Reviews for Zero In

tl;dr: An action manga with lots of good and not so good elements that overall leave an impression of decent. This manga is all over the place. It has flashes of complete brilliance and complete stupidity. It starts off with there being a bunch of pretty small stories, and some of them are great and some of them are kind of weak. They include both dealing with police matters, and dealing with school life, with very little overlap between them. Overall while there is a decent amount of variety in these stories, with a blend of serious, comedic, and inspirational moments. Still, eventually this portion starts feeling kindof slow as there isn’t really much overarching progress in anything. Eventually an overarching story pops up centered around a conspiracy. This conspiracy is interesting and gets a lot of plot threads that were dragging on to start moving much faster in ways that actually feel substantial. However, as for the conspiracy itself, it just sort of fizzles out in the end with a rushed ending that doesn’t completely clear things up or deliver any justice to the perpetrators, it just gets brushed under the rug and the aftermath is also mostly glossed over, which is really unsatisfying.

The main relationship between Kou and Mikuru was kind of good, kind of not really. It starts off really slowly, and gets kind of stuck early on up until the story related to the main conspiracy gets moving. Once that gets going it’s pretty great with a lot of really good moments. But at the same time it felt like there needed to be more great, or at least good moments before that. I also wasn’t really much of a fan of how the ending handled their relationship, wherein it felt like it was treating like an afterthought and not that important. As for the characters themselves, Kou was strange in that he was useless most of the time, except in cases where he suddenly became useful, in which case he was really awesome. He’s supposed to be a quick thinker and strategist to make up for not being as good in combat, but that didn’t come into play that often. So, while he did have a growth arc where he grows more confident it felt kind of undeserved as the only major growth we see is in his actual combat abilities which still put him way below the actual main fighters. Mikuru is strange in that the way her character is originally introduced has certain elements regarding her trauma, they essentially disappear for the majority of the story, until they’re suddenly introduced again and become the center of her character arc with her overcoming them. This character arc is really well done, in that it also ties into her relationships with her friends at school and her conflict in living a double life and it also leads to most of the strong moments she has with Kou in terms of relationship development. Still, the thing is that as this is the core of her story, as it doesn’t show up for quite a while, until it does she’s a pretty flat character. Still, in the end, other than the matters regarding her relationship with Kou, I think the ending does a good job with her. The side characters were a mixed bag, with some being great but needing more time, like the Frog Sisters, and other characters being handled in what may well be the worst that any character could possibly be handled, like Kina.

The art gets a pretty strong boost in quality over the course of the manga to go from okay to become pretty great. Character designs are pretty great from the beginning. Action is also drawn to look really cool most of the time so action scenes come out great, especially as it nears the end.

This manga is strange and truly something different I will say that. However, there are problems with it that need to be addressed. "The Tone" This manga starts off pretty light overall. Like a buddy cop sort of series that does not take itself too seriously. However, near the middle of the series we start to hit some real serious stuff. The manga tries to uphold the tone while also doing whole stories based on school shootings and mass violence against civilians to the point where the characters come off as heartless and not taking themselves seriously at all. It's ok to add serious plotelements, but it does it in a way that ruins the feeling of the manga to where I do not know how to feel reading this. We will get a scene of a cowering bystander being shot by the villain only for the next panel to be like "oh heres Kou and Mikuru doing dumb cop stuff again LOL" with chibi facial expressions and silly slapstick.

"The Art"

It really does improve towards the end but sometimes it is hard to tell what is going on frankly. I think this series would benefit from an anime and would be able to show more details that way.

"The Characters"

I really like some of these characters and it is frustrating that they all do not really get an arc or growth. Kou is pretty much just a cardboard guy who doesn't change and Mikuru really doesn't evolve at all. The ending even states that they do not change and are all still themselves. I still really do like the characters and the positions they play in the story but I do not feel personally entwined with them. Instead of feeling like I'm next to them rooting for them, I feel like I am a third party not really invested in what is going on.

Conclusion:

This story is fun, and although the middle point gets pretty boring and the whole series really does not have a plot or proper direction, I thought it was more positive than negative. The action is cool and the last few volumes are generally pretty fun.