I am not. For some reason all I can think of is the cooking battles in Iron Wok Jan and how much more engaging they were.
Rather than focus on Aia and Jun, who are brought together by the most ridiculous bit of luck, it focuses on sub-characters I don’t care about and aims to make this outrageous, but doesn’t get there.
And it just goes on. I don’t need the backstory between the one twin at Aia’s school and the rival who popped up last time. What we got was enough and seeing them find common ground was a little drawn out.
Nakano, Aia’s rival, has his own dilemma and that goes for high drama AND an extended lesson on skin care that bored me to tears. It sits there like a lump and made me feel like a hibernating bear full of Ativan.
This series is staggeringly alive when Jun and Aia are together and they’re the focus and it absolutely struggles when they’re apart. This is bombastic as heck, but if you’re only partially into it then it’s hard to get swept along with it.
But that’s partly on me. This can only be made so interesting to me and I do wonder if this is genuine on my part or just being a jerk because I’m less enthralled with it than other manga. I do think some of these criticisms are legit, but it’s important to know where I’m coming from.
This kind of needs to recognize that these two achieve more as a team and then just accept that. I do think Aia only working with Jun and vice-versa would create some interesting dilemmas, but that’s just me. Instead we have to wait until narrative happenstance brings them back together.
3 stars - I’ll still see where we go from here, I am not entirely disinterested, but I’m not expecting this to knock my socks off any time soon.
Displaying 1 of 1 review