For my second story review, I'm reading daikirai desu.'s [url=http://www.mibba.com/Stories/Read/519172/Cruel-Greenie-and-Co/]Cruel Greenie and Co"/url].
At first glance, I was drawn in my the simple banner .gif. I liked the Japanese (Chinese? Korean?) wording over the top of the English words. It gives it a uniqueness and an interest factor. The roses along the edges don't ruin the simplicity, but it definitely adds more than it would if it was just the banner. I'm slightly hoping that they have something to do with the story though.
The summary was really interesting. The simple words from the different people really tells a lot about them, despite it being only one sentence each. The summary left me wondering how all the five people are going to come together during the chapters.
The very first chapter definitely had me interested. Between the open swearing and the "decapitated head", I knew I was in for a ride. In the second chapter, I learned that the writing on the banner is most likely Korean, which was one of the choices! I really like the laid back writing style. I don't write directly to the readers, but daikirai desu does it very well, although I can't help but wonder if their speech patterns are the same in Korea and/or Japan. I've always imagined them as prim and proper. From what I know, they're very reserved children who are seen to represent their schools and families.
The two girls, sort of freaked me out and confused me at the same time. I wasn't sure what they were doing outside the door still, or why they were so... strange.
Since the third chapter was a bit longer, I noticed a couple of grammatical errors such as: "I'm Bebe," Shorty smirked. "And Ms. Gothique over there is Tetsuko."
When you're writing dialogue and you put the speech tag in the middle, if it's the same sentence, there needs to be a comma after "smirked" instead of a period and the resuming first word should be lowercase. Example:
"I'm Bebe," Shorty smirked, "and Ms. Gothique over there is Tetsuko."
Keeping the resuming word lowercase is something that I struggle with. I'm really picky about the way things look, so sometimes it looks wrong to me and I have to keep it uppercase, but technically it's supposed to be lowercase.
As for the last three chapters, I was trying to get a feel for the plot of the story but couldn't seem to find them. When the girls were with the man, I thought maybe they were prostitues and then murderers, but when Youngmin thinks Bebe is cute, I'm wondering if there's something there?
Honestly, I have no idea.
Overall, this is a decent story. I would probably give it three stars and here's why. There's no obvious plot line which turns me off, because I don't want to feel like I'm reading and not getting anywhere. Events need to happen and the story needs to develop. The other main reason is that the characters aren't very developed. I mean, we read nothing about Youngmin past the first chapter and we know absolutely nothing about the girl's looks, past, or even where they live in the building.
At first I assumed they lived elsewhere in the building, but then it seems that they all share an apartment? So I'm not really sure. I also don't know what the building is like or what the apartment looks like on the inside. It's never described.
Overall, it's an okay story. It's interesting and there's a lot going on to keep a person's attention. The writing itself if pretty good, despite a few easily mistaken grammar mistakes. Just work on the characters (which could be hard to do with such short chapters) and the plot development and this thing could be really entertaining and really well done. (:
~~~
