The story of Emperor, the castle and Ewan continue with more dangers and plots in this second volume of the story. If you missed my review of volume 1, check it out here.
Review:
I’m just going to say that covers that give away major plot developments need to seriously be banned. Not that it wasn’t blindingly obvious where that final arc was going and what needed to happen for Ewan to not be dead by the end of Volume 2, but it would be nice to pretend there was some sense of mystery going on here.
That said, much like volume 1, this is a pretty compelling read. It continues to go through a lot of the standard cliches with the traps and dangers the characters are facing, and even the antagonism within the group is all pretty expected, and yet it plays true to it’s story and it works. Ewan’s interactions with the rest of the characters always seem genuine, even if a little bit twee, and at times there definitely seems to be real danger faced by these characters, though so far the story itself hasn’t actually committed to really dealing out permanent damage (certainly small injuries and the illusion of life threatening without actually letting the story get that dark).
But if you can swallow a heart-to-heart conversation between a guy with a dislocated shoulder who is hanging off a ledge and another guy who is trying to hold his weight, a treasure that more or less confirms what we already suspected, and the inevitable betrayal from someone within the group who is going to kill someone for the good of the country (I always love that line because it just sounds so pretentious), then what you will end up with is a really gripping tale. The characters are more fleshed out in this volume and there’s still plenty of growth potential.
I actually finished this some time ago so I’ve already got the next volume waiting to be read. My biggest issue with this is because it is a manga, I read the entire thing in less than an hour so the cost to time entertained ratio is not quite working out. Even with discounts, the average cost of one of these is the same as a cheap movie ticket so I’d kind of want two to three hours entertainment. That said, I did re-read volume one right before starting volume 2 and I think I’ll read through the two previous volumes again before I finally get to volume 3 so maybe the cost will work out. And that probably explains why I’m not that into manga. It’s just too expensive for the incredibly short read time regardless of how compelling the story might be.
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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That’s my problem with manga, too. I read it so quickly that it gets expensive unless it’s coming from the limited selection in my local library system. This title seems interesting, though. I might have to check it out regardless!
I’m glad I read this and at least it was only four volumes and the whole story concluded. That at least makes it a bit better than some series in terms of cost.