You know what time it is --that's right, editorials! What did I think of this week's "vintage/pillar" series? Scroll down and find out!
Really I could spend the whole Souboutei entry talking about the art because look at it. No really, stop reading this and just look at it. Okay, done? Good. But I'll try to avoid that simply because you all know how I feel about the artwork for this series. Fujita's all about that forward momentum and Souboutei like all of the series before it doesn't slow down or hit the break at all.
We're now essentially at the final boss's stronghold however, and unless Fujita really is planning to halve the amount of his typical narrative structure he's going to need to slow down a little. Though that's not to say that the path to that ending is going to be a cakewalk --especially with another of the sisters standing in the way. I won't try to pretend that I remember everything here, but weren't they all saved by Madarame and the others who broke out of the hospital? Also it's odd that this sibling is covering her face when the others saw fit to simply hide their eyes. I smell a faker, or something even more dubious going on, but for now all we know is that she's standing in their way --as is something else.
Other people?! Now this is a surprise. Rokuro jumps right into the fray to save these children, but where did they come from and why are they here? This whole chapter reeks of an obvious trap, and at this point Fujita wouldn't be overplaying his hand by throwing obvious bait to us to slow things down a bit. Though on that note, I will say that Souboutei has been playing it safe --especially when compared to something like Karakuri Circus which while adhering to the shounen tropes was still way more brutal than this series has been. On one hand it's impressive since I haven't felt at all like Souboutei has been boring or by the numbers --it's still been creepy and exciting even with the lower stakes. Though on the other, it almost feels like Fujita is holding back on purpose to ensure us that something truly horrible is in the wings and this is just the right intersection of events and spectacle for it to happen.
Xeno got a lot more interesting in a very short amount of time with this chapter, and I mainly attribute it to Nanatsuki being really good with pacing. The impact of what finally happened this week really came at a good time with all of the quiet creeping and build up. So not only is the identity of the fallen soldier heavily implied this week (it's Manami's butler Kinoshita --maybe?) But we get a bit of background on Kai's past as well! The Kugas and Kais have been at it for the better part of a few centuries, right up till Kai's mother seemingly settled the score by taking a peace offering from the Kuga family --something that even until now has no real explanation, and likely drives the Kugas mad with anxiety. Why would a woman who has every right to hate them, (I should mention this was quite the bloody feud between families) take money and slink away into the darkness without a word?
On the other end of things is Hina and Manami who after a seemingly intentional slip by their fallen guard, escape. There's still a lot of tension between these two --understandably so as one is the victim of the other's family, but at least the ladies are wise enough to put their issues behind them and move foreward, except there's the little thing of the song that we heard at the start of this case. Hina says there's another verse and that means someone else is going to die. This chapter moved along briskly and involved everyone without seeming too fast or inorganic. A lot happened but it still gives off this impression of only being the beginning --but is it of more tragedy or at last the end of a long tunnel?
The thing I like most about Evans I think is that it knows what it could be, what it is, and acts accordingly. It doesn't try to do too much to please fans, but it's also not without ambition. Like this chapter for example which is simple in concept and execution --Evans and Pheebs find themselves caught in the rain with only a scary house for refuge. I feel like another series trying too hard to be a romantic comedy would dream up some convoluted scenario that ends with no real progress and as such is a disappointment at best and a waste of time at worst, but Kuriyama doesn't over stay this welcome --rather, the chapter is short and simple while playing those romantic tropes kinda straight.
A good sign for these is when you can tell the overall plot beats without a translation --manga is a visual medium after all! Dialog should be an extra (though it's an essential extra.) And I feel like this Evans is a great example of this. You can pretty much tell what's going on without really understanding the dialog --Evans and Pheebs take shelter, spooky things happen (and we find out Pheebs isn't too good with ghosts), but in the end they find out their "ghost" is actually a bad guy on the run. That being said, Evans is --dare I say it, kind of cute in his being excited to have time alone with Pheebs to show off his good side, except it actually being a bad guy robs him of the opportunity. They take the guy in and he implies that there really was something in there, though....but yeah, it was a straightforward chapter of Evans and with the propensity for things in this genre to get complex and annoying, I appreciate that.
It feels like we're going round-and-round with Memesis, and I'm not sure where this leaves me in this mad cycle the series is in. I still rather enjoy it, but I guess Yagyuu's self-admitted issues with plotting are becoming a bit more evident, and it's a little scary since the series is dwindling in the TOC and has already shown it's not exactly flying off the shelves. (I'm still supporting it digitally though!) With this week we're back at the start with Linda traveling with Ash and Kijira as we thought she would on chapter one, except she's now doing it as a princess who's very much in awe of their power. In fact there is a cute part of the chapter where she ducks behind a wall to openly fangirl over being able to go out on adventures again which I found very charming. I'm also not too big a fan of how Rose has been reduced to a one note comedy character after her promising start, but to be fair the last arc really didn't give the protagonists much to go on either so it's not like she was the only one to get the shaft. In a sense it makes sense as Leon is supposed to be this all mighty figure who steals the spotlight, and he very much did, lol. In fact he's still running the show as the main reason why they're headed to the demon world is to stop Leon from taking the head of the demon king after all.
Though they're in for quite a ride as the tunnel they take to the demon world opens right up in the middle of the sky! Ash comments that the demon king is bright red from soil to sky which has to look ghastly. (Man it'd be nice to have a color page here, if only to see Yagyuu's amazing artwork.) I won't go as far as saying this feels like a final arc, but it does certainly seem to be heading into that trajectory --a shame since some of the characters introduced in the last arc seemed really interesting, and it's unlikely we'll get much more of them at this rate.
Speaking of finales, Saike reaches the end of one from what it seems this week --but as this arc has been, it's truly difficult to tell where the series is going from here. I am totally down for the anti-climax that we got here though, so let's un pack it a bit. Yes, as you can see Saike does indeed get revived by everyone's best efforts --though really was there any doubt he'd make it out of this alive? I could see some being put off by this seemingly "out-of-nowhere" development, and that's totally fair --part of the shounen condition for better or worse. Though I'm not focusing on that here. Will is far more important and menacing as he returns from the dead to threaten Saike and the others one more time.
Except he's already been foiled without realizing it. Silva has the Akashic Records in hand, and Saike is easily able to relieve him of his weapon. This is what I was talking about with the anti-climax, and how it's well executed here. We expected a battle to the death between Saike and his friends against the ultimate evil here, but instead Will is easily taken out in part by his own hubris, and generally the planning of Saike and his friends. Though, in all fairness Calim's 9th hour ability was a big save too --and I'm not excusing Fukuchi from that one since it is a deus ex machina, even if it was properly foreshadowed. Rather, the sastifaction from this comes from how poetically Saike disarms Will's need to be "extraordinary" in a bid against what he once was a few volumes ago. If Johann was one side of Saike, Will is the other malignant and evil side. Will begs Saike to stop --he can't stand the idea of being "normal" without the power of the Akashic record, and Saike asks him "What is normal?" To him everyone has something unique, something special about them so the idea of "normal" is as misaligned as Will's bid for power. Truly Saike has developed from the first volume until now and It's been wonderful to see.
And just like that the Akashic Record is no more, and Will is defeated. Yes it feels like there should be more, but I feel like getting more would only lead to further issues rather than being helpful to the story at large. The next issue features 22 pages over the normal 18, though the advertisement text is careful not to say that it's the finale, even though this feels like the perfect place for Saike to wrap up. Personally speaking, while Will is done I wonder about destroying the Akashic Records so casually --could this have wider resounding impacts that no one could have foreseen, and will Fukuchi be allowed to explore this? Next week will have some answers, I hope.
At long last Marry Grave has looped back to the bad ending we were all expecting and dreading. Somehow finding out after all of this that Sergei is the one to kill Sawyer seems like a tiny bit of a let down even if it totally makes sense. I'm still not totally sold on Sergei as a villain mainly because his motivations seem so shallow in the scheme of things, but fortunately for us he's not the only element of this chapter that's worth noting. In fact I really feel like it's now that Marry Grave is really coming into it's own, even though seeing it at the bottom of the TOC like this is scaring me more than Yamaji's amazing artwork above as Sergei ate snakes to survive until he could be granted power by the demons to enact his revenge. In fact everything is going swimmingly on the revenge front --he's killed the obstacle to Rosalie --Sawyer, and the people of Capeside are underfoot so for all extents and purposes this should be the end, right? Of course we know it isn't, though...
But the reasons Aren't quite what one would expect. So as pictured above this final page, the demons stop Sergei from killing Rosalie to complete his revenge, and in fact turn against him --beheading him from his current hulking body and taking his head away (though he still lives and swears revenge...) while leaving Rosalie with a very familiar book. The underlying current under the series has always been rather unspoken, almost completely hidden by the beautiful message of death not being the end --but the implication that the Deadman recipes are somehow essential to demons and only given to those who have enough power to complete the perilous mission to gather the ingredients says that there's an end goal in having so many of these books out there. After all the demons above only allow Rosalie to live because she has the potential to use the book so it stands to figure that she was chosen by them. It'd also kind of go in hand with what we saw earlier with the Golem gathering the books --what if using them somehow grants the demons power and the Church is trying to stop them? Marry Grave just got way more interesting.
This week's Youkai Giga features the "Tenjouname" who's name literally translates out to be "Ceiling licker". A youkai who feeds on dust and grime --the more the better! I wonder if they run a cleaning service I could perhaps use...Though Satou's take, one is up against a girl who won't go to sleep even after being threatened. Though the youkai is only doing this to protect her from another youkai who's threatening to do way worse than the Tenjouname ever could dream of. What ends up happening due to the poor girl feeling useless is the Tenjouname ends up comforting her --after all as the youkai that's been cleaning the house it's been watching over her indirectly all of this time and knows just how she's a good girl despite what others say. It's these warm feelings that ward off the other youkai in the end so....all's well that ends well? A weird one but kinda cute too --so Youkai Giga doing Youkai Giga, hah.
And that's it for the Editorial of this issue! I feel like I had a lot more to say than usual this week, so I apologize if it's a lot to read, but I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless. Until next week!
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