Chise (Dark Hirkey)

Review Details

The client provided a page by page script with general poses and a basic flow between them as well as all the dialog. The artist handled panel layout, flow, and camera direction with some minor feedback from client.

Note: I’ll be using he/his and Dark interchangeably with Dark Hirkey.

General Impressions

Returning again, Dark Hirkey brings his artistic style to another doujin featuring characters from a manga turned anime. This time we enter a more magical world some time in the future story of Mahoutsukai no Yome.

Right from the beginning of this doujin we get a glimpse of Dark's background art. His use of dark and light and a slightly more painterly style comes through with a lovely rendering of the outdoors as the two main characters return. It works as a good establishing shot of the environment and a tease of our characters to kick off the story. I like one particular detail of Dark using a small border of white space to separate the characters from the background, allowing them a little room to be separated instead of blending in with the rest of the image.  [Ex. 01].

It's a little sad that we only get a glimpse of background art in this story as we quickly move on to the proper introduction of the characters and the inside of the house. From here on the background will often dissapear, which can be expected for a hentai doujin, but it is a little dissapointing not seeing that great art pop in from time to time.

As with Dark Hirkey's other works, his style really comes through with the characters. We see a combination of bold and thin line art as well as slightly sketch-like style on parts of the shading [Ex. 02]. We also see the use of large contrast with white and black being more emphasized than other doujin where greys mellow out the page more.

Lastly, throughout this doujin we get to see some experimentation with dynamic visuals and camera placement. It's a good extension from his previous works and we get treated to some fun panels, however with this comes some awkwardness. I'll touch on this in later sections, but the dynamic camera and difficult angles does lend to some inconsistency with Chise's breasts, proportions, and face. This can be a little distracting while reading sometimes, but I believe the effort is clear and the final result is still a good, fun read.

Characters

The stars of this story are Chise and Elias. Starting with Chise, we see a decent transition of her character from the anime to this doujin. Admittedly, I used the anime and not the manga when providing reference material to the artist so Dark's represenation of Chise is based on that design. 

Chise's design is pretty simple with her short hair and casual clothes, and I think Dark does a good job showing her design in his style. Her sweater and skirt combination is present throughout the whole story and it looks fairly good even in more difficult positions, but as I alluded to in the previous section, there can be some awkwardness with Chise's face. There are some good renders and some slighly more strange renders of her face during the course of the story and  some readers may find it a little distracting. For example, page 5 has a slightly more pointed and flat rendering with the hair causing a little of that issue, but overall the quality isn't bad. [Ex. 03][Ex. 04].

In a similar vein, Chise's body is drawn quite well though most of the doujin with some more awkward representations popping up only here and there.  Page 12 has one such example where her upper body and breast separation seems a little awkward.  However, the very next page has as a similar pose of held up insertion from behind, but the upper body and breasts feel more correctly proportioned. [Ex. 05][Ex. 06]. These inconsistencies are spread out over the story and in various degrees of noticeability so each reader will likely have their own opinion on the degree on which it occurs.

Our other main character is Elias with his character design being more complicated than Chise's not only due to his outfit, but also... you know, his head being an animal skull. While he doesn't appear nearly as much as Chise (well, his face doesn't appear as much) I'm happy to say that Dark did a great job when he does appear. His appearance is rendered well and his skull-head looks great, even when doing some subtle emotions. [Ex. 07] [Ex. 08] 

These two characters play well together on the page and while they have the majority of the story, I will give a shout out to Silky. Dark really nailed Silky's design for the short time she appears and I appreciate the effort made on a minor character.

Flow & Camera

I can easily say that I like the flow of this doujin. Panels tend to work well next to each other and action is pretty easy to follow. Dark will use close up panels to show important actions or the flow of action while the bigger panels give the scene and body position context. One example is page 6: We get teased of a character entrance with context to Chise position followed by a large panel giving the full context of the characters and their actions. Then we then get a two panel flow of Chise's surprise and reaction to knowing she's not alone. [Ex. 09]. This is just one example of the kind of flow that I find appealing and this story continues to give good flow through the rest of it.

The camera is similarly well done throughout the doujin. Dark does a great job positioning the camera to create fun compositions that create some really dynamic scenes. The downside to this is that sometimes the choice of camera will occasionally interfere with the flow I like so much, but more often will create difficult angles that can lead to some awkward body drawing.

For the good, there's a panel on page 7 that I want to talk about because it's really simple, but the composition is interesting to me because of it. The camera isn't dutched or angled up or down in particular, but it's placed low enough that we view most of Chise's body, giving a gravure shot under the skirt, but the camera is also zoomed out enough that we have most of Elias standing in the background with just the top of his head cut off. [Ex. 10]. With Chise being the speaker in this panel, as well as being embarrassed and not wanting to look at Elias because of her earlier actions pleasuring herself, this panel stood out because it shows everything in that context. We see her underwear under the skirt which is what she's embarrassed about, we see her blushing face and her being turned away from Elias, and we don't get to see Elias' face which is what Chise doesn't want to see right now. While a simple placement of the camera and characters, I feel like it did a lot of storytelling.

For the bad, I'll mention a panel on page 10. While I like the choice of position for the camera giving a dynamic upward view of Chise and Elias in action, I feel the upper body of Chise suffered a little from that angle. The breasts and thickness of the body feel slightly awkward to me which I believe came from a difficulty in capturing the angle of the body in relation to the angle and proportion of the genitals that make up the foreground and focus of the action. [Ex. 11].

Overall, the choices for the camera and the compositions created from it are pretty good and I really like the ideas being expressed here. The only downside is the slight inexperience in drawing the human form from certain angles that can create slightly inconsistent body quality.

Sexual Content

This doujin has a total of 15 pages, 8 of which contain explicit sexual intercourse while 5 pages have ecchi or foreplay content. The foreplay begins on page 3 where the final panel has Chise unconsciously reacting to her arousal. Insertion begins on page 8 with a lovely 2/3 page panel before continuing until the final page with the climax occurring on page 14 with a nearly full-page panel.

The sexual content of the story goes through a number of positions. It all starts with missionary position before a very small stint in a side position before Chise is picked up and held while being penetrated from behind. This final position gets the most time "on screen" and while the climax technically takes place in this position, continuity is broken for the climax itself which is drawn in a different position before the story continues. Full disclaimer, that is mostly my fault as the commissioner who provided example poses and I didn't think about the continuity of the climax pose at the time.

Now, since I've already mentioned the choice of dynamic camera and the good and bad it can bring, I'll mention some of the good I think it brings to the sexual content of this story. One such example is on page 9 where we have a top down camera showcasing a missionary position from a head down camera angle. [Ex. 12]. I found this to be a pretty good, dynamic view with a great sense of movement and action with subtle speed lines used in the contrasting black and white as well as on the breast. I also liked the use of layers with the internal view happening behind the primary action of the panel with Chise's body overlapping parts of that image.

There's also a particular angle that I think Dark did a great job with in this doujin that is showcased a few times, but page 13 has two nice examples. It's a from below view that gives a close up of the vagina while showing the rest of Chise's body above. The foreshortening on the body and arms works great as well as the under view of the breasts.[Ex. 13][Ex. 14]. The fun angle gives a good sense of the action and, personally, I think the more POV perspective helps bring the reader into that actions

As for the climax of the story, it takes place on page 14 and is really well drawn. I think Dark gave extra attention to what I consider the most important page of the story as the image is well drawn and Chise's expression is similarly given a small upgrade from normal.

The last page provides a pull out scene for readers who like a little something after the climax and the story concludes with a small tease of Silky having spied through the doorway.

Final Thoughts

Once again I think Dark Hirkey brings another fun doujin to life in his style. There's a slightly rough exterior like the last doujin I reviewed from him,  but the progress and growth of his art is becoming clear and I look forward to what else he has in store for us.