Still trapped in filler, but with a few notable strong points
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Etorouji Shiono
Translation: Caleb D. Cook
What They Say
Glenn has disbanded the Order of the Seven Spears and erected the Order of Heaven’s Spear in its place. With his new knights, he seeks to hunt down all those who have ever opposed him. Amidst such cruelty and injustice, the hero-killer’s blade shines bright. Now, that justice-seeking blade sets off on another journey, in search of new strength!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Following up from last time, we get Koinzell thrashing the enemy and reasserting just how strong he is, which is all about what you’d expect, and nothing terribly exciting. But the chapter actually does end on a strong note, as the super-powered enemy is left completely powerless in front of the “normal” people he was ready to mow down, and the results are… honestly pretty chilling. It’s a real nice scene that drags you heavily back down from the fantastical bits of super-powered fighting to a scene of grim reality.
After a bit more of setting up alliances and the like, we finally jump to the main focus of the volume, at the hall of swords. Two of Glenn’s underlings, Degata and Gnodys, have arrived to do a little recruiting. Rather than the disciples, though, their sights are on the master of the place, Glea herself. After a rather nice scene of her turning down this deal with the devil, as well as a bit of further reflection on her past with our hero, the situation progresses further as one of the greedy students at the hall steals the “gift” meant for his master, turning him into a giant monster. And then the group from the hall of swords ends up accidentally stumbling on Koinzell and company, wrapping them up in the situation. There’s a bit of logic behind it in that this happens at a training ground used by the hall, which is kind of fitting, but it still feels like a bit too big of a “coincidence” to feel truly natural. And then it just sort of progresses as expected from there, with Koinzell easily taking down the mutated student and then ending up in a duel with Degata. It’s all just sort of okay rather than exceptional, but there is a nice bit in the way Glea jumps into the fray at the end.
The reunion between Glea and Koinzell that follows all of this is probably the strongest bit of the volume, and definitely has some oomph behind it. And then after that’s done as well, we carry on to the rest of the book, which largely focuses on a battle between two castles. But honestly, it’s just a chance to show off how apparently badass the king himself is, and… it just feels kind of weird. Like, I enjoy a good awesome old dude in my manga as much as the next guy, but it seems incredibly strange to be sending the king himself out onto the frontline so he can slash people up personally, and that choice isn’t really explained properly here. And outside of that bit of weirdness, this all honestly ends up as a so-so way to finish out the volume.
In Summary
To be perfectly honest, my complaints from last time carry pretty smoothly into this one as well. Which is to say, once more we do get a few rather nice scenes, but the vast majority of the book feels kind of filler-y, as characters pop up out of nowhere with no real background or reason to care about them, just to provide antagonists to fill up the time. And the result is once more a number of chapters that I’d describe as decent enough, but hard to get excited over. I will say the core this time around feels a bit more stable, with Glea proving a real central figure, and that’s easily the best part of the book. But then on the other hand, the ending marries mediocrity to a plot point that just feels odd, despite the book clearly trying for a “cool” moment. So in the end, you get a book that does a solid enough job filling up time until the next volume comes out, but… also one that feels so insignificant that it’d be easy to just skip it without really missing anything. So though the content itself isn’t bad, the series really does need to get properly rolling again, as keeping on like this for too much longer will end up dragging the book down significantly.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: March 21st, 2017
MSRP: $19.99
