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REVIEW: Grand Blue Dreaming Volumes 1-23 Manga Review




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danpmss



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 798
PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2026 3:34 pm Reply with quote
This one I'll just have to agree to disagree, but I do understand, its comedy is an either love it or hate it with rarely anything in between. Back when I started reading this back when I was starting with my university life, this was painfully unfunny in every way I could describe, and I didn't make it past the first couple of volumes.

But then, I decided to give it a second chance years later, with the release of the anime (which I watched just before the pandemic hit), and I'm actually surprised to say that I laughed all the way through, even more when watching it with my friends, with the sole caveat being the incestuous big sister obsessed with her little sister, which still is the only thing in the manga that reaaaaally doesn't work with me (and perhaps this single gag at the very start involving Iori putting sleeping pills in his cousin's drink, which luckily is a one-time only darker shade of black comedy in this which I particularly didn't like).

The hilarious part is that this was my precisely polar opposite reaction to Spy x Family (which I used to really like, and in a reread I just found it to be far less funny than what I used to, and funnily the very same caveat applies, but with Yor's incestuous little brotther).

I've been in both sides with Grand Blue, so while I disagree with the reviewer about just how well this works as a comedy, I can most definitely understand how it can also just not work at all for a lot of people... which brings me to at least give her my kudos for reading whopping 23 volumes of it either way, back in the day I wouldn't have done it even if there were more chapters available than what we had then.
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NiiLoC



Joined: 20 May 2026
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2026 4:06 pm Reply with quote
I will have to respectfully disagree with Grand Blue Dreaming review... it seems like this comedy is being judged an awful lot on "emotional depth" (not the type of criteria that I would use for such a story), and I don't find the characters to be shallow.

I do agree with the post above: the comedy/tone will either speak to you or it won't (not a lot of middle ground with this one).

I'm a fan of GBD. I enjoy the characters, the story, the scenery, and the art. There is no manga that is for everyone, but I feel it is not given a fair shake in this review.
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2488
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Wed May 20, 2026 6:39 pm Reply with quote
Comedy has always been subjective. Most the time it depends on the audience. I frankly laughed my ass off back when I first read this series. I'm older and middle-aged now so I might think it sucks rereading it, but I'm not gonna because I'm too busy irl. But I'll stick to my initial opinion anyway because whatever.
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TheTsunami



Joined: 19 Jul 2004
Posts: 149
PostPosted: Fri May 22, 2026 9:24 pm Reply with quote
I like to think of it as a college version of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where a lot of the humor comes from the cast being awful human beings much of the time.
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