This manga deserves more views and more reviews,this manga is a masterpiece for me,the characters are good and have good character development and they are badass and kumagawa is one of best antagonist for me and for the first time,a main character is badass in his on way,he deserves some respect and a great ending
This manga is quite interesting. At many points it would seem dull and boring, however, you can't help but keep reading because of the charcaters, not because of the skills and the rules of the world, but simply the psyche of each character and how Medaka improves others. I know it's cliche but thats the exact point of the manga, in some ways what the character is doing is telling you, that you no longer need to rely on the manga itself to give you happiness, in many cases it makes fun of Shonen Jump stories despite being one itself.
In many ways it does fail to an english audience, mostly because of the script of letters for puzzles in many cases, it can be hard to grasp what is happening and what rules matter. And so I've skipped those kinda battles by skimming through it, because ultimately it was a battle of ideas and not of the actual fight.
Edit: So now that I totally finished it, I'm disapointed that it did the exact same thing they do in a lot of these ending mangas, show the charcters will end up together, but just not how. It's very annoying not having good endings especially if it contradicts how the story progresses. FOR EXAMPLE, telling the audience something will happen, or a change of tone, and then nothing happens, and the author forgot wth he was writing lol.
Tldr: Weird but engaging in a fun and different way: 8/10
I used to absolutely love this manga as a kid. I generally steer clear of ecchi/fanservicey shounen, but this was an exception. Gonna reread to see if I still like it.
The first arc is good, while some things here and there are kinda boring. The second arc is incredible, kumogawa is such an different villain for a shonen manga, he is completely unique is his own way and his moments were by far the best ones. The third arc is GREAT, it develops every character in the best way possible. And then we have the final arc, the previous arc ends in a way that was so convincing that you did not needed that a lot more to give a proper ending, this arc is just trash when its not completing some character arcs that its painful to read and you can really feel that it went way too far with some things as well as some crazy retcons, not to mention that the author forgets to develop some things. But in the end of the day, it was a good ride. Kumogawa is the one character that i definetly wont forget about by far the best in the series
While I share probably the same opinion as "donutdude10" (page 1) I still wanted to give my two cents.
I am not big into Battle shounen, while I greatly respect authors coming up with inventive powers, the way they can be used and countered at times it feels like they are overcomplicating things to the point that they have to be explained while simpler battles with more effective and sinthetic fights can be more memorable, look at Samurai Jack at how essential and minimalist the art is, the scarce dialogue, or how memorable can be Berserk fights even if they are much more simple like Guts fighting 100 knights.
Is it worth reading? I think so, in spite of the fat it has, I have to admit there are various "minigames" where I was just skipping ahead, the whole let's say "demon fight" near the end felt mostly pointless if not for various character development.
I think is bold because how much the plot changes, I find most of the twists and arcs to feel well tought out, it did not feel to me like the author was desperate to keep writing even if you could see how at many points the story could have been finished.
I got some more points of contentios, in spite of being very meta, which I think overall worked, it did fall into many of the trapping of the genre, my main problem with the battle shounen is to see great powers squandered in the name of fighting, but at least in the epilogue most people seem to use them for a good purpose.
Finally regarding the ending and the relationship with the main duo, Zenkichi and Medaka, I like the way the author changes point of view, the story has many characters who are allowed time to shine is quite impressive, like a more condensed One Piece perhaps and the epilogue has much more space than you would see on any other Manga honestly, however and here I come into SPOILER territory
SPOILER.......
Zenkichi and Medaka, the series bait their relationship multiple times, with Zenkichi when fearing death openly tells he love her, Medaka tells him how she feels, then she kisses him, but these developments which are chapters a part don't lead to anything, their relation is always reset, as if the author was afraid to committ which is bizarre given how skilled he is at making foes sympathetic, making their "turning" credible, there are various times where logic is put into question, rules that are called into question while others ignored.
I find the end in a personal and specific way "sad", because of how japanese it seems, I mean with that 10 years reunion, you got the main couple who despite loving each simply stayed 10 years apart for no good reason but work, and not just them, most of these friends despite this being the age of the internet and smartphones they were trapped by their work.
Don't expect any answer to this, but I wanted to put it out there at least.
