Hey all, Sam here.
With Fan Expo Cleveland finished, things are settling down for us for a little while…at least until August when we go to Gen Con and then September is Cincinnati Comic Expo. But I think 3 conventions is a lot more manageable than the…like 20 or so we did last year (I’d have to count to get a perfectly accurate number on that).
After the show floor closed yesterday, we got the table packed up and then the cars loaded, and were on the road back home by 6:30, which was pretty great. David and I made it about halfway home before stopping for the night in a hotel, and our friend Sarah made it all the way home. David and I will probably be home by the time this post goes live, and I will be giving so much attention to our cats…particularly Luna because she has been through an ordeal and I’m just so relieved that she’s home. But I want to give her an inspection and make sure she didn’t get hurt or anything.
Anyway, welcome back to another Manga Monday. Today’s volume is one I borrowed from the Ohio Digital Library, which is a fantastic resource for borrowing things, that I have used quite a bit in my life…especially since my Ohio Library Card is still active. There are a lot of libraries that are part of a digital consortium, and you can gain access to a number of ebooks, audiobooks, and digital manga and graphic novels. If you haven’t checked out your own library to see if you have a digital collection, I recommend checking it out. Most use reading apps such as Libby for borrowing and returning the digital materials. It’s pretty great.
So, I guess, let’s just jump into the review.
It’s A Showdown!
Four of the Sins have been reunited and it feels almost so good. Entering a fighting tournament where the grand prize is Diane’s weapon, the unthinkable happens when the Sins and Holy Knights clash on stage! But who is the other faction of Holy Knights, dubbed the “New Generation”, and what could this monstrous group of demon-like knights be planning?
My Thoughts
Rating: 4 stars
This volume is a whole lot of action, which is why I didn’t rate it as highly as the last couple of volumes. So the group we’ve been following, which now includes Meliodas, Diane, Ban, and King (plus Elizabeth and Hawk) have made it to a town that has an annual fighting tournament, a no holds barred sort of thing, so long as you don’t use weapons. And one of the prizes, aside from a nice bit of money, is Diane’s Sacred Weapon, a giant hammer that isn’t able to be wielded by normal folks.
Diane stays back with Elizabeth at the traveling tavern, and the guys head into town and decide to enter the tournament. Here we also find that a couple of Holy Knights are also in the area and signed up for the tournament, so the group needs to be careful. Ban gives them all fake names, which are barely a disguise.
We see some pretty decent battles, such as Diane (in disguise as Matrona) versus a Holy Knight, and then King’s fight against Cain, and then most of the volume follows the Ban and Meliodas fight…which was massively intense.
I’ve said it before in previous manga reviews, but I’ll mention it again here. I always struggle with the action packed sequences because I find them difficult to follow. The only reason I was mostly okay with this one is because I had already watched these episodes in the anime, and so I could visualize the fights better.
When this volume ends, we’ve completed the preliminary round of fighting and have moved on to the semifinals…with Diane facing Howzer, a Holy Knight. We are mid-fight when the volume ends, so it leaves you wondering how the fight resolves. And since I’ve already watched this, I know how it ends, but it will still be nice to read it when I get to the next volume.
Oh, there’s also a bonus chapter, which gives us more information on Holy Knight Guila, which is pretty interesting.
Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content…like a proper Tabletop Tuesday tomorrow. It’s the post that was supposed to go up last week, and I’m excited to share it with all of you.
Free State of Geek 