This sniper story sadly misses the mark
Creative Staff
Story: Shiden Kanzaki
Illustrations: Saki Ukai
Translation: Nita Lieu
What They Say
Following Rentaro’s defeat of the Stage Five Gastrea, Tokyo Area returns to uneasy normalcy. Soon after, the protector of Osaka Area, Sogen Saitake, comes to visit. Seitenshi is forced to act, and Rentaro finds himself drawn ever deeper into events out of his control. He and Enju will be forced to confront a new kind of threat just to protect the tenuous peace they’ve won — but how do you fight an enemy you can’t even see?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Once more this volume kicks us off with a prologue and… it’s okay. It’s a decent enough little super short story, telling the tale of a kid and a Cursed Child on the run from our heroes. The weirdest part, though, is that it absolutely doesn’t tie into the rest of the book at all, outside of a tiny nod, which just feels a tad odd. Anyway, with that out of the way, we get a quick bit on Kisara and her incredible strength before Rentaro is sent on a mission. It turns out that he’s being roped into protecting the Seitenshi during some political talks while Kikunojo is gone, which ends up being the meat of the volume this time around. After being debriefed on the matter, Rentaro is assaulted by the Seitenshi’s personal guards, led by a man named Yasuwaki, wanting him to back off their turf essentially. And they are by far the weakest part of the book, as they’re simply there to be incompetent dicks for the reader to hate, which is more than a little lame. More than actual characters with any depth whatsoever, they’re pure strawmen for our hero to cathartically knock down by the end of the book.
With all that out of the way, we get the true character introduction of this volume. Rentaro sees a young, dazed girl getting bullied and ends up butting in. In the aftermath, we learn that the girl’s name is Tina Sprout, and she’s more or less nocturnal, explaining why she’s so out of it during the day. We do get a little bonding here between Tina and Rentaro, and a little more sprinkled throughout the volume, but it’s all a tad generic and empty. It would be nice to see the relationship fleshed out a little better, because as is it feels like the bare minimum necessary to count them as acquaintances in order to make the “twist” more impactful once Rentaro finds out. With that twist of course being that Tina is the titular sniper out for the Seitenshi’s life.
Anyway, things continue on until Tina finally takes her first sniping attempt at the Seitenshi, which just barely fails thanks to our heroes. However, the information gathered from this tells them that the sniping is insanely first class, to an unbelievable degree. Oh, and this leads to Tina’s boss telling her to take out Kisara in order to cripple the Tendo Agency before making another attempt. And to be fair, this leads to probably the best scene in the volume, as Tina confronts Kisara directly. What erupts is an absolutely brutal fight up close and personal, which makes for an absolutely exhilarating read. To add to this, we also get a rough explanation of something called “Zone” which is supposedly the next level for Initiators, but it weirdly doesn’t come into play at all in this book. It’ll obviously be important in the future of the series, but for now it feels weird to give it a whole scene rather than just a brief nod if nothing was going to be done with it this time around.
Anyway, Tina then goes for her second attempt on the Seitenshi, which fails once again. However, Rentaro decides to send Enju after her, thinking that his Initiator partner has the advantage. This turns out to be a huge mistake, though, as Enju loses badly enough that our heroes (and the reader) are left to believe that she died in the confrontation, as it turns out Tina is insanely powerful. Of course she turns out to be okay, meaning the book was just kind of manufacturing a bit of drama, but it is decently potent so it at least doesn’t feel like a waste. Oh, and we also learn that the hyped up “secret” behind Tina’s sniping was tiny brain-linked drone robots, which is a tad awkward of a reveal, mostly because the book was “hinting” at it even though that’s not something anyone would say “oh, of course!” to.
Anyway, the final battle begins, with Rentaro taking on Tina solo. And the battle’s ultimately a bit eh, as ultimately only so much can be done with a sniper battle. Rentaro of course closes the distance after some serious effort (including a rather silly seeming “flying” sequence), and then it’s pretty much just Tina trying to use traps on our hero. Anyway, Rentaro of course wins, Yasuwaki shows up just in time to create a blatant antagonist for a feel-good smack down to end things on, and Tina is “redeemed” and ends up joining the group. And to further add to the loose feeling of the volume, Tina’s boss plays essentially zero role in the volume outside of being vaguely identified, and the politician presumably behind the whole thing isn’t even definitively fingered in the incident.
In Summary
Unfortunately, despite the series kicking off with a very strong first volume, this book really fails to act as a worthy follow-up. At the core of the issue is probably just the idea that a sniper as the central opponent is a super limited idea, as her interactions don’t possess anywhere near the oomph of anything from last time due to their brevity. And hell, even the “reveal” behind her insane skill feels weak, as it’s nothing that was properly hinted at in a way that could lead the reader to possibly predict it. In fact, the best moment of the book comes from the one fight in which the sniper goes for a head-on approach and doesn’t snipe at all, which just goes to show how the idea doesn’t quite work all that well. Add to this some underdeveloped and flat side characters and a ton of awkwardly hanging plot threads, and you get a book that just feels half-baked. At the very least, though, it’s not an offensively bad read at all, and there are some good moments. With any luck, the series will reclaim the potential shown in the first book going forward. For now, though, I’d recommend holding off and seeing how later entries turn out, as this isn’t exactly a must-read, much as it isn’t terrible.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: N/A
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: December 15th, 2015
MSRP: $14.00