protectmomo posted:
Wow, this is bad. I read the first 6 or 7 chapters years ago and then totally forgot about this until I watched the first episode of the anime and realised I knew the twist moments before the assassination. So I got hyped and binged this again from the start and holy hell what a let down the newer chapters are.
I originally gave this credit for that murdery introduction, but looking back at it now, it's pretty clear that it was not good writing and more a cheap trick for shock value. This author must have gotten plot twists at a bargain sale for a dime a dozen, considering they dumped four of them on us in the first book. The pacing is insane and I was completely uncompelled by all of the other plot twists, both because I was never given time to grow attached to anything before the constant upheaval and because they all felt like complete asspulls.
The worst offender, by far, is the time travel twist. They didn't even attempt to address the issue of paradoxes, of how Akari could survive the first time without any future Akari yet in existence. And so we're instead left with a protagonist who has the god ability to automatically solve any issue she's in, whenever the author feels like it, by a future Super version of herself retroactively coming back and giving her unlimited power she didn't have at the time. And what the hell is up with her ribbon-cutting power? What does sending a homing (homewrecking?) missile to God knows where have to do with "The Pure Concept of Time"?
But let's not take any credit from the villain twist, which was also swinging for the fences of terribleness. I feel like for turning a Dumbledore-like figure into a cartoonishly evil villain to have any impact, you really ought to give the character more than 5 panels of screen time first. And what the hell was with that motivation? "I dedicated my entire life to saving people, but then hearing people ask me to save them got really annoying, so I started killing them instead"??? What????? One of the worst villains I've seen. And by God, the monologuing... I don't care, lady, your monologue was longer than all of your prior screen time combined so I have no investment in you or your rambling.
One commenter said something like "stop complaining and just enjoy the yuri". First of all why do you have such low standards for yourself? Wouldn't you like to read well-written yuri and not just uncritically accept anything just because it's gay? But I can't even do that anyways, because without warning the author made the protagonist batshit insane as part of the plot-twist-palooza, and I do not ship it. At this point I just want to see Momo x Menou and I would begrudgingly keep reading if there were any prospect of that but it's pretty clear there's not. In fact this might actually be the least compelling concept for a romance story I've ever read, because the relationship doesn't even develop naturally. Why does Akari love Menou? Because Future Akari beamed feelings of love into her from the Fuuuuuture. Wow, so romantic...
I have to respond for that blessed username alone. Protect Momo indeed.
The manga is mostly a service to LN readers. I'm not saying the writing is top-tier in the LN (it's not, it's a light novel after all), but there are a number of explanations the manga has decided to skip out on. The slower pacing gives Orwell a bit more characterisation, you get to see a bit of Akari's first time in this world and how everything starts to go wrong, Guiding Force gets a bit more explanation, etc.
To answer one of your questions, Pure Concepts can only really be used in ways the user can conceptualise (shocking, I know). Typically, this means being able to see/imagine the effect, but even that still allows for a ton of interpretation from the user. What Akari did was fast-forward time in a small area (Weathering) and then move that area somewhere she knew existed: Momo's ribbons (Teleportation). When Momo put up her shield to protect against the dragon's fire, her ribbons were out of phase and the shield ended too soon around them, allowing the fire to burn them. The idea that Time has some control over Spacetime as an extra benefit is pretty clever/funny if you ask me, and very relevant later on. It's those little explanations that get missed that I have no idea how manga-only readers are supposed to infer (see: the babbling little girl at the start of the most recent chapter).
Finally, if you have any desire to continue reading this as a romance story: do not. It's a (light) grimdark story with lesbian innuendo (a fun one if you don't take it seriously, imo). If you do stick around and the manga does cover what it should, there's little chance that you will continue to hate Future Akari. Her POVs are some of the most entertaining ones in the LNs.
last edited at Apr 14, 2022 4:19PM
