So I decided to give this highly praised manga a shot. I know the anime has mixed reviews, but I have no idea what it's about and I went in blind. This is what I thought:
Story: The story started strong. Simple and to the point, and I was hoping for a slow, methodical character development. Instead, I feel like the author rushed this. It almost felt like a summary of an anime or manga. Every other chapter a new character would show up. Halfway though I began to lose interest because things became overly complicated, but I'll just keep it at; the ending was not for me.
Art: The art is unique, and I know it's an older manga but the big fight scenes were quite difficult to follow. I would say 30% of the manga I was unable to make out what the hell I was looking at. It was one of the worst aspects of the manga to me.
Characters: They weren't horrible, but not great either.
In the end, I think this really needed to be longer. The ideas could have been better fleshed out, and I would have given a bit more of a crap. In my opinion, it's overrated. I know it's probably an inspirational manga that has made its way into inspiring other mangas, but it's just not it to me.