*Blade Play* is your typical isekai, except horny. i mean, just insanely, balls to the wall, hide your grandma horny. the premise is that an average japanese college student named kansuke sudo gets sucked into an MMORPG he was playing, and he's chosen as the hero with the power to purify demons. "how does he purify them?", you ask? by fucking them. no bullshit, he has sex at least once almost every chapter. this is much to the chagrin of his companion (and later love interest) yuno algracia, a female knight tasked with protecting him over the course of his journey. i'll give *Blade Play* this; for the first 40% or so of the manga, it's awesome. the mangaka's sense of slapstick and comedic timing was elite, and it still managed to keep a semi-coherent and interesting story. the sex was a bit gratuitous, but i still managed to have a good time.
unfortunately, there were about 65 chapters afterwards, which became the ones that dragged the manga down as a whole. the mangaka seemed interested in expanding the world and changing the enemies our heroes were supposed to face, but he clearly wasn't interested in doing it in a coherent way. the latter half of the manga is a rollercoaster, and i mean that in the least complimentary way possible. characters randomly show up and get defeated instantly, the MCs get teleported to random places, and the main villain changes every 15 chapters. things just kinda... happen in the last 60ish chapters, and it doesn't make for good reading. the manga also struggles with tone. it makes an effort to start being darker and a bit more serious, but every other panel is the comic relief characters fucking around, which really ruins any feel of tension or intrigue.
eventually i just gave up trying to figure out wtf was going on and just went along for the ride, and i think that's what you're going to have to do if you want to enjoy this manga.
first half of the manga: 7/10
second half: 3/10
final score: 5/10
