Menou, trained as a priestess and an executioner, is vehemently not interested in having her worldview altered, but in The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 4: Crimson Nightmare there is no way around it. Her assistant Momo has kidnapped her target Akari and she is angry at both of them for a lot of reasons. She’s conflicted about killing Akari, a task she knows she must do, but wishes she did not have to.

And then a previous antagonist, Manon Libelle, and a part of a Human Error with the Pure Concept Evil, reveal to Menou some of the truth of the world. It’s enough to ruin anyone’s day, really.

This volume is emotionally rough on Menou, even as relatively little happens. Slowly, carefully she – and we – are starting to see how sincerely fucked up her world is and how the truths by which she lives are, and have always been perversions of the truth – at best.

The climax of this series is dead ahead and everyone here  is running towards it full steam. Otherworlder Akari knows what  awaits them, but she’s still trying to change the outcome, Momo is resisting being a decent person, and Menou is heading right into the same outcome she’s run into over and over. It’s inevitable….only, it’s not because I presume this series will have to end eventually. ^_^

Murder, mayhem and unhappy endings all around or do they snap the axle at the center of this grindstone and break the world? This volume has many arguments for either, or both. It ends up being a pretty solid set-up for whatever is coming next. Except for the new character which actually feels like “I inserted a man, because men were not in this story and without men, men readers cannot man.” I’m not being facetious. Suddenly, this guy is here and he’s SUPER important and mildly creepy in a sad, lonely way, but also says and does nothing of importance. He mans.

What I really admire is the way this novel leans in to describing 1) things its already described, like the social classes in this world and the magic in this series – of which, let me remind you, we are in Volume 4. We know. And; 2) utterly banal Japanese things that any Japanese reader would know, but here is treated as alien. Manon is in a Otherworldly room….so they actually describe a Japanese room. I mean… what? Did anyone need this? Was it a word count thing?  But the author is committed and therefore, so are we.

Jenny McKeon’s translation here is really doing double time making this book readable. And making Momo both intolerable and tolerable at the same time. If Yen credited the editor, I’d give them  a shoutout, as well, because the readability of this volume is upped from previous volumes. Maybe they are all getting used to the patter? Another solid effort from the team at Yen.

And even with the man manning and a multiple discussions of how much Japanese people like hot springs, it’s not a bad book for setting up for what surely will be the climax in the next novel or two. Mato Sato is having fun making stone soup out of disparate plot elements and isn’t going to rush for you. ^_^

Ratings:

Art -Always the weakest part of this series. It illustrates nothing, not particularly well.
Story – The tension built slowly over the volume. It really feels like something major is going to happen.
Characters – Finally, /spoiler/ shows up.
Service – It tries so hard, but it doesn’t really succeed. You can’t just “say” something is sexy and make us guess at it
Yuri – As much here as has been, with a little extra Yuri on the side, care of Manon.

Overall – 7? 8? It’s going to depend on if this was worth it.

I hope this series has a strong end. Not for any particular reason, I just do.

Many, many thanks to Yen Press for the review copy! I wish you’d list the folks that worked on it. ^_^