Will the death of their leader, Manato, doom the party to disband?
Creative Staff
Original Story: Ao Jyumonji
Art: Mutsumi Okubashi
Translation: Caleb Cook
What They Say
“You don’t wanna die, huh? Me neither…!”
By hunting goblins to earn money, Haruhiro and his party are doing all they can to survive in an unfamiliar world. But during one of their hunts, Manato, their leader, and healer, falls to a goblin’s dagger, and with no one to heal him, the group is forced to bury their friend. Now, with no priest and little hope for the future, they must find a way to endure the many trials ahead. Can they really cope with the loss of their most important ally?
The desperate struggle continues as a beautiful cold-hearted priest named Mary joins the party!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Manato, their leader, and healer, is dead.
First comes despair, then rage, then blame, then a collective loss of focus. The whole group is crushed and their first attempts to return to the field to hunt goblins fails miserably. Most of the group members have passive personalities, and the only aggressive member, Ranta can’t possibly be their leader. All seems lost unless Haruhiro takes on the mantle of leader, but he has too many doubts about his own ability.
Despite all this, they are determined to continue as a party and gain vengeance for Manato. The first thing they need to do is find a new healer for their group. It takes some poking around the local pub, but they eventually get recommended to a healer named Mary. She is really their only option, but she proves to be curt, standoffish, and combative when it comes to implementing battle plans. She is the complete opposite of Manato and the group quickly begins to question their ability to keep her on.
Conflict, struggle, and uncertainty makes for a great volume. These components make it easy for the reader to connect to these characters. Even those characters that readers may not care much for manage to make us feel empathetic for them. Eventually, the characters regain their focus and set out to kill the goblins that killed Manato. But will they have enough skill to succeed without losing any more party members?
In Summary:
While I was a little underwhelmed by the first volume of this series, after loving the anime adaptation, this second volume is much better. With the death of the team’s leader right at the end of volume one, this second volume gives the characters plenty of time to struggle with their current situation and future. They all quickly begin to question their ability to stay alive as Volunteer Soldiers, and whether or not they have any business staying together at a party. Then, a new character with her own baggage gets thrown into their midst as they need to replace their healer, Manato.
This new makeshift party has great dynamics. Where Haruhiro and the others lost their healer, this new healer lost her old party. They quickly struggle to come together as a team as both the new healer and the regular group have different ideas on how to run a battle plan. Tempers flare and the old group stumbles even closer to the verge of disbanding completely. Great stuff and I’m excited to check out the next volume.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: C-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 31, 2017
MSRP: $13.00
