tl;dr: A story that develops the bonds between a likable cast very well and has a lot of amusing moments, though it feels like both the characters and combat need more depth. 

This starts off as basically a gag manga with some serious type moments, though ones centered around really small conflicts that were resolved pretty much instantly. This portion is used to introduce the various characters and such. As it goes on, the stories start getting longer and more serious with a stronger emphasis on combat, but with the comedy still very much intermixed with the serious aspects. It starts off with the protagonist being someone who’s heart is very much in the right place, but who in terms of actually being able to do much was completely useless. He was good in terms of helping others deal with their inner conflicts by talking to them, but in terms of actual combat his only role was to pull off Moka’s Rosario.

As it goes on, he becomes powerful and the story building up to that is pretty well told. However, in the end combat is still pretty shallow. It’s basically just a pure competition of pure strength generally, with Moka and eventually Tsukune having power states that instantly win. There are a few exceptions to that to a degree, but not much. The rest of the cast also ultimately feels like they have very little involvement in the combat. So although combat and power growth are a pretty major aspect of the latter half of the manga and it does feel like its headed in the direction of being a battle manga, it doesn’t really feel like it’s there yet. Ultimately the fights are there to look cool and serve the story than to actually have good combat.

As for what the story does focus on, it’s the relationships between characters. It’s a tad overtly melodramatic and some aspects feel repetitive, but it does a good job of establishing strong relationships between the main characters and having that grow due to various trials. It definitely helps that the entire main cast is really likable as well. An issue I had here however, is that despite it developing their bonds well, it doesn’t seem to develop the characters in and of themselves very well and beyond their initial introduction there isn’t really any sort of character arc. Yukari got some development during the witch’s arc. Kurumu and Mizore as of now seem like they’re pretty normal people without anything major in their backgrounds other than the fact that they’re monsters, so there may not be much to develop there. But Moka is the one that stood out the most, in that it doesn’t really go into any detail on her background or split personalities at all.

Still, this is only the end of the first part, so it doing a better job at giving characters depth while also better fleshing out combat is something I’m hopeful for in the second, and not judging on too harshly yet. As for how this part ended, I think it did a really good job with an amusing but very touching ending that was pretty reasonably satisfying under the assumption that there’s more to come. The art is pretty good, with a pretty nice sense of style.