This manga started slow but interesting.
Then it got incredible - magic was cool, yes, but it was every single character being in it for their own reasons that made the whole "first ending" so suspenseful. Mahiro in particular was able of being a hero or a villain, sometimes at the same time, making the whole thing way more unpredictable, especially when he was literally holding the means to finishing either of the two conflicted sides. The mystery was also engaging, mostly because of how much impact it had on the the main characters and thus - on the story.
But then the manga ended and... didn't realize it.
I don't want to say the second part was "unnecessary" - we still had plenty of unexplained, like Aika's death or the rumored second Magician - but the way they handled it I could not enjoy.
Incredibly slow.
Filled with overly dramatic and philosophical speeches.
Lots of sitting around.
Introducing the Magician of Exodus as a new random character when we were all hoping for a twist on one of the already existing ones.
Everything got washed down - in the first part, Hakaze was heavily implied (and eventually proven) to be incredibly powerful and wise, even when technically stripped of all her magic. You felt she was not to be trifled with and could win any battle.
In the second part the most she did (after volumes of absolutely nothing) was travel back to the past to watch what happened. Also flew around some ships in the big climax.
In the first part the Magician of Exodus was heavily implied to be a huge threat, an evil counterpart to the powerful Hakaze - and we all wanted to see one of the characters we'd already known to be revealed as that dangerous person, which would add to the stakes, as our villain would have the trust of our heroes.
But nope, we instead got a wimpy boy who doesn't know anything about anything and is on the heroes side. Sure, Aika turned out to have been the Magician previously, but that still didn't give us what that role was implied to be - a powerful, dangerous, deceitful villain.
And that's probably the biggest fault of the second part. It lacked conflict. The first part did have fighting "supernatural trees with powers", but we also had actual characters as villains. We had sides, we had battles, we had contradicting motives. In the second part we have literally everybody, even the villains from the first part, on the same side and they're fighting something akin to a "supernatural phenomenon" with their incredible abilities limited by public opinion and possibly tragic consequences of... doing things. Yeah, that's what it amounted to - we have all these amazing heroes, villains, wild cards from the first part of the story and they're together this time, united against a common enemy power, this should be sweet! So what they do is say: "we can't do anything or innocent people might die" and sit around talking. Yes, that is a very legit and very real problem - but for crying out loud, that doesn't make for an interesting story! Make them use their magic in different ways - if they can't fight the trees, have them investigate the trees, maybe talk to the trees' senders - we literally have aliens in this series and nothing is done with them!
Also, for something that is the very core of the story, the trees are not very well-explained. I can't remember what they were remotely about - and whether they did explain it or not doesn't even matter, because even if they did... those are trees! Of course I forgot that stuff, I'm not gonna get invested into the complex motivations of freakin' trees! Especially trees that seem to have no consciousness and the most they do is kill people when provoked. Why did we need to get rid of them again? Our villains are literally doing nothing, I do not care! In the first part the trees were kind of doomsday devices, sources of incredible power the villains - actual, proper villains - used for their own purposes. In the second part I don't even know why they're still around - the interesting parts remaining were solving Aika's murder and a promise of a new human villain (and the killer) in the Magician of Exodus. Neither one happened, but at least we got plenty of them tree talks.
I'm so disappointed in what this series turned into by the end. |