Translated by Stephen Kohler
174 pages
Published 2021 (English translation published 2022)
Read from August 5 to August 6
Rating: 4 (maybe 4.5) out of 5
If Shirahama’s artwork felt less ambitious in Volume 8, she more than makes up for it here. Right from the first sequence of Chapter 46, which transitions from a storybook of old legends into Coco and friends’ arrival in the city of Ezrest, and then visualizes the girls' explorations of the city as a board game, this tankōbon is full of clever, creative, and downright gorgeous uses of art to tell (and to augment) the story.
Also, the thematic table-setting in Volume 8 pays off here, as the conflict between helping people with magic, and keeping magic tightly guarded for fear of its abuse in the wrong hands, makes for an explosive emotional crisis. Shirahama does an excellent job at portraying what’s at stake, both for the hardline magic cops (and why they do what they do) as well as the ordinary people who have been deprived of magic by fiat, after horrors committed centuries before.
It’s damn fine storytelling, possibly my favorite tankōbon from this series so far.
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