Creative Staff
Story: Yusuke Kishi
Art: Toru Oikawa
Production: Grace Lu, Anthony Quintessenza
What They Say
Now twenty-six, Saki and Satoru seem to be well-adjusted adults. While they’ve never forgotten the cruel fates of their childhood friends, reforming the town’s severe ways has been beyond them. However, change has a way of crashing in. And in this case, at a time when those within the rope are celebrating their summer festival, change is going to rain on them violently!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After a dream of lesbian love, we join Saki as she awakes, now 26 years old. We also get a look at Satoru, who is now a genetic researcher with a serious crush on our heroine. He soon meets up with Inui, a wildlife preservation officer, and we get a peek at a war between the Giant Hornets and the Robber Flies. Thanks to their spoils from last volume, Squealer’s troops now possess basic rifles, allowing them to keep up with their stronger foes. Though Satoru is now looking for a future with Saki, Saki is still furious at herself for failing to make any changes in the way the town is run. Things truly start taking a turn for the worse, though, when news comes in that the Robber Flies managed to completely wipe out the Giant Hornets. It soon becomes clear that they hid the technology they have access to, and it appears they may have even had the help of human magick, so their “gods” pass the order to exterminate them. As a final shock to Saki, our heroes also learn that Mamoru and Maria appear to have died quite a while ago.
Trying to turn things for the better, Satoru takes Saki to the festival. When Saki sees a vision of her friends, Satoru finally works up the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. Just when it finally seems things are looking up for our heroes, a brutal assault from the Robber Flies rips into the festival goers. After wiping out some rats, Saki and Satoru head back to the festival and find that fortunately the destruction wasn’t absolute. Thanks to Kofu Hino and Shisei Kaburagi the technology of the attackers is able to be restrained, and Kofu soon goes on the assault. With Satoru’s quick thinking a gas attack is averted, but it turns out to all be an elaborate plan to take down the strongest of the humans! Kofu ends up dead, but Shisei is able to miraculously survive, and soon rallies the humans to split into groups and wipe out the Morph Rats.
Satoru and Saki’s group finds themselves at the hospital, but they soon realize that something is terribly wrong. Will they be able to escape their Fiendish foe, or are they doomed to die a gruesome death as well?
In Summary
Things take a surprising turn with this volume, moving from disturbing to downright brutal. The meat of the volume is clearly in the action of the second half, and it definitely delivers. There’s a serious feeling of helplessness involved, and it’s clear that things are only going to get worse before they get better. The time skip also makes for a nice surprise, further complicating the situation by giving us a new vantage point, with our heroes now standing on the other side of the looking glass. All in all this volume manages to take an already intriguing series and really make it something special. Hopefully the rest of the series can keep up the level of quality seen here, as this book makes for an absolutely fantastic read.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Vertical
Release Date: May 13th, 2014
MSRP: $10.95
