2.5 stars rounded up because I’m nice and the earlier volumes were fun.
This really heads off in some weird directions and generally decides to address very few of its more interesting points. When it was discussing gender fluidity at the start of this one I was genuinely excited, as that’s been the most intriguing angle here by far.
In the end, however, it handles it about a step above Ranma 1/2, but that’s not really saying a lot, much as I enjoy that series.
Instead, the focus is on military action and cloning and secret societies and ultimate weapons. Which, for all its own faults and excesses, the super grim Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka handled in more interesting fashion.
It isn’t funny enough to get the laughs it’s going for, the drama is pretty old hat (here comes the ‘sick loved one we must do evil for’ trope again), the characters thin, and there’s barely any action. It doesn’t feel like a good payoff for something that was always dubiously plotted at the best of times.
It’s not bad, but there’s a whole series to be made from its more interesting points and almost nothing done with them for the entire volume. I liked the first two volumes and the sentiment here sometimes carries it, but if I never read this finale I don’t think I would have missed a thing.