A fun yet not quite perfect ending to the series
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Shiro Amano
Translation: Althea and Athena Nibley
What They Say
A young boy named Roxas whiles away the last days of his summer vacation with his three best friends in their quiet little home of Twilight Town. But all is not as it should be in this hamlet nestled between night and day. Strange things keep happening around Roxas, which always seem to involve mysterious creatures – and he is plagued by dreams of a boy named Sora, whom he has never met. Bewildered, Roxas searches for answers. Will they lead him to Sora, Donald, and Goofy?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The volume kicks off with a kind of weak reveal, as we build up to Sora and company learning that there’s a second Twilight Town, which they end up using a machine in the old mansion to travel to. It feels like an especially silly, forced plot point set up to get around some plot issues that probably could’ve been worked around more elegantly. Anyway, we get a little more of Sora reacting to Roxas’s memories, before jumping to Axel actually going back to rescue Kairi. This is a pretty nice little scene, especially when Saix jumps in and makes a mess of things, eventually forcing Axel to flee. Oh, and then Sora and company just get a nice little convenient portal in the second Twilight Town’s mansion to take them to the Organization’s headquarters. It’s there that they run into Axel, who ends up doing his requisite heroic sacrifice to help them out before passing on. This is a nice moment in a number of ways, but… it’s also kind of in spite of itself, as it feels a little like an awkwardly stitched together scene that happens more because it has to than because it actually fits in that spot and circumstances well. Like, it’s kind of like it’s time for that scene to happen, so it’s just jammed on in there out of nowhere without the proper setup or fanfare, which really does undermine a good bit of the impact it should’ve had.
From there, Sora and company progress through the Organization’s castle, dealing with the group’s remnants along the way. Before that can truly kick off, though, we get a battle with Roxas of sorts before he truly entrusts Sora with his power. We then get a lot about Riku, who now looks like Xehanort’s heartless from the end of Kingdom Hearts 1, which makes for an interesting predicament for him. But mostly it’s just nice to have him back with Sora, and it’s honestly pretty great seeing them play off one another again. Sadly… it’s kind of hard to say the same about Kairi. She DOES get a keyblade, which is nice, but… she doesn’t really get a chance to actually do anything pretty much this whole book, which is an absolute shame. As for the actual chain of fights, they’re solid enough, and there is some variety, even branching out into things like… Jiminy playing an intense game of cards. However, Ansem the Wise and his whole plot here just feels awkward, as he tries to digitize Kingdom Hearts with a device, only for it to randomly explode, taking him with it… and also for some reason restoring Riku to normal. So yeah, that’s just not a very smoothly done part of the plot at all.
Finally, the time comes for the last boss battle against Xemnas. Will Sora and Riku be able to overcome this powerful foe in order to bring things to a happy close?
In Summary
It’s with this volume that the time comes to wrap everything up, so we dive headfirst into the main plot for the entire duration, leaving the Disney stuff entirely behind to dig in deep with Organization XIII! And the results are ultimately kind of mixed, to be honest. There ARE some real nice action scenes of course, and some of the emotional bits really do land great. On top of that, the dynamic between Riku and Sora in particularly is quite nice to see, and does a lot of good here. But in near equal measure, there are also some real awkward plot points and setups that feel like throwing random crap at the wall just to progress things in the direction they need to go, rather than doing things carefully or with any touch of elegance. Like, the stuff with Ansem the Wise is just plain messy and feels downright bad, and really drags things down in the process. Still, as far as finales go you could certainly have worse, and there should be plenty enough good here for fans to counterbalance out the bad, so I’d say it’s still worth a look.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: All Ages
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: May 23rd, 2017
MSRP: $23.99
