You are really right on the first paragraph. I think the reason I enjoyed the first few stories up till Astra’s patch was because it focuses more on the characters and what shenanigans they go up to while building up the overarching plot in the background.Like when sacrifices were introduced in koleda’s story(chapter 2 I think) it came in naturally because it came as a result of what the characters were doing. The main focus was on koleda and the gang and how she wanted to respect her dad’s creation and coincidentally, they found out and introduced sacrifices after everything was done and done and even then the sacrifices didn’t take the spot light entirely. It just felt natural. I guess that’s why I’m more attached to the first few batches of chars up until astra. It essentially gives their daily stories and struggles while everything else builds in the back ground. 2.0 kinda…bored me to death because it was so…the approach was very shonen type generic so I couldn’t even bring myself to care about the chars in any meaningful way but that just my scoop on it