It's not bogged down because some chapters don't push the romance forward and characters are not useless because their relationship status isn't clearly defined at the end.
It's bogged down by the fact that the story frequently comes to a full stop, in jarring fashion, to spend time either reminding the reader of characters that disappeared volumes ago (e.g. Masaki, Azusa, Kiyori to some extent) or to introduce more characters whose seeming purpose from a literary standpoint is to fulfill roles that could have went to the already established cast (e.g. Mayu, Koino) while said established cast' motivations become less clear or less interesting (e.g. Tomoe, Miyako).
And sometimes its just about Ushio's brother finding a wife, which it just really sunk in that his wedding is the setting of the final scene. Even as sweet as the imagery turned out, his bride barely outranks the girl with the one vampire tooth in terms of characters I needed any closure for.
If you don't like the series, fine.
I think most people here have a favorable view of the story. I just think a lot of people don't think it succeeds as a story about a group of friends and the part that does succeed would have flourished even more with tighter focus. It is, at least for me, easier to imagine how to make a better 25 to 35 chapter story by cutting out of and rearranging what the 53 chapters has now than it is to imagine improving on everything I would have cut out.
They can get officially marry in France now! And some other awesome! states...
I don't think Japan would recognize it though or maybe that changed recently or was going to change, I forget.
last edited at Apr 27, 2013 6:18AM