Super Smartphone

nathandouglasdavis Jul 11, 2022

7

The title and cover art turned me off of this manga at first. I thought it would be corny as fuck. But I was pleasantly surprised at how thoughtful and engaging the plots have been so far. It's a sci-fi battle of wits thriller, and gives off a vibe that makes it feel like it's the type of manga which Ashirogi-sensei* would've written. The tension of the story comes from the fact that there are limitations to the super smartphone's capabilities. It can only give certain types of information and it's also restricted from giving information about other super smartphone users. This makes it so our protagonist (as well as our antagonist) must use deductive reasoning and research skills to get around the limitations. The author has done a good job of showing the thought processes and making these characters truly feel like geniuses (at least to me). I also generally just liked the way the author introduced our protagonist's genius capabilities in the first chapter. The long-term tension comes from the fact that there are numerous super smartphone users--anonymous to each other--who are all competing to rack up the maximum number of "points" the fastest. There's also a side(?) goal of our protagonist, where fe wants to try to track down feir younger brother who had presumably been kidnapped several years prior. I suppose I can appreciate the added drama this familial goal creates, but it also does make things feel a bit more contrived if our antagonist is in fact connected to that case somehow (as our protagonist suspects). I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. *From Bakuman. [Originally reviewed at chapter 10] [Updated upon completion] Addendum: The ending route this story ended up going down was quite horrendous. It was rushed and forced and lacking in the cleverness that made some of the earlier chapters more interesting. The super smartphones also played less and less of a role as the series continued, which might be because the author ran out of compelling and fresh ways for the smartphones to be used. And even though the two mastermind characters had a kinda funny quirkiness to them (where they stand perfectly still regardless of what's going on around them), I still didn't feel like the manga did a good enough job of explaining and justifying their presence--of wrapping things up.  Story--9 > 5; Overall--9 > 7

Fuzion8 Jun 26, 2022

10

I mean this manga is likely to be legendary. It has a death note ring to it. Q's intelligence is something that is going to make readers love the series. How events are unfolding are really Marvelous 🤩. From the beginning, people are saying that it will not live up to the 1st chapter, but from what I'm reading, it's living up to it. It's definitely a must read for manga fans who love characters with high IQ.😉