All You Need Is Kill

This was a disappointment for me really, I expected much more from the ratings this manga gets. Everything in the manga just felt too short and incomplete and really lacking in content.

The characters didn't really grow all that much during the manga. And we didn't even learn basically anything about the side characters, and barely even their names. I don't feel like the side characters had any real presence in the manga at all, due to the time loop nature. And the main two characters I never felt any real connection between them. They don't meet many times that is shown so their relationship doesn't feel real. And it gets worse, because the relationship doesn't feel very good simply because they have only had a single time loop of connection. For the characters overall, I feel it all just was very superficial and not very deep and solid feeling.

The story was really good the other hand, but also too short. I don't need the enemy explained and I found them perfectly fine. And the built up and time looping ability was really satisfying. Following as he learned how he can use it to progress through the fight and keep on surviving. And the twist with Rita feels really solid, and unexpected but really helps explain how she became so powerful.

My issue with the story comes from how it all ends and the amount of time spent in the world. I felt the time loops progressed really quickly, I wanted to see more time loops that nothing happened at all but death. Help build up his progression more, and it would help build more relationship with both the side characters and Rita. The ending of the story felt way to rushed and sudden. I was expecting more and it just wasn't there. The trick to escape the time loop was explained and completely very quickly, with no real build up or additional time loops trying to perfect it. And diminished the enemy threat heavily, since they really aren't seen putting up a good fight in the end. Overall the ending was just way to sudden, and feels like he had more planned but had to finish in a certain number of pages.

The character designs and artwork was really good. Liked it all and didn't have any issues with any of it. Looked modern and realistic, along with being pretty gory at times when necessary. It didn't built characters in unrealistic ways, and everyone looked like they could exist. While many of the characters did end up looking rather generic military guys, it worked fine enough and didn't do any harm.

Overall while I enjoyed the manga, it left me wanting much more. Like I've only read the first 2 volumes of a 6 volume series. And the volumes I read were missing a quarter of their pages of time loops and getting to know characters.