Amazingly, the series finds a way to sink even lower.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Rumiko Takahashi
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
Rinne and Sakura’s homeroom teacher starts receiving some very strange messages from her fortune-telling Peeking Ball. Can Rinne help set things right? Then, when a ghost-scythe attaches itself to Sakura, she must exorcise seven souls to get rid of it—which is harder than it sounds!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
So, we get a three-parter to kick things off this time around, and… it’s unsurprisingly not very good. The concept is that Masato puts a curse on Annette’s (who is so bland that I had to look up her name, because she leaves so little of an impression) Peeking Ball. So… it pretty much just turns into them looking into the ball anyway for whatever reason even though they know that’ll cause them misfortune, and that occurring, alongside Rinne losing money because that definitely hasn’t been driven into the ground. Oh, and it literally has devolved to the point where it’s gone full-on potty humor, as the big “climax” is bringing in a goofy looking Cerberus which just expels all manner of bodily fluids. So… very classy, well done stuff there, definitely.
Next up comes a one-off about a ghost who has a lingering attachment related to cherry blossom viewing which just feels… almost incomplete. It’s a real mishmash of little bits that isn’t even really any particular cohesive joke or gag or anything, and feels weak even for this series. And then this is followed by another one-off, this time based around alternatively hunting and not hunting a rare bamboo shoot (based on if Rinne thinks it’ll make him money, which shifts over the course of the chapter). This is probably the closest this volume comes to “decent”, as it at least is just bland and a little so-so rather than offensively dull.
The “big” event of the book, another three-parter, comes next, in which contrivances force Sakura to end up with a scythe and have to do a little exorcising herself. And if I haven’t harped on this before enough, let me just say it now: Sakura is frustratingly entirely devoid of personality or character or anything interesting to her at all, and considering her prominent role, it may actually be the biggest problem the series has. Like, she doesn’t even really play the straight man even, she just… exists. And that’s important to bring up here because this is a Sakura-driven arc, which just makes that flaw blindingly clear. It’s just straight up a slog to get through, and while I may complain that the general jokes the series leans on are terribly stale… I mean, at least I see that it’s trying something. But here, those jokes are just occasionally thrown in from the other characters in the background, while in the foreground is just plain nothing. It’s a complete void devoid of anything enjoyable whatsoever, and just feels like an utter waste of ink and paper.
Oh, and then we end on two bland one-shots, one about a locker and the player using it not wanting to clean his uniform, and another about a “phantom floor” of a building.
In Summary
The series has had plenty of rough patches before, but good lord… I think this may be the nadir of the crap-heap thus far. The two three-parters here are both just plain dire. And that comes down to the fact that, in addition to just not having any particularly interesting idea to theme them around, they also chose the blandest characters to center them on. The first is on that peeking-ball teacher who’s so uninteresting that she’s entirely outshone by her also pretty bland signature item, but the second… is focused on Sakura Mamiya herself. I haven’t spent a lot of time complaining about her in the past, as she usually stays fairly out of the way and this isn’t as much of an issue, but… she’s just entirely devoid of personality. And by putting her in the spotlight, that problem becomes abundantly clear, and leaves you with easily the poorest arc even in a crummy series like this one. And after that, you’re just left with the one-shots. Three of those are of the generic bland and empty/repetitive sort you see all throughout the series, but even then, the fourth screws up extra hard to the point that it just ends up an aimless mishmash of quarter-baked ideas. So yes, rather than looking like it’ll ever improve on any of its issue, Rin-ne looks to be amazingly finding a way to sink to even lower lows.
Content Grade: D+
Art Grade: C+
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: July 11th, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
