By Volume 9 of MURCIÉLAGO (ムルシエラゴ), one might expect the schtick to be getting a little tired. I mean, murderous bad guy, extreme violence, blah blah blah. But..nope. ^_^

The arc with the war-era group of crazy nationalists comes to an end with a strange connection to Hinako. But it comes to an end. And, as the final battle is occurring in the sewers below the city, a new/old character is handing herself over to the police. Aiko returns to us from an earlier arc and with her -at last – there is someone who is not Kuroko to care for former serial killer Ringo. In fact, Ringo and Aiko make a great team, as we see later in the volume.

To celebrate wrapping up the case, Hinako demands a beach vacation, where she and Ringo fish and swim and *finally*, moved to action by the return of another character from a former arc, Chiyo admits she desires Kuroko. While the gang fishes with the-woman-formerly-known-as-Teresa, Narumi, Chiyo gets to enjoy Kuroko’s freakishly long forked tongue.

And then the robot lands in a ball of fire.

Mad scientist Saki is being tailed by another mad scientist and Hinako gets to be a pilot in a giant robot fight! It was awesome.

The whole volume was pretty great. Entire buildings are destroyed, but only a few people we didn’t like anyway die and Hinako gets to pilot a giant robot.

Ratings:

Art – Um…
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Service – 9
Yuri – 9, but really more for Chiyo cluing in than the sex which was um….

Overall – 9 Probably my favorite volume since the Virginal Rose arc and much less gruesome.

It wraps up with a oh-so-ironic story about incestuous sisters that I will now forget completely.

I’m sorry to say that in MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 8 (ムルシエラゴ), no one dies. Well, no one we care about, anyway. In fact, a lot of people die.  A whole army of nameless cannon fodder.  But since we don’t care about them, it’s like no one dies.

Kuroko and the team are still looking to find the new/old terrorist group that appears to be assassinating people for reasons that kind of made sense 70 years ago, but now appear to be petty. While Kuroko and Hinako track the ringleader through the subway, unleashing Ringo for some light murder practice, Reiko, the sexy sniper of the second arc of the series makes a reappearance.

A chunk of the book is given over to Reiko’s rooftop battle with a muscle-bound sniper which she, predictably, wins.

Ringo does not not manage to kill terrorist second-in-command Shizuka, when beefy, scared bartender Kokoro, stopped the fight before it becomes fatal. In return Shizuka promises to tell Ringo about her psycho father, the Skin Collector.

While everyone takes on the terrorist cell forces, Kuroko and Hinako take on the cell leader and we’re left with the creepiest feeling that all of this somehow relates to Hinako.

In a short flashback, we get to see a young Hinako and something we thought, but never expected to have confirmed is confirmed, at last. Hinako is very broken.

The epilogue follows a young lady whom Reiko saved in an earlier arc taking a visit to the sniper, and cuts off as the lights go down on them kissing. I’m very happy for Reiko….and for us. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 5
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

MURCIÉLAGO is messy and gross and violent and gay. There are no good guys here. I like it so much.

MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 7 (ムルシエラゴ) by Yoshimura Kana is both vile and creative, which is impressive in it’s own way.

In between coming up with a new arc about psychopaths who kill the innocent in creative and repulsive ways (which, again, is kind of impressive….) we  revisit some of our favorite psychopaths from previous arcs – notably Yukari, the assassin maid,  one of the of the students from Virginal Rose, Ariana, now going by her given name, Sayaka, and Minako, the bomb-building schoolgirl with her formerly-popular classmate, now her personal slave, Furi.

Hinako really gets a chance to fly her freak flag in this volume. If, for even a second, you thought that Hinako wasn’t a complete nutter, this volume would disabuse you of the notion. She inappropriately obsesses over horned beetles and banchou capes all volume

After an episode full of heads exploding and faces cut off, Kuroko enjoys some relatively anonymous sex with a random teen prostitute.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

Also, they fight a WWII-era guild of killer psychopaths.

In Volume 6 of MURCIÉLAGO there was a lot of violence and a lot of lesbian sex, but none of it was particularly appealing, even to me. ^_^

Someone is setting off bombs in a school. Kuroko shows up as a “detective” investigating the crimes, and the rest of the gang masquerade as students. A student who has been bullied by classmates, including the girl she thought loved her, finds extremely ugly retribution when the bullies are beaten to death with baseball bats. Minako (the bullied girl) and her lover are quite likely off to a good start as serial killers themselves. The team uncovers the identity of the bomber, Hinako finds the bomb, the teacher who is doing the bombing is killed and Ringo gets a little light skinning corpses in for practice.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 4
Service/Guro – 100000
Yuri – 8 Kuroko is very gay, so is Minako

Overall – 6

Just to be clear, this is a very light-hearted retelling of what was a really awful volume. ^_^ NOT good for bedtime reading.