For sure, it absolutely does, but it's kind of an abrupt change. The manga has mostly been about Saotome unintentionally rizzing up every girl until he gets a huge harem, so for it now to suddenly abandon that and start focusing on character development is weird. Plus, I feel it's hard to do well-rounded, interesting characters when your cast is so large. I think if you want to do that, stick to a few core characters.