I haven't read Shihou Yuugi or Gekka Bijin due to them being untranslated fully, but this may be Endou Tatsuya's worst manga.
Although, to be fair, it was his second manga, so I can excuse how messy and bad it is from its many flaws. 2/10.
The story of a child assassin is intriguing, but to be less than 16 years old and have 10 years of killing with 93 known cases of one-shot murder is dumb age-wise.
She had the help of her "foster" father, but who knows for how long and at what age she started killing.
Her personality as a cold-blooded killer with the contrast of being an awkward girl with the comedic tone is tasteless. The overall cast with their silly personalities is very displeasing for killing the story's dark scenario of Tista being an assassin while the police continue to fail in capturing her.
Artsy's somewhat cocky attitude as a self-proclaimed future legendary artist and nosiness to bring the "stranger" Tista to smile after first meeting her is obnoxious and not charming at all.
Most of the characters are annoying for their unfunny personalities with the overall meaningless comic relief.
A Church with one Father in particular being the boss who orders the killings of sinful individuals is interesting, but the representation of Catholism surrounding the story is poorly founded, uneducated and lackluster.
The ability of inherited supernatural eyesight of 1000 years in how the people in the Church somehow attain remains unclear- unless I missed something.
Aside from Tista's dull awkward side, and the lacking hints of Artsy or Suzy- basically Tista's amnesia of her past never being inserted early...
Her origin is flawed as well. Her parents are killed by who knows, but we know they were involved with the Church.
Through that trauma she blames herself into thinking she's the one who killed them. Except the moment she goes insane and becomes a killer is only after Suzy reunites with her abusive father and strangles her, injuring her talented singing voice... which leads for her to want to kill Suzy's father, which her now Foster Father, Lone helps her to do so with a sniper which is how she later became an extraordinary marksman while she attained the supernatural eyesight like Lone when she desired to kill Suzy's father.
At some point, a man killed Lone which caused her more grief and despair in life.
She developped Tize. An alter-ego of sort who speaks to her as her cold-blooded side. That's cool, but unfortunately with her original clumsy/awkward side, this voice in her head isn't properly built in her character from its lacking presence before the reveal because her awkward side is flawed for being unrealistic to the contrast of her dark side.
The detective was useless, and Tista from the start somewhat falling in love and breaking her resolve since "first" meeting Artsy of being a cold-blooded assassin is fucking ridiculous.
Even in hindsight of her eyesight ability to judge candor from someone's eyes and her subconscious recognizing a friend before she became a murderer... it's too abrupt.
In the end, the final mess in continuing to worsen the quality of this story.
The Man who killed Lone reappears out of nowhere- almost kills her. She almost kills him. She goes to prison. Sentenced for 120 years with the chance of who knows, but... Lone's murderer survived and is now training the new orphan of the Church who was suicidal, as the child clearly failed to be loved and change, even though he still cares for Trista from the bit of kindness she showed him. ... 'Stupid. |