The Tsukiyama family up against the wall!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sui Ishida
Translation: Joe Yamazaki
What They Say
The Qs Squad once again proves its worth by going undercover to collect vital Ghoul information, allowing the CCG to finally move forward with a massive eradication campaign. But this strike pushes the Qs to their limits, bringing all their weaknesses to the forefront. And Haise is the hardest hit when his hidden past rushes forth to impact his future!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The focus this time is everything coming crashing down on Tsukiyama, with the CCG moving to eradicate his family. Before that gets rolling proper, though, we do get a bit more setup, including the ever boring Dove meetings. However, that fortunately doesn’t last super long before things get rolling properly. Unfortunately the CCG side of things is still a bit weak, with only Haise really getting much of note to do. I will at least applaud the book for focusing in a bit more for its fights, which makes them better than some of the messes we’ve gotten over the course of the series, but they still just don’t flow great. Oh, and the creepy investigators that had been built up… just kind of die super easily, which feels weird. Also weird: the female servant of the Tsukiyama family that they end up against is pretty cool and puts up a decent fight, but it’s actually a male servant who gets less focus who takes them both down… after being sliced in half! It makes for a moment that’s every bit as odd as it is actually just a bit cool.
Anyway, the real focus of the volume though, is on Tsukiyama’s family and their struggle to get the young master of the house to safety. It’s got a nice desperate feel to it, and the bonds between the Ghouls really shine through here. This starts with Tsukiyama’s dad giving himself up for the sake of buying time for his son… which actually doesn’t make sense to me, by the way. Wouldn’t fighting back and stalling them serve that purpose much better, instead of letting them go “he gave up too easy, let’s look around for who’s slipping out of here” and being able to start hunting immediately? But it’s still a cool act, regardless of logic. And all the while, we get to watch Tsukiyama as everything comes crashing down around him, which certainly makes me care a lot more for him than I ever did in the past.
Finally, though, we actually touch on Kanae’s past and do some deep character work there. The biggest element, though, is the reveal that in actuality she was a woman, deeply in love with Tsukiyama. It is actually interesting in the way that the book has been playing a lot with gender on the down low, starting with Juzo and Toru, and now this reveal. And honestly, it makes the character click a LOT better, with her desperate devotion being revealed as a hidden love. It just plays well, showing how thoroughly she’s been repressing herself, and certainly serves to make a character that felt a little redundant and bland up until now a LOT more interesting. And for that, the book definitely deserves some praise.
In Summary
This volume still isn’t perfect, as it runs into a number of problems. Namely, the fights are still fairly awkward and just don’t flow right, and we also definitely spend some time bogged down in some scenes that really drag near the beginning. But with that said… it otherwise brings the series back to a much more interesting place. And mainly, this is done by digging deep in with Tsukiyama and his family, and especially Kanae. It’s definitely nicely done, and I’d say a number of characters come out of this book a LOT more interesting than they went in. I still wish the investigator side of things was a bit more interesting here too to match, but sadly that’s just not the case, which is probably the biggest thing keeping the book from being truly great. But it’s still a very nice entry in the series that is a hell of a lot better than a lot of what we’ve gotten in the past.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: June 19th, 2018
MSRP: $12.99
