Another day, another set of grizzly murders in MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 7. And, the best person to get on the case is, obviously not the police, but psychopath Kumori Kuroko and her sidekick Tozakura Hinako. This time, they are bringing back some old friends and bringing in some new ones to build their team.

Due to a slight misunderstanding by Hinako, Kuroko believes Chiyo no longer cares about her, so she’s more than ready to take it out on someone else. Hinako develops two exciting new obsessions, we get a bunch of bombs from Minako, the high-school bomb maker, Narumi (formerly Teresa) drops off a few helping items and we meet Urara, a former cage fighter, now bartender, who will be providing us with some extra large muscles.

I want to be ever so slightly critical of this volume. The “Sakura pruning” group’s name in Japanese begins with “Tozakura” which is also Hinako’s family name. She is not, as the localizers chose, seeing “Hinako” painted around town. She is seeing “Tozakura” which is both extremely creepy and a lot more mysterious. It would not make sense for the “Sakura Pruning Group” to be painting “Hinako” around the the town. “Tozakura” does make sense.

Other than that one comment, this volume is spot on from what I want from a volume of MURCIÉLAGO – grotesque deaths, grotesque lesbian sex and Hinako’s weird obsessions, now including beetles and banchou capes.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 10
Yuri – 9 

Overall – 8

And Kuroko gets to have lesbian sex with a prostitute. That’s always fun.