Unfortunately, this is not that.
Story: 3
The manga starts off very interestingly from the get-go, but damn does it fall off. The distinct art and the interesting powers carried the manga throughout. It's a coherent story, but extremely simple. Those are really the only compliments I can give. It then heads down to a downward spiral of generic and laziness, where even the somewhat interesting artstyle feels like it's calculated.
There are so many expositions as well, that it actually horribly ruins the immersion and slows down the manga, especially during the action. I can only imagine one character that I personally enjoyed reading through their thoughts somewhat. But that's just one character. If I want to read every single move and every single thought, I'd study chess. But even then, chess is at least a game, reading this is a chore.
The way it introduces characters and story plots, the way they're developed feels so very outdated; almost gives the vibe of a worse Naruto. The arc doesn't flow neatly with each other as things feel introduced either too quickly or too slowly. The story especially, I've read about 120+ chapters, why the hell has there only been a half arc that made a slight difference? I won't spoil the arc, but if we take Tokyo Ghoul for an example; each piece is constantly being played, affecting one another on the board where you see two sides slowly changing.
After 120+ chapters, none of that. Only one good arc that managed to change one character. The half arc is more so the current one, but also it's half because the damn character's pretty much forgotten because they needed to add lots of fighting, promptly ruining the build-up of a character. I'll go more into detail in the Characters section, where it relates to the 100+ chapters.
There's nothing fantastic or special about the story. Most of it is predictable but you can't even have fun with that, it's extremely bland by following other manga that's done much better, without improving or putting a twist. This manga reads like an outdated piece, that might've been popular a decade ago, if not that.
Characters: 3
Most if not all characters are unlikeable; some because they act childish and not in a cutesy way, and others are extremely frustrating and you wonder why they exist. Most of them feel cheaply written, and you wonder why they are all introduced the exact same way. But then you realize the two reasons as you read through so many chapters:
* It's all been done before, every single beat.
* they throw away or forget parts of character and story development, then add them haphazardly afterward for cheap emotional writing.
A few examples, it took a story 100+ chapters for them to realize "Oh, one of the characters needs to have an arc where they talk about teamwork. Let's do that right now, after 100+ chapters of story!", or "Oh, we completely forgot about this character. Let's just add a sob backstory with a flashback, and that'll fix everything!" The second part happens often, adding sob backstories in order to make you care about them. It's fine if they're sad, but you barely believe it, because it mostly affects them for one chapter. Luckily it doesn't happen to all characters, but sadly to the one most important - the protagonist.
They forget our protagonist's main motivation pretty much entirely, he becomes from a generic protagonist to a tool of a story, where he can just smile through everything since he knows he has plot armor, and is only really relevant in one good arc. It's fine if they wanted to write other characters, but at least add something more to our protagonist, instead of pushing his development aside for so long.
Most characters are similar to this, the manga makes characters irrelevant only to make them relevant through their usage of powers. At best, they have a certain quirkiness that helps you differentiate one from another. At worst, they're just another mob character that truly feels like they're wasting chapters.
Art: 5
It's edgy but in a more controlled/calculated manner, in a way that turns the edge so dull. Although the style may be distinct, sadly the manga suffers from the same face and body shape, making it difficult to follow along.
The art is not really inspiring to look at personally because it feels so calculated, similar to the story. It doesn't improve as the manga goes on. Actually, it feels like it gets worse; the choice of panels and angles, although that's also because of the story, sometimes focuses on something that's not needed.
It also gets ruined by constant talking that's not necessary. The fighting is a constant whiplash, but not even a fun one. I believe the reason is inconsistency. Sometimes, the body and head proportions don't make sense. It's as if the head is floating, or my guess; is the artist copy-pasted the head onto a body to avoid drawing it. The inconsistency with art makes the manga incredibly jarring, where it honestly sometimes feels like a constant rollercoaster without the fun.
The one thing I hate most is how stiff they all feel, and the artstyle does not help with that. Luckily their abilities sometimes offset the character's stiff movements, but there's so much more that actually feels so lazy from the art side, such as the background. The background is just filler, but not even a good one because very often it's just blank white. As an example, they would fight at night, but suddenly it's a blank background just so you can focus on the characters themselves. But by doing so, you're giving up a crucial aspect of art, just for the manga's convenience.
The art itself is not bad by any means, it's serviceable and sometimes enjoyable. But I can't give it any high praise, even in much later chapters where I am shocked it hasn't improved all too much.
Overall: 3
It's like an AI made this manga or hundreds of artists, editors, and writers constantly tweaking it, trying to figure out what the consumers want; instead of a group of people just inspired to draw something unique, or some kind of twist. The story's bland and insultingly dull, and the characters are generic and slow to or don't develop at all. Some characters like the protagonist actually lose progression and interest.
But, it's not to say this manga is devoid of pleasure. Just like when the big isekai craze happened, it's trash food. You can still enjoy eating the same thing over and over. This manga is just that, for shounen.
If it's your first manga, I don't place blame on you for thinking shounen manga are boring or left feeling insulted as a reader.
Because this manga does everything all shounen manga has done but is more bland and generic. I groan with every chapter or stare at it blankly. Please, read any other shounen out there. There are plenty of others that you can find entertaining.
