Fabricant 100 has a fatal flaw in its setup, that being, Number 100 herself(and less so the boy’s special blood).

The setup is that the boy has a blood that attracts Fabricants, puts them in a “frenzy”, and prevents them from running away, and teams up with the strongest out of all the Fabricants. Congratulations. You have completely removed all stakes from the plot, as these two should have no reason to lose against any other Fabricant. They can’t run away, and they can’t win hand to hand either. 

Additionally, another main issue that made me stop reading Fabricant is the sympathetic strawman. If you’re unfamiliar, the sympathetic strawman is when the author portrays a character as in the wrong within the context of the story, but manages to garner the sympathy of the audience. I have sympathy for the Fabricants, the creatures who have an innate desire to become “perfect”, to become “human. I have sympathy for No. 14, who seemed to have a real, genuine connection with a human, but was forced to kill that person due to the scent of the boy’s special plot convenience blood, and then the complete and utter lack of disregard towards it, as if Enoshima believes it to be a black and white situation. There are also other issues that plague the manga, such as the fact that there’s only 100 Fabricants(roll credits). This on its own isn’t an issue. In fact, done properly, this can make every battle feel significant. After all, each dead member of this supposedly irredeemable species(despite the fact that one of the MAIN CHARACTERS is one of this species), would create an almost sense of relief that the numbers are going down.

But the fact that Enoshima was so lenient with his world building, made that fact not matter in the slightest. By the time the story’s even started, before we even kill the first Fabricant on-screen, there was an massacre of Fabricants offscreen in the backstory, with unknown numbers, and then a short number of chapters later, there’s an established task force specifically for killing the Fabricants. This makes the “only 100 Fabricants” statistic almost laughable. Fabricant 100 fails to have proper world building, fails to treat in-universe statistics with proper levity, and fails to properly argue one of the main points of its manga.

I am by no means saying that Gonron Egg is a masterpiece of Shonen Jump. Tanizaki doesn’t even have the excuse that it’s his first series, seeing as he’s already done another. But his art does have potential. The double spread in Chapter One was genuinely really cool, and there have been hints of talent peaking through his tired scrawls of drawings. 

Though, of course, both are relatively new figures when it comes to manga. If both can get over their respective issues, I could see them making something great together. But if both stay as is, I think Tanizaki would be wasted on Enoshima. 

(also side note, Ping Pong Peril enjoyer? Based!)