Ganbare, Douki-chan - Reviews

It's pretty obvious that this was primarily built around the individual images of cute girls looking right into the camera (as it were) and saying flirty/sexy things to the readers. To allow for this, the man of the story is almost always undrawn and in the position of the readers. There are also a few short comic strips, but they often just feel tacked on to give the focal pictures context. The story involves a girl, I assume the titular "Douki," who is worried about some other girls stealing the coworker fe has a crush on. At this point, there are three love rivals, two of whom look almost identical. In fact, even the main character only really feels different because of feir hairstyle. There's a frequent technique of showing the love rivals being flirty in the foreground while Douki looks on in jealousy in the background. There's another recurring set-up where a sexual scene (often with the love rivals) will be revealed to be a fantasy/nightmare of Douki's. Two storylines involve the man swooping in and pulling Douki aside...so that's about the level of romance we get.

[Reviewed at chapter 36]

TL;DR - It's enjoyable for what it is.

For context, this isn't a traditional "manga" but really a compilation of individual snippets or standalone, short comics from the artist's Pixiv.

The compiled book/volumes is called "Ganbare, Douki-chan" which is "Do your best, Douki-chan". It's just a bunch of extremely short comics or individual drawings of a few pretty girls who are all coworkers gunning for one dude, but it's pretty clear who the "main" heroine is (Douki-chan).

It's not really meant to be read like it's a coherent story - each of the "chapters" is really standalone and kinda episodic. So if you keep that in mind while browsing, it's pretty enjoyable for what it is. The artist's work/drawing is really pretty, and there are some pretty cute moments here and there.

This review was written after reading chapter 72

This series is a collection of illustrations, sometimes interspersed with very short comics to make the story-line more understandable.

The whole plot is about young office lady Douki-chan trying to cozy up with her nameless, faceless and generally spineless coworker. She’s in competition with her busty babe kouhai, who is objectively speaking a total slut. She also believes she’s in competition with her coworker’s old senpai from university, who is, you guessed it, a busty babe, although this one seems to only be a tease. Finally, there’s the childlike and way-too-familiar-with-strangers intern, who rapidly decides to root for our main girl.

Honestly speaking, there is little point in the whole competition, since it is quite clear that the coworker is completely smitten with the main girl: let’s be real here, to reject a rack like Kouhai-chan’s when it’s so willingly offered, you either have to be a total herbivore, or be in love with someone else.

The main interest lies in the illustrations themselves, which are gorgeous, regardless of their sexiness. Yom truly is a gifted artist, and it’s enough to make the series entertaining.

Story:
This manga is about Douki-chan who is in love with her co-worker Douki-kun, but it won't be that easy. She will have to compete with a Kouhai of her beloved and also with his Senpai.
The story isn't complex but it's still a lot of fun and it's full of funny moments. There are also several chapters that do not interfere at all in the story, which in my opinion is bad.

Art:
The art in this manga is very beautiful and I also found it very different from what I usually see, which makes this art very memorable for me. I also thought that this type of art fit a lot with this manga genre.
The backgrounds are nice, but there's nothing impressive to be surprised about.

Character:
The characters are cool and because of their personality they make a lot of funny situations occur, however, I found the characters in this manga to be quite clichés, without any among them that stand out.

Enjoyment:
Despite the negative points I mentioned, I think that whoever reads this manga will have fun or laugh even if it's a little because it has very funny scenes, however, as well as funny parts it has quite boring chapters, so if you are looking for a manga that you can make sure you like it or it will be good, this is not the case.
It's not a very memorable manga, the only thing that really struck me was the art for being so different from what I used to see.

Overall:
It's a cool manga and sometimes funny, but it's not impressive at all. I recommend reading as each chapter is very short. My grade: 6/10.