Wizard's Soul: Koi no Jihad

Wizard's Soul isn't a great manga, but it definitely felt unique and has a nice premise going for it in the beginning. The cute art and card game shenanigans kept me going for the rest of the series, and the premise alone makes the manga very memorable. Its first couple of chapters were definitely strong, and I could give them a 7 or so on their own. However, it never really takes that next step into something more, and instead kind of reiterates itself over its single tournament arc, ending quickly over a period of little progress. The protagonist Manaka is the star of the show.She twists the card game MC archetype by primarily playing "permission," a style of deck that relies on counter-spells to prevent opponents from doing anything. Naturally, she gets a lot of hate for this, and she knows it and hates herself for it. This is the primary and -- for the most part -- only conflict that drives the manga. She's forced in a situation where she must play card games, despite only knowing to play in this distasteful style and having conscious aversion to the game. Seeing Manaka win with her impressive skills in spite all of this gave me most of my enjoyment from reading. It helped that the card game itself felt like a real MTG clone that looked decently fun to play. The problem starts when the tournament begins and steals all of the panel space that could have been used for development. Manaka develops really slowly across every match, so much of the interest in these matches instead come from her opponents and the card game antics. From a chapter-to-chapter perspective, they can be entertaining, but afterward there just isn't enough. While her opponents can be amusing, most of them are kind of flat and become relegated to commentators for the rest of Manaka's matches. Manaka doesn't really interact with them or anyone besides her obvious love interest a couple of times. There isn't much to set up future opponents to look forward to besides a few pages before the match's chapter. When the tournament really starts, the tournament venue becomes the manga's only relevant setting. None of the characters DO anything outside of the tournament matches. There are a few (mostly flashback) chapters that do attempt to flesh out the characters a bit, but while they do a decent job giving the reader a sense of what the characters are about, they fail to make me actually care about them. I would have loved to see some of these characters go out and have fun, discuss things about the overall card game scene, or play short little practice games to foreshadow upcoming developments. While the side characters do talk among themselves, they all feel so disconnected from each other, never doing much except talk about Manaka and the current match. It's not enough for me to be told about these characters' personalities; I need to be able to see it through their actions, but the manga doesn't give me much to work with. The card games are cool, but after a while, it was just too many matches and not enough personality. It doesn't surprise me that this manga ended so quickly. It felt like that after Manaka's history was revealed and played with a little, the manga didn't build enough other interest for it to live past that. This has the side effect of making the ending, while short and possibly abrupt, feel oddly fitting for a series that ran out of good ideas in its first volume or two. If there is anything good to say about the ending, then it would be that it wasn't disappointing. That doesn't take away from the strength of those first couple of chapters. If you ever had the slightest interest in card games and want a slightly more grounded and cynical take on it, I definitely recommend reading up until a few matches into the tournament. I would only really recommend the rest of the manga for fans of the cute characters and card game strategy.