I finished it recently and then read the sequel, DaSH. But it was pretty mediocre.
I think the premise of 'struggling robot club in their last year completes a life sized robot thanks to a string of miraculous coincidences and then accidentally saves the world' is really solid, but there was some extraneous stuff I didn't care much about. Mostly the Committee of 300. It's a shame because it's the connecting factor in these games, and it's always by far the worst element. Steins;Gate has the least amount of Committee nonsense and ends up the best. That's not a coincidence.
I've got DaSH and will read it too, but probably after a bit of a break, so maybe in a month or two.
I don't mind the Committee stuff so much because it is the connecting thread after all, but it was particularly weak in this instance. In Steins;Gate it was far more background, but the portrayal of their agents in the forms of SERN and the Rounders was really menacing/creepy. In Chaos;Child they served more as secondary antagonists to Serika who was a far more interesting/compelling one. And Wakui as the actual Committee agent was also more menacing and the resolution/end of him being challenged by Takuru to a bet rather than an actual battle (well, Hana's route aside lol) was a lot better than what we got here. Even in R;N there was some Committee ideas that weren't bad like the idea of them producing an anime that was backed by massive propaganda to influence people was all right but the whole "kill 5 billion people" bit just came off as weak and while Kimijima himself as a character/villain was fine (and I liked the fact that it was explicit that his AR copy was legitimately flawed because it was a beta) like Mac said the whole literal possession/curse stuff was so bad. I explained how I think if they handled it like the idea I proposed for Misaki being psychologically broken over 10 years and driven crazy could definitely work but then they just trash that theory with puppeteer Airi and it's just dumb.
But then ideas they just left on the floor where disappointing too, like I was so sure that Airi was literally connected to AIri and that was the nature of the experiment Kimijima was running that time and Real Airi would reveal she was acting as AIri that whole time. Instead it was just "Nope lol, he just tested his AR copy idea on her and Real Airi experienced none of that." They even came close to flirting with it again when Real Airi got some of Geji-nee's info but that was the extent of it. It would have been less "scientific" but we were already playing so loose with science you can't tell me that's more BS than Kimijima possessing people. Same kinda lost opportunity with Kai conveying Irei's final words to Misaki. He does so to the fake and then it's just dropped. Hell, Kai even notes offhandedly right before the final confrontation he still needs to do this but that's the literal last time it is ever mentioned. I thought he'd use it to bring Misaki's personality back at a key moment, or as she was dying/defeated but nope. Just never addressed again.
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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?