U19: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes
Added 2022-02-21 14:32:59 +0000 UTCManga Details
- Author: Kimura, Yuuji
- Author’s other works: All he’s done
- Run dates: Feb 13, 2017 to Jun 12, 2017
- Chapters/Volumes: 3 / 17
About the Manga
- Plot
- The adults have taken over.
- Society is focused on beating children into becoming respectable adults, imposing a caste system from S to E, but thankfully there are the Garage Kids, a secret force of teenagers fighting for the rights of kids. They use their power which is actually called Libido in order to gain superpowers.
- Anyway, there’s this kid named Eiji who really likes sewing and is in love with his childhood friend Tsukino, but is constantly beaten up and criticized for being too feminine by his abusive teacher, Tan. When a blood test shows that Tsukino has SSS-ranked blood, she is forcibly taken to a school for high caste people. Eiji flips out and awakens his libido powers, a sewing needle called Red Thread.
- Eiji is kidnapped by the leader of the Gareki who was his classmate Nanami the whole time.
- Together Eiji, Nanami, and Eiji’s friend Susuki get Tan arrested for being a pedophile, which he wasn’t, but also he kind of was
- We discover that the Adult Party is run by Shiki Yamoto, who is Adult Hitler.
- Yamoto reveals that the purpose of the caste system was literal eugenics and bloodline purification by setting up a breeding program and culminating in genocide.
- Meanwhile, Tsukino is assigned a “soulmate” named Subaru, a guy who she doesn’t like. Eiji rushes to the school to save her and fights the bioengineered perfect boy created by Adult Hitler with the help of a Bancho Gareki and an Alt Girl Gareki but Hitler blows him up because he melted. And there are more perfect melting teens with bombs but a hacker gareki hacks their bombs.
- The Gareki’s leader is like professor X and can transform into the ultimate warrior at the cost of his life force and he stops them from melting using his vague powers.
- Adult Hitler shows up in a UFO and they blow it up, and the sleepy Gareki summons a blue whale. These are all cool things that happened in this manga.
- Eiji fights Subaru who gets scissor powers and is mad that Tsukino won’t be with him. Eiji refuses to hurt a teenager but then they connect with each other as humans, they both drop their weapons, and Eiji beats the shit out of him.
- They then go to the island from jujutsu kaizen with their parents and talk about how they’re gonna win in the next election.
- Characters
- Kudou Elji
- Has a harry potter scar
- Likes sewing
- Against toxic masculinity
- Has a crush on Akari
- Confident
- Thread labido power
- Tsukino, Akari
- Very honest
- Wants to do good
- Love interest
- Perfect genes
- Nanami, Yuuya
- Class president
- Solid dude has MCs back
- Head of anti adult division
- Can make super sharp blades
- Tani
- Asshole teacher
- Gets taken out midway through
- Handa Kimie
- Founded garage kid
- Low vitality
- Essentially his libido is the fierce diety mask
- Shiki Yamato
- Old badass looking guy like Bang from OPM
- Very evil
- Good at convincing people to do things
- Segawa
- In love with Akari
- Seems nice but isn’t becomes razy
- Has scissor powers
- Kudou Elji
Why it failed
- Sexualizing women page like 3
- This chapter starts really weirdly like I have no idea what’s really going on
- Who calls it libido
- So much text
- Oh man this got a lot of nazi imagery
- Powers are kinda like part 6
- Why did they introduce all those classmates and they didn’t matter
- A protag awakening power with anger is kinda lame, it’s just too easy
- This series really thinks talking about WWII is a good idea in any capacity
- Being a d-rank seems to be fine? It’s like lower middle class
- Literally, this idea is how society already works it just is more explicit I guess?
- The plot is just really boring, nothing interesting happens
- None of the fights are interesting
- Ultimately no one that isn’t the MC has any agency, we literally don’t see anything from the villains besides being evil this is DBZ-tier writing
- This series has so many wasted characters, like why did you introduce the initial garbage squad then replace them? This is monster tamer girls again
- This is probably the worst shotgun everything we’re axed ending I’ve seen in a long time
- Their master plan of taking over a dictatorship via an election, ok
What it did well
- The art style is fun, looks like manga but is not generic
- Taking on toxic masculinity was not expected
- The cartoonishly evil villains is fun given the premise
- Framing the teacher for sexual harassment is kinda messed up but was at least creative
- I liked the ending lmao
Where it could have gone
- Needed to merge chapters like 1-2 should have been 1 chapter and ended with him awakening his power
- Maybe this could have been a Romeo and Juliet with superpowers
- Actually show life in the ranks
- Having the protag be 18 seems kind of weird
- Have the actual kids in the anti adult thing be students in his class so characters don’t come out of anywhere
- Imagine slowly all the kids are in it and it’s actually a resistance classroom
- Series needed to build out infrastructure for the entire series
- Benjamin button adult that ages backwards as the true badguy
Misc Thoughts
- I think this is the first manga to draw a mom actually looking her age
- Why did the libido awaken art in chapter 2 look worse than 3
- Def a chimera ant arc moment for a minute when he’s attacked by the super teen
Final Verdict
- Six-Word summary
- Albie: U 19? More like PU 19!
- T-Wolfwood: Teens fighting Nazis with sex drive
- T Root: in dystopian Japan, horny bonk you
- Agpuh: The flop that started a genre
- Genericman: Minors and libido, but not THAT
- Tucker: The sew-sew’s so…so-so.
- The Kids Next Door’s Bizzare Adventure
- It’s a death by sew sew
- Beef: They kept teasing creep but thankfully…
- Beef: The Red Thread of Ur-Age
- Flop or not
- Certified flop, go read Part 4 of Jojo or Part 6 if you’re weird
- Overall this series doesn’t understand what makes Jojo good, it’s like what I think Ebert said about battlefield earth. The director has seen the use of dutch angles but doesn’t understand when to use them
- Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about
