Route End

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Every mystery novel fan knows about Agatha Christie. If you are a hardcore fan, you would even know about how her quality of writing started declining until her last book was published, which of course, was written by her 40 years ago.

Anyways I felt the same feeling of reading that book after reading tons of mystery manga. To be honest, it's hard to find a good mystery manga as all manga writers tend to use supernatural elements more, but this one is a unique story.

I don't understand why this manga is so underrated here in MAL, but let me explain everything about why people must ... have had a bad opinion on such a beautiful manga.

The story starts off with our Main character Haruno who is a specialist cleaner who cleans dead-body and the stains remaining. It might be normal death, suicides, or murders. Suddenly there are a series of serial murders being all over his place, and our Mc's close associates become the victim. So our guy starts investigating on his own, he vows to find the killer in the name of justice, he is even prepared to kill him if necessary.

You see, almost all characters are flawed, but the main essence of the manga has brought out the feeling of reading a mystery thriller novel like that of famous authors. It also has portrayed the concept of suicide, the amount of trauma that gives to the people who are left behind due to it. Like to what extent people can stoop to if they have experienced such trauma of seeing their loved ones die. The main flaw in this story is that, it has vast amount of cast and less character development and also a new development in the murder case every chapter and tons of people dying like a joke. I understand the frustration but everything is explained at the end about the reason why things happen that way.

At the end of the day, this is one of awesome manga, which kept me on edge even though I partly knew the spoilers. So don't be bothered by the ratings here, just go and read it, I am sure you won't regret the time spent to read.

peace

(EDIT April 24th, 2019: Now that Route End is completed, I want to say that I am not changing anything to this review from May 3rd, 2018. Even with the ending and what I speculated about a rushed up story, I still think I am partially right.)

I wanted to give more exposure to this great manga, so here is the first review on MAL.

What makes it a great manga? First of all the art. The author seems to be relatively unknown (at least to me) but there is no doubt that he is quite talented. The characters look different from one another and it helps ... memorize their name. The thing is, this is a realistic setting so there is no character looking weird. Then why not a perfect mark? Because as outstanding as it can be, the faces are mostly the same which is why the author needs to add some details specific to each character: a mole, blonde hair, goatee, buzzcut, wrinkles, bangs... You could easily give a nickname to each character based on physical appearance. And some drawings look rough, it could be from aesthetic sense but still, it is uneven.

As a thriller story, the suspense is crucial therefore the more you read the more it should draw you in. I believe it is quite successful on that part. In fact, I cannot wait to read the next chapter as the story starts with a serial killer but then brings the drama of characters and even side characters. Flashbacks, drama, and tragedies cemented together by a horror that comes and goes. You would think this is about a serial killer and cops trying to catch the bad guy but it's not. The psyche of each character is much more interesting than an unknown killer with sporadic appearances. The keywords here are "barely fleshed out characters" and "a killer you don't care about".

So the story, art, and character development are all great. What makes it so enjoyable? Well, it's the fact that you've never read anything like ROUTE END before. I am fairly sure it is the first of its kind in terms of drama, psychology, and setting. Where do you find a manga where the protagonist is a cleaning specialist of the deceased? Apart from that, ROUTE END brings a type of storytelling in mangas that is similar to movies and this is very well done through beautiful transitions.

ROUTE END is imperfect but it gets better. I have only read 19 chapters before writing this review but so far so good and it fully deserves a 9, close to 10 with little room for perfection. Yet I worry about the quality of the story because right now it's very high standard which might not suit a bigger audience. Then there's the risk it gets canceled because it's a niche. While I can understand how publishers think, it's still annoying to complete a manga with a rushed up and unfinished story.

Romantic and Refreshing.

I don't like people killing people and treat it as art. Even if its for the greater good... If that person needs to die to progress humanity so be it! Let the proper authorities deal with it. Let the professionals do their work. Man don't go out and start killing and then spelling your name with a corpse... just dont....

But I don't deny that its a compelling plot device. Mass murders and serial killing is very romantic coz it begets intrigue, fear, motivation, trill, and stimulates high level of problem solving.

As a reader of this trill ride, I felt excitement and a ... blood thirsty curiosity on each and every chapter on a level that trumps most mystery thriller I have consumed, which are few. It was refreshing to see multiple different sides of a murder than that of the main character's point of view or of the killer's. The MC's outlook is still prevalent but its not like most mystery themed stories, he mostly takes the back seat and every time he tries to lead a bunch of training wheels are placed and others keep telling him that he sucks and needs to stay out of the way. Most of his interaction with the case is by cleaning the remains of the corpse, which is his job. But later on the crimes circle in close to him due to his line of work.

Its not perfect or a masterpiece (yet) but its freshness and romantic pursue of truth and revelations got me tuning for more. Check it out!!

The story revolves around the core concepts of Life, death and how death of an individual not only makes a physical absence in space & time but also how it creates an emotional void in the lives of people that are affected by it.

Story -
The story is between mediocre and good. It does a fairly decent job in showing how death affects different people in different ways. As the story progresses it might get confusing for some so you have to pay attention when you read and you have to really catch certain hints that the author throws in order for the ending to ... make sense.

Art -
I usually don't care much about the art because every artist has their own style but the faces of the characters in this manga were very similar. It was very confusing.

Character -
There are so many characters in this story, some are very important and some are totally unnecessary. You won't see any major character development in this story.

Enjoyment -
It does a good job to keep you entertained for a while. It's not lengthy at all so you can read the entire thing in a day or over the weekend. It can be a good substitute for a short mystery novel. It's not crazy good but it's not boring either.

Overall ( S P O I L E R S I N C L U D E D ) -

Now this is how I see it, the triplets were not triplets but in fact the same person. I don't understand how some people don't get this detail but it's pretty clear.
Tachibana was an immortal being. Every time he died, he resurrected. If I remember correctly he mentions that he even tried to take his own life but it didn't work and that this was an endless cycle for him. He also mentions that it has gotten to the point where any physical misfortune is treated as a mere cold. I think this is the reason why he works in the cleaning industry so that he understands death a little more as he himself is immortal.

He meets people like Taji, Omi Katou and Yanazame and gets attached to everyone at AUN. When Taji introduces Masato to Tachibana, Masato freaks out. Masato asks him about tachibana's "dreams" but Tachibana indirectly tells him to forget about the whole thing but Masato still ends up murdering Tachibana.

Tachibana again resurrects and this time ends up at Taji's place wearing a mask. There he asks Masato to stop again. I think he does all this because he actually cares about Taji and does not want him to get hurt. Tachibana also does this in order to take up the identity of END so that Masato's name comes out clear and so that he doesn't end up being a suspect. Masato, yet again, does not realise this and finds Tachibana and murders him and keeps on playing the END's role.

Tachibana then AGAIN resurrects and later informs the police about END and disappears. Tachibana who himself is immortal sees death of people around him, who are close to him and puts this whole ordeal to an "END" by murdering Ezaki who was directly responsible for the suicide of all the END Victims and the suicide of Omi who was close to everyone at AUN including Tachibana.

This could have been a really good manga but the author fails to make a good transition from it being a thriller/mystery to supernatural thriller/ mystery. It gets confusing for most of the readers.

Review Route End. I will put a spoiler tag below.

I'm having trouble finding anything positive about this manga. I read every single chapter trying to find something, after reading all those overwhelmingly positive reviews. I mean with such a high score, you would think it was at least half decent!

Art : 3/10.
Ugly characters, very basic background, faces all look the same. Not even pleasant to lay eyes on. There are some parts where you can tell the artist had no idea how to draw feet, eyes, action. It was amateurish and I'm being polite. I forced myself to read the 8 volumes. With such ... awful art I regret everything.

Characters :
All they do is cry and scream. The story is about suicides and murders, obviously I didn't expect any super happy moments but it's just misery from chapter 1 to 54. There's no saving Grace, nothing redeemable.

Story :
This is my biggest problem. It's supposed to be a police, detective story. It pretends to be realistic but there's a big SUPERNATURAL element that disrupts the police investigation and is never explained. The police work with finger print, blood taxes, DNA, evidence. But it's all out of the window once you introduce supernatural elements in the mix.

**** Now SPOILER below !!! ****

The police are like "the 2 victims are twins, oh no they're triplets! Oh but the same guy with the same DNA is alive, they're quadruplets actually!!"
Sorry but it felt like a big asspull by the author. Then it's never explained who this guy actually is out came to be, though he is the central pivot for the whole plot! Worse, he just called himself God.

Then a 30 year time skip, that guy comes back and everyone looks like they barely aged 15 years max. The end. No explanation, nothing. What a conclusion!!!
And you have reviews praising it as the best story-driven manga!?!

*** End of spoiler ***

Enjoyment : none.
It was really just me forcing myself to understand why do many liked the story. I found no pleasure in it. Just felt miserable from beginning to end.Would not recommend it.

3/10