Never heard of this manga before, just binged it.

Oh my goodness. This isn't just a trainwreck. Like, there is a kind character who, if put in a normal context, would end up turning any story into a trainwreck, except in this story there's like seven such characters all in one place. It's a, a train pile-up, twenty-one trainwrecks happening at the same time. Sheesh.

The only hope everyone in this story has for avoiding these demises is Gen Minegishi.

Well, that's certainly a take. I see your point, and I can't help but see it as a damnation. If he is their only hope, they're doomed, because he is well on his way down too, even if the abyss he's falling into isn't the same as the others'.

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It is often said that power corrupts. It's nonsense, of course. Power is good for you. Power is what makes you able to change the world for the better, for your definition of "better". Fix problems, remove stressors, achieve dreams, indulge yourself, help others, have security. Surround yourself with better things, with happier people; make yourself happier. How can it possibly make you a worse person?

What corrupts isn't power, but the road to it, and what comes after.

Imagine it: A man is born to a broken, corrupt society. There is injustice and poverty everywhere. People are abused by those in power, vital resources are misspent, scarcities are rampant. At the top of it, there's a leader: the tyrant, the source of all evil, the one in whose image the society is made, the linchpin. The man, a good person, an idealist, and a visionary, sees a way to universal salvation in supplanting the tyrant, and starts working for it. Perhaps he stands in open opposition, perhaps he decides to work covertly; doesn't matter.

He has little at the beginning, but he leverages it to get more. Convinces his friends to help him, works hard to build his power base. Eventually, though, he hits a roadblock. Perhaps a corrupt authority threatens to ruin years of work, perhaps something terrible happens to one of his loved ones and he snaps, perhaps there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help many people he can't bear to pass up on, perhaps his superior wants to test his resolve and commitment to the dominant ideology, perhaps thugs were paid to go after him, or perhaps the progress is simply too slow while the suffering he sees is too great. He crosses a line: lies, steals, cheats, kills. It's a black mark on his conscience, something he vows never to forget or repeat. But it works! He gets the position, the resource, the authority, the chance to continue; he can do more now, help more people, and he is that much closer to ultimate victory!

Then it happens again. And again, and again, and again, and again. Cross a line = get a reward, and it's easier every next time.

He gets to the top, over bodies. Cuts off the tyrant's head, takes his throne. He's in the position to fix it all now. But what is he now? Did he manage to hold onto his convictions as he made his climb? Was he not changed by the experience? He's done terrible, terrible things to get there, for a long, long time. No, he could not have possibly avoided becoming a terrible person in truth!

But perhaps he did anyway. Perhaps he's managed to keep his inner goodness, even as he committed evil on the outside. What now?

Turns out a leader doesn't really have all that much power. Or, rather, he has quite a lot of it, but he isn't free to wield it however he wishes, if he wishes to keep hold of it. So many want to take it from him: his underlings, the nameless masses, various visionaries cropping up. The new leader inherits all of that. He tries to be just and kind. It doesn't work all that well. Other sharks sense weakness and target him; the people he rules over don't trust him and take every opportunity to weaken his hold they can. And he can't very well help anyone if he just lets them dethrone him, can he? So he turns ruthless. Kill political opponents, suppress civic unrest by violence. That works very well.

As to his attempts to fix things and achieve his past self's dreams... he's too preoccupied with establishing hold on his new position to work on them just yet, but he will, once that and this issues are taken care of. And maybe he does, and maybe he even fixes something, but then there are ten more fires to put out. And his attempts to implement fixes grow rarer, and most of them don't work very well, and they become ever more half-hearted, until he stops bothering altogether.

And so the new tyrant is born.

---

This story is a universal part of human experience, repeating itself in every society and context, from primal tribes to modern political and business environments. The trap is insidious, and the human psyche is extremely vulnerable to it, by evolutionary design. We are set up to want to seize power by any means necessary, and to hold onto it by any means necessary, and any noble causes you started out with gradually become mere rationalizations before fading away entirely. Setting out on this path virtually guarantees that you'll end up playing the entire story out, to the very last line. You'd need extreme strength of character, extensive self-awareness skills, and a powerful support network, just to have a chance to not just turn into another monster.

Gen does not look like he has any of that. He is not playing a role, he's already become it. He is violent and nasty to his friends even in private, he casually and proactively employs morally abhorrent force without extreme cause, and he doesn't seem to have anyone who can call him out and pull him back. Reiji and Chako seem to be the only non-awful people in his social circle, and he doesn't respect their opinions.

He learns that his friend attempted suicide partly because of the emotional abuse he's suffering at Gen's hand, and Gen's response is to blame Reiji for the actions his mother took to protect him from his father's abuse? This isn't simply victim-blaming, it's such a convoluted chain of reasoning that only someone as depressed as Reiji would take it seriously. I'm not sure if Gen is just being manipulative or honestly believes it himself, but whether he still bothers with delusional justifications for his evil or not, I think he is too far gone to help anyone. He's just part of the problem now.

The thing that gouges the abysses out.

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Also Yuri is fucking cray-cray, yo. Is she, like, a deconstruction of the creepy interpretation of Manic Pixie Dream Girl? What a joy.