This manga is one that sets up an interesting premise, story and tone. In order to throw it out the window when it thought it had your attention. To be honest I feel a little betrayed by the direction of this work, as I really enjoyed the opening few chapters.

Story - 4
The story is windy and twisty in that terrible kind of way where you get the feeling things change because the author woke up feeling like that one day. Entire ideas are thrown out at the drop of the hat. The first chapters are the best because not only do characters have a clear goal, but there are also clear consequences for failure. You feel invested. But then it just goes off in another direction with very little connection the previous chapters. I don't think this was intentional and the whole story suffers for it.

Art - 8
What saves this from being a 5 or even a 4 is it's art. While the panels can be uninspired and the direction can be a little cloudy at times. Overall it is detailed, on model, dramatic and intense. The heavy shading lends itself to scenes and the posing is top notch. I never felt like I was struggling to make out detail and your eyes moved in a very intentional way across images and pages. It's not as spectacular as say, Made in Abyss, but it is pretty great.

Character - 6
What can I say? None of the characters are bad per say, but they do get weaker as the manga goes on and has less time to spend on introduced characters as it tries to explain it's convoluted plot and who knew what at which time. Bichura is probably the most fleshed out and he's my favorite. Strangely, we find out much about our main - Kucabara - through the perspective of others (inspections and inner voices), and it makes him feel disconnected from the story.

Enjoyment - 4
As I said, I feel betrayed, the story the manga gets around to telling after 30 chapters does have a... conclusion? Would have been better without that final chapter wrapping everything up. I did enjoy the first couple chapters, and I enjoyed the art, but I just wish I could care about anything in the story - I didn't because nothing seemed to matter later on. Infuriating, dragged out and fickle.

Overall - 6
The Art elevates this series higher than average, and I do think Some good ideas are tossed around, the means to execute on them even. It just seemed like 'Defense Devil' isn't and never was the story the author wanted to tell.