Moon Child 9

We get another big helping of plot development in this volume, but it doesn’t involve a lot of characters like the last volume did, just Art and Jimmy.  We finally get the progress I’ve been missing for the past several volumes, ie Art finally opens his damn eyes.

Art doesn’t take things in because he wants to, though.  Jimmy has to tell him what’s going on, and Art doesn’t actually believe it until Jimmy basically uses his powers blatantly in front of Art several times.  The first time was actually kind of violent and disturbing in the context of the series, especially since I don’t like to imagine Jimmy hurting anybody.  It worked well, because Art was thoroughly disturbed by exploding cameras as well.

There’s more disturbing things later, when Art compares Jimmy to a dog he had that bit people and he had to put to sleep as a kid.  This was one really one of the most bizarre and upsetting conclusions Art could have possibly come to, and I can’t say there are many series that would have the main love interest consider putting the other to sleep like a dog.  He doesn’t go about things in a way you would imagine though, and he tries to put an end to the danger in a really dramatic and over-the-top (but beautifully shoujo) manga way.  This was easily one of the best scenes in the entire series so far, and it got across a lot of character emotion that… well, that most other series lack.  You just don’t see a lot of other characters that do what Art did, for the reasons he did it.  He’s a really well-written character.

What else… well, we finally get around to the Benjamin business.  For awhile, Jimmy could only be Jimmy if Shonach gave him a kiss to change back from Benjamin.  I like Jimmy better, but it seems like Benjamin may be around to stay.  Art doesn’t really like it, and Holly HATES Benjamin.  After Benjamin does something extremely Jimmy-like that’s just… not right in the body of a full-grown woman, Holly throws both her and Art out of her place.

Some feelings are left unresolved between Benjamin and Art (I don’t think Art really believes that Benjamin and Jimmy are the same person, still), but the reason I’m dying for the next volume at the moment has more to do with Shonach and Seth.  It cut away from a kiss between the two that makes me wonder if maybe Seth can transform into a female as well.  I would like that quite a bit, actually, even though it wouldn’t make very much sense given what’s been stated so far.  Although… the two women who had been taking care of Jimmy, Teruto, and Seth were very woman-y and not the white-suit-wearing genderless people that the three boy-looking mermaids seem to be now, so maybe Teruto and Seth do have the ability to transform into females, sterile females, after they… I don’t know, hit puberty?