The first arc is nothing, just a low-key setup with some boring Slice of Life shenanigans, but it soon transitions into proper Battle Shounen stuff… which is pretty much just as boring. If there’s anything good to be said about the Abnormals arc, it’s that the character writing and theming is still more competent than your run-of-the-mill Battle Shounen. How the ideals of the enemy interact with that of the idealised protagonist is decently compelling, even if it’s dragged down by dull fights and a duller plot. But then Kumagawa appears (*fan girls squeal*)
As everyone says, Kumagawa Incident is indeed the best arc. Kumagawa is obviously the best character in this series by far, and this arc is very cleverly structured to bring out his best points, even if it still suffers from some dull fights which will remain to plague the entire series. It’s such a brilliant idea to have the Shounen antagonist be the underdog, to play into the premise of the reader rooting for the villain knowing he will lose, and it’s even more brilliant to tie that further into themes of hope and persistence, the themes which such a Shounen antagonist would typically embody the antithesis of. And I thought he’d die but to my delight he remained in order to breath a bit of tolerability into the rest of the manga. Speaking of which…
Kurokami Medaka’s Successor is about as mixed as the whole manga. The first 20 chapters suck absolute dog dick, they’re honestly so awful. To be honest they’re probably not even any worse than the first 50 chapters but they taste all the more bitter after getting a brief sample of good writing in the last arc. And then it takes a sudden turn that justifies it all and gave me hope for the series all over again, playing perfectly off the meta aspects and transforming Zenkichi from a boring ass generic side MC into a genuinely compelling presence who drives the plot in an interesting way. And then 10 chapters later it’s not that interesting again. But by the end of the arc it pulls off the conclusion pretty well, and manages to make me like Medaka somehow and at this point I’m feeling perplexed and angry at the series. If it could’ve just got a hold of itself this manga could’ve been something special, and it still is in a way, but it makes me angry the amount of pure incompetence I had to sit through to now come to that conclusion. Oh also Anshin’in is pretty cool but could’ve been executed better.
Jet Black Bride was stupid, it’s sort of interesting to see Medaka develop this way but frankly it’s too little too late, and the arc was obviously boring as hell. Word play was fun, but as someone only familiar with Japanese from a beginner’s standpoint it was hard for me to be massively engaged with it. I liked the panels where Anshin’in killed those guys with all the skills and stuff.
Unknown Shiranui was actually pretty good by the rest of the series’ standards but it’s too late at this point for me to care, and it’s still a bit too stupid for me to get too invested. Still, at least this arc wasn’t so much of a slog to get through and it concluded a lot of the themes well. I don’t care about Shiranui though.
Bouquet Toss to the Future was kind of great actually and I hate it for that. It perfectly wrapped up Medaka’s character, Kumagawa’s and their dynamic as well as the former’s with Zenkichi’s, and it’s a great roundup of the messy, bullshit, nobody-cares-about-them cast and all of their gags and powers and nonsense. Epilogue was whatever but who even cares at this point.
The last couple arcs made me think about how much of a love-letter this series is to Shounen. The over-powered main character who we know is going to win but somehow find solace in the victory of anyway, the put-upon main villain who we know is going to lose but somehow find hope in anyway, the passionate normal guy who we hate-to-love because of his shallowness and uncool inspiration, the childish fan-service, the childish powers, the childish jokes, the childish optimism; who really wants to graduate from Shounen Jump, eh Kumagawa? The answer is me, because this manga is ass. Sorry not sorry, maybe you should’ve hidden your misogynistic undercurrent better.
