Creative Staff
Story: Takaya Kagami
Art: Yamato Yamamoto
Translation: Adrienne Beck
What They Say
With Ferid and Krul undergoing exposure torture, the only one left who can help Yuichiro and his friends is Guren! But Guren has secrets of his own that he’s willing to hurt his friends to protect. Meanwhile, Kureto wages war in Shibuya against his father in a coup d’état. Will he be able to defeat his father and take over the Demon Army, or this move spell his own demise?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this volume, we get two main focal points, so let’s start with the less interesting one: what our heroes are up to. They’re still hanging around the mansion, and with them this time the focus is largely on Guren in particular. There’s a whole lot of in-fighting, especially amongst Guren and Mika, and we also get the question raised of if they should even trust him in the first place. The big point, though, is the reveal of Guren’s ambitions: to revive literally everyone who died. And frankly… I don’t really like this, as it just feels so overblown that it’s more the sort of thing that Yuichiro would say.
The other focus for the book, fortunately, gets more attention/page time and is also more interesting. What it involves is Kureto trying to take over the family, his big goal. He wants to essentially wrest control back into the hands of humanity, realizing his own father is hardly human at this point. The whole thing erupts in some great high-level spectacle that’s just fun to read, and it’s mixed with some definite high stakes. Add in a pretty big twist, and the only real complaint I have left is that I do wish Kureto’s father was more of a presence before now to help it feel a bit more like we built up to this properly. Still, it’s good stuff and definitely the best scenes we’ve gotten in a bit with the series.
Finally, Guren starts off training Yuichiro to have some control over the massive power within him. Will even that be enough to help them take down the insane foe they find themselves up against, though?
In Summary
This volume is a bit of a mix, as the stuff our main characters are doing felt a bit weak, but the rest of the book is pretty fantastic. Fortunately, the good parts far outweigh the meh in terms of the amount of pages they get, though, so I’d call this a plenty nice read overall. There’s just a whole ton of spectacle, some nice twists and turns, and most importantly, some good development for a character who most certainly needed it considering his important role in the series. So while it’s not perfect, this is ultimately still a good volume that should plenty satisfy fans of the series.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: September 4th, 2018
MSRP: $9.99