The Shrine

I seem to have a talent for finding manga that are bad in a unique way. It's not like this stuff is flat out bad you can't read it, but there's some really ridiculous premise that makes you wonder whoever thought this was a good idea. This manga is only on part 3 (so 3 weeks in serial). The story is about some girl who is a daytrader and made a ton of money and hired a tutor for Algebra and you can probably guess where things go from there. Now self indulgence manga isn't anything new. There's always stuff like about guys end up with an impossible number of girls for no reason whatsoever, but here we're talking about literally the first time they met the girl is like "Take all my money and everything, just be my boyfriend!" It's not like the main character is a descendent from a lost tribe of whatever and he's supposed to be your average joe guy.

Then we also have the violation of Guo Long's Law of Money, which roughly says no fictional amount of money under one million silver pieces (or any equivalent currency) is worth writing about. The girl's networth is 17 billion yen. I'm pretty sure that is well short of one billion. I looked up Bill Gate's networth and it's 54 billion dollars, so even 1 billion dollar (~100 billion yen) is not an impossible amount of money in the real world. I mean sure none of us has that kind of money but clearly some people out there do have that kind of money, and it's not even unrealistic for a kid to end up with that kind of money (inheritance, enterprenuer, etc). A good contrast to that, and a follower of Guo Long's money would be Gambling Legend Zero, where they're playing for 100 billion yen as prize, and there's apparently some kind of secret way to make 100 trillion yen. If you're going to write about some totally unrealistic scenario that vaguely resembles real life that deals with money, there is no point to make the amount of money realistic (otherwise you wouldn't be writing about the unrealistic stuff in the first place!).

And then we have another good example of where it is far easier to write about how to throw fireballs that can blow up the earth then writing about anything that might remotely resemble as something useful in real life. Clearly whoever drew this isn't a retired billionaire daytrader, so the whole daytrading part is really unconvincing. It's basically just buy low sell high and it's just not convincing that's all you have to do (unless the point is that the girl is super lucky, which I doubt). It'd be more convincing if you got something like Lain and have someone who can read the 0 and 1s ala Matrix and say OMG I see the truth behind these bits and now I'm rich! Similar to say, Hikaru no Go, it's really hard to write something convincing on a subject matter where the author is not better than the reader, or arguably worse. I assume the story is going to be more romance based so it won't concentrate too much on this stuff, but it's still annoying.

With all that said, I think the premise is actually pretty good. I assume the point is asking can money buy happiness or whatever, but I don't think anyone should be THAT desperate if they have about 200 million dollars sitting around.

Money can buy freedom. The more money you have, the more potential for freedom to do things. You can run a business if you want, travel the world drinking martinis in every continent as a weekend activity, you can buy a luxury condo in Manhattan, you can have getways in Europe and Brazil, etc... A person with wealth has access to more freedom and power than those who do not have any. They also have the option of whether or not they want to work, and a lot more opportunity in the career field; as they can easily grab executive positions just based on wealth and minor knowledge/skill, as others will be paid to do the actual work for them.

People in debt are essentially the plebs of society, they need every paycheque that they can get in order to pay their debts and put food on the table. They can't really go out of country for the weekend if they feel like it, they can't just start a business because they feel like it, and they certainly will have very little option in where they live. They have to work every weekday, or the equivalent.

So the question of whether or not money can buy happiness; it certainly can. It can buy positions in society as certainly as a noble title could 500 years ago.

Love on the otherhand; all that requires is a good attitude and the ability to communicate. It's one of the few rewarding things in society you don't need money for; love is beyond all of that. Although, money can certainly increase a person's social field and widen the opportunities to find someone right for an evening, a week, a month, or a lifetime. Then again, a few glasses of vodka, and a rich girl might end up talking romantically with a poor man; which otherwise wouldn't have nearly as likely happened due to social barriers.

I think there was a study that after about $80k an year more money can't buy you happiness (easily). I recall some professor was saying how making $250K/year isn't even enough to keep up with the payment so I don't think the subject is bad. Maybe some people are really rich but not exactly happy with the world, but seriously there has to be a bit more development than offering to give all your money to the first guy that you met. It's a subject I found geniunely interesting out of all the manga I've read, though so far it looks like it's way over the author's ability to handle.