Shi ga Futari wo Wakatsu made
Until Death Do Us Part

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When I was scrolling one manga.com one cold evening when I should have been sleeping, I noticed that Until Death Do Us Part had updated. I'd been looking for something to read, and there really wasn't anything that caught my eye, other than that.

But I told myself, look at the title, it's a horrible shoujo and you know it You've skipped reading it for that reason. Well, I reasoned to myself, that just might be, but what does it hurt to check out the first chapter? If I don't like it, I don't have to continue reading.

So I clicked ... the link and boom! There I was, reading about a precognitive girl. Not that the supernatural element is completely unknown to shoujo manga, after all. By the time I realized it, I was ten to eleven chapters in and craving for more.

A blind swordsman was something completely unexpected.

But more, the action, art, and story left me speechless. I couldn't get enough of it and was instantly obsessed. It was like the main character, Mamoru had cast a spell over me and hasn't let me go.

Read it-- you all won't be disappointed.

Picked this one up at the start of the week, looks pretty good.

Story: (9)
"Until death do us part" is about a blind assassin (who can only see shapes of objects thanks to supersonic technology) kicking badass with a walking cane/katana. He is accompanied by a tech support guy and a small girl who can "predict the near future" (not quite sure how to word it, so i'll just go with the Bakafish translation). With the assitance of the tech and the girl, the blind guy goes around protecting the streets, saving people and doing the odd jobs that police can't do...
Okay, to put ... it simply, it's about a blind GAR kicking some badass with a sword. Too bad such storyline lacks originality.

Art: (8)
Considering the high amount of action in the manga, the artist didn't do too bad drawing the actions. The drawing style is pretty serious, not much funny faces and clumsy situations ( like your shounen and stuff, think Angel Heart or City Hunter). The only critisism is that the faces are drawn a bit too simply
(think Naruto)

Characters: (10)
cold, insensitive GAR: 10
damsel in distress: 10
tech support with lazt attitude and smart-ass comments: 10

These characters are pretty much essentail to the plotline of "GAR protecting the streets in his own way". It might be a bit repetitive, but that's what we like XD.

Enjoyment: (10)
Personally, I enjoy GAR manga with lots of fight scenes.
Until Death Do Us Part pretty much staisfy all my needs.

Overall (9)
With such a classic storyline, cast and it's pretty good battle scenes. I really wwanted to give this a 10. But it's lack of facial detail and lack of originality really hit the weak spot.

Until Death Do Us Part = not crappy Shoujo. Who woulda thunk?

STORY: 5/10
Basically a middle school girl who can sort of predict the future "hires" a swordsman who can sort of see to protect her from bad guys. The guy who can sort of see's name is Mamoru. He's technically blind, but he has super speical high tech sun glasses which let him see the world in an extremely basic state. They react with the vibrations from his cane sword to send an image directly into his head. Also they let him dodge bullets...yea. This is one of "those" manga. There is also a lot ... of technilogical mumbo jumbo in this manga. Basically all the weapons and fighting are deeply technological from Mamoru's super special awesome molecule cutting sword, to assassin kill-bots. This is a sci-fi manga through and through. The actual plot is sort of...blah. A bad guy targets the school girl/ Mamoru himself, Mamoru beats him, etc, etc. Seen it a thousand times.

ART: 9/10
I actually like the art quite a bit. Every character has a unique (and cool) look and I haven't mixed up any of them yet. The backgrounds and scenery are all very well drawn, and there is almost a manwha feel to this manga. As in the females have nicely sized breasts, all the males are drawn maturely and all the lines are very clean. It's nice to look at, and can really get you into the story at times.

CHARACTER: 6/10
Well we have the school girl, Mamoru, and his white gangster friend who's a techno genius. Techno genius hasn't show too much personality as of chapter 45, mostly saying that he doesn't want anyone do die *yawn* he's pretty boring. Then the school girl is just a little girl, and her role is fairly small. Mamoru is the real main character in charge of all the fighting and "badassery". But I use that term very lightly. There is so much effort put into making Mamoru look like a badass its actually laughable at times. From his sunglasses, to his leather jacket, to his little phrases, it almost seems like he's a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If only for the joy I have making fun of Mamoru's over-badassery 'character' get a 6.

ENJOYMENT: 5/10
When I tried taking this manga seriously I ended up hating it. But when I just sat back and made fun of it quietly to myself I ended up having a pretty good time. If I was to grade "Until Death Do Us Part" seriously, how its intended to be read, then I would maybe give a 5. BUT, when I treat it as a parody I can sometimes get level 7 giggles. That's only sometimes though. Most of the time its barely entertaining enough to keep me moving on to the next chapter.

OVERALL: 5/10
If I read this as a parody its not terrible, but its not a parody. It's a mediocre seinen with one dimensional characters that tries too hard. And for that, Until Death Do Us Part gets a 5.

Spoilers.

I enjoyed the concept and the first 30-50 or so chapters, however it quickly got repetitive and ultimately ended quite poorly. I also think this manga is miscategorized. It is not a Seinen, it's a Shounen with blood and a mild acknowledgement of basic realities. The main character has a childish 'no killing' rule, as if he is a blind Batman with the morality of a 5 year old and no logical justification for his philosophy. The manga does end up having very minor character death in the end but it's hardly relevant after 170 chapters of 'You can't kill bad guys because killing is ... wrong'.

Anyways, the concept of the manga isn't bad. Precog loli because hey, everyone loves a blonde loli, and it'd kinda be weird if it was a shota. The abilities and technology are often poorly explained. Like how can he see shit with those glasses when he's blind. The echolocation creating an image is somewhat believable, but those glasses creating an image a blindman can see is pushing it. There is no way those glasses push an image he can perceive through his eyes. It'd have to be directly transmitted to his brain, something which a pair of glasses can do seems highly unlikely especially when poorly, if it all, explained.

Putting aside that gripe and ignoring all the other ones, because we'd be here all damn day if I didn't, the story frequently pushes that typical shounen attitude of *The MC is super strong*, *Badass x3 Stronger than Protagonist Appears*, *MC gets his ass handed to him*, *Momentary power up, beats the bad guy*, *Return to status quo*, etc etc.
Many characters appear, disappear and reappear haphazardly and have little value. The finale though 'happy' was pathetic as leaving alive this, by human standards, literal superman is completely illogical and more 'no killing' bullshit that tries to impart some idiotic moral lesson that anyone with half a brain would immediately discard.

I think through the entirety of the story ZERO major characters died, and one named side character died. Though this could be incorrect as it's off of memory. Then Mamoru at the end of the story when the main villain is defeated, leaves the FMC alone for 7 years where she lives unhindered, which is complete bullshit for a laundry list of reasons. She is an extremely valuable asset, and has engaged in multiple high profile incidents which would made clear to any intelligence agency or country worth their salt to her value. This was just a poor excuse to push in a timeskip.
Anyways, to summarize the story. Nice concept, poor execution, poor explanation to technology and abilities, myriads of plot convenience, childish attitude and constant shounen cliches.

The art starts off not to good, but gets better as it ages, but otherwise isn't of much note. Art is scarcely perfect and this one is no exception and has plenty of "what the fuck is that shit" moments, but is otherwise passable.

The characters are piss poor. Precog loli is exactly what you'd expect of a child. Childish and fucked up due the effects of her ability on her life. Other than that, she doesn't change to any significant degree through the length of the series, the same of which goes for Mamoru. He experiences little change, and while he is interesting in the dedication to his art, he is otherwise completely boring and quite often contradictory a character. Whether that be in regards to his past, his present attitude or whatever else is situational. The author also frequently tries way to hard to pass him off as a badass, especially when in each new arc he often gets beaten to hell by some new big bad, and consistently fails. Igawa goes through zero change, and is pretty boring, the only character in him is the contrast between his abilities and appearance. Side characters are extremely boring, and, as previously mentioned, appear, disappear and reappear at random. The majority of them leave little impact on the story as a whole as well.

I could not enjoy the entirety of this series, it just started where it started and slowly got worse over time and not once did it regain any footing it lost. Most of the time I was just facepalming at how this is labeled a seinen, when it screams shounen. Or wondering how the fuck either this technology works or how we get these random ability contradictions.

Overall this series was pretty fucking bad. It could be stomachable for a child, or for someone with the morality of a child. It was pretty much blind batman protects a loli for the entirety of the series.

You know the saying "bringing a knife to a gunfight"? That's exactly what Mamoru Hijikata does. And boy does he do it well. He's a swordsman fighting for justice in modern day Tokyo with his team of other uniquely strong characters.

STORY: It's a story about a girl who can predict the near future, who befriends a lone swordsman. Although the MC is blind, he uses specialized glasses to help him "see"; kind of like a bat's echolocation (through vibrations). I found a quite refreshing story, probably because it was completely different to what I've read before. There's some sci-fi information which may throw off a ... few people, it was at times hard to digest the concepts in the manga, but it didn't really deter me from reading on. Also, the badassery and unpredictability of Mamoru really made me want to see what he will do next.

CHARACTERS: The characters are well though out and the designs of the characters themselves are very diverse which I enjoyed very much. There isn't much character development, probably for two reasons;
a) most of the characters are already at the top of their game, and those that do need to train, do it on the side (outside the main story plot).
b) it makes for better reading. You don't have characters going off for 4 or 5 chapters and all you see is them learning a new technique or mastering a skill further.

With such a diverse array of characters and individual stories for each one, you become really invested most of them, of course, the two main protagonists develop their relationship, which at first you think it's weird, but as you go on reading further, you realise it becomes more than just a mutual understanding and they truly do wish to help each other grow.

ART: The artwork is wonderful, I especially love the color pages. The artist took their time to develop and get the scenery right. The diverse locations, also help with the artwork and reason why it took so long to complete was probably because the artist really wanted to capture the essence of each scene. The action bits are also not to laughed at, the artist really brings intensity and energy into what is essentially black on white.

Overall, I give it a 9/10, for me, it’s a good story and the characters, visuals and setting work together wonderfully.

I usually read shoujo manga, so it was the title of this one that drew me in. I thought it would be some sweet story, you know, with all the typical "everlasting love" etc. etc. etc... Boy, was I wrong. And I'm glad I was. I don't have much expertise in action-packed manga such as this, but I devoured this manga like no other.

PLOT: I gave a 7/10 only because I'm probably just too dense/read too fast to really GET the plot. I'm used to character-driven stories, so reading this one with an actual outside plot was different for me. But I caught enough ... of the main story without working too hard, and it was intriguing and left me hungry for more. I just wish it had been made a little clearer at times, like who was working for who and why.

ART: Beautiful artwork, and the action scenes are about the most intense, breathtaking scenes I have ever witnessed. I was also very impressed by the character designs. They were unique and consistent (not to mention gorgeous) and the diverse nationalities of the characters made for an interesting overall feel to the art. The only reason I don't give it a 10/10 is because there were a couple chapters where it was like there was a different artist, the art was very subpar in a few chapters and I don't know why, but it was distracting. There were also the occasional colored pages, which were nice but because of the nature of the manga, not very "colorful" anyway.

Character: Outstanding, 10/10. I love the characters. For being a plot-driven manga, what really makes Until Death Do Us Part stand out from other action mangas is the characters. Mamoru - so badass you can't help but love him. Not only that, but he also has quite the interesting psyche, and he's hard to figure out. Not to mention a really twisted, unique past. Haruka - at first she seems pathetic and scared (well, she is twelve) but she's adorable all the same. And her growth throughout the series is just incredible to watch. She gets almost as badass as Mamoru in some places. Not to mention the relationship between the two develops very deeply and smoothly, realistically; it's not a weird romancy lolicon at all but a deeper story about what really connects people. All the supporting characters are also dense and diverse. You'll get really invested in them all.

Overall, definitely worth reading, but only start if you've got ample time on your hands!

This is a manga that has really good action that is incredibly cool a lot of the time. Mamoru as a swordsman is amazing, and seeing him deal with conventional weapons far beyond the scope of being dealt with a blade is amazing. As that begins to get old, a number of unique enemies are brought out that use strange weapons that have to be dealt with in special ways, which keeps things interesting. That holds up the core of the manga quite well. The plot overall, was a bit strange. It starts out pretty good, being well paced and at a scale that felt it ... fit the story. However, at some point, the pacing seemed to get inconsistent, where things began to escalate tremendously in terms of organizations and characters involved as well as in terms of scale, to the point it felt like a lot was being left out. I think that this may have had to do with the other mangas that are connected to this one, and hence I suppose it was a conscious choice that makes sense, however while this does work with comics, I feel it doesn't work as well with stories like this. Still, the plot was pretty fast moving and intense for the most part, though it felt like there were moments where it seemed to simply be messing around for no reason as well as a couple cheap moments, such as a deaths that felt forced, especially towards the end which felt kind of rushed. On that note, I would like to note that while the romance is apparently a pretty important aspect of the manga based on its self-description, and it certainly felt that way from the ending, it was not developed at all. By that I mean absolutely not at all. There was nothing. Zero. Nada. It seemed to pop up from time to time, but never in a way that was actually developed, so even though I'm fine with it and think it is the right way to take the story, how it just worked out in the end felt weak. Other than that, Mamoru is a really cool character that got developed really well, especially in regards to back story. Haruka seemed to develop as a commander too quickly, but the growth was still solid so it was nice to see. Other than that the characters were developed okay. I felt for many their characters that had a lot more to them, but that seemed to have been not really shown as much here in favor of focusing on them in the other manga, which is a bit of a bummer. I did find it somewhat strange though how Mamoru was able to become comrades with people that were previously villains so easily. Working with them towards a common goal makes sense, but he seemed to actually become their comrade and him theirs, along with them not being as menacing as originally portrayed, which felt somewhat inconsistent. The art and designs beyond the really well drawn action were just okay. 

tl;dr: A manga that consistently has really strong action and battles, though with a plot that has scaling issues and main characters that while well developed on their own, don't seem to get developed together at all. 

What a phenomenal concept.

As a review this is my biggest compliment to this manga, the idea of all of it is amazing and to show off different characters with these unique strengths reminds me of other greats. The shonen-junky in me really enjoys all the fight scenes and all the rapid plot developments, especially towards the final act.

The only problem I had with it is things felt a bit off. I'm not quite sure what I mean but some chapters felt like they should've lasted 3 or 4 and some fights felt like they should've taken even longer. The end fight confuses me the most, ... all of that planning and beefing this guy as the most insane enemy for that? Really sort of a letdown, the same thing goes with the wedding. It makes sense in concept of how it's fully empty and the timeskip all makes sense but it's still a letdown and feels off compared to the rest of the tone of the series.

There were times I really enjoyed it, and times I didn't. I think Jesus is one of the coolest characters with the most interesting dualities but I also think Haruka is as well. Places of ingenious character writing are written everywhere and I think it's really good in that essence but it just always feels off.

I think it's a 6/10. If everything fleshed together it could've easily been a 9/10 but the disconnects between some arcs and the sometimes awkward panel design with equally awkward skips in fights that later retcon them makes the story flow much poorer than expected. I still enjoyed it, but objectively I can't give it anything higher.