In Volume 6 of Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, what was always implicit becomes finally explicit.
As Angela, Meg and their allies face the evil, insane and powerful Gilles de Rais, and find that their own power comes up short against his, he raises the issue that has been the leitmotif of this entire series. Killing the living, raising the dead and stealing souls, he attests, is not for personal power. No, he commits heinous acts of brutality for *love.*
It will come as no suprise that this fails to convince Angela to sympathize, but it brings up the obvious. De Rais asks Angela if she has anyone to love – truly love – give up her life for love. Well duh, dude.
The final acts play out exactly as one expects. The good guys peel off one at a time to fight the bad guys, so we can be sad at our losses and the final confrontation has reversals and lots of screaming and blood and severed limbs. And, the ultimate sacrifice, as Angela gives up everything to keep Meg at her side.
In the final pages, Angela and Meg get to acknowledge in death (or undeath) what they could not in life and their love, which was always the unstated obvious is now, at last, just obvious.
And no one lives happily ever after.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 8
Overall – 7
For a manga that was built around loli and guro among other things that aren’t my schtick, it had a pretty decent ending.
Once more it is my great pleasure to thank Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsoring today’s review! This volume was the best of the series, I think. ^_^
That doesn’t exactly sound like a happy ending, but now that I know this actually has substantive Yuri, I might pick it up. Reading what you wrote about it reminded me of Devil Lady, but Tetragrammaton surely can’t have THAT level of enthusiasm for torturing its characters…can it? -_-
@Cryssoberyl – It’s not quite the same kind of horror, but it is guro, so expect many limbless lolis and blood and some emotional torture. It’s not a pretty story, and not nearly as well executed Devil Lady. I wouldn’t compare the one to the other, myself, as Nagai is a deranged genius and Itou is not, but taken for itself, it’s fine.
So everyone dies, right? That’s what I thought when I got to the end. And if that’s true I would imagine that Meg and Angela “went on to a better place” and such. I don’t know but I guess I got the impression that they earned their happy ending.