The way this manga develops feels very much like "The Promised Neverland," where you have an amazing first arc that was clearly well thought out, developed, and redeveloped to make it very solid. However, after that, when the author needed to develop the story on the go while keeping up with the manga's tight schedule, things seemed to start falling apart. So basically, from the ending of the first arc around chapter 30, the manga feels completely different. At first, it seemed that the author wanted to truly develop "Darwin's Game" itself—the whole game, the battles between characters, powers, and related elements—and finish with the destruction or conclusion of the game somehow by the players. However, after the first arc, things started to look more and more diffuse. From the island arc until the end, things started making less and less sense. It felt like, from then on, the author would start with an idea, but throughout the development of the idea, many things would be changed, and the whole initial concept didn't even make sense anymore. Because of that, characters introduced in these arcs ended up just being there, as it feels like the author had a plan for them, developed them and the story with that plan in mind, only for everything to be changed halfway, resulting in them being completely out of place in the story. This sensation is so bad that many things, including whole arcs, in my opinion, are just filler and serve absolutely nothing to advance the story for the number of chapters wasted on those parts. The conclusion and explanations of the origins and motives of the bad guys are also seemingly pulled out of the author's ass; nothing makes sense, and even the author could not explain it well. He tries to explain the same thing in many chapters but falls flat in each one. The ending feels very rushed.The art is okay, what you would expect from modern manga drawn on computers instead of actual pen and paper. The character design is good; the characters look good, but, again, nothing spectacular or original. The characters were developed somehow, but there are many characters, as I said before, that were introduced, and the author made sure to make them look like huge badasses, but then they just fell flat and did absolutely nothing in the story. They couldn't even fail; they were just forgotten completely.All in all, I would recommend this manga, but only if you have read better things and don't know what else to read. Like I said, after the first arc (which is even better than the animated version), you won't have the same enjoyment for sure. It will keep you engaged, since you've already invested so much time, but barely.
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