Okay, gonna do a short rundown on my thoughts of this series and do a more in-depth, spoiler breakdown about the final two volumes (9 and 10) on the last chapters’ comments. I know I’m some random nobody on the internet, but maybe I’ll be able help someone put their own thoughts into words by reading this.
I’m gonna start off by saying I think 99% of everything until about halfway through volume 9 was done impeccably. So I won’t talk much about it, I just really like basically all of it.
I know a lot of people are extremely angry about the thing with Licorice while a lot of people also defend her. I generally lean towards her defense, the things that happened to her and her general attitude and disposition were all fairly fleshed out prior to her *decision* and the “situation” had been explained to her by Nazuna (I’m trying to avoid literal spoilers cause I’m retarded and don’t know how to hide them) at that point, so it’s not like she expected her decision to have the outcome it did in the end. It’s still kinda shitty and I understand some of the outrage -but people still take things way to far, come on guys- but at the end of it all, I understand her decision and frankly believe it wasn’t out of character for her to do it, especially seeing as she’d stated herself that she had legitimately considered it earlier in the series. However she now has more knowledge of the situation, more personal (and selfish) reasons for doing so, and -seemingly- perceived it as a “safer” option based on her reaction to the outcome of said decision, and I don’t alwyas slam a character for making an illogical or irrational decision because, well, real people aren’t always logical or rational either.
Side-note: it’s obviously highly contextual and I’m referring to this story and not “any” irrational or illogical decision in manga/anime, so no flamerino plz
Now, the “ending” which I haven’t actually read cause it hasn’t been translated: we’re at 58 out of 60 as of this comment. No matter the ending I can’t really see it being particularly “satisfying”, it will probably be “conclusive” at least, which is something that -unfortunately- many series can’t actually say... However I think many people (including myself) will probably find it lacking and certainly rushed, it just feels rushed and has that air about it of an author given a hard deadline on their series, which is a shame since the rest of this series (imo) was extremely well paced and surprisingly thorough in its forethought of story elements and general foreshadowing.
I will personally be giving this at least a 7, maybe an 8 depending on the exact way it ends. This is due to my previous statements, because I do truly believe this series to be a fantastic and fun read up until the final volume where it falters a bit, but I’ve also never personally been in the “ending can ruin everything” camp, so the bulk of my rating stems from the majority of the content: which I loved, will certainly re-read sometime in the future, and can whole-heartedly recommend to someone who’s looking for a good adventure story with a nice romance in it, good characters, solid art, and surprisingly good pacing (imo) for an adventure story. And only with a small stipulation about the endings quality so as to not oversell the series as “perfect”.
I hope others can say the same at the end of the day and this manga will be able to average around an 8 so that more I’m the future will be able to see and experience it (cause let’s be honest, rating is a massive deciding factor in what people choose to read here). Because I’d like to think most of us really did enjoy our time with this manga, so we shouldn’t fault it -too much- for a fairly rushed ending.
Thanks to anyone who took time out of their day to read some random persons opinions on a manga.
