Slightly Biased Manga

…Man.  I almost quit when I got to the part where Ginji defeated his enemy by convincing him not to fight.  That part was so goddamn lame I don’t even have the words.  The rest of the volume isn’t too fantastic either.

Mostly this is just fight after fight after fight after fight between different characters in different places.  We do get an explanation as to what’s up with Amon Natsuki and why the two clans are fighting, but other than that it feels like the plot doesn’t advance AT ALL.  I mean, obviously several opponents are defeated, so everyone’s that much closer to… whatever the hell it is they’re going to do here, but other than completing several battles, nothing happens and nobody meets up with one another.  In fact, several characters split up, thus ensuring things will take even longer since they have to meet back again.

So Himeko fights alone versus a butterfly woman who uses poison powders like she does.  Akabane fights against one of the bosses he knew from when he was the real Dr. Jackal, saving lives and everything.  Ginji fights… okay, Ginji doesn’t even fight, he just gets scared, then somehow “finds his power” and easily convinces his opponent that killing is bad.  Except he doesn’t really find any power, or not anything terribly obvious.  Ban fights one of the other bosses, and his battle is actually the only one that was remotely cool.  Well, Akabane’s was kind of cool since we got the barest hints of his background, but a lot of the time I couldn’t really tell what was going on because the art isn’t very clear during these action scenes for some reason.  Also, there’s a battle at the very beginning between a couple of the Insect bosses that involves Himeko, Ban, and the Observer.  Amon and the whip guy are shown still mired in battle, but that’s just more to let you know they’re still around since they don’t really get their own chapter this time around.

Mmm.  I don’t think I’m missing anything.  If you’re reading this series, feel free to skip right over this volume.  I’m sure the only important bit of information (what’s up with Amon Natsuki) will be immediately apparent when events start moving forward again.