Mashima is def spiting us with the amount of real death in this manga, almost as if he’s making up for Fairy Tail edit: looks like they’re still ‘alive’ so nevermind…for now
Best manga of Mashima's ever, and I've read them all to say this. The story is amazing, I think that the human-robot relationship is pretty avant gardiste. Maybe in about 100 years we also will have to deal with actual robots as human beings? This manga will then describe the future values and worries of us humans. It's also a very well written and heart warming story. I've never cried reading a manga before, I did while reading this, multiple times. Mashima really knows how to touch people's hearts. As for the characters... they're so lovely and cute! There isn't even one character I don't like in this. They all have their qualities and defects, their own values and everything, it just makes them so realistic, even though they appear to have some exaggerated traits (Homura saying everything that goes through her mind, or Shiki's "wanna be friends?" Or his fear of bugs...) but it's usually funny. I like the relationships they have, I'd like to see more interactions between the crew members, like the one we had between Weisz and Laguna. SPOILERS I also loved how Mashima's artstyle evolved. At the start it looked like FT (completely logical, when EZ started FT hadn't even ended yet), but as the story goes on the drawings change. You can also see that he actually aged the characters (especially Kleene, Shiki and Rebecca) after the 3 year ellipse.
The only "bad" thing about this is that I do not understand where the story's going. I know they want to find Mother, but when is that going to happen? After the fight with Ziggy? But there is still another Oracion Seis Galactica they haven't fought. What other new foe could there be that would have more impact than Ziggy himself? When is the story going to end? How close are we to the end? It's pretty much impossible to know. If the stoey really is THIS short then it's pretty sad because the universe itself was very interesting to develop. Maybe Mashima was going too fast on this one? Maybe there will be other foes and the story will drag on? We'll see.
Chapter 166-167....WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO US AUTHOR LIKE OMG.. First Valkyrie, Second Witch, and third Rebecca's body breaking?? Like who the hell taught you this...The more I think about it, it's like Shiki's getting stronger but because of that many people dies. Like omg, can you guys just leave them alone. They're literally in the verge of dying