The first chapter was like: WOW
The next chapters were like: good
The current chapters are like: ok..
Fumetsu no aiba to me is a very weird manga. It starts off super strong and then just kind of dwindles down over time. Seriously, few chapters in any manga have made me cry as much as the first chapter, but its all downhill from there.
So what are the manga problems. First, the theme. Youve got an immortal who can never die and can bring people back to life. Once that is set, its hard to feel sad when any character dies since they are coming back later. Then you have very weird enemies, these little creatures called the knockers who have no personality and are literally just annoying little monsters in my opinion. Then you have time skipping in the range of literal centuries which shrinks the magnitude of actions and events at any given moment. Finally, you got a ton of side characters. Ive always said that having too many characters in a manga is setting yourself for failure. It is just too difficult giving relevancy and screen time to all, so you usually end up with tons of background characters with no relevancy to the story anymore. Think about any successful manga with tons of characters, and think about how many chapters that manga has. Usually, a lot in order to develop them correctly, but that is not the case here.
Tbh, i think this manga is very average now. Not good, not bad. I still look forward for new chapters just to see whats going to happen to the characters that I once loved, but the story is just pretty meh now.
I think this manga could have been masterpiece if it had changed its direction from chapter 2 onwards. I would have liked to see a more serious seinen slice-of-life and honest story about characters, dreams, and the harshness of reality without all the shonen fights and all the time skipping like we saw on chapter 1, not the current product which is some sort of shonen action drama interwined mess.
