The series has a rocky start, and feels rushed. Effectively you have five traumatized people who wind up together through somewhat forced circumstances, and each arc will be one of them working through their personal issues one by one. Alright, fair set up, it shows up in a lot of other series, like Persona, or Iris Zero.
...except that's all the series is. It is five arcs of working through each person's backstory and struggles. There is no downtime. The second one arc is done, it immediately segues into the next which has conveniently become relevant or been brought up by some event. There is no breathing room. There is no time to grow attached to the characters, or even to watch them grow attached to each other. It's just heavy plot beat, heavy plot beat, heavy plot beat one after another.
And then there's the intensity. There is no buildup. The first arc features one of the main characters being sexually assaulted by a group of men multiple times. They throw you right into it, and it doesn't feel especially earned. Next arc? Dealing with the aftermath of a suicide. (Also arcs three and four feel like they have drastically reduced stakes compared to arcs 1 and 2, but the series presents them as just as much of an issue. After sexual assault and suicide we have... a friend betraying you that makes you miss your club, and not wanting to admit to your strict parents you want to be a singer rather than a doctor. Huh?)
And despite ostensibly being an ensemble cast of the five students... It just isn't. Each person has their arc, and the main character bullishly kicks down every possible door to say "You can do it! It'll all work out! We'll support you!" while the others mull about, maybe providing a hint of backstory or a suggestion of what the mc should do if you're lucky.
The MCs behaviour is never treated as problematic either. He'll walk up to any traumatized person and yell at them to tell him everything. For some people, that would work. Some people need someone to ask. But for many it would not. What he does to some of them is literally just harassment. Butt he whole time the narrative presents him as in the right and everyone comes around to thank him for it and pat him on the back.
There's also no focus on the studying. The whole setup is they're lumped together because the four of them have the worst grades and will have to repeat a year, plus the fifth who acts as a tutor. There's supposed to be this constant pressure of "If we don't take this seriously, our lives might get fucked up". And it's just never focused on. The study group is just an excuse to set off the trauma storylines. We don't get any sense of progress for them, and we only get told how they've done at the very very end. Why even have this element if you're just going to ignore it? It doesn't have to be the main focus, but it should be present! Bokuben has a near identical core premise and while most of the series is about the characters and their arcs, they still at least address their grades and show us them progressing, and that's a far lighter series!
Despite all those problems, the series could've still been alright. A 5, or maybe a 6. Not something I'd be especially likely to come back to, at least not any time recently, but not something off-putting. It still had some fun moments.
And then we hit the final arc. The final arc is... the main character's backstory and trauma! And yeah, everyone knew it was coming. But what a fucking trainwreck it is. For starters, we learn the mc used to be a delinquent. We knew this already, but he was a downright criminal. But the series adds little caveats to go "But it's okay he did a few terrible things, he's just a widdle guy!". Like one thing is that he robbed old people for money. We learn he did it because a friend had a sick family member they couldn't afford treatment for. Alright, some Robin Hood shit. Not necessarily a bad thing. But why random old people on the street? Why are you targeting the elderly and vulnerable? Why not rob other delinquents, or some rich fucks who won't miss it? Then there's the next thing. He dated a bunch of girls all at the same time, cheating on the lot of them, then harshly breaking up with them and saying he never took them seriously and they should've known. What's the caveat...? Oh, he has a social phobia of women due to some earlier things, and his mentor figure thought he should date girls to try to get over it. Why date multiple at once? Why cheat? Why break up with them with all the class of a freight train? Yet the story just moves on like these two things are acceptable because of these tiny bits of give.
But even then, maybe you can forgive it. He's not that person anymore. He's still headstrong and gets violent, but he's not actively going out of his way to harm people. He's turned his life around. He doesn't hang out with the gang. Can you forgive him? I think I could, but it would be hard.
Except the rest of the arc was shit too. It's entirely built around his history with his original parental figure at the orphanage, followed by his new mentor figure who is that guy'd little brother in a gang. Orphanage goes poorly but is acceptable. The kids have a spat, the mc gets accused of stuff he didn't do, the parents complain. The parental figure sticks up for them but the snooty moms turn it back on him and get him fired. He gives the two kids an earring each and basically tells them to still be good people even though he won't be around anymore. They get into more fights, because they're kids and had their parental figure taken away. They're parental figure hits up his little brother who runs a gang of more-or-less struggling youths and asks him to take the kids in. Mentor figure agrees, but warns him they're a rough group. They do it anyways, which inevitably leads to a lot of crime and roughhousing as mentioned before. This eventually culminates in an event where the mc stands up to the mentor figure and the mentor figure kicks him out of the gang. Alright, fine.
...and then the mentor figure slashes his back with a knife leaving a scar that literally covers over half his back, and leaves him with plenty of other scars like cigarette burns on his arm. The mentor goes to jail, but threatens he'll come back for them when he's out.
Then he gets out of jail and comes after them. Well, yeah, that's expected. He beats up the mc and taunts the new friend group as not real friends, revealing all the mc did back in the day. He beats the shit out of him, with a whole gang of people beating him up, until the mc's male friends step up and it becomes more of a brawl and eventually he gets driven off and arrested again.
Alright, clearly the mentor figure is a bad guy. Right? Right?!?
Nope. The series paints him as a good guy the whole time. He just did a widdle slash to make sure the mc didn't come back to the gang. He just jumped him immediately afterwards because he wanted to test to make sure the mc had made real friends. Fuck no author. He's a terrible person and you're not convincing me otherwise.
AND THEN we learn the original parental figure, the mentor figure's older brother has been keeping tabs on them the whole time so he knew everything that was going down too. And he just let it happen, and the narrative paints this as caring. So now they're both shit! And the MC is practically grateful to them for it!
There's also a weird bit going on where everyone is acting like the high school study group is his new set of friends away from the gang, the sign he was really free of that life.
...except he already had a friend group at the start of the series away from the gang, which was literally formed BECAUSE OF HIM LEAVING THE GANG!
There's literally not a single beat in the final arc I saw and thought was good. It is HORRENDOUS. I am shocked to see it come out of an author who I've otherwise been very impressed by. I'd say maybe they were rushed but they had 64 chapters! 5 whole volumes! I've seen series with only 2 that had a better sense of pacing. It's ridiculous.
And to further exemplify just how much this is the mc's story and no one else's, at the very end, when we get a flash-forward, he is literally the only one we are shown. Everyone else can just get fucked I guess, they're all props in his life.
Miserable.
