It comes off as slightly pseudo-philosophical and edgy, thankfully not too much like many other authors out there who need to remind you of their misanthropy every 2 seconds. You can enjoy this one without being reminded of _the political and economic state of the world right now_.
The overall the story is that there are parasites that invade human hosts and slumber until the human in question is brought to the brink of despair by some event in his life. This fit of rage/despair manifests into a full-on transformation that is enabled by the presence of those parasites. Humans basically become monsters that represent to some extent the desires they have. These humans are categorized and there's a push for these infected humans to integrate society, some becoming heroes with their transformations. These transformations have limits and the human can lose control, bringing about total loss of humanity. From there, things start to happen and the story develops.
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__Pros__:
__Artstyle__ is incredible, one of the best I've seen.
- Motion is well portrayed, you get a good sense of speed and urgency. Faces, especially hair, is extremely detailed, every strand is drawn. Some scenes look like they're a black-and-white screenshot from a blockbuster anime movie. Effects like dust, particles flying, bubbles, viscosity are all life-like. There's also instances of Berserk-like monster details with the demonic/root-like designs that are heavily detailed and precise. Character design was pretty good overall, a lot of monstrosities. There's also some pannels with overlaying frames that are sometimes interesting to watch. It's very enjoyable to look at and I'd say it carried the manga to a significant extent.
img220(https://i.imgur.com/cuKKp4k.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/ZUnC9dZ.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/uvh7xAm.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/pwcmdrf.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/OBZR4KA.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/fYK2D5u.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/rjojw4V.png)
img220(https://i.imgur.com/O3lY0qL.png) img220(https://i.imgur.com/x5OmPIf.png)
__Story__ was fair.
- __Story premise__ was good. Initially, it revolved around the mystery of the parasites, their origins, the special condition that the main character needed to fulfill to bring to life his goal. It's enticing at first, with characters popping out every few chapters to deepen the mystery even more. That was until we reach the later part of the manga, but still, credits where it's due. The way it also got political in some arcs, where there were debates about integrating society or resorting to genocide, quarantine, etc. Also a lot of references to real-life reactions to the events unfolding, that you'd find on Twitter, Youtube comments, etc.
- __Story segmentation__ was, at least for me, very well segmented. You could follow a very natural timeline of how events unfolded and the scale/depth of the story increased in a linear fashion. There was no jumping all over the place with rollercosters of story development, it was pretty straight forward. Easy to follow, no need to look up theories online or anything of the sort. It's not to say that the story was "simple", but the way it was presented was intuitive.
- __Raw__ emotions and violence were on display constantly. There was a lot of gore, a lot of sexuality and the author didn't shy away from putting masturbation. One of the characters had a porn problem and you'd get unfiltered porn addiction perspective, with voyerism and other sexual obsessions of the sort.
__Combat__ was nice.
- Action was really well portrayed, as shown previously in in my statement on the art. Characters had a variety of skills that associated with their own history/person. You had a lot of "up my sleeves" moment as well.
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__Cons__:
__Story direction__ in later parts shifted in a not so good way.
- It basically turned into a superhero comic. I lost that sense of mystery. The villain took the narrative way too far into the cliché comic bad-guy archetype, instead of remaining in a non-specific mystery that humanity is solving.
- The main character diverted from his main goal, and that stuck until the very end. It's like the first part of the story was just a catalyst and not something we were ever meant to come back to, which is a downside for me. The __ending__ was not satisfying, slightly disappointing even.
- The answer to the mystery of the parasites and some of the characters' backstory was extremely generic and it was basically made unimportant. Completely brushed off at the end.
__Side-stories__ were a bit lackluster and flat.
- Certain arcs were not very interesting and became very flat. The one that really bored me and I'm ready to bet bored most readers, was the one with the guy who became a girl and was at the festival while the main story was lightly unfolding in the background.
- The romance was half-assed, although the only redeeming quality is that it wasn't over the top and hollywood-esque. It was fairly stoic, the main character's new girlfriend was kept at a distance for the entirety of the show, but it was still extremely bizzare of a switch. The main character was ready to die to bring back his original girlfriend to life, only to be side-tracked barely a few days after.
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__Overall__,
It was initially very good and promising. The art is its strongest point. It unfortunately fell short past a certain point and the story did not conclude well enough. It's enjoyable but could have been shorter.
