Kill off the remnants and the strong!
Creative Staff
Story: Takahiro
Art: Tetsuya Tashiro
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
The Night Raid faces a powerful enemy. The terrifying pair, Esdeath and Budo, block their path. Budo’s lightning attacks keep the Night Raid a hair’s breadth from danger… Will Tatsumi and the others survive the onslaught!?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Following along from last time, our heroes still find themselves in quite a pinch, trapped in a fight with the strongest of foes. Esdeath works well as always, proving unsurprisingly intimidating, but Budo doesn’t sell it quite as well for me. Like, he has lightning attacks and we get told how scary he is, but… all his attacks feel kind weirdly scattershot and rough, and he doesn’t really give off that “impossibly high wall to overcome” feeling he should. Anyway, our heroes manage to escape, only for Budo to catch up to them. But in order to fend him off, Mine puts her all into one last shot to put him down for good, and… it functions in the moment, but is kind of a weird plot point. Because you see, Mine puts all her “mental energy” into the shot, and that leaves her essentially in a coma. The setup of the blow itself works, and the end result of leaving her in such a state is all well and good, but the exact mechanic of how it happens just feels distractingly odd, and just plain unintuitive.
Anyway, Mine isn’t the only “casualty” of that confrontation, as Tatsumi DID power up, but he set himself on a path to either be consumed or killed by his weapon thanks to his recklessness. In effect, this means he’s been given a counter on how many times he can use it, giving him only 3 or 4 more uses. He is at least open enough in saying he totally will still use it as much as he’s able, because they need the power. But even so, I’m just not super fond of these types of plot points as they feel more like an arbitrary means of placing limits solely to have that scene of “oh my gosh, he’s pushing himself past them!” Still, the book at least is open enough about not really being overly concerned about it, so it’s not a huge deal here either, to be honest.
The rest of the volume goes to wiping out the remnants of Wild Hunt, meaning that vampire alchemist Dorothea, their former ally Cosmina who she modified into a giant monster, and that swordsman guy whose name I honestly don’t even remember. The fights with the other two are just kind of whatever, but Leone and Dorothea’s battle is pretty good and a little different. And the latter even goes out with a pretty amusing death, so that’s something.
In Summary
In a lot of ways, I’d describe this volume as being almost there, but just a little lacking. The big intense battle at the start is pretty neat, but while Esdeath does her job well, Budo feels just a tad underwhelming compared to all the hype, and the aftereffects of the battle seem just a touch off, too. And then in the back half of the volume, you get the wrapping up of the Wild Hunt stuff, and… as always, that group is just a bit eh, too. It’s saved largely by Dorothea being the most amusing of that group and spicing things up some. In the end, I’d say that ultimately, this volume ends up being a pretty good book that feels like it had the potential to be something amazing, but didn’t quite reach it.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Package Rating: B+
Text/Translation Rating: B+
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 31st, 2017
MSRP: $12.99