Slightly Biased Manga

…and with this volume, we come back around and hit where I joined the series. This is probably the only series I jumped into several volumes in, and that was because I saw it in a bookstore. Let me tell you, the novelty of seeing manga in a bookstore was enough for me to buy volume x in the series without reading the others (at the time, “Terrible Master Urd” may have been the 6th volume, but it’s hard to tell with this series). The trip down memory lane after reading this volume took an entire week and a half, as you can see.

Actually, that was just a combination of the new Harvest Moon game and a business trip to Atlanta. Things should be back on schedule now.

Anyway. There are stories in here which are not Terrible Master Urd, but that one trumps them, so it’s hard to remember. The first story deals with Mara and her trying to use some octopi booster demons that wind up living with K1 and his fellow goddesses through a fubar from Urd. It eventually turns into one demon which is huge and named “Sudaru.” I don’t think he actually exists later in the series, but I could be wrong. That story was kind of weird just because the octopi were kind of weird.

And yeah, somehow I forgot about the first appearance of Skuld. Her introduction still doesn’t quite make sense to me, but that may be because I read this part much later and the rabbit-bugs aren’t used later in the series so it was hard for me to wrap my head around what they were talking about. They way they work is explained in rather copious detail. There’s a really weird love scene at the end that lasts about three seconds where the possibility of Bell and Keiichi parting stands. It felt kind of forced and uncomfortable, but I suppose that’s still the way those romance-y things are handled.

Then! Terrible Master Urd! Full powers of the goddesses are unleashed! The wrath of the Almighty threatens to come down! The ultimate demonic power is perhaps on hand! Is it actually Urd? These things are all still exciting. I still like it when Belldandy breaks her seal, and I’ve probably read Terrible Master Urd about 500 times since I only had ten volumes of manga for awhile that I read over and over again.

What I also like about these early volume rereleases are the 4-panel strips that are sprinkled throughout. They’re awesome, and often feature really inexplicably hilarious mundane things, like deformed mini-Urds, eating desiccant, and gifts of worms.