I was rooting for this manga to work, really. I started with the first anime season (that I watched three times in a row), then read the manga because everyone was hyping it up... and everything went downhill from there.
Don't believe people who tell you that it's an "eat the rich" story, because it's not.
The good:
- the art (it's pretty much carrying the manga at this point)
- the first three volumes
The bad:
- our protagonists are hypocritical criminals who protect and contribute to colonialism despite claiming to destroy social injustice in the British empire.
- no characters of colour (despite the story taking place mostly in London, and having a whole arc in India).
- sooooo much retconning.
- there is no chemistry between the characters. At all. They completely loose any facial expressions after a few volumes too, so their interactions feel even more flat.
- the author apparently never heard of the common writing advice of "show, don't tell" because he keeps making his characters *say* things instead of showing them more subtly through the story. It's not because a genius like Mycroft is saying things that we are going to believe it.
- conflicts are avoided at all costs. No, seriously. Characters never really disagree. Everyone can be talked out of their bad beliefs (unless they're a mustache twirling villain without any redeeming quality who is just here to get killed off).
- the "main villain" of the series is a complete idiot, which completely ruins any tension the manga had left for its climax arc.
- absurdly unrealistic despite being a crime/mystery story. The number of things you have to ignore to have the plot "make sense" is incredible. And plot holes. So many plot holes.
- The way the female characters are written is just sad. The ACD novels were more progressive towards women than this.
- Incredibly ableist towards all of its disabled characters.
- Queerbaiting lol
- The entirety of the Final Problem arc.
It's so bad that both the stage/musical adaptations *and* the anime adaptations had to change things for them to make more sense (at least on an emotional level, because the plot is screwed no matter how you look at it).
If you want a psychological thriller actually dealing with the complex failures of the system and its violence towards marginalized people (especially in a system as brutal as the Victorian British empire's), then go read something else.
