In Volume 4, we left everyone in this series rushing towards “The Holy Land,” about which we have been told very little. In The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 5: The Promised Land, we are convinced that this is because there is very little to say about it. It is small, white, has no hotels or restaurants, just some churches that may house pilgrims and is, in every sense of the word…a complete flim flam. The Holy Land is a distraction to hide the two secrets of this world.
Nonetheless, everyone in this story has arrived at the Holy Land. And, dull as it is, it is playing host to the prelude to the climax of this series. A climax that has not so much as been hinted as as, well, basically the narrative has giant pointing fingers, in case you didn’t pick up on things.
Menou has a first round against her master, Flare. More than one Human Error is involved in this volume and by the end, and in the middle of the hurley and burley, Momo’s scenes were the most interesting. Because this volume was mostly focused on reveals of things that were fairly obvious, the only thing I demanded of the story was that one of the priestesses, Hooseyard, be alive by the end. Killing her off would have been been like killing a dog – unacceptable collateral damage. The only spoiler I will give you is that Hooseyard lives. At least this time.
There are no more secrets now. The next volume will have to wrap this arc up, or it will be annoying. ^_^
As with previous volumes, Mato Sato spends a lot of time re-describing things already described and, as previously mentioned, the Holy Land is very dull, so details tend to sort of fade into the word count. I did very much like the extended scene in which Flare lit and smoked a cigarette merely to irritate herself. That’s some dedication to purgatorial description.
nilitsu’s art is much less mannerist in this volume, which is kind of nice. Jenny McKeon does her absolute best with the translation, props to her wading through a lot of simplistic declarative phrases.
Ratings:
Art – 5
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Service – Implied more than actual, but lingering on the edges
Yuri – Akari loves Menou, Momo loves Menou…
Overall – 7
All the pieces are on the board, all of us know who is where, and what they can do. It remains to be seen what the author envisions as the grand finale. I know what *I* envision it as, we’ll see if there is any overlap. ^_^ And whether, in the end, this is indeed, Yuri.
