I want to take a moment to commend the opening ~20 chapters of this manga, incredibly dark and explosive. In them we meet the series protagonist, a pathetic, disillusioned cop. His only cope is knowing his gun could, in some universe where he'd be brave enough to perform the act, kill one of the pathetic NPCs that surround him, or even himelf. The opening chapters reflect the unending horrors of the contemporary, disempowered social individual. The monsters are the protagonist's shitty coworkers, an abusive boss in the metro, protagonist's naggy girlfriend. Protagonist feels trapped, isolated, and itches for something to give him meaning to live. These chapters are also actually super funny, because à la Joker (but also Otto Dix, or Munsch, or Picasso in the abstracted animalistic quality of the faces), the protagonist wears a grotesque smile, reflecting the bland and appeasing social selves we create to interact 'normally' with others without causing conflict. It's hilarious and painful, and most importantly, directly echoes the monster designs that begin to appear through Tokyo. Ensues an incel magical girl power fantasy, which I unironically think echoes Madoka Magica super well. The undying mascot is a useless moron of an owl instead of whatever Kyubi is, and the magical girl gems get crushed up and snorted like coke in the Jagaaan universe. One of the side heroes immediately uses his newfound powers to rape, like, every woman he meets. The gift of power is quickly revealed to be a curse.
Anyway, I loved this part of Jagaaan. Edgy, of course, but also thought-provoking and funny, as well as visually unique. Unfortunately, as the series continued, it began to draw away from the inner thoughts of the protagonist, and as he gained power, he solved a lot of the conflicts that made the beginning of the series so interesting. He became a generic hero, overpowered and surrounded by girls. This is what I'd like to call the Gantz effect: slick visuals and characters, but an initial darkness and provocative quality that becomes stale over the course of the series. The pathos-inducing gags and original, grotesque facial expressions disappeared, replaced by tons of naked cute girls and (admittedly) cool battle series monster designs. The monster designs also lost allegorical strength. We went from 'girlfriend is a giant scorpion, lashing out out of bottled rage caused by a complex tangle of reasons' to 'vegetarian monster (?)'. [spoilers lol] I was really shocked that the idol girl's arc went from gaining her powers to kill her father who raped her for 10 years, to killing him, to succeeding at her dream to become an idol at whatever cost, to getting raped by that one side character pervert guy, to slightly injuring him, to him lowkey getting a redeeming (death? if i remember correctly) in the next battle. Amidst gory deaths, constant sex, and nihilistic characters, this arc is easily the darkest element of Jagaaan. The part where she is raped in the bathroom by the pervert character is heavy and effectively horrifying. But it is not treated with the narrative weight it deserved, pushed aside while protagonist and girlfriend #3 find some stupid deus ex machina plan to take down big bad.
It's always a bad sign when characters start yelling concepts like 'justice!' and 'peace!' and 'hero!' at each other while charging at each other in their gigantic OP bioweapons. I am afraid I must have overestimated the critical depth of the Jagaaan, which, despite a strong beginning, has revealed itself to be quite a shallow and typical seinen battle manga!
Review as of Ch.67 (dropped)
