Originally i wrote this last year in my notes program after finishing the series with no expectation of ever posting it online. Since i'm now signed up to MAL i thought what the heck, may as well post it here.
Started off promising for the first 5 volumes but after that went mostly downhill, especially the last 2 volumes. Putting aside the philosophy, which i have plenty of problems with, there were too many other things that were poorly enough executed that i feel a 6 rating is fair (or to put it another way, even if i had agreed with what the author was trying to say, i still wouldn't have given it a rating higher than 6.5).
Especially when it comes to the shallowness of the characters:
The MC who thinks happiness is the goal of life. The suicidal teen who never realizes that helping people commit suicide is little different from committing murder, especially if you don't understand their situation or whether they could be helped through counseling or medication. Just like if a guy were about to jump off a bridge and a bystander starts cheering him on saying "go ahead and jump!", how is that any different from what he wants to do? Not to mention that sometimes an attempted suicide is actually a cry for help and that many people who tried to commit suicide are later thankful they didn't succeed. But such considerations never enter into this character's thinking, nor does anyone point them out to him which is especially baffling.
The scientist isn't much better despite his supposed genius. He has little to no basis for his beliefs but oh well, he's a scientist and thus knows what's best, and so has no problem thinking that humanity must die and will gladly make it happen given the chance. Of course this isn't a scientific approach but rather the ravings of an egomaniac who thinks any idea that pops into his head has to be right since he is so much smarter than the average bear.
And that leads me to another gripe. The "man on the street" depictions of various anonymous people offering up commentary on what is happening during the "god battles" are cringe worthy for the most part and felt completely contrived in order to bolster the arguments offered up by the main characters.
Okay now i'll touch upon the philosophical underpinnings of the manga, which seem to stem from atheistic theories, starting with the old argument that God was created by humanity instead of the other way around. From there it springboards to the idea that maybe there is in fact a god "creature" but this god was created by another civilization and that the ultimate tragedy of life is that ultimately it gets boring if there is no death. That is, if a civilization becomes advanced enough to reach immortality it will also have figured out everything that can or will happen and thus living becomes tedious since there will be no surprises nor any new discoveries. Of course this overlooks the possibility that such a creative & advanced civilization might well figure out ways to overcome this boredom: such as dumbing themselves down so that they won't know everything that will happen (ie, getting rid of computers like in Dune).
The other bit of philosophy i've already touched upon: that of the main character's obsession with happiness which i find shallow and shortsighted. For if all anyone cared about was happiness then civilization wouldn't have advanced to the point it has. In fact, you could argue that if anything it is the overabundance of happiness in modern society that has caused depression to become more deadly. That is, we are able to experience happiness (or close equivalents) so easily and so often through entertainment/sports/chocolate/drugs/pornography/etc -- far more than most people ever could prior to the 20th century -- that many are ill-equipped to deal with the unhappy moments when they come along. Moreover, thinking you must be happy all the time ultimately leads to choosing the easiest path in life and one that doesn't advance yourself or, collectively, civilization as a whole.
Much like Death Note i found the philosophy to be a weakness rather than a strength, especially when examined closely. With DN you had Light basically doing what society could easily have done itself: killing off criminals. All you need is for society to agree that every criminal should be killed and they could all be sent to the electric chair or shot. Therefore, showing everyone cheering him on was nonsensical. Again, he wasn't doing anything that society couldn't have done itself IF IT CHOSE TO. Instead virtually every open society around the world has decided there are more appropriate ways to deal with criminals. Light was merely taking it upon himself to circumvent the collective will of the people. Much like Dr. Yaneda was taking it upon himself to decide that he alone should determine the fate of humanity.
(Actually i never finished DN, only got about halfway, and so the issues i had with it may have been addressed later on.)
Finally, fair or not, but the philosophical nature of this work serves to raise the bar for readers' expectations which in turn makes things like plot holes seem more glaring and less forgivable than they might otherwise. Such as the protagonists at one point walking into what was obviously a trap when they had many safer alternatives available....that is, if only their IQs hadn't suddenly dropped by about 50 points they might have realized this. Also the crowd commentary scattered throughout the manga basically amounted to "wow what a great point" or "gee that guy is so smart he must be right" and felt out of place in a work striving so hard to deliver a profound message.
As for the ending...if only it had ended sooner. For we were given what looked like a happy ending but the final chapter changed all that. Why show the happy & lighthearted ending only to take it all away? I mean i know the answer to that: the really cool kids (and authors) don't like happy endings because that's so cliche and not edgy at all. Okay fine, have a dark ending, but to go suddenly from a nice ending where the main characters are doing well and are more likeable than ever and then just erase them....it makes the time we spent getting to know and care about them seem completely like a waste of time. The MCs may delude themselves into thinking that they achieved something by being happy but that's just an illusion. They achieved nothing of substance. No children or grandchildren to carry on their legacy. Nothing. They even ended up voting for a suicide-obsessed idiot as the new "god". Great choice.
ADDENDUM: also in comparison to Death Note you have, in this case, an alien civilization that was hoping humanity would bring about their (the aliens') death. Essentially they created a Death God, if you will, for this purpose but instead this "god" ironically chose to kill off himself and humanity died because of that. So the real tragedy apparently is that the alien civilization has to go on living.
I searched my notes for "nasse" and in my review of v12 i came upon this tidbit:
Ogaro says that he thinks Nasse has a special power; namely, he suspects that Nasse can touch Mirai since she claimed that she caught Mirai when he tried to jump off the building to commit suicide (the rule is supposed to be that humans can't touch angels and vice versa). This news leads Yoneda to the thought that Nasse might use an arrow on a god candidate.
I searched my notes for "nasse" and in my review of v12 i came upon this tidbit:
Ogaro says that he thinks Nasse has a special power; namely, he suspects that Nasse can touch Mirai since she claimed that she caught Mirai when he tried to jump off the building to commit suicide (the rule is supposed to be that humans can't touch angels and vice versa). This news leads Yoneda to the thought that Nasse might use an arrow on a god candidate.
yes but it never gets explained why only she has that poeer
I searched my notes for "nasse" and in my review of v12 i came upon this tidbit:
Ogaro says that he thinks Nasse has a special power; namely, he suspects that Nasse can touch Mirai since she claimed that she caught Mirai when he tried to jump off the building to commit suicide (the rule is supposed to be that humans can't touch angels and vice versa). This news leads Yoneda to the thought that Nasse might use an arrow on a god candidate.
yes but it never gets explained why only she has that poeer
Oh, sorry, i see what you mean now. Yes, that should have been explained and further adds to my impression that this story was cobbled together in a kind of slipshod fashion both in terms of execution and the overall message it was trying to convey.
