#1 Issue I have with this series is the Order vs X's Group fights are just all over the place. Introduced way too many one-off villains late. Should have built up the Order vs X's Group naturally through the whole manga.
Osaragi should be fighting Kumanomi, WTF is she fighting some random grandma pushing around a stroller with an actual baby in it? The fuck?
Kamihate vs Tenkyu could be a legit COOL fight.
Outside of Tanabata vs Shin and Shishiba vs Gozu, the fights are just meh, and even those two don't have any emotional weight to them.
So much time to build up emotional, heavy fights, and we just get Lu randomly fighting a crazy cop. Meh.
Shin/Nagumo made it worth it, and when Sakamoto's fighting, he's super cool.
The moment they try to go away from Sakamoto fighting, to anything else, it just sucks ass. He was never given enough real character to justify the idea he left behind all of these people and this world for Aoi. As messy as Kei/Slur/X's writing (why in the fuck did this guy have to have so many days? The fuck was the point?), his character is much more interesting and well-explored than Sakamoto's.
Outside of his relationship with Shin, ironically, the only relationship Sakamoto has that actually makes him feel interesting is unironically Kei. Even with Nagumo and Sakamoto's friendship, it really is Nagumo doing all of the lifting, while Sakamato threatens him to get out of his store.
I feel the Rion/Akira stuff needed to happen earlier for emotional threads to get drawn out properly.
This manga also just utterly fumbled Hard Boiled and Lu as characters. Super likeable comic relief guy who is actually strong enough to hang a bit, and incredibly likable young woman the author could have developed in nearly any direction. Pretty much nothing from both of them, though Boiled got a bit of good work in the end with the prison arc. Lu got brought back just to be saved. Yawn.
9/10 manga, regardless of the ending for me. Enough interesting plots/social commentary to keep me invested, fantastic characters that the author doesn't know what to do with at times, some of the best action art/choreography in recent years. Plot goes off the rails, last, so does the art, last arc introduces too many useless characters, and a lot of the characters just kind of do things at the end.
If I get more energy, I might make a thread about the match ups I would have made, with more of X's group surviving to the end, and every "new" end arc assassin (like the old lady with baby) being removed besides Shiina and Kippei Saionji
Most shippable siblings in Jump since Ulti and Pay-tan /s
I miss Murder Olympics Man, he had honor and believed in true sportsmanship
o7s for Haruma, he was a real one
One last thing about the next chapter,
I wonder if Apart might come back and help Akira stitch up Sakamoto, I've been waiting for Apart to come back for YEARS. His whole thing is strings, he should be able to help if he returns.
