Creative Staff
Story/Art: Hiroshi Shiibashi
Translation: Yumi Okamoto
Adaptation: Mark Giambruno
What They Say:
As Rikuo trains to increase his Fear, his true yokai power, the human yokai hunter, Kubinashi, goes on a rampage to kill the yokai of Kyoto. Kubinashi is attacked and kept at bay by the yokai Ibaraki-Doji who has a shocking weapon—the Devil’s Drum, a deadly attack with a dark secret to its range of power!
Content: (please note that the content portion of a review may contain spoilers)
Though Rikuo is determined to defeat Tsuchigumo, and manages to do some damage as a human, he’s still handily beaten. Still, Tsuchicumo lets him live and kidnaps Tsurara to lure Rikuo in for another fight. This, of course, leads into a training session, as Gyuki conveniently arrives just as the fight ends to take Rikuo away and teach him how to break past his limitations. Since time is of the essence in this story arc (they only have so many days before Hagoromo-Gitsune gives birth to a creature called Nue) breaking away for training at this point is a little frustrating, especially since Rikuo only just had his training session in Tono. This just feels like Shiibashi is trying to stretch out the length of the arc.
While Rikuo is training, the other groups prepare to move forward with repairing the seals, but just as the Nura clan gets all riled up, they notice that Kubinashi is missing. Ashamed at his inability to protect Rikuo, he relapses into his former, darker self when he was a vengeful hunter of yokai. Because this part of his life has never been mentioned before, this requires some backstory, which, like Rikuo’s training session, breaks up the action a little. Luckily, it’s interesting, and gratifying that a character that’s been around since the beginning gets fleshed out. We also see that he’s had a comradeship with Kejoro, a female yokai we’ve seen off and on through the manga, since before he joined the Nura clan, and while this comes about just as suddenly as the other revelations we’ve been getting in this arc, it deepens the characters, making them sympathetic and real rather than just some interesting designs the artist throws into the mix.
Bits about Rikuo’s father, the second heir, come up in both story lines, as Rikuo remembers when Hagoromo-Gitsune killed his father, and Kubinashi recalls the day the second heir defeated him and then invited him into the clan. This shows again how important Rikuo’s father was to the clan, and also how traumatizing it was for Rikuo when he was murdered. This new information feels solid, seeming like something that Shiibashi has had planned out rather than a story aspect he’s making up as he goes, but that only makes me question even more why these things were never brought up until now if it’s always been so important. Still, Rikuo’s father is a fascinating character, and since the memories of him boost the characters and make this story arc more engaging than it might have been, I welcome them.
The volume ends with a few bonus stories. Most of these are pretty lighthearted, like a look back at Nurarihyon shortly after his son is born, and he has to care for him for the day when Princess Yo falls ill. This leads to some pretty funny moments, like stoic Gyuki flipping out when Nurarihyon just slings his infant carelessly over his shoulder. One short is slightly more serious story, bringing more of an “awww” moment, going into the past to show a reflective Kubinashi and a young, stern-faced Kejoro. These were fun, and helped to break up the more serious, violent tone of the volume.
In Summary
This volume had a bit of a jerky flow as Rikuo suddenly goes to train, and then falling back in time to see what the others are up to, not to mention the flashbacks during battles to shed some light on characters. Luckily there are a few short scenes with Hagoromo-Gitsune ordering her minions to gather livers for her to remind us what the actual point of this story arc is. While this volume gets a little off track, the new revelations about characters we’ve actually seen for a long time, rather than just met (like the Tono group) is nice, and despite the distractions the good guys are making progress through the seals, even without Rikuo around to help. Let’s hope that Rikuo’s training ties up soon so the pacing can even back out and we can get our main character back into the regular story line.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released by: Viz Media
Release Date: December 4th, 2012
MSRP: $9.99
