Spiral is strange in the sense that it only comes into its own in the final five volumes, while the first ten are still very good on their own. But, once it comes into its own, there really isn't anything like it. It mostly focuses on mystery and entertains you by constantly misleading you then faking you out, and it's done very well for the most part. But it may take too much time to reveal certain plot details for some people, as the mysteries only start to be unraveled from volume eleven onward. However, if you can make it that far, the final arc isamazing and really is where this series starts to stand out as unique and perfectly hits its emotional notes in the end.

Following Ayumu through his struggles over the course of this series, I have come to love him as a character and seeing him grow over the course of the series was really wonderful. I also found myself really liking and growing attached to the vast majority of the characters, where they all have their reasons for their actions which makes it hard to dislike even the characters who are opposing the main characters.

I found the art to be pretty appealing and following the panels was mostly effortless. However, I did find myself somewhat regularly tripped up and not sure which character was speaking at certain points, I adapted to it later on but it was a little frustrating at times.

Although it takes its sweet time to reveal its deck of cards, the payoff of reading it to the end is what makes the series for me and the ending brought me to tears in a good way. It's certainly one of the most satisfying manga to read fully and easily fits as one of my favourite stories in any medium.