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I understand that this light novel was supposed to be nothing more than an alternate timeline spinoff, but I still feel disappointed. The reason I feel disappointed is because this did not feel like it was Death Note at all, in virtually any capacity. This light novel was based off some sort of spinoff movie (that from what I understand, was not received very well), and I'm not sure how much the author of this novel (Named 'M') actually changed or if they were even allowed to. But the reality is that the only thing 'Death Note' about this novel was its use of the ... series' characters and world, and nothing else. This book can be boiled down to an extremely out of character action movie that really wanted to use the Death Note characters and its world, for some reason.

Right off the bat, the instance that this story takes place in is very disappointing. When you hear about an 'alternate timeline where L wins', your mind probably thinks of a lot of things. At what point did L win? How did L win? Unfortunately, you'll never know. It rarely touches on its derailment from the main series which is a let down, given that's one of the most exciting parts of the story. Instead, its about L attempting to save the world one last time, and focuses almost exclusively on that. The problem is that the basis isn't very exciting. There are terrorists trying to spread a virus globally and they're fighting L over the antidote so that they can have better control over it. Death Note is praised for its refined mind games that go into play, where intellectual battles between Light & L put both characters in intense situations. There is almost none of that here. It is written like an action movie. Jumps, stunts, physical encounters make up a majority of it. The little it does provide of the former are very shallow and fail to hold a candle to what the original Death Note offers.

Characters were a disappointment all around. The elephant in the room in this regard stems from L, to be honest. He is so unlike his usual self from the series. He keeps his intellectual traits, but the author doubles down on his 'sweets' side (Which, ok, was an actual thing but imo not to the extent it was exaggerated to in this story). Additionally, as mentioned before, he becomes an action movie hero which is so insanely different from his usual identity and did not make sense whatsoever. It was honestly depressing seeing the character treated that way. The newer novel-exclusive characters are otherwise very shallow and unremarkable. Characters were definitely a weak point for the book when you consider its just an out of character L and 3 shallow newbies.

I generally wouldn't recommend this book, but given that most people seem to like it for some reason, your experience may vary. It is undoubtedly very different from what Death Note embodies and it's up to whether you appreciate that change or not. I guess if you like that more straightforward action-esque kind of environment you may appreciate it.

Solid

STORY - [7/10]
Without saying too much, this manga has a decent story revolving around the main character, Don, an odd guy who likes to portray his feelings and others through paintings. He gets accused of being the culprit behind a tragic incident, lands in prison, and afterwards is hoping to reunite with his childhood friends and deliver them a painting. That's the story at a base level but obviously it develops a lot more and I'm not going to spoil it. The plot generally has two sides to it, Don looking to reunite with his friends/deliver the painting, and one of those said friends dealing ... with an internal struggle regarding Don. Both sides are pretty interesting and were well done, but at some point the yakuza get involved and it was a really weird involvement imo. Other than that, It's a pretty solid journey to go through. I will say that the ending could have been a bit better. It was somewhat thrilling which I enjoyed, but the very end of the ending was kinda stupid and left me a little bit disappointed. A character that's honestly irrelevant had a little too much impact on it lol

ART - [6/10]
The art is fine. It's honestly not anything that good, but it wasn't awful either. It has that 90's look, but not necessarily in the best way. It does the job and while it's not anything great, it's not particularly bad, so its still serviceable. Not much else to say.

CHARACTERS [7/10]
The main cast includes Don, Tetsuya and Emi. They're all decent. Don is an interesting main character who's really quirky. Emi played her part fine. Tetsuya, however, maybe could have been done a little better. He deals with an internal struggle regarding Don throughout the entire series, however, I feel like his transition toward the end could have been done a little better. He seems to just spontaneously change his mind about the whole situation out of thin air and it didn't feel very natural, it just sorta happened. The yakuza guy that Don met was pretty cool too.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT - [7/10]
Overall, this is a solid manga. It's nothing too special, but you'll still be able to find enjoyment from it. With that being said, I can recommend it. Unfortunately it hasn't been translated in English so if you want to read it and aren't fluent in Japanese, you'll have to machine translate it like I did (which honestly wasn't a bad experience). I think it'd be cool if a group picked it up down the line and made it available in English though.

Really interesting premise but I think it could have been executed a lot better. Lots of problems I have with the manga. I find it interesting that some other reviewers claim this is a masterpiece despite its blatant flaws.

STORY - [5.5/10]
You follow the journey of 2 individuals developed in a special lab. They were developed to have psychic powers and one of them was taught morality, while the other one was not. By psychic powers, I mean that they can read minds, control people, and even harm others (through doing mind stuff). With this in mind, you follow both of them and how they interact ... with the environment around them. For the entirety of the series, it seems like it wanted to take a philosophical approach to what it was trying to accomplish, and I honestly do not think it delivered on it. It just never really went in-depth on anything it presented and in all honesty, it probably couldn't. Every topic introduced regarding this part of the story was kinda simple. Maybe it's because I binge that kind of stuff, but the ideas and questions brought up just weren't complicated enough and also boring. At some points, the two individuals begin to question the meaning of their existence, but the story doesn't go in-depth on it as it could have. It comes out simplified too. Some of the drama, especially toward the beginning, wasn't very interesting as well. It does somewhat pick up but I think the first 20 chapters or so are a bit hard to get through.

Although sometimes, the story was just plain stupid. A very convenient and also very disappointing weakness for the antagonist is introduced which just comes out as incredibly lazy. There are multiple times where the antagonist could and should have died, but didn't because the series wasn't long enough I guess. plot holes. It had its share of general problems.

ART - [6/10]
I have very mixed feelings about the art.

On one hand, I think this author draws scenery and background details very well. The background of the panels always looked very nice. On the other hand, I think the people were drawn quite bad. This doesn't apply to every character, but if you look around at some of them... its like the mangaka has a base template she uses to draw facial structures and makes a slight change to it each time. I just don't like how some of the faces were drawn, and they sometimes have alarmingly similar qualities. But scenery and objects came out quite nicely.

CHARACTERS [5/10]
None of these characters were very memorable in my opinion. As mentioned before, it revolves around 2 individuals created in a lab with different mindsets. It focuses on the development of these 2 characters as they get out into the "real world" as much as possible. The development is predictable and since everything is somewhat simplified in this manga, also boring. It's a bit wholesome to see the main lab experiment, Shuro, get in touch with humanity as the story continues but... Izaku's was boring. Predictable increasingly destructive behavior.

A romantic development is introduced for seemingly no reason other then to arsenal the impact of the ending, if I had to guess. Side characters were not that interesting either. Really not much else to say.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT - [5/10]
I don't think I can recommend this series to be honest. It actually reminded me of Kiseijuu a lot, and I'd recommend you read that instead if you haven't. It has worrying issues in each of its departments, and as a result, I sincerely think you could just use your time reading something better.

After reading The Climber, I had a lot of hope for this series. And honestly, It mostly delivered. The ending sets up the plot for Innocent Rogue pretty nicely and I'm excited to see where it ends up going, I feel like it'll be even better tbh.

STORY - [8/10]
I found the story to be very interesting. It takes place in the French revolution as you follow the Sanson family (mostly Charles Sanson), which is a family of executioners responsible for executing anyone found guilty by the French. The story is mostly pretty good, it really is. But you begin to notice something a bit off ... tbh. The story begins to just go all over the place, and very frequently. By this, I'm referring to how the story likes to do this and then do that and exc exc without really giving sincere enough closure to whatever was currently taking place. It usually does this with a time skip or something, and it begins to get a bit tiring. As a result, it begins to feel like the story doesn't really know what it wants to be about as it jumps from topic to topic tirelessly. When you think about it, this kind of makes sense when you consider you're following true events based off a real person, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

Despite all this, the story is still very good and enjoyable. Just something I began to notice mid-way through.

ART - [9/10]
It's one of the best artists in the manga world imo. It's great. I did give it a 9 though because I just felt like some of the art was a bit off early on, but like 90% of it is top tier stuff.

CHARACTERS [8/10]
I found the development of Charles Sanson and Marie Sanson extremely interesting. I think they did a really good job at what they were supposed to do as protagonists but I'm not gonna lie... I personally thought Charles became a lot less interesting after his primary development. The conflict between his personal thoughts and opinions on executions at the beginning was really good, but once he developed and changed... it was just a bit of a sudden and random change and also not for the best imo. I do really like Marie's change though tbh. Her rebellious nature sets up really nice things for the story and TBH, I notice that other reviews rip apart Marie towards the end and her progressive tone, which I don't understand. Her progressiveness goes against the oppressive standards set at the time of the story, and the contrast comes out very nicely. It only benefits the story.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT - [8/10]
Overall, you should definitely read this. It's a very unique and enjoyable ride that sets itself up for a (probably) even better sequel. Sure, the story doesn't really know what it wants to be at times, but its still very enjoyable no matter what it is. I recommend it a lot.

I honestly think this manga starts out great and then just gets increasingly worse. So much so to the point where I'm now dropping it at 116 chapters. I'm not having fun reading it anymore. Please keep in mind this review is only reflective of those chapters, I cannot speak for the second half of the series. I still wanted to write a review anyway, I wanted to finish the series before I wrote this but I just wasn't enjoying it anymore and still had a lot to say.

STORY - [6/10]
I think the story and manga in general start out really strong. It's really captivating ... and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire first arc, I really loved it and would have rated it an 8/10 at that point. Unfortunately, this doesn't last forever. Without saying any spoilers, the story just doesn't know what to do with itself after the first arc. Once all is said and done I feel like the entire manga just morphs into something completely different, and not something I mostly liked. It was kind of just repeating small arcs of minor drama over and over again, and it came to a point where I just wasn't expecting anything anymore. Why was the drama minor? Because it never amounts to anything. It's almost like random shock value that resolves shortly after over and over again. While some of these small arcs are better than others, It's just zero progression and tiring to read after a certain point. It got to the point where I just didn't care anymore and dropped the manga.

ART - [7/10]
I don't really have much to say about the art besides that its good. Nothing crazy. but nothing bad. It also fits the tone of the series pretty well.

CHARACTERS [7.5/10]
Without a doubt the best part of the manga. The manga puts a big emphasis on friendship and as a result puts a lot of its resources into developing characters. It does this pretty well and the dynamic between all the characters is enjoyable. I do have one complaint though. Sakuragi's influence later in the series is just kind of annoying and illogical. When in conflict, characters will be all like "damn what would Sakuragi do right now!" since they all look up to him and view him as a role model. I don't think the relationship between Sakuragi and the rest of the cast was nearly developed enough for this kind of attitude to be embraced in the characters though. The idolization of Sakuragi seems unnatural to me. A lot more could have been done to reinforce this kind of thinking within the cast.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT - [6/10]
Despite some of the negative things I've said about this manga, I think I can still recommend it unlike other series I give a 6/10. The first arc is great and worth experiencing. So if you are interested in this series, I recommend reading up to the second arc. If you like what the second arc had to offer, then knock yourself out because it follows the same formulaic sequence in different skins (at least up to 116). I didn't like the change, but you might.