nathandouglasdavis

There are two reasons why I am rating this manga so low: 1) the base premise and storytelling were so boring that it made it difficult to get through the few chapters that exist, and 2) there was no resolution to the story since it was cut off in the middle of an arc.

For a story about a Mortal Kombat style of video game to be captivating, the mechanics and fight strategies have to be immersive and well-explained. And they just aren't in this manga. Instead, it feels like I'm an outsider who's watching other people play a video game that I don't fully understand. Like, why is the protagonist using that specific avatar? Is it just because that's the first one fe chose or is there an actual thought process behind it? And if it's just random, then why doesn't fe experiment with other random avatars? And rather than just seeing peoples' awed reactions, I would like to see the protagonist's thought process in the midst of the fights. What led fem to decide to counter in this type of way or in that type of way? We don't get any of these types of things that would help immerse us into the process or that would help captivate us to the fight scenes.

What makes the protagonist special--beyond just being super adept at the game--is that fe still uses a manual gamepad despite every other Battle Mexia player taking advantage of operating technology that just automatically reads their brain waves. Fe's also special because fe's related to a certain super high-level player. Though fe didn't know that at the beginning of the series. And honestly, that familial connection development was just dumb. Such a contrived and awkward attempt at plot progression (in a story already filled with weakass plotwork).

The artwork is good. Great, even. Very similar to the style of Death Note. I could probably rate it as a 10/10, but I don't feel quite right giving it that score and I can't exactly pinpoint why. So let's just leave it at that and say that it's very high quality artwork.