Main problem here is the lack of motive for the actions the WISE take, it just makes no sense. Also, not having feeling doesn't make you a mass murderer. What's the justification for wanting to erase humanity from the face of the earth?? Supremacy is "understandable" but eradication? In short, the setting is nice as is the initial idea but the mangaka made the chars way too shallow, it's hard to take things seriously like that, making everything lacking in sense and rather forceful. And when they try to make some sense of it towards the end it just seemed to me like a load of bull... so the plot development is also weak. Other than that is a VERY generic manga with no particularly redeeming points.
I started reading this manga thinking it would be a purely Play or die type of manga ( similar to Gantz/ Bloodie Junkie). But the stories soon goes into a different and much more complicated direction. It was not what I expected however still an excellent series.
Some of the weakness of the series came from the fact that it was cancelled, thus the later half was rushed.
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
the final battles are highly anti-climatic, characters potential were not fully realized, supposedly main characters disappeared for arcs just to come back in the end to help fight the mini villain squads, ridiculous power invention and power upgrade. Despite all of this, the final ending manage to be very satisfying. I find the solution the author had for the big problem ( how both worlds were saved, MC rescuing #7, the W.I.S.E left instead of having a quick heel-face-turn) was near perfect. However, since the characters were really interesting and engaging, I hope there was some epilog of sort that depicts their life afterwards.
the end was rush because he was force to end it by the deadline shounen jump put them to. beside this manga is one of my favorite such a waste to end it all Y_Y
A lot of it feels like like it's made up of temporary ideas that failed to stick and it fails to build a consistent world with a focused story. It starts as a game, then it becomes a story about time-travel, but the implications of time-travel are largely ignored, characters and situations that don't go anywhere appear, plot lines are discarded and then hastily resolved at the end. The main character is practically a blank slate - completely unappealing. It's not that he's unlikeable, it's that his personality is not even there and he doesn't even seem to be relevant to the plot. If he'd have had more presence, perhaps this series would have been more than just a mediocre action manga. The series was canceled due to lacking popularity and I can sort of understand why that would happen - the pacing of the story was abrupt and the characters don't really make an impression.
First volume was boring as its attempting to introduce suspense. It gets interesting starting around volume 2.
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
Basically, like Gantz, their ears starts to ring, then they are teleported to another world and when the phone rings, the game starts. after they kill the monsters, they are teleported back. Each trip will earn points. But the rules are loose, and characters have no reason or motivation to fight at all. The games repeat, the story progresses, and the mistery builts up. Who's doing all this, and for what reason?
Around volume 8~10, it starts to ramble on and on.
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
Time traveling, parallel worlds, psi powers, these are pretty interesting. But when the author starts to introduce multiple personality disorder, aliens hidden inside a comic, that sounded like someone's pulling ideas out from their azz. And where is that cute ghost girl that every pop manga seems to include?
Overall, this would have been a classic time traveling manga had it ended around v10. But more became less and the result was unsatisfactory.
I enjoyed this series from start to finish. Many people complain that this is a typical shounen manga, but what's wrong with that? Especially if it's shounen done very well. My only complaint is the rushed ending, but that's to be expected as the series was axed by WSJ :S
This felt as if the author had no idea how he wanted the story to go beyond the concept of going back and forth through time; many times threads would be introduced and just as quickly thrown away. The "feel" of the manga goes through a major change from how it began and then there's the end, where it was like the author was told to wrap it up so he decided to just jam as much crap as he can then crown it off with a terrible predictable fakeout ending.
Recommendation: Avoid, unless for some reason you have nothing else to do besides wasting hours of your life.
I thought the plot was really interesting and creative, but once I got started I don't think it was executed very well. I liked it, don't get me wrong, I just think it could have been better. There were moments that were interesting, there were moments that were boring and I DID skip a few chapters here and there, but overall i give it 7/10. The ending was also a let down. After all of that, I feel like the ending was just rushed. It summed everything up, but it just wasn't as great as it should have been. Well, I still reccomend it. It just took a lot of patience to get through some of it.
Unlike most people I don't really take issue with the ending. It's true it wasn't overly dramatic or suspenseful, but for what it was it worked very well, especially since it wrapped things up in both the future and the present. The only real thing I thought was dumb in the whole manga was
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
That retarded ass fight with Kyle and that guy when Kyle was like "the fight I always wanted where I dont have to think" like...what? The fuck? Oh, and I guess the whole nova thing was kind of silly, but it wasn't too annoying for me.
If you are looking for originality and creativity;then this is not for you. You will find that it is a mixture of Gantz and X-Men. I am surprised for the fact that people are saying it is a good read. GENERAL SHOUNEN ->> WEAK-TRAINING->>NEAR DEATH/FRIEND DYING->> POWER UP->> ENEMY FRIGHTENS->>STRONG ENEMY->>TRAINING. You can enjoy it if you dont mind these facts.
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