I hate using annoying memes to honestly describe something, but when the shoes fits…

Creative Staff
Story: Katsura Hoshino
Art: Katsura Hoshino
Translation/Adaptation: Lance Caselman

What They Say
Allen has been dropped into a flashback of his surly colleague Yu Kanda’s past, where a parade of disturbing secrets reveal themselves–including one that could at long last explain what makes Yu tick!

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This installment of D. Gray-Man is epic! I mean that in the most sincere way possible. The whole book is the aftermath of Alma Karma’s awakening and it is able to maintain a high level of intensity throughout its six chapters. With the past of Yu and Alma revealed, Alma awakens his rage and transforms into an Akuma thanks to the Millennium Earl’s dark matter injection. What follows is the kind of intense battle that hangs life in the balance and the readers attention. The artwork in this volume also takes a significant injection of ‘epicness’ and becomes so detailed that every panel commands attention. The violence level is increased as the battle moves on, which is only natural, and as the violence increases the artwork never gets muddled. It remains clear and astounding to look at.

Over the course of the battle, the Fourteenth Noah fully awakens within Allen Walker and the North America branch of the Order is completely demolished! This is what I mean by epic. This battle is so large in scale, so defining in its events that there are almost no words to describe it all. However, this volume’s main flaw comes from the battle being so grand: it starts to get confusing in the first two or three chapters as to what is exactly happening. The panels move between the myriad of characters as they are engaged in this life or death fight and so much detail has been put in to the imagery of the fight that it is hard to follow who is where and doing what. Towards the end of the third chapter the battle finds its focus and becomes easy to follow but the chaos of the beginning follows through to the experience of the book.

Once the reveal was made a book or two ago that Allen was the Fourteenth Noah, you knew the story was about to reach an apex. With this battle, and all the collateral damage that follows, the story line really seems to be ramping up. It is possible that it could ramp up too much but moving to a more mellow story at this point will kill the inertia generated by this battle. Despite its flaws with the inherent chaos, the book maintains that inertia, provides significant turns in the plot and makes D. Gray-Man the shonen action epic it was striving to be for all these years.

In Summary
The only other thing I can say about this book is possibly the biggest endorsement it could receive: I desperately want to see this animated! This book is on the level of any anime series you have every seen that has a large defining battle in, say, the last 3 or 4 episodes. It is that incredible. I am not going to draw more definite comparisons because it honestly isn’t better in terms of story than most other shonen shows and some series have more than just a great battle making you say “WOW.” But this book is the stuff that I crave for in my animated action shows, the chaos, the violence, the twists, the reveals…oh, just amazing.

Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B+

Readers Rating: (4 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: November 1st, 2011
MSRP: $12.99