Disappointment arc.
I loved the casting so much back when I first read it in 2016, caught up to chapter 55 then, thus I had to re-read from beginning to refresh when I picked it up again this past week and I loved it all again.
The manga was very enjoyable to me previous to this big arc.
Admittedly I was already feeling a bit left out with all these convoluted explains and names for everything, but this big arc tested my patience.
What a mess this Dante inferno arc is, in short, this is a battle manga already running for more than 10 years, and this arc suffered HEAVILY from it.
- Plot is kinda straightforward but still a freaking mess, instead of keeping it simple, the mangaka has to bring out all these terms and weird explanations, it is overwhelming and annoying to try to understand everything from this mess, neither I had the will to;
- The power-ups were the worst, asspull after asspull, there were too many of them, but also, the enemies are build up from scratch to look insanely strong, but then it all loses gravitas when everyone is always laughing, you cant take anything seriously, fucking let tense moments build up and develop, don't defuse them right away.
And again, too much asspulling, you just know the good guys are gonna keep to miraculously surpass and grown-up immensely, sure they had a year to train, but I don't feel nothing was really earned.
By far one of the things most people hate on battle manga, and this was the perfect example of why;
- The ecchi just becomes ridiculous, the biggest offender was Arata's sword, which had to receive a LEWD mode form, sometimes this manga is trying too hard to serve fanservice and instead of being eye candy, just becomes annoying.
I admit I was pleased by most fanservice, but that sword turning into a girl was when I lost my patience, this is a harem, and I love that part of it, what made me give such a high score was how pleased I was with the harem cast, the Trinity Seven, but this manga has run too long and it just shows, I really couldn't enjoy the characters as much in this arc;
- Some fights were too underwhelming, it was never the mangaka strongest suit, but the final battle of this arc was just SHIT, it built for so long, to end like that, was great to see them teaming up (the 3 demon lords), but just ended too quickly and this great demon lord was built to seem made of much tougher SHIT, to end up like that, didn't feel epic even, and to link with what I had said before, there are some rather cool looking fights and powerups, but a lot just felt cheaply done, this is a battle manga that has a monthly release, WHY?! I don't see the quality here deserving from a monthly release.
Overall it just feels that the mangaka needs to be a bit more grounded, give proper weight to things, and stop putting comedy and fanservice in front of everything, it just ruins on some genuinely interesting stuff I saw the building and wanted to see a good payoff for.
The only praise that I can give to this arc is that I liked the newly introduced characters, which were quite a lot of them, but some like Rubine, were definitely welcoming.
ALSO, when you dissect the mess, see the plot for what it was going, I did like where it was aiming for, and while a mess, the mangaka was trying to give more development to the whole Demon Lord plotline, feels the bits on things others just may leave out.
So I m definitely very critical of this arc, but it is not like it was absolute trash either, it had its moments, but the negatives of this manga do catch up and show themselves in all their UGLY glory with this arc.
I stopped on chapter 102, with no desire to read till whatever is out for now, definitely need a break after this arcm was too long and messy, I dropped my score from a 9, and only get it at an 8, because I really enjoyed what came before, but I can see people getting tired of this shit and even giving it a 4 due to this BS.
The series needs to end, sooner than later, it has dragged out too much, IT NEEDS TO END. And definitely does NOT deserve to be a monthly release, I don't see the quality or care to justify that. Feels like that time is rather being used for the mangaka to make the series even more convoluted and try to make a sense of the mess he is doing.
Hopefully, the mangaka can learn and improve on the arc it is currently undergoing, but tbh, I don't have faith anymore, I might pick the series up again next year or when I hear the news it is about to conclude.
What a waste, this mangaka clearly doesn't have the proper skills to keep this beast going for so long as he has, he needs clear focus and give more weight to what he is doing, built and capitalize on some tense scenes, don't ruin it with characters smiling all the time, I m going to be skeptical and say, he will fail once again in doing just that, but only time will tell,
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