It started ok. I liked some of the art and character designs. I do think some of the girls are starting to look too much alike. I really liked Satellizer as a Kuudere character. She could be a bit frosty and haughty, but it is in part a mask to hide her more shy and delicate feelings which makes her more sympathetic.
Some readers complained about all the catfights in the beginning. This didn't bother me so much. First, Satellizer has a bad reputation. Her classmates and teachers see her as a violent delinquent. A reputation that she does little to fix. In part because she has bad social skills and doesn't interact well, but also her "I won't give up/I'll just do it on my own personality" doesn't mesh well in a military unit/team environment. The upperclassmen see her not following orders and being a lone wolf which is detrimental to military unit cohesion. In military academies a certain amount of respect is expected from underclassmen to their seniors as a way to enforce the chain of command. Respect for one's seniors or sempai's whether in the military or outside of it is also important in many cultures. Satellizer won't bow her head or show active respect to her seniors. So she is a problem, one which her seniors try to remedy by punishing her. This is something that also happens time to time in military organizations where fellow soldiers try to get the person causing problems to "shape up" for the good of the unit. In this case it gets nastier, because the senior's pride gets put on the line since Satellizer wont back down and beats everyone to a pulp. Part of the solution was Satellizer opening up and trusting a bit and the seniors backing down. All of this was ok with me.
What I don't care for is that most of the limiters including Kazuya seem to be wimps. Its like the limiters had their gonads cut off and given to the Pandoras. It would be ok if 1 or 2 were like this, but not all. What a bunch of emasculated men and the Limiters never seem to improve only the Pandoras. Why even bother having them if they do almost nothing? The brother arc is where things started to go south really bad. Her brother is sick, abusive and has a stalker personality. All of that just doesn't go away. He needs more than professional help, he needs to be locked away. Really what was her sister thinking setting this up? No what was the writer thinking? The arc ended way too unrealistically. Abusers don't just have an aha! moment and just stop abusing. Anyone who thinks this or excuses this with "oh, sibling and familial love will overcome abuse" has no clue about sexual abuse or domestic violence.
The latest arc is just told sloppily. Really, if the Chevalier
are so powerful, arrogant and cruel why do they need to torture Elizabeth or destroy her father's company? They have no problem killing people as experimental test subjects, then it shouldn't be a big deal having Elizabeth and her father have an "accident".
Its just a clunky set up for what's to follow, and its a lazy way of trying to instill outrage in the characters and viewers. Satellizer and her limiter who started as the main characters are hardly in this arc at all. It's ok if they want to develop some of the other characters, its just not being done well and it should at least include one of the main characters a bit more.
So it started off with some potential. Im Dal-Young's stuff always has a few good ideas, but the stories always end up getting screwy, dumb down or just run out of steam. Its getting frustrating to read any of his stuff. The series started as an 8 or 9 for me, but has dropped because of these two last arcs to about a 7 and that's being kind. I wonder if it can be salvaged. If it continues this down this way or miraculously gets better I'll update my score.
BTW: The anime is pretty disappointing as well. The girls all look nice, some of the action is decent, its got some cool music, but its turned mostly into a fan-service show. Some fan-service is ok, but if it gets in the way of the action and the story then that's not ok imho. Some will undoubtedly love it for all the fan service, and some won't. You have been warned.
<-----------Update---------->
Its been dragging a lot and I would like to see this get some direction instead of introducing more and more characters with bigger and bigger boobs. I'll be putting this on hold for a couple of months and if I don't see some improvement then I'll be permanently dropping this. Oh, and yea dropping my overall score to a 5 now as we haven't gotten any substantial explanation on what makes Kazuya "special" and how this will figure into the story and in all the volumes I've read we haven't gotten much more info on the Nova nor has there been much movement in the romance. The relationship is still in the same awkward phase that it was in the first chapters! I guess the author is aiming for Bleach or Dragonball length levels here. Well I'm not going to stick around for another 5 years to see this finally get some place.
(-67)
(+107)
