Jinzou Ningen 100 was an interesting manga. From the start it had a premise which instantly grabbed you, the dynamic between its two leads is one inherently fraught with unease yet with the potential for interesting growth, while the idea of hunting the remaining 99 Fabricants made for a solid Villain-of-the-Week setup. And for its first few chapters, it was rather decent. The Fabricants were consistently unique and interesting opponents, Yao and No. 100 were fun to follow, and the subtle development of the setting made was neat to see.

The problems came, however, when the series strayed away from the formula and towards a more directly serialized narrative. To put it simply, the emergence of the larger plot came too early and unnaturally, feeling like it was trying to shake up the status quo when the status quo was barely even established yet, and weakening the series' overall consistency as it tried and failed to juggle the relatively unique fights against Fabricants which initially defined the series' identity with the ongoing plot which relied on highly cliched and poorly utilized Shonen Battle manga tropes.

Worse was what this did to the character writing, as attempts to shake up the two leads' relationship and develop their characters were often inconsistent or ignored, and the heavy expansion of the cast made the direction pulled the series' attention in too many directions and left almost all of these new characters uninteresting and underdeveloped.

That's not necessarily to say that these portions of the series were terrible, per say. Even at it's worst, the series was nothing offensively awful, the pacing was surprisingly tolerable, and there's at least one notable Fabricant fight/mini-arc in the series' latter half that I think was genuinely great and an insight into what the series could've been if it was more consistent and even.

It's very clear to see in many respects that the series was facing cancellation and the writer was forced to rush through too much of the story he had planned, and for that, I have nothing but sympathy for Daisuke Enoshima. If nothing else, I can respect that he was at least able to properly conclude his story and wrapped up every loose end in a generally satisfying way, even if the buildup was very uneven and rushed. Additionally, the artwork was great, with unique character designs, action that flows, and some absolutely visceral visuals which perfectly compliment the manga's tone.

In the end, Fabricant 100 isn't exactly a good series, but it is an interesting one, and I don't regret reading it. There are ultimately a lot of things to appreciate and some readers could find themselves enjoying its high points as long as they're able to tolerate its inconsistencies.