This review mostly concerns the horrific portrayal of reptile care of Himitsu no Reptilessomething deeply important to the purpose of this manga.
For claritys sake I got my leopard gecko a few months ago from a breederIm not an authority on reptiles. If you doubt anything I say feel free to do your own research. However before purchasing mine I had done dozens of hours of research and I can tell you this much: The mangaka of Himitsu no Reptiles doesnt give damn about proper reptile care or at the very least they are extremely uninformed. I dont know if its just a matter of Japans practices but for a manga thats dedicated to the love of reptiles some of the portrayals of reptiles care was horrifically uninformed and near abusive. The degree of foolishness from this manga rivals PetCo and that is a terrifying thought.
What are some examples? Well within just the first arc of the story which focuses on a leopard gecko the same type of lizard I own theres three HUGE problems.
1 Using sand as a substrate for a leopard gecko will almost certainly kill it due to impaction. These animals come from rocky mountains not sandy deserts. I have no idea why someone that doesnt know at least this much is writing a manga about reptiles. Please if you get a leopard gecko use reptile carpet title or if you still want loose substrate eco earth if you must.
2 Keeping it in a cage smaller than a shoe box is terrible. Adults need at least 20 gallon tanks and babies need 10. These are living creatures that will want to explore at least a little. Keeping it boxed up like this may fit the Japanese life style of smaller is better but it does not fit the life style of leopard gecko. That will be a fact no matter what corner of the world you come from. Also they need more than one single hide. They need a warm hide cool hide and moist hide.
3 Feeding it a reptile powder rather than live insects is just fucking abuse. Often leopard geckos wont even eat insects until they see them move. Mine sure doesnt. Perhaps some will eat a powder especially if raised on it but many probably wouldnt. Besides they need a variety of insects: crickets mealworms dubia roachs etc. are recommended for a healthy and happy leopard gecko.
These are three critical things the manga gets wrong about leopard gecko care and that is important because the whole point of the manga is reptile care. The mangaka seems more inclined to show how easy it is to have reptiles rather than actually giving good information on how to properly take care of reptiles. If anyone actually applies what they learn from this manga they will kill their animal out of sheer laziness. At the very least the reptile will live an extremely unhappy life. I wouldnt care so much if this werent a manga that has actual ramifications on how people may end up treating their animals. Because it paints reptiles as super easy animals to take care of a reader might impulse buy a gecko fail at taking care of it and ultimate kill it.
This manga blows. Beyond fucking annoying characters it teaches readers how to lazily take care of reptiles in ways that will result in the animals poor quality of life or death. I rarely feel this livid about a fictional story and Im the type of guy to yell about anything I dislike. This is an insult to people that actually cared enough to do their research and even worse a worrisome advertisement of reptile ownership for people that might fail in caring for their reptile.
20
/100