Story - 6
The story, though not done yet, is not very impressive by itself, nor are the conventions of said storytelling. The writing style has generally shifted from an episodic format to a more serialized format with an increasing focus on Yukito's schemes on expanding his cult and defeating the archons. This shift in storytelling does make the narrative as a whole more intriguing overall. Given that the manga's focus is on comedy, being light on story is forgivable, though I think am intrigued as to where the author will take the story narratively going forward.
Characters - 6
Overall the characters are rather one dimensional and they generally serve the story rather than driving it. Yukito is really the only mover in the main cast with his goals being to expand the cult and to protect the people of the village. Other movers, the various antagonists, do move the story somewhat and often leaving Yukito reacting to events rather than causing them and finding ways to deal with them. I find the current arrangement satisfactory though others may not. Other characters in the main cast are really funny, but there isn't a significant amount of chemistry between each other.
Art - 10
While not Avant-garde by any span of the imagination, the artist often goes above and beyond what is needed for what could be considered a gag manga. Both battles and the magnitude of them are quite impressive. It is genuinely unfortunate that some panels from the manga could not always be translated to the anime due to tremendous budget constraints. The art of the artist is improving chapter by chapter and I think the artist of the series has some serious potential.
Comparing the manga to the anime, I think that the anime unfortunately is forced to adapt the chapters in an odd fashion and sticks to closely to the manga panels instead of either cutting off redundant establishing shots, inherited from the monthly release of the manga, or reordering the order of events slightly. This also means that the anime starts arcs in the middle of an episode harming it's pacing. The anime does show some initiative in this and I think that the anime adapts certain aspects to enhance the comedy and for that I think it deserves commendations for it's very unique ways of adapting scenes. I do believe that the manga is the original vision for the story, but I also believe that the anime is such a genuinely different experience from the manga, that you are not missing out watching and reading both.
