Monsteri finished reading this.... here's a summary of the story
i think that pretty much sums every single naoki urasawa manga, i don't know how i was able to feel into this trap thrice... don't get me wrong, when stuff happens it's a good manga, but it's a 162 chapter manga and i'm pretty sure only around 50 chapter have any actual plot development
the rest can be either summarized as...
- tenma being such a good samaritan that he make jesus looks like a noob
- nina has a panic attack that vaguely hints the next direction where all the characters are going (which obviously leads to nowhere) but no manly salmon is there to slap the shit out of her
- someone get introduced, has a sad backstory, then get killed off by the villains 5 chapter laters
by the way, the villains have no raison d'etrè... there is a big govern group that wants johan because... reasons? and johan just shuffle around mysteriously and occasionaly murder people (or convince other people to murder with his magical villain power) because EVERYTHING IS DEATH AND BAD AND UGLY, it feels like this manga has no plotline at all, and so much time is spent on minor character who had super shitty life but have so much optimism that in another more fantasy related manga it could have been turned into a super power
for me the only two bright spots of the manga are eva and lunge, both these character are sad and bitter assholes who not only have trauma that sounds reasonable as opposed to "my dog died,my parent abandoned me,i was kidnapped as a child and i was also a murder witness" but they also cope with it in a manner that is interessing and realistic (one in a destructive way and the other in an obssesive way) as opposed to going into a 3 page monologue about how everything is going to be fine
in fact if you removed all the useless secondary character, added more eva and lunge... and decided for the plot to have an actual direction it could have been a really good manga, lunge and tenma have a very good "the fugitive" like dynamic but that never goes anywhere because OH NO SOME OTHER MINOR CHARACTER JUST DIED AND WE HAVE TO CRY FOR HIM SO WE HAVE NO TIME FOR LUNGE
