Sinking to new lows of crumminess!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sakae Esuno
Translation: Caleb Cook
What They Say
The truth behind Gennai and the Great Destruction is revealed! Will Eiji be able to stop his father’s plans and save Sena, or will there be a second Great Destruction?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
So, we start things off a little slower this time, finding Eiji, Rin, and Iyo in a school, trying to track down a mysterious Order known as the “Body Snatcher,” because people’s body parts have gone missing. The book actually IS attempting to do something here, overlapping the effects of last time on the characters with this mystery. Sadly, though, the character work largely amounts to Eiji moping about Sena while Rin tries to sort out her feelings. Oh, and that Rock God girl shows up again, still after Eiji, and molests Rin a bit. So that’s… something. She’s honestly interjected into this book here and there as if to treat her as someone being upgraded to significant cast member status… but she doesn’t do anything. Oh, and the “mystery” ends on a cheap reveal of what feels like a kind of gross stereotyping of crossdressers/trans people, as the character is clearly drawn in a way that I’d say is meant to disgust the reader and is treated with zero respect. Like, it’s pretty clearly meant to be cheap twist and a way to make the character “monstrous,” but is done in a way that it just comes off as really, really tasteless. Anyway, before being taken away by Rock God/the government, the character says something about Sena giving powers, catching Eiji’s interest (and by the way, this character being taken away before our heroes can perform an interrogation is treated like a big deal, but then it doesn’t matter at all.) Oh, and we’re introduced to an ambassador by the name of Igawa whose character seems to be “has a Gatling gun” who uses an anti-Order field device and the aforementioned weapon to come after Eiji. He fails but already has what he wants, so he just kind of leaves.
For the middle part of the book, Eiji and Rin head off for a journey to find Sena, for which Iyo stows away. Oh, and Eiji agrees to follow what Rin says, but never even vaguely pretends to do so, which is just kind of an awkward development. Anyway, they end up assaulted by an Order who traps them in a massive iceberg… and the solution is just for Rin and Iyo to use Order fusion, creating a power that just immediately takes down the opponent with a long range homing attack. Which feels like a real cheap, lazy solution.
We then rejoin Sena and her new group, who are… attempting a coup on the Japanese government. The means behind this turn out to be kind of awkwardly convoluted. They march into the Diet Building and challenge the Prime Minister to a game of dice, with the terms being they let all their hostages go if he wins, but he hands over the reins of the country if he loses. And it turns out they have an Order power that makes the terms of any gamble binding, and he’s also a former professional dice thrower. So… a lot of steps to set this up that seem rather overly specific (even accepting that yeah, Sena chose dice because she knew this and that he’d accept, it’s still really awkward how it’s hand-waved off that he was apparently a long-standing member of an underground gambling organization with just “well, all politicians are corrupt.”) And well, perhaps this is an overly specific reference, but just like how the series reeks of a far lower quality knock-off of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, this specific sequence really calls to mind the D’Arby bit from that series. (A battle based around cheating at a gambling game isn’t something unique to that series, of course, but considering the obvious influences in place thus far, it’s hard not to see this as the creator of Big Order seeing that part and awkwardly forcing something similar into this manga.) Oh, and after all that setup? The prime minister was using sweat from his hands to adjust the stickiness of the dice to get the numbers he wants, and the counter was just bumping the table and saying “hey, it’s random anyway, so what’s the issue?” Which just feels really, really weak for the amount of time putting into setting it up.
Anyway, Eiji rushes off to rescue Sena again as she sets up for another destruction. And he’s a real unlikable jerk in this sequence, even holding back his allies in the process and throwing away his morals along the way. Which, like, maybe something could be done with that idea, but it isn’t really here, and I’m not willing to give the series the benefit of the doubt that it’s actually planning ahead. Similarly, Sena’s character remains all over the place, honestly, to such a degree that it’s hard to say if the idea is supposed to be that she’s being manipulated, or if the hints that she’s trying to cover for Eiji and take the blame back off him are real, or what. Maybe the idea really is that she’s just done a complete reversal of character to being a villain because of getting back her old memories, which would be real dumb and poorly thought through/explained, and I hope that’s not what it’s aiming for, but I wouldn’t put it past the series. Oh, and on the other side of the gate caused by Sena’s destruction, it’s the afterlife or something and she summons a giant woman who is apparently God. Which really, really feels like it comes completely out of nowhere.
In Summary
With this we get another volume, and unsurprisingly it turns out to be another big old pile of crap. The battles are overly simplistic in nature and all have really unsatisfying conclusions. The characters remain poorly developed and come off as more whiny and unlikeable than anything, or in Sena’s case just plain nonsensical. The developments feel more random and contrived rather than properly earned. And hell, we even get what seems to be an offensive stereotype to boot! It really does have it all in terms of being a bad read, to such a degree that about all I can really give it is that at least it reads comprehensibly on a base level, in that you can follow it from panel to panel. Which isn’t much, but… at least it’s something? Seriously though, do not waste money on this, as it’s really quite poor from beginning to end.
Content Grade: C-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: February 6th, 2018
MSRP: $21.99
