Maou: Juvenile Remix

Incredible story with a seriously unexpected plot twist in the middle.
Personally, the main characters do not really appeal to me. They're good, but they don't really stand out in the way the main character would stand out in other stories; they're just there to make the story flow. On the contrary, the assassins/hit-men are more of the type that appeal to me, and even the ones with no special powers are still awesome.

tl;dr: A manga with a good amount of depth and good action, but with a cast of characters that aren't that interesting and a plot that feels like it fizzles out at the end.

Note: This review is worded strangely vaguely because I'm doing my best to describe the whole manga while avoiding spoilers.

This is a manga with two distinct parts that are highly different and thus each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The first is very good at framing a fascist antagonist's rise to power, showing how they manipulate minds and exploit emotions in order to control people and pull them into a flood that they control. However, this is mostly shown through the eyes of someone that is simple observing. The main conflict in the first part mainly feels like it's the protagonist fighting himself on deciding whether he wants to be involved or not. He is very afraid of where things are going and wants to stop them, but is also afraid of what may happen to him if he gets involved. Furthermore, the way things are framed, his opposition to the antagonist doesn't feel like something he's doing because the antagonist is going against ideals he strongly believes in, but more so simply because he's afraid of the antagonist, and thus all he wants really is to maintain the status quo.

That would be okay for a simpler manga, but for something like this that actually has depth, even if it's relatable, it's pretty hard to like or get invested in a protagonist who's only motivation is to maintain the status quo and who's even wishy washy about that out of fear. Especially because the antagonist is shown as someone that's mysterious and charismatic, pulling off crazy feats while seeming above it all, and as someone who does terrible things but genuinely does seem to believe in what he's doing, and thus in contrast the protagonist just seems kind of lame. The protagonist does grow eventually and manages to be a solid character for a bit, but it's too little too late.

Other than the protagonist and antagonist, there were a number of characters, but only one of the characters, an assassin, felt like they got proper character development, and only two other character, the protagonist's brother and the antagonist's right hand man, felt like they were properly fleshed out, with everyone else just feeling kind of there, so that wasn't enough to pick up the slack either. The action took a bit to get going but becomes interesting because the protagonist's powers are pretty bizarre in that all he can do is make people say things, and thus he has to do a lot of unique things in order to make things go his way even when he's fighting people that don't have powers.

The second part pretty much drops the fascism angle entirely, focusing more so on smaller conflicts than grand movements. The protagonist during this part I felt was a major improvement over the first, in that he had clear motivations that while personal were easy to get invested in, and furthermore he was much more active in acting on his motivations and grew far more quickly, which just all around made him a cooler character. The antagonist from the first part is still there and could be seen as the top antagonist, but the focus is much more on lower antagonists more directly involved with the protagonist. This has it's pros in that it feels like there's more movement, but it also makes the main antagonist feel less interesting overall. 

The use of powers was still interesting in that the power of the protagonist in this part is pretty strange as well and thus also requires unique situations in order to show off, however it feels like the author ran out of things to do with it and pretty much dropped focusing on it to focus on other people fighting instead. That was fine for the most part as it was still pretty cool, but it felt like it had too much of the protagonist relying on others even if he was the one calling the shots as it never really felt like he properly embodies the role of a leader type character. The presence of power users also felt overtly prominent in this portion with not enough focus on the plot driving them. I also feel the ending was somewhat of a cop out in that it didn't properly resolve anything properly, other than a romantic relationship I was probably way more invested than it really deserved to be. The art was reasonably solid in both portions but never all that exceptional.

personally, i love this manga, and i think it really worths spending time to read

it's totally not mainstream at all, unpredictable plot twists, the battles ... well not as flashy as the other shounen mangas but still breath-taking. And yes, the plot has a lot of things that we have to brainstorm

the characters are all great and unique, especially the main characters - Junya and Ando, they have great character growth which i really enjoy.

Someone below says "they're just there to make the story flow. On the contrary, the assassins/hit-men are more of the type that appeal to me, and even the ones with no special powers are still awesome." => OK, i shall laugh of pity cuz IT'S Junya and Ando who make this manga awesome. It appears that you mainly judge characters from the outside "cool, badass blah blah ..."

Maoh is one of those stories that had me hooked on the art alone. It begins simply, but quickly changes as new situations are brought to the table. It was fascinating to fallow the characters into the bizarre, and I mean bizarre as in inhuman powers, though not over done, and dabbling into the more dark side of humanity. Pretty quickly you start seeing the plot shift from dealing with bullies, and mean kids on the streets to something far more complex. A nation bullying their people, and what change is right, or what change is completely wrong. This one is very unique, both in character development and in the angle at which this story is told from.

It’s a ten book series but worth every second of it. If it was any shorter important pieces wouldn’t go missing. I stayed up till three in the morning just to finish the last volume. And for someone like me that values endings this one did it for me. Great read for anyone that likes a good head game. I do not recommend to anyone under eighteen. Some parts are a little graphic//disturbing especially as this story progresses into the ending chapters.