One bloody bad plot point kind of cripples the climax
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Shiwo Komeyama
Translation: Mari Morimoto
What They Say
The thirteen divine relics have been collected; the blood of the sacrifice has been spilled. As the victor prepares to ascend to godhood, many questions yet remain about the nature of the Crusades, past and present. Will Hinata’s enduring desire to end the cycle of bloodshed be realized? Find out in the final volume of “Bloody Cross”!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With Tokiwa dead and the last Crusade kicking off, the volume certainly opens into quite an intense situation. With five relics on the line the stakes definitely seem high, with our heroes needing to take out Arcana’s copies as well. And yet as it turns out, the focus turns firmly towards the fight at Arcana’s headquarters, with Tsukimiya trying to rescue Hinata, while Izumi dives into battle himself. Anyway, as it turns out, Arcana’s copying technology lets them skip the Crusades in general, plus the black seal issue. But Tsuzuki foresees this and manages to turn the tables somewhat, delaying the demonic leader in his task. Oh, and Satsuki steals all the real relics, summoning a second alter. Plus he manages to avoid using Tsukimiya’s blood as well. It’s honestly just plain odd that they played up Tsukimiya’s black seal being important so much, but then have it ignored twice, seemingly primarily just to justify preventing her death. Still, this is all solid ridiculous high stakes stuff, making for plenty of excitement.
From there, the plot continues to march forward, with Hinata desperately trying to finish off his spell. Unfortunately, though, Satsuki damages it, forcing our hero to risk his very soul in order to pull off his plan. And in the meantime, Tsuzuki finally breaks through to his brother, revealing his true motives in the process. The big issue I have here, though, is that there’s a big reveal that “god” is effectively a battery to keep the world running. In theory that could provide an interesting shift, but… it apparently doesn’t matter, seeing how (spoilers, oh no!) they do indeed completely remove the Crusades and god system with no problems in the end. I guess in theory you could argue it was necessary to allow the supernatural powers to exist, but that’s not said and isn’t really that interesting in the first place. In actuality, I’d say it’s just to undermine the way that removing god from the equation could of course piss people off, and to make it expressly clear that this system is 100% terrible and does nobody any good. That is to say, they used what looked like some complexity added to the situation to instead make it extra straightforward and far less interesting, which is dumb.
And from there, things wrap up with the world effectively recreated into ours. Then in a normal enough ending bit, we check in on everyone in their new lives, and Hinata and Tsukimiya get their touching reunion. It’s a tad expected and certainly doesn’t do anything unique, but it works well enough to bring things to a satisfactory close.
In Summary
For the most part, this volume succeeds in bringing the series to a successful close. It ramps up to the extreme, brings plenty of the plotting that’s been the signature feature of the series, and succeeds in wrapping up everyone’s arcs. It doesn’t really stray that much from what you’d expect, which is a tad disappointing, but it’s all executed well enough that that’s not too big a deal. That is, except for one incredibly frustrating problem: there’s one wrinkle added in at the last moment, and it seems at first that it’ll really make the whole concept of the ending more complex and nuanced. But then instead, it’s used poorly to just wipe away any doubts or moral ambiguity to things, which is a giant shame. In the end, I’d still say if you’ve made it far in the series, this’ll do for a conclusion. It’s just a real shame that they had to so definitively undermine themselves before making it to the finish line with one stupid plot point.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 25th, 2016
MSRP: $12.99
