Jul 25, 2019
tl;dr: A manga with a solid story and a good beginning in terms of light-hearted storytelling, but that does a significantly worse job in that regard when it shifts to being much more serious.
This manga started off kind of light hearted and amusing with a lot of comedy, and I think it did a good job with that. The characters felt likable enough even if they didn’t have a lot of depth, the comedy was good, and though the plot was still mysterious and not super serious it was interesting enough to keep things moving along. As it went on it got much more serious and melancholy, with it being downright dark at times, and
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ultimately I don’t think it handled that shift well, nor do I think the parts following it were as good as the parts before. What I’m talking about here isn’t the story itself, but rather how its framed, wherein it just felt a lot drearier. I’m not entirely sure if that was intentional either or just a byproduct of the pacing and this isn't a very good adaptation of the light novel. The pacing felt really fast paced to the point it felt like it was just flying through story points as fast possible. There wasn’t enough time for a lot of events to sink in enough for there to be an impact. It didn’t dwell on the times after victories at all, quickly moving to the next issue they need to face. So it didn’t feel like we ever really saw them being happy or just developing their relationships in a casual manner, but rather them simply going from crisis to crisis and hence things almost always looking bleak, desperate, or under pressure. As a result, though I was beginning to like them in the beginning, the character growth they had made them grow in a pretty depressing manner, so as it got to the ending it felt like I had less of an attachment to the main characters and their relationship, in that I kind of missed how they were when they started out. The setting and overarching plot were solid and interesting with good world building, though it felt like there were a lot of things they should have done more with. The ending wrapped things up in terms of the overarching story well enough in that it made sense and wrapped everything up, but due to where the web of relationships between characters stood and my investment in that as well as how it seemed to unnecessarily go through too much too fast in the epilogue, while I won’t go as far as saying I disliked the ending, I can’t really say I felt any satisfaction from it. The art was high quality but felt too busy at times and overall rarely felt like it was trying to look eye-catchingly good, and though Cecily, Aria, and Lisa had good character designs beyond that they were mostly pretty dully.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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