Advance of Z: Titans no Hata no Moto ni

Flag of the Titans felt kind of pointless. Not the poignant type of pointless, but the waste of time pointless due to the pacing and ending. For reference, the first 20 or so chapters of this story are getting to know the crew, yet, despite so much time devoted to this, they still feel quite flat. The main four characters fill out very rigid stereotypes, so rigid that you can easily predict how they will react to situations or the actions they will take when presented with a decision. I went into this not having much faith that the author will address the crew's fanaticismtoward the Titans faction and was correct to do so. Throughout the plot, there are three instances of doubt about the Titans' true intentions (that is, to bring the space colonies under an iron fist via massacres and military domination. The reader knows this if they have watched Zeta Gundam), with two coming from Audrey. Firstly, quite early on, Audrey presents the crew with an article with picture evidence that she was able to access through underground channels about one of the Titans' ever so famous mass killings. However, the crew brushes it off as fake news despite there being pictorial evidence. Secondly, Audrey is directly confronted by a platoon of Earth Federation Forces about why they are so hostile toward Titans' officers, but the crew doesn't take that seriously either. Thirdly, the crew is betrayed by a defector to the AEUG, but they don't take his monologue seriously despite growing attached to him. This lack of growth and obliviousness leads to a, predictably, unsatisfying ending. The overarching plot outside of the characters is also uninteresting because the reader will have most likely watched Zeta Gundam, and it follows the same timeline. So, the segments of higher-ups shrouded in shadow explaining what they are about to do are a slog to get through, especially when the reader can just read on and see the exact thing they were planning in longwinded sentences actually happen. Additionally, the character art isn't exactly impressive. The panel lines and speech bubbles are messy, and the characters' faces have a habit of looking the same. It's difficult to tell Eliard and Carl apart when they are wearing their normal suits. Pretty much all this manga has going for it is the mechanical design; the mobile suits are very well-drawn. I did particularly enjoy the scene of the Zeon remnants joining forces with the AEUG. It was cool to see monoeyes and GMs flying together in a unified fleet. Overall, this manga shouldn't be read for the characters, even though the characters take up the majority of the story. If you enjoy the mobile suit design and skip to those pages, you'll likely find it much more entertaining. The T3 crew blindly chases their ideals through to the very end and meet their deserved fate, a story that did not need 48 chapters to tell. But it can serve as a coping mechanism for those who mourn the beautiful kits that have been banished to P-Bandai hell...