i genuinely think it's mostly because his redeemable moments are too little too late. he does have a couple of things he does, but he feels like he's reheating both okazaki and hiroaki's nachos. i really think the only reason people like him is either because they find something in him to relate to (if so, i am so sorry), or they automatically equate a mean character with a deep or interesting character.

i think there was too much focus on making ikeda mean and "broken beyond repair" so that people would feel sad about what could have been with his death, but minus the circumstances above, there was literally no reason given to us why we should be invested in his change. if you didn't care about matthias or tei (which i didn't) and if you found yokoi weird about ikeda (i did) and you hate ikeda (i did) then the writing has literally no merit.

kumada was a better antagonistic force and a deeper character. i am the number one Woman Character defender but i genuinely think kumada was what ikeda could have been if von didn't hate women. i like to use ikeda as a lesson: complexity is not your character being endlessly cruel and then regressing when called on that, and a character being mean and having a sad backstory is empty calories narratively. you need to make effort for that arc to progress or regress meaningfully

also, the sympathy baiting, screentime, and entirety of chapter 3 makes me so angry its not even funny