I’ve gotta say, I’m really enjoying seeing things fleshed out more in these recent volumes. I think focusing more on White and the rest of the Demon Lord party instead of hopping from the spider story to the human story and back again really allows for more character development to occur. We get to see Sophia, as well as Ariel, the Demon Lord herself, and of course White grow.
Sophia I think, is one of the more interesting of the bunch. She has so much she;s dealing with, not only from her past life, but the current one as well: she was bullied and ridiculed daily back in her past life, and in this one, she’s had basically her entire world ripped from her, apart from Mera. To see how that affects how…it’s tough. Not to mention how her upbringing might not have been the best, though I suppose nature vs nurture could also be looked at here. We know how she ends up due to the “S” stories about the other incarnations, but seeing how she ends up the way she does is wild. Being raised by White, Ariel and Mera turns out to be quite the combo it seems.
Speaking of White, with her now being a god and having a fully human form, her life is tougher than ever. And that’s saying something! She’s spent most of her life in fear of death, always on the verge of being killed, and now she’s back to living like that. She isn’t able to even be on her feet long enough to walk down a long road without succumbing to exhaustion, which is a far cry from her being able to outrun enemies dead set on killing her. It’s such a surreal thing to see: A nigh invincible monster that goes from being able to defeat most of her enemies with no effort, to not being able to even walk for an extended amount of time. let alone fight. Even little Sophia is able to do more than her.
I honestly never thought the day would come where she was so underpowered!
Aside from White’s trials as a weakling, we get to see more of the behind the scenes things happening with a younger Ms. Oka, and her quest to gather the reincarnations, the battles between the adventures and the “antagonist” of this Volume. Funny thing is, that antagonist, and I do say that very loosely, is one of those reincarnations: Sasajima Kyouya, the Oni that’s been wreaking havoc this Volume. You can’t help but feel for him the more you learn about his situation and the life he’s lived. I’m interested to learn how things pan out from here with how things wrapped up…