Then, I guess what we must look at is the perception of this surpassing.

As Kanoya's hallucination on Zenkichi's heart said: "Would you look at that. You surpassed Kurokami from the very beginning".

Although I understand your anger, and think that part of it is completely justified.

In a way, Zenkichi did surpass someone who had a great impact on his life: his dad. He didn't become a pathetic bastard who abandoned the people he cared about or gave up just because his love interest was an amazing person.

Sure, Zenkichi never became quite as amazing as Medaka, but he found his own niche and he worked hard at it. Whether or not he's satisfied with himself is something only he can answer and not by comparing himself to someone else.

About this: it's obvious that this manga was very confused, and Nisio didn't seem to really take it seriously. I never felt the seriousness of a grand piece of work like Kizumonogatari in Medaka Box.

In the end, the manga just wasn't really good, because it kinda had a pretty terrible progression and plot. It had mostly good characters -- some glaring exceptions here and there -- but it was definitely lacking in structure, gradation and cohesion.

And I think that is reflective of Nisio's lack of seriousness. He was just playing around. I think his rather poor conclusion to Kumagawa's character arc in the graduation can attest to that, not to mention the rushed ending.

So yeah, I agree that it's frustrating, but for different reasons.

I wonder what his dad's definition of "amazing" is. Well, she was really good at house tasks. I guess that counts? Otherwise, I'm not seeing it.

She's a surgeon, a good one I would surmise. That's amazing enough.

When I think about it, Nishio's others works, like Katanagatari and Monogatari series, have some certain levels of deepness because they are not manga. They are LN so that he can freely do what he want without being pestered by some editors. Medaka Box was published in Jump, a magazine with their target audiences are kid from 10-15. So Nisio was forced to follow some unspoken rules and couldn't pull out his normal troll moves like killing important characters from the main cast or making a girl look like the main heroine but letting the protagonist go out with another girl. Had Medaka Box been a LN, Medaka's illusive idea could have been crushed by cruel reality leaving her hopeless or Zen could have ended up with Mukae.

To be fair, the manga did try parody the tropes utilzing the 'bite-the-hand-feeds-you' humor.

Finally finished, 2 years later.
I liked it. Will definitely miss this series.

Kinda sad they lost the powers after they became adults, and I am REALLY curious to see what happened to Kumagawa after he lost his powers! :D
The oneshot Good Loser Kumagawa was quite nice as well, I wonder if those two will hook up later...

Anyway, been a pleasure. Time to move on to the next manga series I've abbandoned!

He didn't. There was specific mention that "some people" never lost them at all, and it shows Kumagawa while saying it, so.....

Naze/Kujira didn't lose her powers either and Hansode is still Ihihko(?)'s new vessel.