A storm is a-brewin’ at ACCA HQ
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Natsume Ono
Translation: Jocelyne Allen
Lettering: Lys Blakeslee
What They Say:
Natsume Ono’s political drama ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department briefly returns in the form of a two-part prologue. In its first volume, P.S. sets the stage for the five Chief Officers – ACCA’s top brass and the main players in this story. Witness how it all began, as the seeds of secrecy and rebellion were sown long before the Chief Officers had even met.
The Review
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department really is one of the most tightly crafted political thrillers in manga. In just six volumes, Natsume Ono introduced us to the entirety of Dowa Kingdom – a sprawling country made up of 13 districts, each one exuding individuality through its landscape, people, culture, and customs. And the thread connecting them all was the amorphous organization of ACCA. The political intrigue between each district and those pulling the strings made for an exhilarating mystery, as the coup d’état came to a head in its final chapters. But the unrest surrounding ACCA and Dowa Kingdom had culminated prior to Jean Otus’s involvement. In Volume One of P.S., Ono takes us back to those years leading to the centennial celebration, as the assembly of the new Chief Officers set the stage for ACCA’s rebirth.
With Chief Officers Grossular and Lilium hogging the limelight throughout the main story, P.S. opts to focus on the other three, Spade, Pastis, and Pine. As with all of Ono’s characters, their presence demands your attention – each one radiating an aura of charisma and swagger unparalleled by the rest of ACCA’s subordinates. Their respective chapters give us a glimpse into their roles prior to Chief Officer and what ultimately leads to their appointment. While this volume acts as a prelude, the return of ACCA gives it a “getting the band back together” vibe. But what makes these chapters so intriguing is less the characters themselves, and more the way in which they’re shuffled around. As we come to find out throughout this volume, selecting the new Chief Officers was anything but conventional. Natsume Ono does it again – creating a story layered with deceit, under-the-table machinations, and mind games that keep you on the edge of your seat.
First up is Spade, a hard-boiled detective stationed in the gambler’s paradise of Yakkara District. And fitting for his high-roller lifestyle, he staked his future in ACCA on a game of cards. Or more accurately, Spade’s appointment as Chief Officer was simply the cards he was dealt. Spade is approached by his partner Baccarat, who has a lead on an old case Spade has been working on for years. As the two make their way to Pranetta, the stark difference between them is evident – Baccarat was a rising star, looking to climb the ranks in Yakkarta and follow the footstep of his father who became a Chief Officer. Spade, on the other hand, would rather remain a detective forever, drifting through Yakkarta the only way he knew how. The two of them couldn’t be more unalike, but they were both gamblers at heart. That case in Pranetta was just the beginning of Baccarat’s next big gamble. His involvement with Spade’s case wasn’t a coincidence – in his steady climb up the bureaucratic ladder, Baccarat had picked up a knack for putting people in his debt. Helping Spade with this case was simply adding another card to his hand. Fast forward a bit and Baccarat was now Branch Director in Yakkara. It was time for Spade to pay his debt with a game of cards – if Spade won, Baccarat would renew his term as Detective, but if he lost, Spade would be transferred to Badon. Baccarat wasn’t fond of HQ and would rather aim for the District Governor position. Spade might not exactly be the right man for the job, but he was someone Baccarat could trust, and it was a gamble he was willing to take. With that, the first new Chief Officer is selected, and Spade’s debt had been paid. Underhanded power moves are the name of the game at ACCA, and Spade’s appointment was just the beginning of an even larger plot.
Chapter Two coincides with Warbler’s transfer to the Suitsu Inspection Department. This section paints a familiar picture of a district divided. The segregation of Suitsu’s common folk and nobility is deep-seated, which explains why not much changes between now and Jean’s arrival. Coincidentally, Warbler’s first day on the job is comically similar to Jean’s visit from Volume Three. Warbler overhears some dissenters talking about the coup, and suddenly he’s tied up in their mess. Biscuit, an ACCA royal guard and organizer of the Suitsu coup, decides to let Warbler go. After all, Warbler was new to the district, he didn’t understand the long-standing plight of its people. Warbler’s run-in with Biscuit weighed heavily on his mind. But as a member of the Inspection Dept, he knew his duty was to just put his nose to the grindstone. This was how things worked in Suitsu. As Biscuit puts it,
“No breeze blows in and no breeze is created. We don’t want to open all the windows at once, we just want to breathe a little easier.”
Isolated from the other districts, Suitsu is shackled by long-standing tradition and the nobility’s aversion to change. To Biscuit and the others, their coup wasn’t a single moment – it was an incremental battle. The best they could do was keep moving forward, and little by little, maybe they could make Suitsu a district to be proud of. The dilemma of Suitsu’s residents, when juxtaposed to Pastis’s appointment to Chief Officer, only makes the situation in Suitsu even more puzzling.
Pastis is clearly an anomaly amongst his pencil-pushing cohorts at ACCA. More bourgeois than a bureaucrat, Pastis is the first count to hold a position in ACCA. Throughout the main story, there is a clear tension drawn between the conservative aristocrats and progressive civil servants, as displayed by the relations between Dowa Kingdom and ACCA. But Pastis was a peculiar fellow, falling somewhere in-between. Despite his views being mostly congruent with the other Suitsu patricians, his involvement with ACCA was enough to warrant vilification. Strangely enough, their strategy to remove Pastis from the picture was to ship him to ACCA HQ as a Chief Officer. It’s confusing at first, but Suitsu’s isolationist politics mean that Pastis will have no leverage while stationed in Badon. But there’s a natural order to things, which means Pastis would be appointed to Branch Director and then expediently upgraded to Chief Officer before he could leave his mark. It didn’t take long for Warbler to see how incredibly farcical the Suitsu administration was. This was the reality of his situation. This was the system Biscuit and the revolutionaries were fighting to change.
Compared to Spade’s gamble and Suitsu’s exile of Pastis, Pine’s path to Chief Officer was rather ordinary. No underhanded tactics or coercion, Pine earned his spot through stand-out test scores and his contributions to ACCA; he is easily the most well-equipped candidate to be a Chief Officer. This chapter instead focuses on the relationship between Pine and his right-hand man, Police Chief Mahogany. The two were acquaintances since childhood, their relationship best described as a friendly rivalry. But Mahogany had always lived in Pine’s shadow. Despite being the child of one of Jumoku’s most distinguished families, Mahogany was always chasing Pine’s coattails. He carried that cynicism with him throughout his life, but it never deterred him. When Pine said he was going to work at ACCA, Mahogany followed suit. And now, Pine was set to become a Chief Officer. Mahogany believed their rivalry was finally over, Pine had won. But Pine didn’t see it that way. Their battle was far from over.
Mahogany was set to become Branch Director, and beyond that was the top spot as District Governor. That’s when their competition would truly begin. And besides, their personal rivalry would be the least of their worries. ACCA was about to undergo massive changes. Aside from Spade, who was the first new Chief Officer, the other four would be replaced all at once. And two of them were from Suitsu and Furawau, the least cooperative districts in all of ACCA. The road ahead was going to be tough and Pine needed Mahogany’s help to keep things in check.
The final chapter is a proverbial calm before the storm, but it opens with Grossular amidst an actual storm. Days before the Chief Officer ceremony in Badon, Grossular spends his last days in Rokkusu, contemplating the hardships that await him at the capitol. A wind rolls through the arid district like a bad omen. But Grossular was not dissuaded by the storm. It wasn’t telling him to stay in Rokkusu, it was more so a warning of what’s to come. Grossular was afraid of that unknown, but it was his burden to bear as a Chief Officer.
P.S. has been building to this moment – the initial meeting of the five Chief Officers. And there’s not a more fitting place than the Badon airport, a convergence of the nation’s diverse populace. This was a historic moment for ACCA, not only due to a complete roster swap but also the way in which the Chief Officers would conduct business compared to their predecessors. The old guard was completely individualistic, openly favoring legislation for their home districts. They were the opposite of what ACCA was supposed to represent. And from the outside, the new Chief Officers seemed to follow that pattern. They were an idiosyncratic bunch, each with different backgrounds, philosophies, and goals. Even the drinks they ordered and the cups they drank from were representative of their disparities.
But the difference between them and their precursors was a willingness to reach across the aisle. This is best represented in the meeting between Pastis and Pine. They stood at opposing ends of the spectrum – Pine was the poster boy of modernity, whereas Pastis was a walking caricature of traditionalism. Pastis was experiencing culture shock in Badon, unfamiliar with contemporary luxuries like airplanes, television, and bottled water. Despite that, Pine reached out his hand to the unacquainted Pastis, and he in-turn accepted his gesture. The five Officers may come from completely different worlds, but it’s that diversity that would give them perspective. The old Chief Officers never gathered like this. The congregation of these five – Spade, Pastis, Pine, Grossular, and Lilium – was a sign of changing times. Just as Grossular had feared, that storm he felt in Rokkusu was a sign of this very day, a wind that rolled through Badon the day the Five Chief Officers assembled.
In Summary:
P.S. Volume One provides a succinct origin story for ACCA’s head honchos. Within the confines of a chapter apiece, characters like Spade, Pastis, and Pine were given a wealth of characterization, laying out the groundwork for their role in ACCA’s main plot. Natsume Ono authored a well-rounded story within ACCA: 13 Territory Inspection Department, and P.S. elegantly enriches that narrative with a behind-the-scenes glance at where it all began.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 6th, 2020
MSRP: $15.00 (paperback) / $6.99 (digital)
