I finally finished the whole manga and all I can say is wow
This is a mixed bag
Generally I would go first through the points that I liked and second the critics I have, but in this case I think I will just talk with no destination at all. Let's go.
[This critic contains spoilers from de anime 1st season! But not the manga tho]
The first arcs until the escape are amazing. You know all that, mind games, tension and mama being a TERRIFIC antagonist.
By far the best part of the whole thing, and even the fans that like the rest can agree with me in this one.
After the escape, everything completely goes downhill, and that makes me sad.
But not downhill like the quality just drops, it gets progressively worse and worse until you clearly dislike it but is STILL FORCED TO READ because you want to know what happens with the characters you loved so much when it was good.
And when it was good, it was a masterpiece!
Personally, it lost me after the Gouldy Pound arc.
The Gouldy Pound arc was the best thing after the escape, it had a compelling story, interesting new characters and all that.
But..there is something missing.
I think the problem with the tpn manga is that they introduce us to new characters and expect us to be attached to them too quickly.
Literally the only side character with a decent development to them is Yuugo.
(They have a character nearly to the ending that has an interesting backstory about demons and et cetera but she is just useless at the end. Literally she does nothing. I like her but, I'm sorry, she didn't need to be there at all)
In short all the side characters don't matter much. By much I mean close to nothing, they don't have any impact in the story.
And talking about characters that don't matter, let's talk about my boy Ray. Oh my fucking god, WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY BOY RAY? His presence just wasn't there. The writers fORGOT he existed.
I'm serious.
He just don't participate at all.
And he is not the only one, they did a MASSACRE with their established characters and decided to focus only on Emma. Yes, I like Emma but wtf.
The worse is that some of them started to not act like them at all.
I will not cite names but a character just became a genocidal sociopath for... no reason?
I will not tolerate this slander.
The plot become and anomaly close to nonsensical at some parts.
You do not understand how LUCKY those kids are. They are literally the new ultimate lucky.
I promised myself I wouldn't tell spoilers so let's just say that the way they survive incidents is impossible. They are very very lucky every single time in every single battle.
And when someone dies it's just so forced..? Is that the right word?
And then...there is the end.
What in the hell was that?
It was lazy, it was kinda stupid.
But somehow bittersweet.
I hate the way the things ended, it was soooo lazy and corny.
Take your own conclusions after you read it.
breathes heavily
Everything is a mess.
But I can't completely trash the manga since I can't deny I HAD fun reading it. I had much fun.
Even with the forced plot and useless characters it is a good experience.
You know what? Some parts wanted to make me pull my hair off, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.
The artstyle is perfection as always, with details and details and mwah cool backgrounds.
The character designs are pretty cool too and thank god they gave girls pants instead of mini skirts to fight.
The fights are pretty entertaining too, there are still the mind games but now to a lesser degree and more actual action.
Emma with a gun!!!!! It doesn't matter!!!! It gets me excited!!!
So is it worth?
Maybe, maybe not.
Here is a guide:
You want something remotely similar
to the anime? Not for you.
You want action and kids shooting things up? Yup, read it.
That's it.
I hope this helped making up someone's mind.
Bye~
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