Story: ↳ ⋮ ▎「幸せ委員会 」` The Happy Committee ♡ by onigirisama
Reviewed by: Curione
Finished: 1/1/14

 Title

... Obviously the title is good since it's deceptive and yet still fits and is chilling.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Although the Japanese seems a little weird since they're Korean popstars.

But mweh.

Next.

Plot

KABABLOOM

Pretty much what happened in the plot. I won't spoil it for people who haven't read it but wow. Plot twist much. Still, despite the very high possibility of such a big plot twist going sour due to how sudden it was, I think it actually was done pretty well. This is possibly due to the fact that oh... right. It makes lots of sense when you think about it. How else could they manage to grant Krystal's wish in such a short time? And then after thinking through about all the details and what was written you go: WELL OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAPPEN WHY AM I SUCH AN IDIOT WHY DIDN'T I SEE IT COMINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Ahem.

Anyway, another possible reasons why I'm okay with the whole she-bang pulled on me because there's a promise to expand on the entire system and dark side of the school. The bonus chapters are a very welcome and awesome addition and I loved reading Taemin's story so far and look forward to more (And I love the fact that the bonus story fits in and fills in all the holes and questions of the original story rather than creating more).

Kudos to the fact that I already quite like the story before the plot twist, and now I love it even more.

On a more negative side, I did think that the little plot device of needing to move to the States and then suddenly the minds change and such and she's has to deal with the embarrassment of a now suddenly awkward relationship with someone she had thought that she would never see again but now has to see again, was a little forced. But that's just personal opinion. I know it was probably needed and don't really know what else could be used, but. Yeah. It's just my gut. It's weird.

Characters

I like how the 'main' characters are mostly believable. By main characters I mean the central characters of each portion so far. They're pretty well-written. Believable and true to character. They also behave reminiscently of a manga character, but whether that's good or bad I don't know. It's just an observation.

As for the rest of the characters. They're suitably enigmatic (ohgoodsweetswhydiditakesolongtospellthatwordcorrectly) and mysterious. I'm looking forward to more because I do want to know why they turned out the way they were. At the same time, I'm a little apprehensive because usually when the mystery over such characters are lifted, they don't have the same magic unless the backstory is suitably chilling. But usually, I find myself disappointed after knowing twisted characters backstories. Which is a double whammy since there's no magic of mysteriousness and now the character is just kind of... pathetic somehow. Idk. It just makes me think maybe the story should just end here. It makes me conflicted... I don't know.

But yeah, just my two cents on the moving forward of the story.

Grammar

Overall, grammar and writing is pretty good.

Some parts are a little confusing and a little clunky in sentence structure to me, but nothing too detracting from the story. There's only one obvious mistake in chapter 3 that I spotted: 

she really didn’t his bill, and she was aware of this.
- she really didn't fit his bill, and she was aware of this.

And as a I said earlier, some sentences caught me as a little strange and took me a while to understand, although I did understand them in the end. Below are a few examples. The corrections are just suggestions though. (these are also from chapter 3)

She said in a serious - to the point of silly, tone, before breaking out into giggles
- she said in a serious-to-the-point-of-silly tone before breaking out into giggles

Not an easy sentence to phrase, but usually I find hyphenating such a long description does a good job in making it easy to understand and also somewhat grammatically correct since the hyphens make the long description into one adjective.

as Krystal had already gotten the message with her hand clutched onto the handle of the door.
- as Krystal had already gotten the message and was already at the door, her hand on the handle.

The original sentence makes it sound like she had gotten a text message while clutching onto the handle of the door for dear life. Idk. It'd probably just me =X

So yeah, it's not a very serious problem, but since I'm assuming you're hiring a reviewer to see how you can improve, my only suggestion I could give would be to read through the story maybe every few weeks and make changes to things that you realize suddenly doesn't make sense structure wise. This is since usually, right after you write it, everything makes sense to you (or sounds like a good idea), only in hindsight you sometimes realize some things don't make sense now even though it did then.

Or you can hire a beta. Second opinion is usually always good. (Although even betas are fallible XD)

Style

I have no qualms with the style of this. It's chirpy and snappy fast and that suits the story. I also really, really like the way you sneak in bits of action that gives clues to how most of the side characters in the story. Usually, with so many side characters, people will ere on the side of two extremes - one they give far too much description and we end up with chunky introduction paragraphs each time a character comes in, or they give practically no description at all and the side characters become invisible characters instead. But what was done was a good balance of description and using actions to give insights onto the characters of the story. Such as Amber being probably a rather haphazard and messy person due to the always crumpled papers she passes to Krystal.

I also like the fact that these intrinsic details also give a clue to the uhh... nature of the Happy Committee and the school. Like everyone in school being so welcoming being well, a little unnatural. At the point of reading I didn't think much of it, but now that I think of it...

Mmmmmmmmm...

This reminded me at first of a shoujo manga like Ouran High at first. And then after that, one of those darker josei psychological horrors, like I don't know, Dangan Ronpa or Dolls Code or something. Or like Kurosuji, which has this strange bipolar plot which is happy and cracky in one chapter and then suddenly everyone dies and you're absolutely okay with it. Idk. It just works, and I recommend this story for anyone who's a fan of manga. The plot is a little fantastic, and if you like realistic stuff then it's not for you. Writing can be a little bit rough here and there, but yeah.... Just... 

Well handled plot twist. 

Hngggggggggggggggggggg...