Well that sure is a silly fighting style
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Yuki Tabata
Translation: Taylor Engel
What They Say
With the battle for the water temple finally over, the Black Bulls return home to the Clover Kingdom as heroes. But more trouble is on the horizon when the Diamond Kingdom launches an invasion! Can Yuno and the Golden Dawn repel the invading mages?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We kick the volume off with Vetto collapsing. We get a little bit of a flashback to his past with Licht at this point, which serves as a hint at what’s going on with the group of villains, while also giving him the motivation to get back up. However, it’s literally just to attempt to self-destruct and take everyone with him, which Yami immediately thwarts. So honestly, it was just a roundabout method of giving Yami a chance to be cool, really. Oh, and then we get the aftermath of everyone in the water temple seeing them off and showing that they aren’t letting what happened get them down. And naturally, we see the roots of Asta sympathizing with the fallen enemy, showing that he’s totally 100% going to have a Naruto-style bit of showing their foes that they really CAN get along through his earnest words or whatever. But that’s probably going to be a story for well down the line, and I suppose at least setting that up well in advance should be applauded in terms of foreshadowing.
The core of the volume, though, comes when our heroes learn of an invasion by the Diamond Kingdom, which they are dispatched to deal with alongside the Golden Dawn. And this is honestly primarily a chance for Yuno and Vangeance to show off. Which is a fine idea, as Yuno has probably dropped out of the spotlight for too long for a rival character, and it’s good to show what the captain of the strongest brigade can do, too. Plus I’d say it’s handled well enough, even if it’s nothing too mind-blowing. Oh, and also, Asta is involved in all this too despite not being able to use either arm, so he’s literally thrown at the enemy with his sword in his mouth, which may just be the dumbest attack I’ve ever seen in a battle manga. Plus we do get the book having Yami directly tackle one issue that has probably been bugging the readers, as he goes straight up to Vangeance and tells him to remove his mask under suspicion that he’s Licht. Which turns out to not be the case, but there’s clearly still something suspicious going on there.
After all that is finished, we get a cliffhanger for the volume in which we learn that Asta’s arms won’t ever recover! Will our heroes be able to overturn that worrying assessment, or are is that stupid sword-in-mouth style going to become his new standard way of fighting?
In Summary
So, this volume seems to be more of a bridge between arcs than anything. It doesn’t slow down completely, per se, but instead, we get a little bit of action for some characters that have been out of the limelight. This is… okay, I guess. It’s not bad to check in on them, and is done well enough, but it’s also not terribly exciting either. And Asta is also left in a somewhat interesting predicament here… but they’re also still shoehorning him into combat in a way that’s really awkward and dumb, so that’s not the best. All around, it’s just kind of a book that I’d call “good enough” but not too much more.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: November 7th, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
