Read Or Die Franchise Review

Or: One Funny Little Autistic Woman Gets Obsessed With One Other Funny Little Autistic Woman.

I think the way it started was being ravenous for more OVAs. I’d come off watching Diebuster (18+) and Gunsmith Cats (18+) and I wanted more 90s/00’s animation, and slightly hidden stuff, and exceptionally short but exceptionally skilled stuff. (Recommend me more OVAs/short series to watch! My anilist and things I have already watched can be found here.) Funnily enough, I think I knew in the background about Read Or Die for years, but the impression I had was from Read Or Die TV and thus it was on the back burner forever. Read Or Die is confusing partially because there’s multiple parts of the IP with multiple intrigues. There’s a much different tone to the manga, to the OVA, to the anime TV series.

Anyway.

Read Or Die OVA (3 episodes) follows Yomiko Readman AKA The Paper, a secret agent working for the London Library. A sort of 007 type story, including the world saving and jazzy soundtrack. She’s a bibliophile, absolutely OBSESSED with books, collecting and reading and loving. And she’s a paper master, she can control paper in all kinds of ways. From making a human-size paper airplane to fly with, to rope and grappling hook, to defending herself from bullets and using it as a makeshift sword. Hardening and loosening the paper at will (And in the light novel having access to Battle Paper, which extends the paper mechanics utility-belt-like.)

She’s very lovable. Very clumsy, not trained in CQC or battle hardened. But talented at her paper magic, and earnest to Do A Good Job. Very autistic indeed with her hyperfixation, struggling with social ques at times, mishearing people, generally not being terribly social, but also not purposely avoiding socializing. She’s not pessimistic, not angry, quite happy and quite filled with joy of the world and curiosity.

She extreeeemely reminds me of Mrs. Brisby from Secret of Nimh

Who similarly isn’t a Trained individual, but does incredible things despite her humble origin story and down to earth feminine nature. I love the general archetype honestly of Mom Thrown Into Danger And Overcomes Anyway. And indeed this age range and archetype being something not covered in animation terribly often. Yomiko is 25! Or 20. I like thinking of her as 25 a ton. She’s not a teen in literally any part of the franchise regardless, being either 20 or 25 depending on adaptation. Go figure I’d love her as a 30 something trans woman. She reads as a 30 something to me, not a 20 something. She extremely reads as a millennial (Yes her timeline is wrong to be a millennial SHUT UUUUP)

Read Or Die OVA is EXCEPTIONALLY well animated. Like even if you don’t end up caring about Yomiko or any of the plot it’s well worth a watch to see some animators firing on all cylinders. There’s some INCREDIBLE sequences in the OVA, it’s an achievement, and people adore it for that reason and more even if they don’t care about ANY of the rest of the franchise. It’s an easy access point, and the OVA WAS made first before any of the rest of the franchise.

Read Or Die OVA’s plot is, a buncha historical figures start causing Problems all over the world, ripped straight out of time. Yomiko and two other agents get bound up in a world saving plot and work together. Of particular note being Nancy, a sexy spy type who can phase through any object/make her body completely untouchable by will.

Major spoilers immediately from here-on! Like next sentence!

So my biggest and only real gripe with at least the OVA (but somewhat the rest of the franchise too, I’ll get to that) is the OVA ends with Nancy deciding to kill herself, after Yomiko saves her, strives to save SPECIFICALLY HER multiple times, after an abusive man who was her lover dies and she feels the world will be empty after he’s gone, AFTER THIS SHOW ALSO FEATURES LOTS OF LESBIAN TOUCHES.

NANCY FEELS LIKE THERE’S NOTHING FOR HER IN THIS WORLD AND NO ONE LOVES HER AFTER YOMIKO WENT OUT OF HER WAY ENTIRELY TO ABSOLVE NANCY OF TREASON AND SAVE HER. Oy vey. The OVA came out in 2001. I don’t NEED a story to have LGBT in it to enjoy it (My favorite love stories are straight so far! Katanagatari and Blue Savant. I also love Diebuster a ton but that’s yuri.) but it feels wanting for lesbianism here, and it feels insulting to Yomiko’s efforts and her overall love of Nancy, platonic or romantic.

Of the parts of the franchise, there’s the OVA (I recommend it HIGHLY), there’s the TV series (I haven’t watched it yet, hear it’s good, it’s got a different main character and character set and that kind of thing bugs me, plus starring a small child, which isn’t what I’m looking for currently. I might get around to it sometime if I can get around my dislike of certain details.) there’s a manga (I mostly love the manga? It suffers from a love issue too, and it’s kind of a meta mess of a story, but the characters and dialog are enjoyable at least, and Yomiko is her same self and still starring), a spin off manga (unrelated completely to Yomiko), and 12 light novels, plus Read Or Dream light novels (which follow the TV series characters). Most of this is translated except for the light novels, of which only the first RODie is fan translated. A-1 Pictures had teased they wanted to do more Read Or Die anime content in 2016 but nothing came of that. A final light novel is in production but the writer is taking his time on outputting it.

Summed up I can mostly recommend at least checking out the OVA, the main manga, and the TV series if you don’t mind a different character set. (They are paper users still) I enjoyed the fan translated light novel but its content is most of the way similar to the first story covered in the manga, but done slightly worse.

Yomiko, tired and beaten after fighting her way here, extolling the virtue of consent and gentle love to a rapist, just before she thrashes him. I love her. I love her so much.

Yomiko is a romantic tragedy story in all parts of the franchise when looking only at her relationships. She killed her boyfriend to become The Paper (He forced her to), Nancy kills herself in the OVA before any kind of relationship with her can happen. Yomiko isn’t really allowed love beyond her love of books. Despite her being willing to love beyond that. Despite people accusing her ONLY of loving and protecting books. A theme of the manga is that she will endeavor to save both books and people. (Tony Stark Reference.gif)

I feel like this is my version of being into Spider-Man. She’s never allowed a happy ending, all three stories I’ve experienced are tragedies for her. She never lets it get her down (Besides one bit in the manga, where she’s DEVASTATED on fully recollecting her murder of Donnie, her boyfriend.) She has a sunny and happy disposition no matter what happens, at least long term. In the MOMENT she is devastated at things like Nancy’s betrayal, recollecting Donnie’s murder, being unable to save Nancy. It’s not like she can’t experience stress/distress/depression/sadness. She just doesn’t let things get her down in the longterm, and at the end of every story she’s always looking forward to what the future holds for her. Side note but I view it that the stories only ever view her as straight, there’s yuri bait a little bit in the OVA but it just subverts that in the end anyway and doesn’t actually approach yuri as a subject in plain text.

Donnie, her boyfriend in the light novel and manga, is so freaking boring by the way as a person. The only thing interesting about him is that Yomiko killed him to become The Paper and he was cool with that happening. For some. Unexplained reason. His personality is similarly sunny and happy, despite hardship. They bonded over… a love of books. The thing they do together is… read books. He listens to her talk about books happily, asks questions and nods. He just… has no spice to his character really. He exists for Yomiko to kill him and to be sad she killed him, he exists to be fridged and to only exist in flashbacks.

He was conscripted and bought by The London Library to be a spy slave. He attempted to betray The London Library and escape them, forcing them to execute him via Yomiko. Honestly possibly what makes his story fall flat is that The London Library is never really zoomed in on in the translated material available, is never really written to be longterm monstrous, and is a vague entity overall in the franchise. (The London Library and Joker I am using interchangeably here, both are not detailed beyond surface details.) I have a grudge against Donnie since Yomiko deserves better, and I was forced to read his back story twice in both the light novel and manga.

(I’m enjoying linking the manga a lot for the sake of it, the art of the manga is REALLY good itself.)

Shutaro Yamada is the artist of the manga, Hideyuki Kurata is the writer of THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE (EVERYTHING), and Koji Masunari is the director of the OVA. For some of the biggest names to blame for the overall quality of the franchise.

Yomiko Readman is pretty sexy. She’s understated about it a bit in the OVA, very OVERstated about it in the manga.

She wears an overcoat that usually covers her figure, but the manga and tv series and light novels highly accent her, well, breasts.

![Alt text](https://64.media.tumblr.com/83c97d59c5589c35b7077f23253cb4ca/e83a7819b61fb8a4-b6/s1280x1920/aa8c35c1b831af64a9155ce6abd3f2de89f14e66.png “The cover of a ROD Light Novel, of Yomiko lying asleep on a bed, glass askew, her figure prominently displayed although clothed”

I don’t hate it personally. I find it interesting just how much the OVA doesn’t highlight her figure or frame her sexually, but the rest of the franchise does. Despite being anime/despite being an OVA where sexiness is very often part of the selling point.

The manga pretty easily has the most content and trigger warnings attached to it, and it bugged me in a couple places. There was one bit where Nenene, 17 year old child prodigy author, kisses Yomiko to “learn how kissing goes”. Her 25 year old school teacher. And Nenene and Yomiko have a scene of Yomiko trying on Nenene’s outfits in a sleep over, some very revealing and embarrassing for her. Those… I could have done without. It’s especially a bummer when the first manga arc has this overarching message of consent and love, but Nenene forces herself on Yomiko for a “comedy bit”. It betrays its own message.

Though despite that I do overall like that first arc anyway, and I do love Yomiko telling a rapist what-for and beating him up. The OVA I don’t really have any morality related problems with, other than being incredibly against allowing a lesbian relationship onscreen. The manga is somewhat haphazard, but I do overall like it a lot anyway. But my love of Yomiko is most of what’s piloting that.

To boot, I don’t think Read Or Die as a franchise has very good writing beyond Yomiko’s general character writing. The plots are okay, random things can come and go or come out of nowhere, deus ex machina is a bit rampant, and the themes get betrayed by themselves here and there a bit. I think the franchise is at its best in its visual art. Even the first light novel, being allowed to let loose completely with writing, is just okay, and doesn’t take advantage a ton of being in the writing medium and being allowed a much, much larger word count.

![Alt text](https://64.media.tumblr.com/680b65211f38ecbb846c7f1b5dab77e9/e83a7819b61fb8a4-67/s1280x1920/69ab858b9138d75f3f3e9b5d0f9a63c9945629bf.png “Manga: Joker monologuing from a helicopter over a battling Yomiko and fire powers lady, saying the titular ‘READ OR DIE?’”

Despite all that and despite any criticisms I do really love this franchise. I really wish I could read the rest of the light novels. I’m actually SUPER curious what’s inside based on the illustrations. I’m so sad I can’t read them without learning the language, and so sad despite the overall franchise’s popularity they were never worth official translation by the IP holders. I love Yomiko Readman, her nerdy nature and sunny disposition. I love the plots putting her through stress and depression, and her coming out the opposite end still smiling. I think being able to go through terrible events and still be happy and not let it scar her is, perhaps a bit sexist on the creators parts, but also goals and commendable.

Read Or Die is heavily out of print when it comes to modern day non-piracy actually-buying-the-thing or materially-supporting-it-in-any-way. The two anime are not on streaming. The books are… sort of available? The light novels are untranslated, but the manga is officially translated. The dvds and blurays for the anime are very out of print and very hard to buy, and secondhand won’t provide money to the IP holder or creators anyway. Like I’d love to point you in a direction for how to show support for this franchise but they are not making it easy here. Please pirate the two anime via your downloader or online site of choice. I think Read Or Die is kind of dead as a franchise and no more content is coming anyway. We can enjoy what’s already here, but I feel it’s fruitless to ask for more. I think what we got already is a miracle.

And I don’t think showing it to more people will change much. People are generally very positive on the OVA but everywhere I look otherwise people are very critical of the manga. Which is understandable, its the most haphazard part of the franchise. And I feel the OVA is praised because of its action and animation of that action, not exactly for other parts. Yomiko Readman is a standout and highly interesting character, but otherwise all other parts of the IP are fairly run of the mill or not very interesting in a vacuum. People DO love Yomiko Readman and I do appreciate the positive comments on her character that I’ve seen on reddit and elsewhere. She’s lovely, and kinda gender and personality and looks goals for me.

… I REALLY wish the light novels were translated… fan translated or officially. Literally with how deep I got into things I would have bought books if I couldn’t find them online.

Thank you for reading! My ask box is open to anonymous comments if you loved what I wrote, want to tell me your own opinions on Read Or Die, or want to criticize me for anything I wrote here. (Sorry!) Watch Read Or Die (OVA) on your anime site of choice!

A link to the original tumblr post this blog post is adapted from