Mostly great content muddled by some frustrating flaws
Creative Staff
Story: Takahiro
Art: Tetsuya Tashiro
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
Mine is starting to realize her feelings for Tatsumi while Najenda has hardened her resolve for the decisive battle. With all kinds of emotions running through their hearts, the members of Night Raid storm the cathedral. But the one to intercept them is none other than “the Empire’s strongest” Esdeath!!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The volume starts off this time around with some slice-of-life style bonding between the various characters. It’s nothing too exciting, but it’s at least worth a chuckle or two, and also gives a little more of a look at the priest, which adds a little bit more oomph to that plot point. And then we actually surprisingly launch into the backstory of what happened to Najenda’s arm out of nowhere. To be honest, though, it’s not really all that amazing, and is pretty much just “I defected, and then got beat up by Esdeath.” It really just serves to grind in further how strong Esdeath is, but I’m pretty sure that point has been plenty established by this point, so it ends up feeling… kind of underwhelming.
Anyway, the time finally comes for the big operation, and the assassins put some decent thought into it this time around, plotting to split the enemy’s attention in order to best accomplish their goal. Oh, and there’s also some stuff about Mine’s crush on Tatsumi, which is decent enough and at least gives a little bit more of a reason to pay attention to her character. When the operation itself kicks off, the plan, of course, falls apart almost immediately, with our heroes ending up in direct conflict with the Jaegers. Fortunately, though, those fights do live up to what the series has shown up till now, and make for plenty of exciting moments. And also there’s a really weird bit about Bolic having a mysterious Teigu user with an unknown ability as his trump card… and then Akame just casually kills him in a single hit. I suppose it’s meant to be a gag about playing against expectations, but it honestly feels more like an odd waste of a couple of pages than anything else.
The real focus, though, is the fight with Esdeath, which lives up to about what you’d expect in terms of pure insanity. She’s just absolutely overpowering, and manages to seriously beat pretty much the whole cast into a corner singlehandedly. And that only becomes even worse when she reveals a trump card, which lets her freeze time temporarily, though it at least can only be used once a day. Though with all that said, I actually do have a problem with this fight. And that’s that the characters push themselves to their limits, even sacrificing Susanoo, only to immediately retreat after completing their mission rather than trying to settle things with Esdeath. They state the excuse of how it’s still not enough to truly finish her off, and that reinforcements are probably coming, but… it’s more tell than show. And so the reader’s kind of left feeling like they just ditched the best chance of beating this monster, and in turn walked away noticeably weaker, all for a threat that isn’t even properly displayed on the page. So yeah, that’s at least a little disappointing.
In Summary
This volume’s one I’m more than a little torn on, as it has some really exciting and solid content, but also some minor questionable choices that kind of drag things down. The biggest one of those, ultimately, is that a major decision is made based on something that isn’t really properly shown, and it kind of ends up feeling like the author making excuses to forcefully drag the plot in the direction they decided it must take. It doesn’t kill the whole scene, but it’s ultimately a bit frustrating to read, and seems like something that could’ve been easily avoided with just a bit of tweaking. I’d also say that the beginning of the book is a tad on the slow side, but it’s fortunately nothing too bad. All that said, though, the good in this volume does at least make up for the bad, and it’s still definitely worth reading. It’s just a shame, though, as if those small issues could’ve been avoided, the book would’ve certainly been a lot better off for it.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Package Rating: B+
Text/Translation Rating: B+
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: January 24th, 2017
MSRP: $12.99
