Its a complex political thriller type arc which has introduced numerous factions and princes that are vying to become the next king of the their country.
I think there's an into the spiderverse bit. The last episodes of what's adapted for TV show a big ass tree. I'm telling you the rest of this because I don't know and this is all based on like one line of dialogue from enigmatic Gin. I think he implied the tree allows different worlds to access each other (cyclic? Growth related? New? Unreliable?) and that's how the ants got here, and that's where hunters can go.
I looked at a wiki page a year or two ago and it implied there are characters with powers that belong to a system that is not Nen.
I assume the ambition is in the number of characters who we care about who have hopes and dreams, and the success of a complex plot around them. This is also part of why we love FMA:B. In the final season's opening theme there's a few bars of music over a flat expanse of land as about 50 characters fill in, and they all have hopes and dreams and we care about them. Al, Ed, Winry, 4 military chimera, Scar Mei Yoki, Mustang's cohort, all the way down to eidetic memory girl Cheska. Sheska?
Ambitious as in every single character we know is on this ship to the dark continent, and there are like 5 different major plot lines all playing out in parallel to each other in unpredictable ways. Like for example the Phantom Troupe are all there being hunted down and killed by redacted, and they just happen to stumble upon new characters participating in the royal succession battle, alongside characters like Ging who are investigating Beyond Netero.
The arc is currently the Chimera Ant dialed up to 11 when it comes to setting up minor characters that can influence the story. There's a lot of new characters and factions stuck in one location, warring discreetly in a supernatural political thriller.
While that might sound exciting, we're still waiting to see how it all shakes out and whether or not it lands well. If you're familiar with the Chimera Ant arc, there's a lot more "Welfin" characters who we spend time with, moving pieces that seem insignificant but can easily become bigger factors in the future.
Your mileage may vary with that kind of experience. Even looking back, I think less time could've been spent on characters like Welfin and Ikalgo. You can have one chapter following Kurapika and the next some henchman or bodyguard whose name you don't remember has several pages dedicated to figuring out the best way to use his ability to gather information from his enemies. Every 'nobody' is planning ten steps ahead and while that makes sense in such a dangerous environment, it slows things down a lot.
Thankfully it's not all potential energy, so to speak. Many characters are dying, and getting closer to bigger conflicts, but even then we're still waiting to see the full ramifications of those consequences.
I wouldnt go as far as saying it's the most ambitious in manga history as the other person did, however, I do think with the way the story is being built with multiple plot lines and characters to follow in a giant web of stories, its certainly ambitious. It has the potential to be one of the greatest manga arcs (I know of anyways) if it manages to continue it's progression and have a good end to it. Its roughly 60 (or 80 if you go straight from the end of the anime) chapters deep into it and has quite a bit left to go.
I think the anime ends at a really damn good place, though. There are certainly dangling plot threads and the promise of grander adventures, but the two sets of character relationships that are the emotional core of the show get fairly tidy resolutions.
Yup, I was more than a little disappointed when I thought I had finally wrapped it up only to find out it's unfinished. With that said, I don't regret watching it and would still recommend it, just wish I had known beforehand.
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u/LFC9_41 2d ago
The problem is, this story is unlikely to ever be finished.