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I have to admit that Aku no Higan has a pretty cool premise, absolutely full of potential. Just look at the summary above. Exchanging one's life years for riches and power, or the other way around, sacrificing your fortune for longer life... Just imagine what you could do with that. Imagine the opportunities for character drama, hard choices, moral dilemmas, world building and thematic exploration.

Well, too bad this author just took a fascinating concept like that and wasted it on a very average (even sub-par) shounen.

The plot is basic and forgettable. The whole concept of exchanging years for money (here presented as the main hook) ... is only focused on at the start. It ends up left behind very early on in favor of a very cliché story about our protagonist leveling up, saving waifus and fighting generic villains under the guidance of his mentor. Speaking of our protagonist, he's a textbook example of a Gary Stu. He's smart, hot, athletic, heroic, and almost completely one-dimensional. He never doubts, never struggles, and basically cake walks through any opposition he encounters. The manga makes some attempts to paint him as morally ambiguous, but all he ever does is defending the weak and fighting obvious bad guys, so those attempts fall as flat as the character himself.

The rest of the cast doesn't stand out very much, with a possible exception of Viktor, the main character's mentor. Why only “possible” exception? Because he seemed mysterious and he may have gotten some development at some point in the story, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out. Thirty chapters should be long enough to get the measure of a story.

To sum it up: good concept, ruined by uninspired execution. Don't waste your time.

What do you get when you mix poor man's Death Note with a watered down version of BBC's Sherlock, and a dash of Akame ga Kill?

Answer: you get Yuukoku no Moriarty.

This manga is a re-imagining of the classic story, with Sherlock Holmes's arch-nemesis, the titular Moriarty, as the protagonist. For better or worse, the author didn't have the courage to go all out and keep him a self-serving master of crime. In this version, Moriarty is an underdog who goes from rags to riches, and grows up to become a merciless vigilante on a crusade against corrupt nobles.

Incredibly cheesy, right? Yes, of course, but ... not without potential for some nice, juicy moral ambiguity. Does the story deliver on that front? Well... yes and no. Kinda.

You see, Yuukoku no Moriarty can be split into two distinct parts: the fun one, and the NOT fun one. The manga is at its best when it focuses on Moriarty vs Sherlock mind games, and at its absolute worst when it focuses on our protagonist fighting evil nobles. And they are eeeeeevil, all right. Evil with a capital E. But, first things first, lets start with the good part.

Moriarty and Holmes are both compelling characters. One is a ruthless and brilliant killer, but driven largely by compassion for the oppressed. The other is a likable and eccentric genius detective, who sees solving crimes as the best source of entertainment. The two are good foils for each other, and their budding antagonistic relationship is the manga's strongest point, even at this early stage. It's far from perfect, though, as the manga has an unfortunate tendency to dumb Sherlock down to make our borderline Gary Stu protagonist look smarter.

Other reocurring characters can also be interesting; from Moriarty's cold hearted brother who idolizes him, to Sherlock's upright friend Watson, we have a decent variety of personalities.

So... let's get to the “not fun” part now, shall we?

The chapters that don't deal with Moriarty vs Holmes, follow the monster-of-the-week formula. It usually goes like this:

1. William (Moriarty) learns about some acts of cartoonish villainy committed by an evil noble.

2. He investigates.

3. He and his sidekicks easily kill the evil noble.

4. Rinse, repeat.

Those minor antagonists have exactly three roles to play in the story: being cruel to commoners, gloating evilly, and getting their asses handed to them by our anti-hero. They're completely one-dimensional, they're pathetically weak, and they NEVER pose any threat to the protagonist. Most of the time, they don't even put up a fight before he finishes them off! As a result, the chapters that focus on them have no dramatic tension and no thrill whatsoever. They're about as boring and predictable as it gets, and they're the vast majority.

When you read Yuukoku no Moriarty, you can tell at once if the chapter will be entertaining or not by checking if Sherlock graces it with his presence. If he doesn't, you're in for a snore-fest of the worst kind.

Keep in mind that this is a rather new manga and only 16 chapters are available for the moment, so there's probably a lot of time left to iron out the kinks. But, so far, is it worth the read? Well, if you're bored, have high tolerance for cheese, and don't mind doing a fair bit of skipping to get to the good part... why not? There is some entertainment value to be found here, though definitely diluted by the flaws.

Hello, my dear reader.

Let me tell you a little story.
What story, you might ask? Well, it's your story, and mine, and that of many others. How do I know? Because it always follows the same pattern.

It all started when you heard that Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata were working on another manga together. Great news, right? You loved Death Note and/or Bakuman, and you were instantly hyped up for more awesomeness from the power duo. You were perhaps a little surprised that a new manga coming from them didn't have any buzz, but you thought nothing of it at the time.

"It's just ... because the series is relatively new," you thought. "It'll all change when it gets an anime. Then it will receive the attention it deserves."

Excited as you were, you rushed to check out the summary, perhaps on this very site, and that's when you had your first moment of doubt. The premise sounded exactly like Mirai Nikki!
That caught you off guard. You were certain that Ohba was more original than this.

“Oh, well,” you thought naively. “No matter. I'm sure that his take on the whole thing will be totally different and million times better!”

With your fears assuaged, you got your hands on a perfectly legal copy (cough, cough) and started to read.

First you got an eyeful of the art, and it was top notch. Rich backgrounds, realistic character designs and everything you'd expect from Obata, only better than ever before. The visual aspect of the manga did more than just meet your expectations; it surpassed them by far.

It's even more of a shame, then, that Platinum End was a sore disappointment in pretty much every other department.

You were put out by the incredibly cliché main character, Mirai — an abused orphan boy, raised by his evil aunt and uncle. (Harry Potter anyone?) A perfect, standard anime hero who refuses to kill under any circumstances, and loves to make moralizing speeches every chance he gets, to allies and enemies alike. His motto seems to be that it's better to be harmed than to harm others, even in self-defense. (Kaneki, much?)
From the author who gave us Light Yagami, you would have expected something much more memorable than a stock character like that.

“Still,” you thought, “boring protagonists are pretty much standard. The rest of the cast will make up for it, I'm sure.”

Long story short, they didn't. From the equally cliché antagonist with a sister complex, to a bland love interest who has nearly the same personality as Mirai, none of the main characters of Platinum End are even remotely interesting, and most of the side characters are one dimensional, over the top caricatures that make Misa Amane look subtle and down to earth by comparison.

You found nobody here as intriguing, unique and unforgettable as Light Yagami, nobody as iconic as L, nobody as entertaining as Yuno Gasai. The cast is below average.

So, what about the plot?
In the interest of fairness, one has to admit that it's written adequately. Ohba-sensei still knows how to establish a coherent set of rules and stick to them. There are no asspulls to be found in Platinum End, but neither is subtlety of any kind. Everything here is on the nose, heavy-handed and exaggerated. Then there is the overall silliness of the manga, the best example of which are the Power Rangers style outfits that our main characters insist on wearing.

“Really,” you asked with a facepalm. “Really, Ohba?”

And, yes, he really did it. The master of nuanced mind games had switched to pure ham and cheese.

Other than that, what else can I say about the plot? Well... Let's see how it compares to the other O & O creations.

Death Note was a very unconventional work that didn't follow many standard manga cliches, subverted and deconstructed others, and ended up giving us one of the most unique stories in the medium.
Bakuman was an interesting shounen manga about making shounen manga, that looked at many familiar genre tropes from a perspective of a creator.
Platinum-Please- End-Already, on the other hand, just takes a bunch of overused shounen cliches (death game, becoming a god as a reward, Shinji Ikari-esque protagonist, etc.) and plays them completely straight without any imagination or creativity. Everything Platinum End does has been done hundred times before, and done better. The story it tells comes with no strong distinguishing elements, and no true identity of its own.

“How is it,” you wondered, “that Death Note was more exciting when Light was EATING A BLOODY BAG OF CHIPS than Platinum End is when our characters are fighting for their sorry lives?!”

And that's how you understood why almost nobody talks about Platinum End. You understood the lack of hype and enthusiasm.
Perhaps you did the smart thing and just dropped it. Perhaps you refused to give up and slogged through it, hoping that a miracle will happen and the manga will eventually get good. If you did the latter, congratulations! You are one of the majority of Platinum End's “fandom”, if we can even call it that.

We follow Platinum End out of loyalty for Ohba & Obata duo, nothing more. If it wasn't for those two names, we would have forgotten it ever existed a long time ago.
We read the chapters when they come out, we get bored and annoyed, and we visit forums to practice the ancient and noble art of bitching. You'll find far more people who enjoy complaining about Platinum End than those who enjoy Platinum End itself. But, of course, you'll have a very hard time finding anyone who talks about it at all.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and this isn't your story at all? Maybe you are just at the start of this journey, and you only dropped by to read the reviews and find out if Platinum End is worth your time?

Short answer—it's not.
Don't just take my word for it. Notice that all the glowing reviews were written after the author had read only a few first chapters, and all the others offer almost nothing but criticism, even if they give the relatively lenient score of six.

We all want to go easy on Ohba & Obata, but this work of theirs just doesn't deserve it. It's a generic, by-the-numbers story, sub-par in many aspects, and I will only rate it as high as five because of the great art. If I were to sum up Platinum End in one word, that word would be "meh".

Let's all cross our fingers and hope that their next manga will be a return to form.