Huh, I came into this story expecting fantastic character designs and nothing else.
The chapter count scared me away at first, given that ecchi series grow stale pretty quick.
It was exactly the kind of brainless "technically not hentai" trash I was expecting, but oddly, I didn't mind.
Once I started, I barely felt the 60+ chapters I binged to get caught up.
The magic ingredient was simplicity. This manga knew what it was, and it never felt ashamed of that.
It's a story about a holy sword who swore herself to the hero, and a simple blacksmith trying to make the greatest sword in the world, and that's all it needed to be.