Please note

This review is all subjective and my own personal opinion. You do not have to agree with it, nor am I asking you to. I hope that this just helps you get an idea of what the manga I am talking about is like and form a basic and general consensus on it. The ratings I give anime and manga are mostly my personal overall enjoyment. This review may contain some spoilers, but all of them will be hidden using the spoiler tag. There will be some images sourced from the manga, but they are all from chapter one. I have not seen the anime adaptation. TL;DR will be at the bottom.

Introduction

Netsuzou Trap, a manga written and illustrated by Kodama Naoko, presents the story of Yuma, who is nervous about having her first boyfriend. She goes to her childhood friend Hotaru for some advice, only to offer herself as "practise" to her. Only with that then they realise the immense interest they have in each other, whether they accept it or not. With their boyfriends in the picture, how long can they keep it a secret?

Plot

This manga wastes no time getting into what it was here for. This manga does not really hide the fact that it presents itself as very sexual, and gets into it quite quickly.

I do not think I can show the rest of the page. The image above is from ten or so pages into the first chapter of Netsuzou Trap. With this, it sets the tone of what the rest of the series will be like. I will talk more about the sexual content in a later dedicated part of the review. Moving on, the plot largely revolves around the shared sexual experiences of both Yuma and Hotaru as well as the relationships of the aforementioned characters and their boyfriends. Both of the aspects I just brought up are key parts of the story, and remain that way for majority of the manga. It is in the name after all, a major theme of the manga is netorare, which involves a character with a partner being intimate with someone else. If such themes are not to your liking, then this manga is probably not for you.

The events that play out can vary between each chapter, each having themes of sexual nature between the two girls or the relationship they have between each other and their boyfriends. This keeps a consistent tone throughout the manga, making it hard to be surprised as to what comes next. The plot is quite straightforward in what it tries to convey, being easy to understand and read. However, I failed to find the plot engaging nor very interesting as I read the manga. This could be partly because of the characters (which I will expand on later) and because the events I did not find very compelling. There were quite a few instances where the situations were just crafted to put Yuma and Hotaru into a position to do certain acts, which for me I did not really enjoy. To be fair, most of this manga is not to my tastes, so for someone who enjoys stuff like ecchi this may appeal to them more. The more engaging parts of the plot for me were the parts involving the relationships between the girl's boyfriends. Compared to the moments focusing on the sexual moments between Yuma and Hotaru, I felt as though the moments revolving around their boyfriend's relationships and the issues surrounding them were much more engaging. But then again, that could just be my taste.

Furthermore, the pacing for the manga was alright, it never felt too rushed although at times it could get into things too quickly. As I stated in the beginning of this section, the manga quickly gets into things showing us all of the characters we need to be concerned about and presenting us with the tone of the manga that is maintained throughout. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as there are many cases of manga wasting too much time to get into things, leaving the reader disengaged and positioned to drop the manga. Thus, this manga can quickly get their reader immersed into reading it and keep them reading. At some points of the story I felt quite bored but never bored enough to drop the manga.

As for the developments in the plot, I cannot say as to whether it provided shock turns or if it was overly predictable or not, as I was disengaged at times. There were some moments in the manga where I was just baffled at what happened, either because I did not expect it at all or it just seemed stupid for me. Without spoiling too much, there was development throughout the duration of the manga, but it was not always satisfying. The ending

Spoiler, click to view

which is an extra doujin chapter was nothing particularly special, it did wrap things up but it still felt like more was needed.

Characters

Here are the two main characters, with Yuma on the left and Hotaru on the right. First to discuss is Okazaki Yuma. Most of the manga is through her perspective, following her and how she sees the events that play out throughout the manga. Most of what happens between her and Hotaru is from her perspective. She is seen to be nervous and cautious around romantic relationships, often going to Hotaru for advice (which more often than not leads into 'practise'). However as I sit here trying to write about her character, I struggle to come up with everything. It is difficult to grasp the correct words to describe her, as my recollections of her paint her as a plain and bland character. I found her to be quite forgettable. Luckily, her interactions with other characters make up for it. How she engages with the other characters of the manga can be interesting and make for the most engrossing parts of the manga. The second main character of Netsuzou Trap is Mizushina Hotaru. In the manga, especially near the beginning, she is presented as a very sexual character. As seen in the picture above, this is contrasted with Yuma's recollections of her in the past, making her change interesting. She is often seen pursuing Yuma, all in the name of 'practise'. There is more to her character of course, but that is a major part of her personality. She was one of the more engaging parts of the manga as it was interesting to see what she was going to do next. The developments between her and Yuma were one of the main parts of the manga, and one of the biggest draw factors too. These are the two notable side characters of Netsuzou Trap, with Fujiwara on the left, and Takeda on the right. The two characters in the image above are the boyfriends of the female main characters. Fujiwara is the boyfriend of Hotaru, and Takeda is the boyfriend of Yuma. Fujiwara is an intriguing character, with his somewhat quiet and cold personality. He is a bit mysterious, and parts of his character start to unravel throughout the manga. He is painted as the

Spoiler, click to view

character to hate in the manga, given how he treats other people. Without spoiling too much, the author does well to make you hate him and wish for his downfall. That said, how things end for him are not particularly satisfying.

Lastly there is Fujiwara, who is most likely the easiest character to like in the manga. What he has going for him is his kind and honest personality that when compared to the other characters, certainly stands out. He helps make reading the manga a bit more bearable, and his relationship between Yuma was also compelling.

There are not many characters other than the ones I have mentioned above, with the others being side characters not given much attention. The manga wants to draw our attention to these four characters, and thus does not add other characters as distractions.

The ecchi

It is no surprise that this manga is an ecchi, it does not try to hide it. As I have mentioned before, the ecchi is a key part of the plot and the ecchi often pops up throughout the manga. Now I must note before I continue discussing this is that I am not a fan of ecchi and I stay away from it when I can. So I will probably be biased here. Moving on, with the ecchi often popping up in the manga, the quality of the implementation varied. Sometimes it would have purpose, at other times it would feel just like fanservice, which I suppose would appeal to fans of the ecchi genre. In many instances the ecchi scenes were under the premise of being 'practise' between Yuma and Hotaru, which at times would feel weird and out of place. I do recall one scene in particular in the later parts of the manga between Yuma and Hotaru where I was just shocked at what happened.

Spoiler, click to view

I do not remember the specifics, but this happens at a point in the story where Hotaru has stopped pursuing Yuma, and almost out of nowhere, Yuma asks Hotaru to 'practise' with her. This had some purpose, but I was still shocked.

But if ecchi is something you want, this manga certainly has what you desire. If not well, I am afraid to say there is not too much else in the manga for non-ecchi fans. The ecchi can certainly overshadow the rest of the manga and lead one to dropping it.

Art

Kodama Naoko's art work gets the job done. It present the characters and the situations they find themselves in well enough. Compared to other manga art styles it can look a little basic but I have low standards, so I was able to get over it fairly easily.

A quick note about the author. Kodama's work are mainly Yuri and shoujo ai focused, so she certainly has experience in making manga of that kind of genre. She seems to have also have made hentai's in the past, which makes sense considering the ecchi in this manga. I have not read any of her other works so I cannot really compare Netsuzou Trap to anything else she has done. Most of her other works are either small or published in anthologies, and Netsuzou Trap is probably her most known work.

Conclusion and TL;DR

I read this after hearing of its notoriety and the conflicting views people had on it and so I figured this was something I had to figure out for myself. After finishing it, I was a little unsatisfied. It was not as bad as I saw some people tout it to be, nor was it as good as I saw some laud it to be. I just found it to be average at best and forgettable. It had some things going for it but overall nothing to really engage me. How you experience this really depends what you go in looking for. If you want a Yuri with lots of ecchi and some netorare mixed in, then this might be for you. If anything I just mentioned is not to your liking, then it would probably be best to put this to the side. To summarise this review:

• The plot quickly gets into things and shows what it is here for.
• The plot mainly revolves around the relationship between Yuma and Hotaru, as well as their boyfriends, and the trysts they are hiding from them.
• The plot was paced decently and the development was not always satisfying.
• The characters can be forgettable and boring to read. However, their relationships is one of the most engaging parts of the manga.
• The ecchi I would imagine appeals to fans of the genre, but it can sometimes be implemented poorly.
• Art style that gets the job done.

That brings us to the end of the review. I did ramble on in some places and go off, so I apologise if I talked too much. If you want to send me feedback on my reviews, please post a comment on this thread. Hopefully you were able to get something out of this review. If you did not like this review, then I apologise for wasting your time.