Lured Into The Mafia's Den

I’m confused ho much exactly is each magic stone worth

I’m absolutely loving this book I can’t wait for the next new chapters that come daily, this book is better than some of the ones that I have to pay for. Well worth the wait ...

First of all, to address why this manga is so disliked: the author blended ecchi with dark shounen (I might call it seinen, but let's be honest, it doesn't stretch that far). However, don't let that deter you from reading it.  

Typically, ecchi audiences seek kink, light humor, and an overall non-serious atmosphere. Ecchi pairs well with slice-of-life anime, comedies, magical girls, and all those frills.  
On the other hand, seinen and dark shounen fans crave thrill, battles, and psychological warfare. The ecchi aspect can be incredibly off-putting for these viewers.  
There’s a small group of people who can appreciate both. Looking at the author's portfolio, I sense he wanted to experiment with his usual skills, but the effort he poured into certain parts of the story breaks my heart because he chose to include ecchi. Personally, I skimmed those scenes to focus on what truly matters.  
And I'm no hypocrite—I do watch casual weekend ecchi, but only the comedic kind.  

Moving on to the story:  

Battles: The battles are so well-crafted and thought-out that I believe they're among the best in class. Qwasers have the ability to control elements from the periodic table. Within this framework, the author achieved greatness and beyond. No two battles are alike. The characters continuously learn new skills, try out fresh strategies, and combine powers. It's incredible how far they go. In most shounen series, characters stick to the same 3-5 magical abilities for hundreds of chapters or episodes, with slight variations. The author essentially reimagined high school chemistry and physics to create this manga. I think a game adaptation of the battles (minus the ecchi) would be outstanding.  

Characters: Here, I do believe there could have been improvements. It's clear that traditional shounen archetypes were added to the story. I think shifting the age range toward adults would have made the characters more believable. If Sasha were around 19 and Katja around 17, they’d feel more realistic. They seem too mature and their thought processes are too advanced for their supposed level of experience.  
But! The author attempted character growth for nearly every character. That’s remarkable. Consider beloved series like Code Geass, where only some characters develop, and even those reach a plateau sooner or later, or Death Note, where again, only select characters show growth. Clearly, some developments didn’t land perfectly because I suspect the contract was for around 100 chapters, so much of the story was condensed. The same editing process severely truncated the backstories of the characters. Most needed more pages to make their arcs coherent.  

Story: I appreciate that it avoided becoming mindless ecchi or slipping into "misery Olympics" shounen despite the tragic circumstances of the characters. It features numerous plot twists, which I found delightful. I sense the author hoped for a long-running anime, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It genuinely required more chapters to clarify motivations behind certain events. For instance, why do qwasers align with Athos or Apostles? What’s in it for them? Currently, they fight for reasons stated in the manga, but it never fully answers “what do they do when there’s no project?” A pleasing mix of sadness, joy, excitement, and relaxed moments kept me engaged enough to finish it. While reading D.Gray-man manga alongside watching the SnQ anime, I noticed parallels due to shared thematic elements. But DGM eventually descended into "misery Olympics," making the latest parts so overwhelmingly sad that I struggle to read it without feeling depressed. Also, knowing this author has ties to Code Geass, I’ve spotted similarities between the stories that I can’t unsee.  

Anime Adaptation: Good Lord, the anime did this manga NO JUSTICE. It butchered it. It stripped away the edginess and replaced it with more ecchi, more merchandising-driven filler, and dumbed-down characters. So disappointing. If the animators had removed all the ecchi entirely and rewritten certain transitions with alternative elements, fixed some plot holes here and there, people would have gone wild over the series, much like they did for Code Geass. You can’t convince me otherwise—it had immense potential. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  

References: I understand why some people are upset about the portrayal of Russian culture being misunderstood or misrepresented. Sorry, that’s anime fantasy for you. Most authors pick and choose cultural elements, often oversimplifying or "Disney-fying" them. The same applies to Christian Orthodoxy (I was born into it, so I recognize what was accurate and what wasn’t). Public expectations were too high in this regard. Perhaps with a longer manga, the author could have expanded and better researched these two topics.  
The chemistry research in this manga is fantastic. [spoiler] The Van Allen belts? Bro, I love you. [/spoiler]  

Overall, to enjoy this series, you need to overlook the ecchi and place it within the context of old-school shounen, where it belongs.

Gripping manga.  
The story begins strongly and continues to improve.  
With Russian Orthodox Christianity and history as the backdrop, plenty of action unfolds.  
Each warrior has the ability to control an element from the periodic table, and they can even create alloys.  
The setting is a modern school with more female students than male.  
There are ecchi elements and a spiritual milk plotline, but it's not mere fanservice.  
The ecchi scenes are seamlessly integrated into the narrative, without being overly flashy or visually exploitative.  
Unfortunately, the anime adaptation failed to do it justice.  

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This manga has one clear goal: to teeter on the edge of being pornographic, and it achieves that goal effectively.  
In the story, certain individuals can manipulate metals through a mysterious liquid that functions like mana. Want to take a guess where this mana originates? You guessed it—Anime tiddies. Who needs bottles when you can go straight to the source? That’s essentially the premise; everything else is secondary.  

If you're searching for a manga with impressive art, overflowing with excessive amounts of nudity and cleavage, sprinkled with some superpowered battles, then this is exactly what you're after.  

However, if you crave decent writing, an engaging plot, or meaningful character development, steer clear of this as if it were your plague-infected neighbor in 14th century Europe.  

By the way, there's also an anime adaptation. It's... precisely what you'd anticipate: a solid ecchi series.

I began reading this manga because I believed the combination of the seinen genre and Orthodox Christian themes would create a fascinating blend. Unfortunately, Usagi was correct when she said that thinking wouldn't get us anywhere. It certainly didn't — neither for me nor the author.

My main points are:

1. The manga isn't truly a seinen. At least not for me.
2. The author's knowledge of the source material is practically nonexistent.
3. The plot was constructed on the go with minimal planning.
4. The characters are bland and, worse still, inconsistent.
5. The plot is erratic and composed of every cliche imaginable.

Now, I'd like to elaborate a little.

1. The alleged demographic of the manga is off. While it's definitely mature in terms of nudity, gore, and some themes (rape, terrorism), it's incredibly juvenile in thoughts and emotions. The plot structure, storytelling, dialogues, motivations, conflicts, and character development are suited more for early teens. At its core, the manga is your typical shonen, with grueling fights, lewd bath times, and confused friendships. To illustrate my point, imagine watching Sesame Street and every 20 minutes, someone gets beheaded randomly before the show resumes counting. You can't let kids watch it now, but does that make it good adult entertainment? No, it doesn't. So, this manga is seinen by rating, not essence. Moving on.

2. The author uses specific themes to build his setting: Christianity in general, Orthodox (Eastern) Christianity, Russian characters, and culture. It sounded interesting beforehand. There are authors who can create immersive and educational experiences using well-crafted settings and unconventional themes. They can provide hundreds of sumo or ramen terms if they want. You just have to do your research, right? So, how well did the author do his research? He practically didn't.

Firstly, he doesn't know much about Christianity beyond what contemporary culture allows. He knows Jesus is involved somehow and remembers an outdated flick about Da Vinci's Code, but that's it. His knowledge of Orthodoxy is laughable. Occasionally, he recreates garments somewhat accurately (mixing Orthodox and Catholic elements heavily) and shows vague church backgrounds (redrawn photos), but generally, he fantasizes himself out of obscurity. He doesn't know church ranks, institutions, sects, creeds, relics, customs, or routines of the religion he references, even the basics. Not a single Orthodox character crosses themselves once, and no icons appear in living quarters. Even in minor details, he lacks diligence. All he knows about Russian history comes from school slander and tourist pamphlets. All his Russian characters, white-haired and blue-eyed, behave like Japanese tropes. Sasha eats borscht sometimes (the only Russian meal the author knows, evidently). It's a pity he eats it for breakfast.

There's some Russian language scattered throughout the pages. First, Sasha's full name, Alexander Nikolaevich Hell, is ridiculous. "Hell" isn't a real Russian name or surname; it's just an English word. It's like writing "John Bathtub" in a random American passport but in Chinese. Secondly, there are numerous childish lexical and grammatical mistakes. Sometimes cold-hearted Sasha exclaims "УТЮГ!" meaning "AN IRON." In English, "iron" can mean either a chemical element or a household appliance. But in Russian, there are two different words: "железо" for "iron as an element" and "утюг" for "iron as a household appliance." This shows Sasha expresses feelings with common item names and that the author probably used an English-Russian dictionary, likely entrusting the task to a lazy assistant. Overall, Russian phrases in the manga are dead vignettes among many similar sad things.

So, why bother venturing into another culture if you can't do it decently? Given the chaotic nature of this manga, my theory is this. It probably started with a small but vivid idea like a blonde, alienated emo boy in a regular Japanese school. Then the author thought making the protagonist Russian would be cool and fresh. Then random associations from watching too many movies added a religious background. Then he googled some images. Then he pitched the idea and developed it without putting heart, soul, or conscience into the process. Maybe it's supposed to be that way most of the time: every manga needs a gimmick, and every cartoonist needs a living. But those who think these Sunday afternoon chronicles provide actual knowledge of Russian religion, culture, or everyday life are victims of a hoax and therefore delusional.

3, 4, 5. Anti-climactic as it is, there's not much to say here. If you've watched soap opera juggernauts like Santa Barbara, you can imagine the overall flow of the manga: focus, events, arcs jerking and changing constantly without buildup, development, or, most irritatingly, actual connection. It's like heaps of never-ending fillers without fundamental design or guiding thought. I can almost hear the author constantly asking himself, "What's next?" even from one chapter to another, even mid-chapter. Over and over, he resorts to another unbelievable plot twist, kindergarten exaggeration, or inclusion of a papery character. The entire narrative is constructed from pieces indecently glued together. There are loose ends, unexplained facts, and plain roughness sticking out through the unpolished story surface. Plot points shift, guidelines change, even characters alter. When first introduced, Phanagia is an omnipotent circuit wielder with a sexually liberated, laid-back personality, but by the end, she's your typical sacrificial hentai cow. Speaking of which, the author probably has a contract to draw 5 pornographic pages per chapter, and let me tell you, for THAT, he has necessary dedication!

So, what we have here is a below-average shonen with mandatory inclusion of lube and guts that make it even more cringy and tedious. I'd recommend this manga only for people of particular taste or age.

An unique idea isn't necessarily a well thought-out idea.

That seems to be an accurate description of the modern Anime/Manga Franchises. While each series may be unique in some instances, and perhaps more and more deviant in its attempts to be unique, it often falls short. For example, a main character that turns into a dog in one of the more recent shows airing, or some of the more infamous titles, such as Sword Art Online.

But enough of that, let's take a closer look at what Seikon no Qwaser is about.

Set in a Japanese Eastern Orthodox High School, Seikon no Qwaser introduces the unique concept of using female lactation as a source of power. While this idea is pretty much unique to the series itself (unless some 18+ Series happen to use this plot device as well), that uniqueness pretty much ends there.

Seikon no Qwaser, while having its chance to become an interesting series, practically squanders every opportunity it has.

In essence, the plot is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is fanservice for those interested in boobs and guro fetishists. If it isn't clear enough by this point, the usage of boobs is nothing more than serving up young and pretty girls.

While the formula of boobs + hot girls + Fights is pretty much time-tested and is a sure success to some degrees in the Anime/Manga industry, it certainly is also a sure ticket to mediocrity when misused. The story starts off in a promising fashion but quickly deteriorates by dropping multiple points that were previously relevant.

The coherency of the story is very low. Why a Qwaser would be located in a Japanese High School is poorly explained and seems like it's only there to induce melodrama. Why most of the Qwasers are high school kids, or the fact the protagonist is 13 years old, is just there made for you to swallow down.

Now, having the "Kids save the world" theme is certainly nothing new, and is rather a cliche. The religion as a basis for magic is also nothing new, and is rather cool. But no rational explanation is ever given to explain it, while the author pretentiously gives scientific explanations on the properties of the matters, even if he seems to be unknowledgeable about girls not having breast milk until impregnated. (Their powers are to control an element, in case you did not read the synopsis)

If you are looking for a coherent plot, prepare to be confused! Characters literally jump out of nowhere in between transitions. For one chapter, a girl who's "genki" would start talking in the middle of nowhere, and another girl who's shown in a few pages back would jump out of nowhere and challenge that girl for no apparent reason! Everything in this series, the placements and coincidences all seem to be arranged for one thing: More boobs!

And that leads me to the next point, the characters. While not expected to have any excellent characters, the series is shockingly bad at portraying real people. The main character is the stereotypical ice-hearted revenge boy, another character is the airhead with big boobs, another is a protective main heroine, and a manipulative loli who dominates people, along with various psychotic individuals from the antagonistic side. But other than the main protagonist, not many characters made me care about them. From time to time, a "sad past" is used, but then the character is pretty much used up and then thrown away. Numerous characters accept the Dominatrix Loli's seduction (Keep in mind this girl is 11 years old), and almost immediately accept themselves as her "Slave," and begin to call her "-sama." Realistic! And not only that, the main characters, such as one of the slave girls of the loli, are mostly normal humans before the events of the story. Yet the characters accept the supernatural occurrences, such as the Qwasers manipulation of elements with relative ease. And the slave girl even left her home for who knows how long, but none of her family members is shown to care...

The dialogue is also nothing special. The characters generally have a catchphrase that is thrown out in a cheesy fashion, such as the main character "tremble in fear!" Every time he defeats a villain, or is about to. The characters engage in discussions in a stereotypical fashion, and most of the word bubbles are either babble, or filled with moans, or an idea of a moan, anyhow. The exchanges in general don't seem to be well thought-out.

And finally, the art. The characters, except maybe Sasha, are all drawn with average drawing skills. The background is mostly blank, and nearly all the Russian characters are drawn with Blonde hair, typical of Japanese perception of Western people. The breasts are the most well-drawn part of any of the characters; you might like the art style's simplisticness, though. Most of the characters' faces look similar, but the distinction is mostly in the eyes. Lots of cliched expressions such as a character talking with one eye shut for no apparent reason. But again, that might be what you like.

Some of the designs, though, are relatively cool, even if they made no sense.

In conclusion, Seikon no Qwaser has an interesting idea, but fails to comprehensively deliver its characters, story, or just events in general as something cohesive. You may like it, but this one, if given thought, will fail you.

The breasts are rather well-drawn, and the amount of guro in the series is rather high when certain characters are introduced.

Try not to look for comedy or a coherent plot when watching this, if you still decide to do so.

tl;dr: A manga that boasts a surprisingly well-thought-out and unique world with compelling mechanics, along with great art, but falls short in terms of plot and character development.

Seikon no Qwaser is an unusual manga. Perhaps its most notable feature is the battles where combatants' abilities are fueled by sucking boobs, treated with complete seriousness. More precisely, it revolves around Qwasers, individuals who can control elements, drawing power called Soma from their partnered Marias. This might seem like an attempt to mask the obvious with fancy terminology, and there's some truth to that. However, beneath the surface, this manga has more depth in its systems and world-building than a simple synopsis suggests.

The term "Qwaser" is just an astronomy term chosen for its cool sound, leaving little room for discussion. On the other hand, the actual elemental abilities are impressively crafted. Characters controlling classical elements like water or fire are common tropes, easy to work with. But controlling elements from the periodic table is far less common and much more intricate. The writing does a commendable job of utilizing each element meaningfully rather than using them as mere window dressing. Early on, the manga grounds itself in how elements are manipulated.

As the story progresses, things become less grounded due to crests and magical circuits enabling more extreme abilities. Yet, even then, the manga largely adheres to the real properties of elements as a foundation. While logical inconsistencies arise, the manga isn't aiming for realism. The thematic use of elements gives weight to the abilities, and deviations from reality add depth. Consequently, the action and general use of abilities remain intriguing throughout most of the manga.

The term "Soma" likely refers to a Hindu drink symbolizing cleansing of past sins, which holds thematic significance. It's peculiar as one of the core terms since most of the manga's lore is rooted in Christianity. The series delves deep into the Orthodox Church more than Evangelion, focusing on unique aspects like icons, panagia, and Stoic concepts such as pneuma. This distinct focus sets it apart, making the narrative feel novel and more engaging.

On the plus side, the manga's art is excellent. It embraces its goals, being extreme in both action and ecchi. The result is edgy yet visually appealing. Its willingness to inject random slice-of-life chapters enhances pacing and flow, offering artistic variety. The art alone makes flipping through the pages enjoyable, supporting the manga effectively.

The manga's biggest flaw lies in its lack of direction and commitment to overarching plotlines. The plot features interesting twists, but they often feel random and forced. There are many interesting and likable characters with wild personalities. However, the writing struggles to focus on any of them adequately, and constant jumping around diminishes their impact. Additionally, there's a severe lack of proper character or relationship development. Attempts at character growth, especially for the protagonist Sasha, are poorly executed and unconvincing. The manga includes minor romance elements, but their insignificance and lack of progression are baffling. The only successful relationship development involves secondary protagonist Katja's mental breakdown, though it's hardly romantic.

These shortcomings culminate in the final arc, which feels rushed. The action lacks punch, the plot veers off course, and too many events unfold too quickly, leading to an anti-climactic feel. The manga abruptly ends without a proper epilogue, leaving no sense of closure. I believe a satisfying ending and epilogue could have forgiven the messy plotting given the manga's nature, but their unsatisfactory execution leaves much to be desired, making the manga as a whole underwhelming.

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