Creative Staff:
Writer/Artist: Kyo Shirodaira / Eita Mizuno
Translated by: Christine Schilling
What They Say
Ayumu Narumi aggressively pursues his goal to unravel the mystery of the “Blade Children.” With every step he takes, though, the path to the truth becomes more treacherous as a conspiracy is revealed. Could it be that Ayumu’s fate was intertwined with that of the Blade Children even before his journey began?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Using both the obvious clues and the absence of a few key items, Ayumu manages to solve the locked room mystery and identifies the murderer. In the end, however, they don’t learn much more about the mysteries of the Blade Children than they knew before.
That all changes when Eyes Rutherford, a famous pianist, comes to town. He too is one of the Blade Children, and he seems to have a grudge against Ayumu, somehow relating to Kiyotaka. Eyes decides to test Ayumu to see if he’s really as good as his brother…or as lucky. Ayumu has some doubts about himself, but when Hiyono puts her own life on the line to demonstrate her belief in him, he has no choice but to do his best to meet the challenge.
Eyes isn’t the only one of the Blade Children with a sociopathic desire to test Ayumu’s worth in deadly ways, and as it turns out, this is all with Kiyotaka’s consent. Kousuke confronts both Ayumu and Hiyono in a more direct fashion, and he seems to be even crazier than Eyes. Ayumu is hard-pressed to figure a way out of this multi-layered challenge when Kousuke decides to exploit one of Ayumu’s secret weaknesses.
In Summary:
I’ve been a fan of this series since the beginning, but the introduction of two new characters adds some excitement to the mix and may convince folks who were undecided on the series to give it another shot. Eyes is a fun character – dark, brooding, and romantic in a murder-suicide sort of way, but Kousuke’s straight-out psychosis and twisted humor worked really well for me. Fans of Holmesian mysteries are sure to be delighted with Spiral’s nest of small mysteries inside of larger ones.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: January 31st, 2008
MSRP: $10.99
