But aside from the edgy elements, I think one of the worst things in this manga is its poor characters. The characters aside from the main protagonist and his family are barely fleshed out at all (Though honestly, the female family members are also not very well characterised and often play out as cliches). The female characters especially, making them sometimes feel like meat puppets made to parade around the protagonist. The most egregious thing is how the manga constantly flips antagonists into his companions. It is forced and a little nonsensical when you bring in the context of their actions before they became an 'ally'. These antagonistic characters don't have a strong motivation to change their allegiance at all! But it's forced in there anyway to serve the fantastical narrative that the protagonist is some alpha that bathes in the darkness, converting all morally grey-black characters into allies to do his bidding.
Still, I think there are some interesting ideas in this manga. For one, the manga does fulfil the promise of a 'ruthless' and intelligent protagonist who uses his glib tongue and scheming to his advantage. In fact, some of the schemes that the protagonist pulls are interesting and kind of well thought out. It's just a shame that most of the conflict just falls down to pure firepower, making much of the scheming feel rather unnecessary. Still, while the manga explores its themes in the most juvenile and thoughtless way, the art is quite nice, and some action sequences are really good.
