Caught up on the last three issues, though I always read One Piece, Akane Banashi, PPPPPP, and Blue Box as soon as they come out. Honestly, I feel content with just reading those four if it came down to it (though if I get a fifth spot it goes to
Sakamoto Days).
One Piece is ending this massive saga with a bang and delivering on the already high expectations of post-arc content, god bless the clown;
Akane Banashi is handling everything so smoothly, especially how it's introducing so many characters, hierarchies, and building up this current tournament; the subtle but distinct personality shift in Lucky this week in
PPPPPP was maybe my favourite development so far in the series... until I realised who the character at the end of the chapter is and how this Fanta arc is setting up for four legendary showdowns with all characters whose arcs are deeply connected to - that is really, really exciting stuff. And
Blue Box has been delivering on it being a proper sports manga as of late, with just a dash of Chinatsu victory for extra measure.
On the newer series.
Aliens Area and
RuriDragon are both still to capture me, but Ruri is delivering on expectations and genre conventions way more. AA, while mostly generic, has nuggets of potential. But it's weirdly slow paced (while being quick to read) which is not the smartest choice and I think will be its downfall.
Super Smartphone enters into goofy territory now and then but overall I'm quite entertained by it. The recent three way phone conversation gave me more hope for how these dramatic situations will be handled if it does survive. If it ends up a secret success and stays this fun I won't complain.
On
Earthchild, I think it's quite simply that sometimes something is just
bad - to the point where it's almost universally panned, isn't well-received commercially, and its content can be picked apart for amateurish mistakes. It's often less accomplished rookies who fall into this category so I think it's more disappointing to see someone with a 'semi-success' come back with such a colossal flop. I don't think it's a case where there are series that have dedicated fans but it has a niche appeal so feels unpopular to many. The confesses seems pretty strong that EC was just an epic swing and a miss... but I'll wait until it gets cancelled for real before I give my full dissection of all its failures
My guess is that Earthchild may do a timeskip in the next couple issues and have a short final arc where the kid is an adult, like how Moriking had wrapped up every plot point but then pulled one more arc out of nowhere for the last 6-7 chapters since it still had some time left.
Lost amongst the excess of exposition and madness there are actually text boxes from Mamoru's POV in the future which hint to it circle back to him so I agree we'll get a few chapters there in the end.
