A shockingly great turn-around!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sui Ishida
Translation: Joe Yamazaki
What They Say
Investigators from the 20th Ward launch an initiative to take out the Ghoul known as the One-Eyed Owl, who has possible ties to both Akira and Yoshimura. An all-out assault on the Anteiku café, where the Owl is supposedly hiding, results in full-fledged battle.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We kick off with another look at Juzo’s backstory this time, and fortunately, it’s done a whole lot better than the previous taste we got. It’s relatively brief, but it cuts to the point and definitely has some punch to it. Then there’s a bit about the investigators writing notes for the eventuality of their deaths in the coming mission which is… okay. Better than a lot of the other stuff we’ve gotten with the characters in the past, but probably still the weakest point of this volume. Oh, and we get a bit between Amon and Akira, which is again solid enough, but not a hugely standout moment.
After this point, the rest of the volume goes to the investigator raid on Anteiku. In effect, this is one absolutely massive battle, with a ton of investigators taking on Yoshimura, Enji, and Kaya. And fortunately… it’s actually really good. The new investigator characters in particular have a lot of flair both in their designs and their weapons, and go a long way towards wiping away how bland that whole faction has felt. Like, it’s a huge step. And that’s not all, as the character moments sprinkled throughout are actually on point as well, feeling legitimately carefully crafted with the way that flashbacks and the like are carefully sprinkled in.
Anyway, when Kaneki inevitably steps in, will he be able to prevent the impending tragedy? Or is it too late, and are the fates of the combatants already sealed?
In Summary
I have to give credit where credit is due here, as even though the series has been pretty damn crappy as of late, this volume pulls off a shocking turnabout. It’s… actually straight up good. The simplest to point out is the art, especially for all the action. The series has had some struggle getting that quite right, but here it seems to have finally clicked into place, and there are a ton of sequences that are straight up stylish and flashy. That also extends to the character designs, which shift into some actually really interesting and flavorful ones, which is a huge plus after all the blandness of late. But perhaps most importantly of all… it actually hits the emotional bits properly. For the first time in quite a while, I actually cared about some members of the cast and what was happening to them, which was just not happening in the previous volumes. It really is like the book was saving up every last modicum of quality craftsmanship it had, sucking them out of the past volumes to the point that they straight up sucked, in order to have one giant explosive event here. Now let’s just hope that the series can actually keep this momentum rolling…
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: June 20th, 2017
MSRP: $12.99
