Zettai Karen Children

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Let me tell you what made me want to read this (long) manga series. I'm really like when a character in a story grows. I also like things which have action, comedy and romance. In comes in Zettai Karen Children - a 20 year old in put in charge of three precocious 10 year old girls who have superpowers, all of them whom develop a crush on our hapless hero. But wait - the series also has three time skips in which the same girls are 13, 15 and 20 respectively. There has to be character development here, right? I was sold! And here is ... what I have to say after I've read 17 volumes so far in the past two months:

Unless Takashi-san (the mangaka) decides to change the tone and pace of the manga drastically in the upcoming volumes, this series will get bracketed among those series which are a good way to pass time on a lazy weekend only if I have nothing better to read or watch. And the reason for this is that this series suffers from serious pacing issues. It doesn't flesh out the scenes or the plots to deliver the knockout punches it could if the author has decided to do so. There are moments of humor, action and slivers of taboo-romance/affection (between a 20 year old well minded hero and three 13 year old girls) but none of these elements takes center-stage.

A single chapter or arc (which usually last from 4-6 chapters) will have moments of comedy, action and drama all rolled into one. Moments of gag are also thrown in for added measure - sometimes in the middle of an ostensibly serious scene to lighten the tone. The end result is a manga that never takes itself seriously enough to become a page-turner. By the 18th volume, the reader starts to expect that nothing serious will happen (like a character getting killed or injured, or actually falling in love) and the next arc will simply reset and begin somewhat 'anew'.

Now, that is not in and of itself a bad thing. It makes the manga fun to read on a lazy Sunday (which is what I ended up doing today) and easy to put down after reading 4-5 chapters. However, it doesn't really impacted the reader how something like Full Metal Alchemist or 20th Century Boys do. It remains fun and puts you in a good mood while you're reading it and as soon as you put it down - there is zero recall. I have an analogy to offer for potential readers of this series - expect "How I Met Your Mother". Don't read this with the expectation to read/watch "Breaking Bad".