akikan40
Honestly, I'd like to see you lean more on his desire to be a good person, in his own way. Because fundamentally speaking, all if not most of your previous protagonists often feel like the same person, just with a different name. Always calm, always collected, always rational, and always the number one in any given room. And there's nothing wrong with that, always a treat to see a hyper-competent protagonist making everyone gasp in awe of them with barely any effort. But I'm confident that even just a little bit of breaking from that rigid formula you've stuck to in the way you write your protagonists will further broaden your abilities as a writer. And we're already seeing some of that variety in the way that Isao is seemingly genuinely interested in improving himself morally as a human being, even in his own way, that, although is still very clearly rooted in how you've written your previous protagonist, is slowly letting him stand out in his own way. You've done this for a long time Akikan, been reading your stuff for years, and in that alone I would very much consider you a veteran, and an old dog can still learn new tricks, and I'm very much looking forward to how you evolve from hereon, bit by bit~!
Alright, since you want to be criticised, I'll gladly oblige since that's what I normally do anyway :P So, if there is one thing that I always, always always hated in your stories, is the fact that you simply can't seem to write an MC that always takes 100% advantage of everything at his disposal, and I hate it, like, with a burning passion dude. What do I mean by that? What do I mean is that, instead of writing an MC that has to do the classic WeakToStrong grind and gives his all, you create MCs with the theoretical potential to be insane OP beasts, but also chain them down with some nonsense BS (that you find funny or whatever I don't know, I just hate it tbh) like Shisho not seducing easy girls despite the amazing rewards for "reasons" and the Rokudai guy with the nonsensical knife trauma. In this book we have the MC that suddenly needs to be a "good person" when he was a bully and a manipulator all along, so why the F would he need to turn around exactly the moment his nature would grant him everything and then some? It would have been a billion times better for him to keep his character and simply enslave all the non main characters of the setting, devour billions of zombies to grow in power comparable to nonsensical characters like Goku or Saitama, and only THEN go World hopping, like, no rational human being would have acted like you made him act, its simply rage inducing and an insult to the intelligence of the reader, its like you are saying "I know where he will go and he'll be safe, so F all the logic and common sense that he should follow". This is simply baffling, he should have become infinitely stronger, asserted dominance, conquered all the relevant women of the setting, and only then start moving on, this jumbled mess you made is too illogical no matter how you look at it, it can only be justified if you completely give up any suspension of disbelief and think of it only as a story 100% manipulated by you to get the desired outcome, and that is a grave sin for a writer, never ever do that again mate, you need to fulfil the expectations while keeping a sense of suspense, making the MC act completely irrational only because you find it funny or because you already know everything will work out for him is not a valid option, while for you it is literally the only viable solution. You either create far weaker starting MCs and then follow whatever gimmick you wish, or you stick to proper human being rationale and let them grow insanely overpowered right from the start when you give them the tools to do so, plain and simple really.
I don't mind that the people around Kagaya treat Iinuma badly, but if these people are Hashira, then their attitude towards his "I don't want to die" is ridiculous. All Hashira are warriors who often fight and are on the verge of death, so they understand the fear of death better than anyone and their condemnation of Iinuma looks stupid. They may not tolerate escaping from the battlefield, but they would never despise humans for fear of death, not to mention the fact that Iinuma is not a warrior or a member of the corps.