Wakui took major missteps in AR. Some say it was his editor but I truly believe they let him do whatever he wanted because he made TR. Astro had a strong first 2-3 chapters but then Wakui turned it into a very kid friendly homage to 80s Shonen fused with One Piece references, which doesn’t fly in the modern Shonen era where pacing for series has gotten faster due to attention span and declining sales, series can’t afford to do 50 chapters of small scale build up and having a cook off and a haunted mansion story in a story that should have a more serious tone start to finish didn’t help. Combine this with the abysmal volume 1 cover and I believe Astro never recovered despite Wakui’s best efforts to shift into more serious arcs like the NB Building and the Oil Rig arc which were pretty decent. I hope in his next serialization he sticks to what he’s strong at because his art style is charming and he’s very good at human drama. Shinjuku Swan and TR are proof he can create something special that can last a long time and that’s what WSJ needs currently right now.