In the end, it was a great ride throughout, but there were issues I had that prevented me from giving it a perfect score.
For one, Endo’s use of sex and graphic violence was so overly gratuitous at times that I felt I was reading Elfen Lied. I’d see panels showing small children and animals being cut in halves with their entrails spewing out and I’d just be like “yo bro, chill out man.” Humanity is cruel, I know, but you don’t have to ram this message into us over and over again. Heck, I don’t even see this level of violence or sex in something like Berserk or Devilman which also exhibits the same views on humanity, and it just goes from being disturbing to being something that just feels too tryhard and edgy. And good lord, the sex. Some of it isn’t even crucial to the plot and just distracts from it. There was one where two characters were performing oral sex on each other and the panels were interwoven with other panels showing someone getting graphically murdered. I couldn’t take it seriously. I don’t know if Endo has some issues he needs to sort out, but the graphic nature of some of the imagery in this just felt like somebody was trying so hard to ensure his manga gets regarded as controversial.
Another problem I faced was that Endo seems so adamant about telling everybody constantly that he has some sort of Ph.D. in quantum physics or whatnot. I’m fine with scientific explanations, but I feel that at times it just goes overboard and I’m just thinking to myself “just get it over with, jeez.” The last couple of chapters were almost painful to read because of this. Not a major flaw at all, but its definitely a personal complaint I have.
Also, the series goes down a downhill slope after the culmination of the Mana Rescue Arc. I thought that was a solid finishing point in the story, but then it just keeps going. By the fifth chapter onwards, I just stopped caring about the scientific mumbo-jumbo and the constant deaths that I instead skimmed over a lot of it. I was also disappointed by the lack of cherubim in this; I thought since he played such a major role in the opening chapters that he’d be one of the main leads.
But, despite my gripes, I do highly recommend this. It’s probably the most intense page-turner of a manga I’ve read and it’s all helped by Endo’s ability to control the flow of tension within a narrative. At times, I couldn’t even put it down because of how suspenseful it was. It also helps that the characters in this are all very believable and likable in their own ways, with their own issues that needed sorting out and various flashbacks to flesh out their character. But, the best part is the chemistry and the relationships; they’re all so realistic and well explored, and it’s honestly a rarity to see something like this in the manga medium. Also, the themes are amazing in this. The idea of religion being explored from an agnostic lens and its insight into how humanity relies on it as a beacon of hope in such a cruel world was interesting to look into. As a fan of both Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion, this was a very nice read. I’d put it in the same boat as the first season of Psycho-Pass in terms of science fiction stories I like, but do fall short of their true potential.
Final score: 8/10.
