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The story
A thread that kicked off with the post “It was great at first, but it lost so much steam in the second half” blew up on 5ch’s general live-commentary board (通称なんJ, commonly known as “Nanj”). The titles that came up were mostly popular Jump and Young Jump series like Chainsaw Man, Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, and Vinland Saga, and some replies even posted their own “tier lists” ranking the gap in quality between the first and second halves. On the other hand, some pointed to exceptions like Slam Dunk and Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai that “got better toward the end,” pushing back against the simple theory that manga always fade in the second half.
What people said
It ended on a high note
It's not even the usual case of Jump forcing a boxed-in, rushed decline on it either
Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, Demon Slayer
For Slam Dunk, isn't the Sannoh match the most highly rated part?
You don't really hear many people say Slam Dunk's early part was the best
Not just this one, but when a mystery is what drives a story, it usually loses steam once the reveals start coming
Seriously, it was all downhill right after the start
Nice try, hater
Guess it's because Relax messes with the main story that it's actually funny
It lost steam toward the end, but come on, the mercenary arc was really something…
It got way too awful after they got forcibly shipped back to Akita
It's fine because it recovered during the pachinko arc
Really?
I've often heard people say it dragged on too long, or that the Kainan match was actually the best part
The Kainan match is popular too
But I think the Sannoh match is generally rated the highest
Tokyo Ghoul
Kingdom
Come on, Young Jump…
Kamen Rider Drive was like that too
Riku Sanjo is amazing
Put another way
the early part drags
Still, it's impressive that the whole series is under 30 volumes
I bet people who followed it week to week and people who binge-read it all at once come away with different impressions
If you binge it, it reads decently well
The art though……
Terra Formars
I Am a Hero
Forgot about those
Tier list of manga with the worst first-half/second-half gap
S: One Piece, Chainsaw Man
A: Terra Formars, Tokyo Ghoul, Berserk, I Am a Hero
B: Oshi no Ko, Jujutsu Kaisen, The Promised Neverland
C: Bleach
D: Death Note, Gantz
E: Hunter x Hunter
No objections, right?
S: One Piece, Chainsaw Man
A: Terra Formars, Tokyo Ghoul, Berserk
B: Oshi no Ko, Jujutsu Kaisen, The Promised Neverland
C: Bleach
D: Death Note
E: Hunter x Hunter
No objections, right?
Bleach's ranked way too low, as always
The author got completely eaten by the anime adaptation (fitting, since the title literally means "soul-eater")
Can't help it, it's one of the funniest "episode 0"-style anime out there
Yeah, the second half got preachy and dragged
Part 2 is disgustingly boring
Some of us — like me — actually like Part 2 more because it's so creepy
It's always weirdly been a magnet for obsessive hate for some reason, so I don't know if I should take it seriously
If it's genuinely worse than Bleach or Chainsaw Man, I'd expect way more backlash than this
Both the art and the story are trash no matter how generously you look at it
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
A manga’s “second-half slump” is sometimes discussed in terms of hard numbers like sales or volume counts, but no concrete primary data such as print runs was actually presented in this thread — most of it comes down to gut impressions. For long-running series, the excitement of following a story in real time can leave a very different impression than binge-reading it all at once after it’s finished, and one reply made exactly this point: “people who followed it week to week and people who binge-read it probably come away with different impressions.” Meanwhile, some works — like Slam Dunk’s Sannoh match — have a finale that’s widely agreed to be great, while others, like One Piece, split opinion sharply among readers, which makes it easy to overlook that everyone’s bar for what counts as a “slump” is different.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (general live-commentary board) thread “[Urgent Request] Name manga that were great at first but lost way too much steam in the second half.”
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