After a dramatic confrontation with his mother, Ko is back to school and ready for the school trip. Except it’s not just Ko, no, it’s Ko & Co in tow, y’know? Also they’re walking into a trap, but that doesn’t rhyme.
Ko’s mom is amazing and I love her. She may be a hostess, which is one of the most cliché manga professions ever, but the promised throwdown that closed off the last volume is anything but.
Instead, we get a parent who has one thing that many lack - recognizance. Kids are going to do dumb things no matter how much you try otherwise and sometimes you just have to be there for them.
There’s zero question that Ko’s mom wants the best for him - she nudges him to take the class trip even as she doesn’t give him any crap for skipping school. But she skipped school herself and she knows she has no room to talk, so she just makes sure he knows he’s loved. It’s kind of amazing.
Then we get a really fun chapter for Akira, who remains at school and mostly alone until she starts to hang with Sakura, the girl Ko rejected earlier in the series. I like how Akira is almost as alienated as everybody else, just with less vampires, and slightly better adjusted.
It all seems great, except then Mahiru shows up and he’s skipping town to the place they just happen to be going to for the school trip and it’s a stark reminder that nothing about this phase of the manga is terribly interesting.
Put more plainly, there is pretty much zero chance that I’d still be reading this if it wasn’t for the incredible affection I have for the first few volumes of the series before it all went action dumb. I dearly miss the cadre of lady vampires picking on Ko and Nazuna.
Still, adding the class aspect to things does make for a bit of a change to the dynamic and I like Ko having to reckon with both his decisions and his persona that he was wearing that whole time. The big panel of him showing up for class is brilliant.
I just wish it was in service to something I cared more about. The vampire posse, Nazuna’s weakness, the glamour aspect, it’s all piled into a big stew that doesn’t hold a candle to the thoughtful sort-of romance it started as.
Of course, what’s here is pretty good and more than enough to keep my attention and if I’m getting the character beats that I craved then I should probably just accept it. Which I would if it didn’t annoy me when series did this.
3.5 stars - it’s an above average instalment of a very average action series that keeps taking up all the space in the character drama I loved. I think I’ll see this to the end, but dang do I wish it was still moody and sullen.