I really wanted to love this manga, which is why I stuck around for so long. It started off solid enough, with an interesting (if cliched) set up. The best thing this manga has going for it is it's message. Because, contrary to what you may initially believe, or what you may see people assume after having read a chapter or so, the manga does not take an entirely one-sided stance on whether "online bonds" are real bonds or not. It dissects what it truly means to have an honest, personal relationship, both with people you know in the real world, and also those you have met online. It wants you to look at how you treat other people, and what you display to those you consider a "friend". Can, in actuality, you find bonds that are stronger then those towards people close at hand, over the internet? Is it possible for online friends to be bound with you by fate, wheres people in the "real world" simply don't care if you live or die? What would you do if you couldn't unfollow that one person on your social media, because if you did, you would die alongside them, making the two of you bond via your online relationship?

It is interesting to imagine yourself in the situation, and to wonder, "what would happen to me? Do these people I know online actually, truly, matter to me as people? Do I matter to them as a person? What'd happen if my life literally depended on theirs, and theirs on mine?". But unfortunately no amount of messages and an interesting set up can save Real Account from the utter mess that it turned into. Bare in mind there's there's some very vague mentions of the direction the narrative heads in here, but it's important to say this to give the idea of why I'm rating this pile of crap so low. After a while the manga begins to shift gears, and not at all in a good way. What was at first an interesting, if bizarre, psychological horror, changed into a ridiculous, over the top, free for all story line, with the death game suddenly spilling out into the real world around Japan, and the players being hunted down by civilians all desperate to make a quick buck by killing whoever they can.

The illogical holes, and utter chaos just completely fall in on themselves. There's no rhyme or reason to what's going on with the world around the characters, which despite having a death game going on with innocent people getting killed by mobs on the street, seems to be operating like nothing is going on. The police and the Japanese Self Defense Force are also nowhere to be seen, and don't seem to care about trying to help in any way. this is probably intentional as there's hints that there's some big conspiracy behind everything but so far there's been nothing explaining why there's no authority figures trying to sort out what's going on. It didn't seem out of place when everyone was in the "Real Account Dimension", since there's not a whole lot that could be done at that time, but after things spilled out into the real world, it becomes a bit glaring that they're not even bringing up that there doesn't seem to be any type of authority trying to help the players or stop the death game from continuing.

And this is just one of many issues. I won't go into all of them, but needless to say there's just way too many stupid elements, or elements which they're leaving hanging, and the manga isn't satisfying the craving for answers to them. That's if they even have the answers to them in the first place. It's gotten to a point where I just can't be bothered to continue on reading in the vein hope that they actually explain everything. What had previously invested me into the manga is no longer there, and the claustrophobic feeling that the death game previously had is no longer there.

A harem element has also been forced in for next to no reason. I didn't read Real Account to see a guy gain a harem, yet the manga seems insistent that this is what the readers want to see, constantly forcing the angle. Romance is fine, but even the early chapters felt like it was being far too forceful with this, and it just got worse after the 30 chapter mark. There's also forced yuri. Although I may be a fan of yuri, I didn't sign up to Real Account to see a girl perversely check out another girl's body, with the narrative excuse being that she's looking for a mark-of-death. Narrative elements in the last 10 or so chapters I read kept forcing fan service into every corner, with narrative excuses for why it's there. Why are they in swim suits in a spa, surrounded by women in bikinis? To blend in of course! Why did they strip naked? To use their clothes as stepping stones! (which doesn't make any sense but I won't get into that) How can we have one of the female cast wear skimpy clothes while erotically peeing to satisfy all the urolagnia readers? It's a prank by a kid! Yeah, it just got way too much, and the last straw for me was when chapter 54 (44, excluding the ones before the number reset) had an part where a young girl was being spanked as punishment for trying to murder the three mains. Not only is the entire idea surrounding it stupid in the first place (what little kids would suddenly become murderers over the prospect of the equivalent of just 8800 dollars, and why is it just brushed off with the manga basically going "look at the naughty kids about to MURDER three innocent strangers for money, they deserve a spanking"), but it's also disturbingly sexualised. Then halfway through the next chapter when it become clear that it was focusing on trying to force more of it's harem bull down our throats (the entire notion of which in the chapter came out of left field,), I just completely had enough and stopped reading. I could honestly forgive the "romance" element being so forced in if it had at least been handled well, but it isn't at all. It does what all the bad manga and animes (and fiction in general) that try and have this "group of people who all love the same person" thing do. It tries to have it's cake and eat it, trying to ship tease for every possible pairing while still attempting to have genuine heart and love at the core of the romance, the two of which don't gel together at all. Pick something and stick with it, I can't take it seriously when you're expecting me to care enough for someone's feelings towards a person, when it's clear the writers themselves can't give less of a crap.

And this is a running theme. The writers just seem to be doing whatever the hell they want to now, and this comes across glaringly in the complete mess that the story's become. There's zero sense of a solid direction in anything, including narrative elements, character relations, them knowing what they even want the character relations and narrative threads to be...Nothing gels at all any more. It's a complete shame, because I was really enjoying the manga to a point. It wasn't anything special, but it was a solid idea, with a serious (if bizarre and fantastical) horror theme, which made me genuinely horrified at times. But after the direction it spiraled into, I can't at all find myself to like reading it any more, let alone take it the least bit seriously as a "psychological horror".