Superior Cross

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(i tie superior and superior cross into one entity, so keep that in mind with what i say)

i'm able to look past the ending to say this is one of the better mangas i have ever read. sense i first found this manga, every volume release i have re read...

lets start off with the demon lord... presumably a product of her upbringing, meats the hero and falls in love, and from there on you see her character evolve over the coarse of the story, everyone else is more or less a secondary character to her, even the hero though you do see some progress ... in his character when its brought to his attention she may be (she is) the demon lord.

over all its predictable evolution of characters, but i like them all.

the art... i cant comment, the only person who did the translation of the manga has either the worst scanner or the worst editor on the planet. from what i did see of a nicely done chapter or two, the art is great.

the story, is more or less a light hearted romp through a world where monsters are "evil" and humans are good, though over time you meet monsters who are good, and humans who suck... but most humans who suck take such a stupid and convenient 180 from evil to good that it ruins moments of the manga.

to not say spoilers, but this may still be a spoiler so skip this line if you want to go into it with no idea... this manga is about the journey and not the destination. the ending of this manga just feels way to fast paced and way to convenient that it sullies an otherwise great manga. with that said, its still better than most other manga out there today.

pick this up and read 2 volumes of superior before you judge it.

Superior Cross continues where Superior left off giving us the ending to the series. With the hero Exa on his journey to kill the demon lord, however she has been journeying with him the entire trip and has fallen in love with him as well. Naturally this brings about numerous heavy themes and a fantastic setup.

When I first began reading Superior I fell in love with the main character Sheila. Since she is the Demon Lord she has killed off half of humanity however she is portrayed instead of simply a villain as more of a victim of circumstance. She is constantly conflicted as ... when the Hero find out who she is she will have to kill him since he must kill the demon lord. This provides very interesting themes as to happiness and holding onto it even though it may be a lie and could end at any moment. As well as does she deserve to be happy? Does a tragic past excuse someone of the crimes they have committed? These questions can be debated for hours and that is what makes a great theme. However this manga has one gaping flaw.

It is the fact that this manga is a shounen above everything else. Instead of continuing with these fantastic themes and this well laid base for a tragedy. This manga abandons all of that and pushes itself to a stereotypical shounen. Where friendship conquers all and despite characters that are completely evil they perform a complete turn around as to what their characters believe simply to suit what the author wants.

One positive thing I should mention that holds through is the art, I do love the art of this manga. Especially Seiya's design.

All in all despite having a great start this manga is a victim of its own shounen demographic. It abandons a great character and great themes to simply become a standard shounen like Buso-renkin. And in many ways, that is even worse then simply a poorly written story in my eyes

So i finished Superior †. and due the fact it being overall shorter as well as the fact the cat was out of the bag. I feel like this series was slightly better than its prequel. However the author at the same makes the same mistakes. Again i enjoyed the first volume despite it basically being a recap of the series. I think the author once again did very well in establishing the world. But beyond that i think the author made the same mistakes once again. With Poor execution. This time however i did think that some of the characters outside of the main ... 4 were better written specifically 2 of the villains. the action in the last half of volume 4 and the first half of volume 5 was actually exciting. In the end i think the author does a good job here and there but with the ending i just can't see this being a must read. I get the hype for this series but the execution is too weak for me to fully enjoy it.

6/10. Fun at times

Reviewing Superior and Superior Cross as a whole, I would say that the series is just... underwhelming in its execution. The series always had a strong concept in regards to Sheila and Exa, the big morale dilemma of their relationship is ripe with potential and it does get touched upon a bit. However, the series itself instead puts a lot of attention on ideas that end up with a very rushed resolution and just sudden developments.

Just SPOILERS in general, the whole set up with the Copy as a big enemy that developed overtime gets disappointedly thrown out the window so hard. She is someone with ... entire chapters dedicated to her and is someone that creates major conflict throughout the series but is quickly just set aside for what feels like an asspull of a villain that is less interesting. The whole Clive section of the story is also drawn out for very little pay off, there are so many flashbacks dedicated to him and by the end he is just quickly fixed.

I would say this series has great ideas but is weak on its execution and focus.