Rosen Garten Saga - Reviews

TL;DR - This is seriously hilarious and unhinged.

If you're looking for something to fap to, this isn't it. There is a lot of explicit sex, but it doesn't turn you on because you're so busy laughing. Everything about this manga is completely out of control. The humor is on point and so outrageous that you will, without fail, burst out laughing almost every chapter.

In each chapter, every panel gets progressively weirder and weirder. There's not a single topic this manga avoids touching. You'll get it all - incest, yuri, BDSM, MILFs, Beowulf, narcissism, bestiality, dragon girls, idols, gender bending, traps, Persians, LGBT, diaper play, waterworks, lactation, King Arthur... literally everything. Nothing is milked to disgusting detail, usually just enough for one or a couple of hilarious panels/jokes.

I've had so many moments where I see something I just wasn't expecting and burst out loud laughing. If you're looking for NSFW entertainment, you won't go wrong picking this up. It's not exactly a masterpiece in storytelling but the humor and ridiculousness of everything that happens more than makes up for it. Also, despite the bizarre and fucking weird subject material, the artist is very, very good at drawing.

m*therfucker is that a jojo reference?!?!?!

but seriously this pretty much jojo on crack with element of record ragnarok

Overall (10): I've read over 300 manga and have seen even more anime and this might genuinely be my favorite.

First of all, if you really can't stand any form of degenerate or sexual comedy, this manga won't be for you. For everyone else I'd recommend to at least give this highly underrated manga a try until chapter 5+ (the first 2 chapters have the harshest jokes + it just gets better as it goes on).

Concept: Featuring characters from various mostly european legends with personalities and abilities based around various kinks/fetishes. It begins with a journey/adventure, has wacky preliminaries and a big tournament. Humor comes from the over the top absurdity, bizarreness, degeneracy combined with way too good art, fights, creative cast, chemistry between characters and story.

Art (10): The artstyle and the drawings are absolutely fantastic and feature many creative, detailed but easy to follow action sequences that easily top some very well known action manga imo and rival the likes of One punchman (the manga).

Characters (10): Currently (Chapter 29) there are about 30 major, named characters. All of which have an amazing, unique design and personality and could easily fill a top favorite characters list for me. It's the only manga where I actually remember every single character by name and have no problems distinguishing them. Characters have plenty of chemistry, funny interactions,  depth, reaction faces etc.

Story (8): Being hopefully far from over the story ranks the lowest as we still have plenty of mysteries and questions to solve. So far it's been engaging and interesting but nothing too special. It more so sets the scene for the characters to steal the show. Nonetheless there have been some nicely set up intriguing questions and foreshadowing.

Every chapter will surprise you anew, yes it can get even more bizarre and amazing. 

This is very unique series. It’s basically fighting hentai in the true sense of the words. What I mean?  The story is fighting series in a fantasy setting, where powers are based on various perversions and the characters get power from magic connected to something sexual [1]. It takes for some reason characters from various myths and other stories as well. It twists them to suit the concept [2]. As in most of the fighting series it has decent number of comical situations. The lewdness is high and ludicrous. If you can’t stand it avoid this series like a plague i.e. explicit content.

The story follows young woman Rin, who despite being beautiful is repulsive to men [3]. Men are literally unable to perform with her for some reason. On the contrary she seems to be popular with the girls. Despite her claims she is bit into it too, but this is not Yuri/GL. She lives in a small village until one day the prince Siegfried, legendary hero and ruler of the country, dies. Siegfried was powerful man protecting his people, but he had some issues with being womanizer, who was turning virgins to women all over the place. When her village is attacked, she stumbles upon a magic sword, which contains spirit of the hero [4]. This sends her on sort of bizarre adventure.

What I like on the series is interesting combination of elements which make up the story. It’s very adult themed as I said. This includes its lewd sense of humour [5]. It goes for over the top situations. It’s pretty unique in itself. It flows so far pretty naturally and has some larger picture in mind [6]. The only question how well it’s going to do in the long run. Characters are fun.

The art is really good. One of the better-looking manga series. Action sequences have right dynamic feel to it. The character design and style are quite distinct and aside purposefully exaggerated bodies it goes for more realistic feel in terms of anatomy.

If I were to summarize what is going on in the story in a few sentences you would think it’s insane and you would be right. The only other series, which tops this insanity is Made in Abyss imho. However, I enjoy this more than Made in Abyss, because while the series has some mysteries it isn’t as much mystery box. It’s crazy ride following bunch of outlandish characters and so strange as it may seem I do enjoy it so far.

Release frequency for new volume: so far around 5 months waiting.

Japanese difficulty 5/10 (see my profile for details about various difficulty scores)

This is an adult series, there is as expected almost no furigana.

This review is written after reading 4 volumes (all existing at the time).

Spoilers

[1] For example, there is a dagger wielder, who gets power from his masochism making him not just faster and stronger, but making his weapon bigger too.

[2] It’s very outlandish to see legendary hero Beowulf use his giant manhood as a sword.

[3] As I suspected there is some sort of curse on her.

[4] Yes, the hero Siegfried himself.

[5] For example the scene with the village chief and bandits was pretty hilarious.

[6] At the centre is the mystery behind Rin and her condition. I suspect she is a daughter of Siegfried and his wife … or related in some other way.

This is a gag manga filled with Adult gags. There's a lot of nudity and fucking, but usually with some sort of humorous effect. The epic sword battles--which are all drawn really well (in fact, the art in general is really dynamic and impressive)--are more about (sexually) subduing the opponents than killing them. A few of the fights are basically portrayed as clashes of fetishes and kinks (though still using swords and stuff). The fights going forward will be centered around the fighting tournament, Rosen Garten Shlacht. If it weren't for all the sexuality and lack of seriousness, the set-up would feel very similar to a Shuumatsu no Valkyrie type of set-up, with famous characters like Alibaba and Arthur Pendragon clashing. There's a lot of gender-bending and partial gender-bending. There's a recurring joke about Lynn's complete lack of sex appeal--like by having rapists unable to get erect when trying to rape fem--even though fe actually does look attractive from the reader's perspective. The mystery of Lynn's ugliness is sure to play a role as the story progresses.

It's a goofy manga with a lot of quick switches and random plot developments, leaving me in a state where I don't know what'll happen next in any given moment. In addition to that, the fight scenes are better drawn than a lot of serious fighting manga. It's a decent enough manga, assuming you don't mind the vulgar humor and explicit sexuality.

[Reviewed at chapter 11]