YMMV / Tokyo Shinobi Squad

• Audience-Alienating Premise: The story opens with Jin blaming the rapid influx of crime in Tokyo on globalization. Many readers were greatly put off by the extremely nationalistic and xenophobic tone of this message, especially outside of Japan, and the series was Cut Short. Oddly enough, the author doesn't follow up on this anti-globalization message afterward, as most of Jin's opponents are Japanese and he happily accepts En, a Thai foreigner, into his squad without a second thought.
• Complete Monster—Chapters 6-12: Hyoshi Nagumo, the "Icy Executioner", is the leader of the Seigan Squad and a former Shinobi with the power of ice. Preferring to kill young celebrities because of how emotional they are as they die, Nagumo prefers freezing his opponents to death, sometimes even chopping them down into shaved ice for him to consume. With over 63 kills, Nagumo introduces himself by killing two innocents gossiping about him, while unafraid to threaten or turn his men into shaved ice should they fail him. Tasked by Hanabel to bring her runway model Maki Mizuno, Nagumo kidnaps her and her manager Mizutani, sadistically attempting to kill Mizutani once his part of the deal's complete.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the manga, the global hyperloop network connecting Tokyo to Beijing, D.C. and Moscow was proposed and implemented by Shinzo Abe (who was still Prime Minister in the year it was written) in 2029. Not only did he step down from the position in 2020 due to concerns around COVID-19, but would be assassinated just 2 years later.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: At least half of all discussion surrounding the series is related to its controversial opening pages explaining the setting, in spite of them having very little to do with larger story.
• The Scrappy: Jin Narumi, the main protagonist of the story, is literally introduced serving as the author's mouthpiece for nationalist politics before the audience even learns his name, endearing him to few, especially outside Japan. Even beyond any political disagreements though, he's constantly depicted and talked up by other characters as The Ace, being explicitly called the coolest and greatest shinobi by the time the story starts, and having earned that reputation (as well as all of his supposedly hard-to-master Ninpo techniques) entirely off-screen. This, combined with the fact that Jin is never portrayed as being wrong at any point, led to many people criticizing the character.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A major complaint surrounding the manga. While the setting of a cyberpunk Tokyo suffering from a massive influx of crime due to globalization is an interesting idea for a setting (even if the reason for the influx of crime is highly controversial), the series does virtually nothing with it. Besides En, very few characters are shown to be foreigners or express any views surrounding the political situation, and very little is given regarding how the setting affects the lives of the characters.
• Values Dissonance: Extremely restrictive immigration policy has long been the norm in Japan, so the idea of mass immigration causing crime and terrorist attacks isn't thought of as very remarkable. To non-Japanese readers, this comes across as highly nationalist and disturbingly xenophobic. Even in Japan, it's still considered an extremist position to push for tightening the country's borders even further.

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