A real travesty to cap off this crapshow.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sakae Esuno
Translation: Caleb Cook
What They Say
In this climactic final volume, a boy with a special power finds he had better be careful what he wishes for….
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
So, at the start of the book we rejoin our heroes as God prepares to break free and go on a rampage, and we learn that Eiji can’t use his powers to control it directly! But then he thinks to order the gate it’s coming out of to close, which apparently is enough to stop it for an arbitrary amount of time, AKA make it not a threat until the plot is ready for it again. And in the aftermath they get brought back to Hiiragi… and the first goddamn thing the book decides to do now that the action has slowed down is to give some “fanservice” of Rin changing, and of goddamn course this results in the cheapest slapstick “gag” in the book of Eiji walking in on her and getting beat up for it. Like, god is that ever worn down to all hell, and it’s super lame to see a series playing it so straight. And then… she straight up kisses him when she sees him all self-defeating, and SOMEHOW is still shown as unsure of her own feelings and wondering why she did it afterwards! Which… I mean, that may just be the dumbest example of a heroine clueless about her own feelings that I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something.
Anyway, Hiiragi reveals that his plan is to use a big anti-Order field powered by Daisy’s original body or whatever on God to make it vulnerable, and then nuke it. And so, Eiji is sent off on a mission to take over the UN to force them to cooperate, but then it turns out Hiiragi betrayed them to earn trust to get the plan to work anyway! And good lord, this turns into the most simplistic, almost childishly written plot point of the volume: Hiiragi keeps being all “nuh-uh, I don’t wanna trust you, go away!” while Eiji keeps trying to help out. It’s just not written well all at and causes the commander to come across as a big whiny baby more than anything else, and is just… dumb.
Moving on, though, Eiji naturally escapes from the UN, and Sena’s forces attack the base to ruin Hiiragi’s plan. And… my god did the author ever flub hard on making these threats feel reasonable, especially for this stage in the game. Effectively, these are the last new enemy powers introduced in the series, and are up against powers like the ability to control anything, be effectively immortal combined with attack power, destroy anything, and the goddamn strength to just declare anything false, aka pretty heavy straight up control over reality itself! Now stop and try to compare that against what they’re up against, and figure if it’s a reasonable threat: First off, Eiji, Rin, and Iyo end up against the guy from the last time around who can force gambles to be binding. And no, he doesn’t trick them into playing into this. Nah, he just set up a ton of trip-wires, which blow off Rin’s leg. And apparently that’s a huge threat that cannot be stopped, even though I’m pretty sure Rin has recovered from much worse much easier. But nah, apparently beating this effectively powerless guy requires Eiji to get a tip about a secret path to sneak around the traps. Then there’s a guy who can shoot explosive liquid. But the best of all: a guy who brings paper dolls to life as large warriors, and they’re apparently very sharp. This is treated as a huge threat that overwhelms multiple of the 10 Hands at once! The real kicker, though, is that one of the guys up against him has the ability to control all plant matter and it’s like… what do you think paper is made from? Oh, and stopping him ultimately requires Benkei, the guy with the “destroy anything” power to switch his power to perfect defense and then go down in a suicide attack against paper doll man. It’s just… essentially gibberish that’s shockingly poorly thought through.
Oh, anyway, the plan fails in part because when Sena shows up with God, Eiji fails to bring himself to shoot her once again. This results in the world getting even MORE destroyed by… I don’t actually know. God spreads out something from its body, and it’s like… up close this is displayed sort of like poorly drawn/defined faces (and looks awful, visually), and yet it’s also treated as being exactly like water, but then sometimes it’s like some sort of muddy substance or something entrapping people. I legitimately have no idea what the hell is going on with that. And it only gets dumber, because after Eiji is summoned to an aircraft carrier floating on that stuff and it’s assaulted, then our heroes get away on a little escape raft thing. Then, with no in-between or explanation, they have somehow, someway driven this dinky raft literally into the heart of God where Sena is waiting. Like… it’s treated like it’s only natural that they’re there, not even given a proper explanation, which is just nonsense.
It’s then that we finally hit what I guess is the climax. And this involves like, Sena stealing Bind Dominator from Eiji and ordering him to point his gun at himself… but then it’s revealed that all along, Sena’s REAL plan has been to play herself up as the monstrous villain, then force Eiji to kill her so that he becomes a hero in the eyes of the world. And I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t fit at all. Why have him almost kill himself in the process, and were there really not better options along the way to more efficiently accomplish this goal? Hell, even playing along with the plan as is… how exactly is this heroic deed supposed to be verified when you drew him into the heart of God with no witnesses, anyway? It’s just really, really, REALLY poorly set up and executed all around.
Anyway, it all ends with the dumb sequence of Eiji getting another wish from Daisy, ending up with a second Bind Dominator, and them having a control-each-other “battle” where they sort of stab one another at the same time. And then Eiji sort of orders God to grant their wish to have a world where they’re happy or something. Oh, but then they get summoned back in the epilogue to be with everyone for a happy ending anyway.
In Summary
Fitting for this series, it ends with a goddamn mess of a final volume here. Quite frankly, the whole thing just sort of alternates between incredibly amateur, childish writing and borderline gibberish. It’s kind of amazing that the series has managed to reach a new low here I’d say, as I really can’t think of anything that works. Character motivations, twists, and developments are all played so poorly that even a cursory thought about them brings to light the fact that they’re excessively dumb. On top of that, the matchups and powers are incredibly mismatched, with the heroes being set up with skills that should make them near infinitely more powerful than their foes, but that’s just kind of ignored for the sake of plot. And at at least one point, the very flow of what’s going on in the plot literally just breaks down and doesn’t make sense to such a degree that it’s almost like someone ripped out a chunk of pages. It’s just a real mess all around, a true travesty of a book on near every level.
Content Grade: D+
Art Grade: C+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: June 26th, 2018
MSRP: $21.99
