Shimoku Kio (木尾士目) is a Japanese manga artist best known for his manga Genshiken, which was originally serialized in the Afternoon Magazine. It was later published in Japan by Kodansha, which produces Afternoon Magazine, and by Del Rey in the United States. Genshiken is an anime, manga, and light novel series about a college otaku club and its members.
Originally, I had quite the positive reception to the first part of the manga. It was subtle, the themes on fantasy/reality were well handled, and the passing years made for a quaint look into the extrapolated formative years of the still-in-education adult.
I liked it so much in fact that I completely forgot there was another part following Shimoku Kio's masterwork. A work that I had originally dropped when it was animated.
And I have come to realize that I had made the right choice. Gone are the story in the details. Here comes the completely contrived fantasies of a man far removed from his own self-imposed reality checks. It circumvents its own shallow interpretations and subscribes to the same old story.