Sentai Daishikkaku
- Thread starter MangaDex
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I know I shouldn't be judging the author based on their works (and vice versa), but I fear for Negi's sanity. Having read all the currently available chapters in a few days, I am honestly shocked by how it became more and more brutal, pessimistic, cynical and depressing. Especially the IRA arc - yeesh, I hope Negi's okay. After that ended, things were starting to look up a little, but now we're back where we started: frustrating, somewhat pointless-feeling battles that are simply not fun to read.
Not because they aren't well-drawn or anything. Well, the pacing's hella slow, but it's not slow enough to be terrible. It's just that there are mainly two kinds of battles in Sentai Daishikkaku: those where both sides are filled with such idiots and/or assholes that you don't want either side to win, or occasionally, those precious few likable characters are pummeling each other and you don't want anyone to get hurt. Neither is exactly entertaining.
The MC is "interesting", because he qualifies for both of the above, weirdly enough. It's certainly an accomplishment to have a manga where the main character sometimes feels like the hero of the story and other times the villain, and this can change almost from one scene to the next, but the price Negi pays for this is that his character development is just all over the place. The MC's goals are increasingly hard to pin down, which may be intentional to a degree, but at the same time, he's nonetheless stubborn about them to the point of stupidity and self-sabotage. It's hard to root for him either like this.
After the Quintessential Quintuplets, the hacked-together plot is also depressing to witness. There are flashes of Negi's earlier brilliance and planning here and there for some plotlines, but largely, you get the feeling that he's writing the story by the seat of his pants, changing directions from one chapter to the next on occasion. Even the character writing, which I think is one of Negi's greatest strengths, isn't at all consistent: he regularly warps characterizations to make them fit the current story direction. What kind of character is Hisui? Or Chidori? Or Usukobo? It's hard for me to say, despite having read 150+ chapters of this manga. It's sad.
As much as I wanted to like Negi's new work, I honestly feel strangely relieved having reached the (current) end of the series and have little motivation to follow it further. It's probably not for me, but I think it's objectively not that good, either. 4/10, dropped.
Not because they aren't well-drawn or anything. Well, the pacing's hella slow, but it's not slow enough to be terrible. It's just that there are mainly two kinds of battles in Sentai Daishikkaku: those where both sides are filled with such idiots and/or assholes that you don't want either side to win, or occasionally, those precious few likable characters are pummeling each other and you don't want anyone to get hurt. Neither is exactly entertaining.
The MC is "interesting", because he qualifies for both of the above, weirdly enough. It's certainly an accomplishment to have a manga where the main character sometimes feels like the hero of the story and other times the villain, and this can change almost from one scene to the next, but the price Negi pays for this is that his character development is just all over the place. The MC's goals are increasingly hard to pin down, which may be intentional to a degree, but at the same time, he's nonetheless stubborn about them to the point of stupidity and self-sabotage. It's hard to root for him either like this.
After the Quintessential Quintuplets, the hacked-together plot is also depressing to witness. There are flashes of Negi's earlier brilliance and planning here and there for some plotlines, but largely, you get the feeling that he's writing the story by the seat of his pants, changing directions from one chapter to the next on occasion. Even the character writing, which I think is one of Negi's greatest strengths, isn't at all consistent: he regularly warps characterizations to make them fit the current story direction. What kind of character is Hisui? Or Chidori? Or Usukobo? It's hard for me to say, despite having read 150+ chapters of this manga. It's sad.
As much as I wanted to like Negi's new work, I honestly feel strangely relieved having reached the (current) end of the series and have little motivation to follow it further. It's probably not for me, but I think it's objectively not that good, either. 4/10, dropped.
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as much as this goes, yeah the later chapters got good again.
though not everyone sticks to the end so there's that
though not everyone sticks to the end so there's that
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