I've been reading the manga Petals of Reincarnation, or Reincarnation No Kaben, and I've found it quite interesting. I didn't expect it to be all that good at first, but it surpassed my expectations and I've found it quite enjoyable. This review should be spoiler-free, so I would recommend giving it a try.

Essentially, the premise of the manga is that some people are the reincarnations of great people in the past who have died. These "Returners" have supernatural abilities based on their previous incarnation. Returners discover their powers by using a Branch of Reincarnation to slit their throats. At first, they're limited to how long they can stay in Returner form and channel their powers but as they do it more and more, they fully assimilate into their identity as their reincarnation, staying in Returner form permanently and calling themselves by the name of their previous reincarnation.

The story begins with two organizations, the Forest of the Greats and the Sinners, who are going to war shortly. Von Neumann (the reincarnation of mathematician John Von Neumann), the leader of the Forest of the Greats has Touya join them right before their final confrontation against the Sinners. Touya is a regular guy who looks up to his dead brother and always feels mediocre compared to his accomplishments. He willingly takes the shortcut and becomes a Returner. His power is "Right Hand of the Thief", which lets him phase his arm through things and pull them through to him regardless of barriers in between his arm and the target. It lets him do things like steal someone's blood out of their body, grab someone's heart out of their body, steal the money from within a purse without opening it, and more. Most importantly, he can use this ability to steal other people's abilities and use them, being the other half of his power, "Left Hand: Usage of Stolen Goods." The stolen powers can be kept forever, but he can't use them as well as the original owner.

Something I like about the story is Touya's power. Most protagonists in battle media have a boring generic power. Even if the series overall has tons of interesting abilities, these powers are given to minor villains or allies that don't show up a lot, not main characters. This also tends to make their fights slugfest, where each side just punches harder while trying to outlast their opponent. Touya is almost the opposite. In fact, he's very squishy, not all that fast overall, and has very little stamina due to being an Imperfect Returner that can't hold his Returner form for that long. Even after doing a lot of training with Yagyuu Juubei, he's still not a good physical fighter. Touya has to mostly rely on his ability to ignore durability, sneak attacks, and using his weaker versions of the powers he has stolen to the best of his ability to succeed. He's never won a single fight just through brute force, and there are very few fights overall in the series that can be described as pure brute force melee combat.

Additionally, intelligence is portrayed pretty well in Petals of Reincarnation. The smartest characters like Neumann, Kouu, Newton, and Spoiler Character aren't flawless, and their plans go wrong a lot. Touya himself is also smart but not too smart. The author doesn't bother trying to make the main character a super-genius, nor does he act like a total idiot, which is a refreshing balance.

Something that may be a bit contentious about the series is its mortality rate. I estimate that about half of all named characters introduced in the series have died so far. Some characters are literally killed a few chapters after their introduction. For some people, this may make it harder for them to establish much of a connection with a lot of the characters. Personally, I feel that the huge death rates are more realistic and establish a lot of tension. I definitely prefer this to plot armor protecting most of the cast from death.

I also like the end-of-chapter descriptions on the historical figures that the Returners are based on. The author is quite inclusive of many fields, from more obscure ones (Xi Jiang, Simo Hayha, Albert Fish), to scientists and mathematicians (Maxwell, Laplace, Einstein, Newton), to political leaders (Napoleon, Hitler, Pol Pot).