The "prison survival action" story is set after the sudden emergence of special powers in certain pockets of humanity. To deal with these so-called "Altered," a mysterious remote island prison named "Area D" was built.
14 Volumes (Complete)





This had potential until the actual main character was revealed. After that, the series took a turn down $@!# lane and never came back.
The original character is introduced with the ability to break down anything non-living into it's components. Let that sink in for a second... There's so much that you could do with this ability.
create a shrapnel explosion by possibly changing the rate an object is disassembled at.
arm himself. I've never seen him with a weapon in hand and yet there are countless things he could destroy to salvage a metal pipe or steel bar from.
complete access to anywhere on the island. Locks would fall apart and doors would crumble to his touch. He could take apart walls and the floors of any building for what would be essentially 3-dimensional movement.
control the area around himself. For example, he could collapse walls / various objects to block paths and then make traps by creating weak spots in existing structures (i.e. partially deconstruct an object).
In 64 chapters, though, he has disabled a bomb (that he walked up to and touched) and collapsed a building...
In the beginning this manga showed great promise. The art was first class. The story seemed like it might be great too. The characters were kinda meh even back then. The MC, or who I and everyone thought was the MC, had an interesting ability and seemed like he could be developed wonderfully as well as the story progressed.
Chapter 57 now, the MC turned out to be another tall long-white-haired guy who has a unique and powerful ability. Plus, the girls all get the feels after encountering him. He wows everyone. The kid we thought was the MC? I don't even remember where he is now. Srsly. He faded into the background as soon as he had fulfilled his role of giving the reader an idea of what an altered could face. And it turns out he isn't even representative of most altered.
After 57 chapters, the art continues to be awesome. The story has gone down a steep hill. The characters are marginally better. Area D is not an interesting manga at all anymore. <--- My opinion.
It had so much promise...in the first several pages. Until they switched from the interesting character to Mr OP-hack and then the story collapsed into a maze of a mess.
On one hand, you sometimes get good plot unraveling and character development in manga...and then there's other times you're just baited in and set up for major disappointment: MC overhaul, sob story sudden heel turn, over inflation and under use of characters, and a plot that has no idea where the hell it wants to go except downhill...Thus, it was dropped like a hot potato.
Let's just say I wish Saitama would one-punch the crap out of all this shallow shounen-clichedness.
Art:9.5
Story:7
Characters:4
Area D is an alright story. It got very good art but the story lacks. The plot isn't very fresh as it's almost like a rip off deadman wonderland just like the reviewers below me had stated. But what's even worse is the characters themselves. Their personality and actions are very superficial, and only serve to move the plot and have no really relate-able reasons behind them. It seems like they don't have a mind of their own; they only do what's necessary to keep the story alive. And there's the crap about friendship, I dont mind being lectured about friendship, but not to this extend, which kills the appeal for this manga to me.
Sooooo, if you are a person who doesn't mind the superficial character combine with a somewhat horrible plot, you might just enjoy this story.
Am now in chapter 20+ or so and i'm still confused on who the mc on this story is.
At first, i totally thought it's the guy who has this power of disassembling anything he touches in a second. i mean, who wouldn't? The story started with his POV after all. And his ability's so badass that it could srsly turn in to something so awesome.
But then come this OP guy who has a great ability but totally soo cliched == ... At first, (again) i thought he's one of those side charas that's also powerful but still gives way to the MC. Then he starts getting all the lime light and the MC (i thought) fades away on the background =="...
Edit : they should have totally went for the disassembling guy. This would be so much cooler if it's that way. (Don't know what would happen on the following chapters but am deciding to drop this one for now -w-)
heck is the storyline in this manga beginning to go the same direction as Defense Devil (manga by the same artist but different author)? What I mean is, both mangas started the same way, with an interesting storyline and then suddenly got foot-in-mouth disease.
(le sigh)
The first 100 chapters are engaging and display growth for several characters in a pretty basic manner (weak to strong, learning to trust others, etc.). The conflict among those with powers is pretty X-Men esque but it becomes a little less predictable by the time of the "island war" arc. From there things become like a Jojo arc but more straight forward and not as camp with its their battles.
What I like about this series is that the protag actually thinks. The side characters are a bit cookie cutter but endearing in their loyalty towards the protag despite their own goals.
Art is phenomenal and battles are fun.
Story is okay, not too impressive, but still enjoyable. Drawing is done very well. I prefer the story to stay with the first character introduced, developed him more since he has potential to be a hero. But he was cast aside to be a support character of the almighty hero. All the hype they have for the hero is a bit overwhelming for me.
So far, I'm not fond of the time skip: change in the story and characters. With just a short period of time skip, i felt like missing a lot of things in the story. I'll wait for a while to see how the story progress for this series.
i dont know how you can say its terrible after seeing the first two chapters, i agree that it is similar to Deadman wonderland and i am still waiting to see how the story will develop but its shows a lot of promise with great art and action and interesting abilities so yea its worth watching a bit more before giving that kind of judgment. i do have a problem with how this artist previous work (defense devil) turned out but since there is a different author im hoping for the best since i do like this persons artwork