I enjoyed this chapter much more than the last one. The plot progression was much easier to follow, nothing confused me, and the invisible 'push' of the story was an easier-to-identify and obviously active component, which is nice, seeing as it's such a major part of the plot.

["I wasn't doing anything suspicious." / No! Am I an idiot or something?! That's the most suspicious thing I could have said!] Heh. Classic and perhaps almost cliche, but still quite funny; it got a grin out of me.

I really don't like the large hunk dedicated to the italicized flash-back section, though. As one of your other reviewers said (and I agree completely), italicized scenes scream, "Skip this part if you want, it's mostly filler anyway..." In this case you get across some important points (though certain parts I feel like you already explained the gist of in the last chapter, so they feel a little redundant), but having it all in italics in a big chunk like that makes it...off-putting, I suppose.

If nothing else I'd consider condensing it some, focusing on the crucial, interesting bits and cutting out whatever extra's in there.

I did like the initial mishap, though, where the speaker failed the first time and then grumbled about the audience not reading the prequel. Very amusing, and it emphasizes the sort of mock manga/video game feel to the whole thing. Same with the bracketed spells (don't think I mentioned that in the last chapter). Reminds me a little of the Scott Pilgrim vs the World movie in that the style of presentation here highlights the theme.

Anyway. Not bad. Keep it up. :)

- Moonstar

This concept is extremely interesting! I'm slightly confused by the flashback that I'm guessing to be Reika's, however. I think it's funny how Keisei began to think about poisoning when he saw the food.

I really like the overall concept of this. I feel like it has a lot of potential (if mostly as a parody - since that's the direction such a concept feels like it would normally go in). But I have to say, I have a lot of trouble getting into this first chapter.

The opening scene feels very blocky and stiff to me, filled with a lot of 'telling' sentences that give me (the reader) a bunch of basic information that doesn't feel very important to me at that point. Since I don't know anything about the characters or why they're there, how tall someone is or what they're wearing isn't important to me - especially all those details about their clothes. Every now and then, what a character's wearing can be important, but generally listing off someone's wardrobe really isn't an attention grabber, and I feel like far too large a portion of the opening scene is spent telling us what these two people look like without advancing the plot in a meaningful way.

And all that passive voice - I'd try to cut out some of those dead verbs (am/are/is/was/were, be/being/been, has/have/had, do/does/did). All those listed are inactive, 'dead' boring verbs that link sentences together but show no action and having too many of them can really kill a piece of prose even if it has an interesting story to tell.

After that, I start to get progressively more confused with what exactly is going on. I think you personally (as the author) have a good concept of what you want to be happening, but at least at the moment, on paper it's very confusing to me as the reader. In that one section there's a lot of talk about truths and then falsities and truths being falsities and passages that contradict themselves, but after I've read them I can't quite figure out what I was supposed to conclude after all of it.

And the interactions between the characters feel...awkward? Especially that initial interaction between Keisei and the girl. Are their lines already being scripted? Is it that their intentionally already a parody of a story and this is the awkward initial meeting of the protagonist with his love interest? If so, then it all becomes a little more amusing and a little less strange, but I still feel like I have a tough time catching onto the rhythm of the story.

Sorry if this review isn't particularly helpful. I really do like the concept of this, and I wish this came out as a more coherent response. Maybe some of your other readers will be clearer about their feedback. Good luck with this!

- Moonstar

I liked the italicized part in the middle, the description was really nice and it was a cool change of pace from the rest of the chapter, but I didn't really understand what relevance it had. It was just kind of confusing.

I really love how you've implemented all these character archetypes, and have the characters know what archetypes they are. It's just a really cool idea, and you could definitely go some interesting places-the characters would have to do what they do, because it's a story obviously, but knowing what roles they were in could compel them even more. So I thought that was really cool.

I liked the dialogue more in this chapter. I actually didn't think about it until now, because it felt a lot more natural than your other chapters. You did well with that.

I don't really like the length of the chapters. No matter how good they are, after a few thousand words it gets a bit tiring...I would maybe split them a bit more? I mean, it's up to you, but I feel like it would be a bit easier to read if they were more split up.

You're still doing a great job with this story!

I liked this post because of the description. I enjoyed the description of the characters because not only did I get a sense of their apperances but a sense of their personalities as well. I enjoyed that because you didn't have to say "this character is outgoing" you showed it. (as an example)

I disliked that there was a lot of action in the first chapter. I think that I'm a little confused about what is going on in the story because of that. I understand the whole "story" idea and their roles. I also think that the council is watching over them and determining a special power that each has? I know there was talk about ghosts in the beginning, but I'm not sure if you mean there are ghosts or if the term stands for something else.

This was definitely a stronger chapter then the first and much more enjoyable. Once again the cool concept of a person trapped in a story is what makes this interesting.

What I liked is your method of storytelling once again, though it's even better this time. You keep the reader hooked in with a good combination of dialogue and plot, although admittedly I did not enjoy the flashback of the speech. It felt out of place.

I felt your dialogue is a bit stiff, perhaps work on it so it feels more natural. I would suggest reading it out aloud and seeing if it's something you think someone would actually say in real life.

A vast improvement over the first chapter. Good job.

I'm not too fond of this beginning. Right from the go, you have three scenes with different things going on, the third one being sort of an information dump. It's hard to get into the story when I don't really know what's happening, especially with the first scene. Maybe exploring the characters' motivations there and giving some explanation to the reader will help perk interest and make it more memorable. I just finished reading it again, and I'm still not really sure what's happening. The following scene with Aio and Keisei didn't really appeal to me, either. Their conversation felt a lot longer than it needed to be, and their dialogue was really stiff. Further down the chapter it sounds much more natural, but even when they meet that delinquent guy with the white hair (sorry, I'm really bad with names), the way they introduce themselves just feels... unnatural, I guess. I'd almost say it's way too formal for people their age.

There's also a couple places where the narration starts to get really dense and meandering with things that aren't really that important, like the paragraph about "falseness" near the beginning of the second scene. I think that can easily be condensed down to one or two lines. There's nothing wrong with dense writing, but it needs to be important or include character/plot development or something like that.

You might want to add some more speaker tags, too. There are a few times where it's hard to tell who's saying what, especially the italic parts near 2/3rds down the page. Also, be careful of cliches. Some of the descriptions you use for the characters are very plain and vague - focusing more on details might be something to think about. Concrete images stick well inside a reader's mind.

Hope you found this helpful.

I figured the whole point of skipping the introductory speech was to well...skip it. So it's surprising to have the whole thing posted as the second chapter.

This is a tricky bit of meta-fiction...essentially everyone is trapped in a medicore highschool manga...which has fantastic humor/drama potential. But I think you need to take care to not let the cliches of the story inside the story to rule the actual story.

I think the contrast between real vs. story world needs to be emphasized a little more. I also think there might be ways to reshuffle this speech to make it more entertaining, and put it at the front of the story so you can progress in chronological order, rather than flashback.

OR really emphasize the protagonist has suddenly found himself in a FLASHBACK.

Maybe instead of him "casting back his mind", he finds that the world around him suddenly falls out of focus and he can see the action of a few hours ago as though it were actually happening, only for some bizarre reason everything is black and white or sepia tinted. And then when he comes out of it, Mikado can explain he just experienced a Flashback, which can be a special protagonist affliction or limited only to lead characters.

As to reshuffling the speech, I can't help thinking it would be funny to kick it off with reassuring them that they probably won't die.

One thing I found curious is how few of these people in a Japanese school have ethinically Japanese coloring. For Manga/Anime world, that's normal. But it would be nice to have the protagonist comment on it at some point.

I like (A lot) the way you start describing the Characters in the beginning. They are straight and to the point but also subtly dropped in, and its not easy to do both. Instead of attaching it to the characters themselves you contrast the uniforms to describe them, for example.

I don't like the half quotations around the words, especially at the beginning. It makes me as the reader feel that I should already know what those words mean, and what they are supposed to mean, or why they are special. But since it is the first time they are used and not given extra time, I don't. At best I find myself scrolling to figure out if they are explained or used further so I can get context clues, etc.

I love the metafiction vibe going on here, and I've read enough manga/anime to get most of the jokes.

I think the first chapter went a little long, and some points are a bit confusing (doubly so if someone wasn't familiar with all the manga motifs). I would have liked to see a bit more description towards the end. It goes to straight dialogue, which gets hard to follow/picture. I don't think we got a physical description of Keisei, which should come early as he's the protagonist.

I'm working on a story with "real" people trapped in a fairytale situation, so I'm trying to grapple with how "real" these characters are. I can see it going two ways. They've been "sucked in" or later they'll discover that they were "born" into the story and did not exist before. If it's the latter, I think you have just the right amount of character development.

However if it's the former... I'd take more time and give Keisei some more dimension/thoughts about home/worries about what his role could be. We get the idea that the characters found the student president's explanation weird, but with "real" people, you'd think there'd be a higher level of confusion.

Once again, I am in love with the concept of this story. I thought you once again portrayed it very well. Having Mikado's speech, in addition to Keisei's compulsions at the beginning to help Aoi, definitely gave the controlled feel.
However, I didn't really care for the dialogue. It seemed stiff and forced at the beginning, with Keisei and Aoi-and while Mikado's speech was immensely interesting, it was a bit unnatural and felt a tad like an infodump.
I really like how you're making this concept into a story with a plot-honestly, I thought it could make a really good oneshot, but it's amazing that you can give it a plot and make it into a multichap.
Really impressive, great job!

[Keisei looked down at the girl who was still unconscious on the floor. He was recovering slowly, but his breathing was still irregular and the aches that had embedded themselves into his body weren't going away any time soon.] This is interesting. I like the second chapter better than the first from the first line - it's much more interesting. "Embedded" is excellent use of word choice.

Their names are interesting. I like Aoi - so many vowels, LOL. I will say, it's hard to know how to pronounce them. You can't assume all the readers have a background in Japanese pronunciation.

[Unexpectedly, she had displayed no interest in his ability.] Show don't tell. I still think we're only scratching the surface with these characters. The dialogue is rather predictable, and the narration summarizes their emotions for us. I still feel like these aren't real people.

I think the voice is more mature in this chapter. The narration was good in the last one, but here you really hit the beat, and you emphasize all the right lines. Beyond that, the sentence structure feels very natural, and the active verbs put you way ahead of the game.

["Bind, [First Interaction]."] I like the use of brackets for the spell. It's different, and it feels more natural than stringing some asterisks together.

I'd like you to find a way to get the last section out of italics. I know flashbacks usually go in italics, but italics send the reader the "optional" signal, and readers are much more likely to skim when writing is tagged that way (and when they have to tilt their heads to see the words right). If you can't, then it's just me being picky anyway.

I liked this chapter better. Keep writing.

Returning your review for Helena.

Wow. I really loved the concept behind this. I'd never actually considered this the way you've done it here-having the characters have a mind of their own, just acting in the stories...it's a really amazing idea and I think you've managed to execute it really nicely. I was genuinely impressed.
What I didn't like is that while eventually the reader comes to understand what the heck's going on, it's still a bit confusing exactly where the story ends and the characters free will begins. I think you could cut down the length a bit...I don't know how you would explain in the beginning without making it an infodump, though, and considering that you did a really good job.

I really loved this. Great, great idea, and the execution was great too.

The idea of a story within a story is very interesting so props for that.

Your writing style is very good, you switch between dialogue and speech to keep the plot interesting. The description is good and helps me visualize the characters extremely well. I would recommend slowing it down in some places and explain a little more, some parts left me slightly confused and backtracking.

One thing that needs improving is the characters themselves, you need to differentiate them more. Mikado and Keisei felt very much the same character. Basically they need more work to make them more likeable.

I like this story- it has a very unique setup I think, but it got awfully long. I found myself confused a little, and I skimmed over a few paragraphs here and there. The idea of the story does seem very neat, I'm not sure if I totally grasped the concept so far. Fantasy isn't my cup of tea! As for the writing skill, I couldn't find but maybe a handful of errors. I think the story is pretty well written. Keep it up!

-From the Roadhouse