I kind of agree with you...but showing the true nature of human being without sugarcoating it, it's what I admire Mouri sempai for, and I guess he felt that for that to happen he needed to portray the antithesis of this two groups who start the same way but choose completely different paths....I feel that if we could've read it in one go it wouldn't have felt that it was a little bit dragged on...... anyway for that experience one could read his other stories witch are just as good (for me, I would say even better)
I see what you’re saying, though I still hold to my opinion... If this story was solely about survival and not about people finding the will to live, then I would totally agree that the secondary group would be a necessary plot device, to show how things could have gone with the primary group. But since this was about suicide victims learning how to deal with life and finding the strength to go on... I feel like the secondary group could have been left out
I found this series interesting at first, much like our loyal translator did. But I found that the story began to lose its focus when we encountered the secondary group, and it just kept spiraling from there. But it was so intriguing that I couldn’t stop reading, even though in my head I kept asking: is it finally over?
The pros of this story is the characters, because they are all interesting in their own right, and were relatable most of the time. The whole idea of people who wanted to commit suicide finding the will to live through survival, was also good, because it shows that even when people have hit the absolute bottom they can find a way to climb back up.
The cons of the story are as I said, the whole story arc with the secondary group. Not that Swarda wasn’t interesting in his own fked up way, but I feel that the author could have still given his over all message; without all the violence and sexual abuse. I get the need for an antagonist, but I think Kai would have been enough of one to meet the authors needs... though it would have shortened the story considerably.
Overall I say this is a 3.5 out of 5 for character and overall story.