Yeah, I think the main issue is that this is coming out in a philosophical screaming match and that's not great for certain kinds of nuance. Respect for autonomy seems to be a major thematic divide between the two sides, and for all Avaritia's rhetoric about sin setting people free it's eir team that's got the mind control incense and the forced transformations.
Which is interesting, because Avaricia clearly
thinks she's fighting for people to do what they
really want. And she has latched on to one of the few people who might actually benefit from being shoved out of a semi-comfortable equilibrium, so I can see why she think she's helping, but there's a balance that needs to be struck here—one closer to jokes about dressing C in a pretty skirt than villainy with a side of magic HRT.
Nah, nah, this has clearly been building up to C being a crocodile. No other animal is so deep in de Nile.
This is a good line and I wish I had thought of it.
The writing is good but there's a lot of problems with this story. The world building as of the latest chapter is non-existent. We have no name for the town this takes place in, no info on why the 'evil' side is using kiddy gloves, and no info what country the story takes place in.
I have zero frame of reference for where events take place, and that's a bad thing. When I was reading this I kept asking myself "where Is this taking place and why don't the bad guys simply start killing people?"
The town and country that this takes place in doesn't really matter. At least 90% of the story takes place at school or at one of the main characters' homes, and if there isn't a culture festival episode or something, every place that chapter 1 could plausibly take place in works equally well.
As for why the villains don't...I dunno...try to murder the Saints or whatever, that doesn't seem like a big issue either? I guess it could be nice if the story addressed that, but if it's just an unaddressed aspect of the tone, that's fine too.
A Little Vice isn't an action series, the monsters only matter insofar as they express or influence the motivations of various characters. Hell, Superbia's evil plan doesn't really matter except in how he's trying to use C (and how it motivates the other characters who matter).
This isn't a traditional magical girl story being told from a side character's perspective. It's a story about a side character in a traditional magical girl story.
Sure, Lupin's account could well be warped by bias, but how would this bias arise in a society where Michael is representative? And if the archangel isn't representative of angel society, why not?
These questions don't have answers right now, which is why I'm hesitant to touch any angel-related theories. It could make sense for Superbia to be a fallen angel, but we know basically nothing about what angels are or how they operate in this universe, and we would need to extrapolate basically everything about angelkind from one character who features in, like, two scenes. One of which has her focusing on not being eaten by a baby shark.
