Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarste
You have to keep in mind that the people she just beat up were the weaklings of class 13 who wanted to get into the "real" class 13. There seems to be quite a gap between even the abnormals, and we still haven't seen a "real" one in action yet. Reading comprehension ftw? There's no indication whatsoever that she'll be stomping over everyone.
Anyway, I think her being super-strong yet not being able to have the moral victory can be a compelling story if it's done well. Her goal in life is not to beat everyone up.
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Yeah, I realize that, but these "abnormals" are supposed to be much stronger than specials. However, we've got "specials" who are destroying "abnormals". So, it starts getting confusing as to what actually separates the two groups. Just the dice roll? If these guys are supposed to be super geniuses at everything they do and are so strong, they can twist probability, why can a special defeat them? Wouldn't that just make them specials? Or do you have to completely insane to be considered "abnormal" like they all seem to be so far? It doesn't make much sense and all feels very random.
Of course, I am biased because I don't like Medaka that much as she eats up WAY too much of the manga on her own and I find her personality grating. True, she has some massive psychological problems that they've been revealing, which is compelling, but her arrogant, controlling and tyrannical attitude does not go well with her "I love everyone" philosophy and really makes her come off as a hypocrite to me. True, this is supposed to be one of her quirks, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't like her personality. This is more of a personal opinion than anything else, though.
As for the story, I feel that so far it's been told poorly. There's a lot of interesting ideas, but with the lack of development of the other main characters (main characters completely vanish for chapters at a time after not being developed at all), the inconsistent plot, and the sudden jarring shift into battle manga territory instead of a smoother, more natural transition, everything suddenly feels rushed. I've mentioned it before, but instead of being shown what's going on, we're being told instead, like in a book. Sadly, I don't feel this translates well into manga form. If I wanted to read everything that's going on, I'd read a book instead of a manga. Give me a reason to believe Medaka feels all these things by showing her feeling them, instead of just telling me she feels that way. When someone tells you they're extremely sad, but their face is almost always expressionless, it makes it hard to believe. That could just be a problem with the artist, though.
Then there's the fact that Medaka is a female lead in a shounen manga. Those just don't go over well with people as it IS a manga directed towards a male audience. I'm not saying a female lead who kicks butt doesn't work, as shown in mangas like Change 123, GS Mikami, Sekirei, Kurohime, etc, but it also needs a strong male lead to give the male audience someone to relate to, even if they don't fight. Zenkichi was supposed to fill that role, but so far, has failed pretty bad. Again, this is due not enough development on his part.
I know it's still early in the manga, but you'd think that by 24 chapters in, we'd at least have a reason to care about the characters and I'm finding it very hard to do that. I keep reading, hoping it'll get better and just when I'm about to give up for good, we do get some insight that helps, but so far, I've mostly been disappointed and I'm not the only one.
I will say that this is one of the most controversial mangas I've ever read. I've never seen people split so much on it. Usually, when people don't like a manga, they just drop it and that's it, but Medaka actually has potential to be decent and it IS decent enough to keep us coming back. I just think many of us expected more.