Aoba and the cripplingly large staff of the various companies in the series are hard at work on their latest game。 When Aoba’s failings are pointed out and she crumbles under the pressure， will somebody come to her rescue？ Or has this story finally Eagle Jumped the shark in its last volume？*Some series end and you are immediately filled with a wistful melancholy that the ride is finally over。 Others， if you’ve been masochistically following along because you’re built that way， you just heave a s Aoba and the cripplingly large staff of the various companies in the series are hard at work on their latest game。 When Aoba’s failings are pointed out and she crumbles under the pressure， will somebody come to her rescue？ Or has this story finally Eagle Jumped the shark in its last volume？*Some series end and you are immediately filled with a wistful melancholy that the ride is finally over。 Others， if you’ve been masochistically following along because you’re built that way， you just heave a sigh of relief。 New Game is sadly in the latter for me。The story wisely focuses in hard on Aoba and the fact that the key visual design for the new game is about to be taken from her， the rather hard-ass corporate honcho pointing out that every time she’s entered a contest for this opportunity she’s whiffed it。When it seems like even Kou， her mentor， has lost faith in her… Aoba has a meltdown more befitting a teenager that takes her sometimes rival to break her out of。 Which is pretty good， except these people are working women and this is a bit much。But that’s one of the problems with New Game in a nutshell。 It wants to tell a story about women （and only women） at work in the gaming industry， but it wants them to all look like moe teenagers at the same time。 There’s infantilizing the cast and then there’s doing it and exploiting it。And， yes， I’m perfectly aware that that’s the entire point， but there needs to be something interesting besides the pictures， otherwise why bother trying to structure any sort of narrative to begin with？As for the other problem， well， nothing new here， it’s the sprawling cast。 One volume is not nearly enough to give all these characters a moment to shine， so naturally they add a batch of new ones into the mix as well。 I will say， the French goth does have a fun storyline， but so much continuity gets tossed aside and never followed up on。It’s not hard to realize that the whole point of adding in new cast is that， hey， the mangaka gets to draw more cute girls， but lord， it’s so excessive and counter-productive to any effective storytelling。Oh， and don’t bother thinking that any of the implicit or explicit yuri in this series is going to pay off at all。 Minus one sentence that gives closure to Rin and Kou stuffed at the back with some half-hearted epilogues， there’s nothing here。Am I being super harsh？ Yes， I am。 Because this series started off decent and had some really good and really funny volumes before it turned into a giant girl exhibit that made games。 There have been far too many who looked far too much alike and nobody was getting enough character development， especially the last several books。Some of this is certainly good， Aoba and her rival have a good conversation where the former has some sense smacked into her。 There are a couple jokes and the competition does carry a strong sense of closure for one particular storyline。I feel for the mangaka， I truly do。 They make mention of mental health issues and the waxing and waning popularity of the manga in the afterword， so I get it - making a manga isn’t easy。 But it’s not hard to think that this continued production squandered a lot of its potential。It comes at the problem of having nothing for its characters to do from an entirely different direction than the similarly ‘ran too long’ Horimiya。 In that one the mangaka had characters sit around endlessly， whereas here the characters are frequently shoved in the background to introduce new characters。 If this had been pared back to a strong half-dozen leads and focused on developing them， it would have been a lot stronger。 And the epilogue really bugged me， as it’s set a few years later and brings in a character who has finally grown up， but everybody else looks exactly the same。 Argh。2。5 stars - I’ll let this have three stars even if I’m very iffy on whether it truly deserves it。 There’s every chance that a re-read will have me reflect more favourably on this， but that ending still won’t work any better for me。 And， hey， if I spent the last several reviews for this series saying the same damn thing over and over， well， I’m in good company。*I probably made that joke before， but I am not wasting my precious creativity on this。 。。。more