What a wild ride this thing was. Never before has there been such sporadic highs and lows and moments of complete and utter confusion, yet i loved every moment of it.

Sekai Oni walks the balance beam beam between satire and serious, and it can be confusing as to which the focus is supposed to be. On one hand you have the typical troupes of power ups that make a character unstoppable, yet it avoids making the power ups based on the power of 'friendship'. It introduces characters that are supposed to be the elites of their groups only to quickly brush them away reducing them to below side character.

Mal seems to think that i can honestly give this manga a solid score, but I find myself unable to do so. The art is distinct and more of an acquired taste, the story is predictable, but somehow surprising, the characters are basic archetypes, yet somehow morph their mold into distinct shapes, and my overall enjoyment is left with a large question mark.

Another odd aspect of the manga is the genre. Where as most manga can be read by someone and the genre can quickly be picked up, Sekai Oni prefers trying to take on any and all possible genres and themes. It is tragedy, shounen battle manga, romance, psychological, horror,and much more. It's almost like the author was sitting at their desk and thinking to themselves, "what else can i throw into this Frankenstein of a manga."

My point likely hasn't come across so allow me to say this, Sekai Oni isn't bad, there are certainly worse series to read, but be prepared for a unique undertaking when diving into it.

Overall Enjoyment (confused/10)
Would read again

*Edit
So after sitting on this manga for about awhile now, I thought I'd update it a bit to better explain my thoughts on it. I still stand by what I said previously, and I have no intentions of removing it as it was my initial reactions after finishing it. But with time, I have a better appreciation for Sekai Oni. While re-reading it I had some revelations.

The first one was how attached I became to the many characters in the manga. It's a turbulent ride that makes no sense if I sit down and think about it, yet I still read it in it's entirety, and enjoyed it. Mostly it was the characters. Even characters that were only introduced for a single chapter before being killed off I was somehow drawn to them, and even more attached to the characters introduced in the beginning. Constant subversion of expectations is another strong point of the manga. Every time I think something will happen it doesn't, and I like it. constantly having hooks thrown at me makes for a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

So, two years later, if I had to describe Sekai Oni as simply as possible, I'd probably say "Satisfyingly Strange." It's an enigma, that you stumble upon and start reading, but before you know it you've fallen down the rabbit hole and rather then climb out you decide to see just where the roller coaster will go. To this day I can't quite come to agreement with myself on what exactly it is that I enjoy about it, but maybe that makes the appeal in it all the better

Overall Enjoyment, still a (?/10)
Did read again