Ino-Head Gargoyle

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tl;dr: A manga with an interesting protagonist but stories that never have satisfying endings.

This manga I think just based on concept had a lot of potential but was very different from what I expected and unfortunately didn't reach its potential at all. What I wanted and expected was basically GTO starring a cop, where an unorthodox cop manages to help a number of people because of how unorthodox he is. What I got was very different in that the protagonist was very different and the stories were hence very different as well. Saejima is very much an unorthodox cop in ways that I thought worked well. He's slightly corrupt, not enough to do anything ... even close to major but skirting the rules and such for his own enjoyment. This combined with him being kind of a loser that’s perpetually in heat makes his faults quite amusing and him kind of lovable, so just watching him screw around was kind of enjoyable. The problem is that while being flawed in a good way is important, to capture what made GTO great, the protagonist also has to be really competent and someone that comes through when it truly counts no matter what the odds are. This guy pretty much never manages to come through properly, and the stories often end in a pretty wishy-washy manner. Hence, there's no solid feeling of payoff at the end of each story and hence each story feels incredibly lacking. On top of that, a good majority of the stories relate to the past in such a way that it feels like the reader is missing something, which I suppose makes sense because I guess there's a prequel series, but I think a good series can work around that as GTO never gave that sort of feeling. And finally, the series ends abruptly with a chapter that tries to tie up a lot of things in an incredibly rushed manner but doesn't manage to do well at it at all. I will note however, that the art, style, and general tone of Fujisawa's works are always amazing and add a lot to the mange just on their own and this is no exception.