Lunch with Sushi and Tofu

What’s up guys? It’s Tofu here doing my very first manga post! What’s more exciting is that I’m joined by Sushi who’s a writer amongst the team at Metanorn and at his very own blog named SushiGoKart. Before we go on to bring you the first take on Trinity Seven, be warned that this is a rant post and contains minor spoilers. Read at your own risk. Besides that, I hope you enjoy our special rant collaboration!

Trinity Seven「 トリニティセブン 7 」
Saitou Kenji
Serialized in: Dragon Age
Genre: Ecchi, Harem, Fantasy, School Life, Shounen, Action, Supernatural
Currently Scanlated Chapters: 20 (In-progress)
Read ONLINE @ SOMEMANGA | Download Volumes @ MANGATRADERS

Tofu: Everything about Trinity Seven screams out “I just wanted to create a manga where I can release my sexual desires” from Kenji Saitou. You’ve got the cousin (who’s also a childhood friend of the protagonist and totally wants to jump in his pants), then you’ve also got oversized, pointy boobies and a protagonist who’s not shy of voicing such sexual references in public (plus he totally wants to get in his cousin’s pants too).

In all honesty, Trinity Seven is a pure harem anime that would make you cringe if you’re into solid storylines, characters who aren’t useless and if you’re the type of person who wishes not to see forced fan service. But hey, if you’re into such bad story telling manga’s with the female characters only purpose is to ease your sexual frustrations then this is your manga guys (and girls). Powuh to anyone who can sit through this.

I was seriously lost in daze thinking about how I can even say anything about such a poorly written story which only exists so readers can bask within the fan service. The pacing is inconsistent; rushing pass the prologue (which is practically Chapter 1) without a care for anything at all. Both Sushi and I got confused as to what’s going on more than once. To make things worse, they continue to force comedy that fails and force fan service whenever they can. Unlike other train-wrecks where you watch/read it for how bad it is, you can’t even do that for Trinity Seven! It’s that bad!

I beg the manga gods not hurt me as I write down these words… I actually liked Trinity Seven after the first chapter. Sure it was a bit odd that the first panel of the manga had the lead character groping his cousin. Maybe the premise didn’t make much sense either. But when a hot girl jumps in with a big gun, she always manages to hit the soft spot of my critic’s heart.

But things soon took a turn for the worse…

In all seriousness though the whole mystery surrounding the Black Sun and the creation of an alternate reality were concepts that I could rally around. As Tofu said, I really didn’t understand what was going on or why randomly denizens of a generic Japanese town were being dematerialized by a celestial object that had no business being that close to earth. These were good signs right? Every instant classic that I had watched or read spent the introduction confusing the shit out of me. Does it look like I am being sarcastic? Tell me one person who can explain Ghost in the Shell 2^nd Gig in a completely coherent manner and prove me wrong!

Tofu: Well before I continue this rant that’s only making me look bad (meh, it was fun bagging about Trinity Seven with Sushi), let me collect my thoughts. Walking into Trinity Seven without any prior knowledge as to what it was, we already see a groping scene… great.

The story needs more refinement if it wants to attract readers through other means than the pure harem element going for Trinity Seven and sadly, our protagonist is just really a sexually frustrated boy who wishes to get in his cousin’s pants. There is nothing in Trinity Seven that has or will help it redeem itself from what I’ve read between Chapters 1 and 2. Saitou Kenji… you should’ve just gone with doujinshi instead. At least then, it would make total sense why the story is so poorly written and why every female character screams “I want your penis” to the protagonist.

Sushi: Honestly Tofu shouldn’t be ashamed of his poor writing. If anything it serves as an analogy for the horrendous scripting of the first two chapters. Boobs will only take me so far. In Trinity’s Seven’s case I only made it up page 18 of the Second Chapter.  Hmm… that means the boobs didn’t even take me that far… I can’t believe this manga is making me question my love of breasts!

But to speak from a politically correct standpoint, how dare this anime be so damn chauvinistic. Fan service is an understandable phenomenon (I can’t believe I am describing it as a phenomenon…) but the underlying tone of the manga is condescending toward females. In order for the main character to become the best mage in the world he has to defeat or ‘violate’ the Trinity Seven, the greatest female mages at the school he is going to.

Wait… VIOLATE?!?! I can’t believe they just went there!  Trinity Seven specifically seeks to place women in a position of power just to have men come and tear them down! The headmaster of the school who specifically instructs the lead to ‘violate’ these seven women supports this sentiment.  It’s utter bullshit. To me there isn’t a fine line between objectifying and degrading women but if there was, Trinity Seven drew, crossed, shitted, sprayed painted, punted, overkilled, buried, held a funeral, and spilled milk on it.

It was fun talking about this series with Tofu and hopefully we can rant about the other great series from this venerable genre! I hope to get to know all you Sekijitsu fans out there even better! Sushi out!

“This is so bad… just shoot me already…”