   |
Author: Kyo Shirodaira
Manga-ka: Eita Mizuno
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Teen (13+)
Released: July 2008
Synopsis: “When Hiyono turns the tables on Rio and Kousuke and demands a rematch for Ayumu, she ends up getting kidnapped! However, it looks like there’ll be a rematch after all. In exchange for his trusty information dealer, Ayumu must hand over Hiyono’s hard evidence against the Blade Children… in one of Rio’s devilish games! Will Ayumu’s pride be his downfall?”
The secrets of the Blade Children unravel one chapter at a time with new mysteries, and even more sinister plots hiding around every corner. Ayumu Narumi, his self appointed side kick and the school journalist, Hiyono Yuizaki, have a lot of work ahead of them if they’re going to make it to the end of this dangerous road alive.
It feels like a lot of things are coming together in volume four, but when it’s over, and you’re still hanging, you realize it’s not. Even though Narumi lost to Rio at the end of the last volume, he manages to pull himself together and get back on track, which angers and frustrates her to no end. The game continues, but the stakes are higher, and no one is going to be holding back. Every second counts in this battle of wits because when it’s over only the victor will be left standing.
After reading this volume, I’ve started to think that maybe I read to much manhwa because I keep being impressed by how consistently proportionate the characters are. Everything in the right place, clean cut and easy to follow, which is usually nothing new to the manga reader. Their hair is also awesome, particularly Narumi’s, and heck they even change their clothes once in a while. I would like to know whose idea it was to use different font when someone is saying something in a cute tone of voice. Whoever you are, you are a freakin’ genius and you picked the absolute best font for the job. You need to see it to understand but it’s perfect. Generally the look of Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning, right down to the font, is pretty great in my opinion.
The story in short, is slow moving. They talk too much. Talk talk talk, you get tired of it after a while. All this talking about why one guy knows the other guy would make this move, but the other guy knew that the first guy knew he would make that move and this is why he made it anyway. Bla bla bla bla. It almost got to a point where I wanted someone to whip out a gun and start offing innocent people just so that something of substance would happen. Thank goodness I didn’t get to that point, because just as I was about to get there, all the characters put their game faces on. After talking and plotting for half a volume, the other half was thankfully full of blissful doing. It quickly went from being a sleep inducer to a page-turner in a matter of sentences as they moved out of that one hospital room and began putting their plots into action.
All in all, even though the story moves slowly, it’s still good. If you were a fan of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or the less popular Encyclopedia Brown (like me) then this series could very well be for you. On the other hand, if you’ve never heard of those books before then I would simply classify this series as mystery. He’s a boy detective on a mission facing stronger and more frightening adversaries with his awesome powers of deduction. It’s enchanting, amusing, and occasionally funny which in my books makes it full of win.
Review written October 27, 2008 by Kagami Han’ei.
Book provided by Yen Press for review purposes
Follow
