Hoshin Engi 8

My main problem with this series is my total inability to keep track of the characters. Luckily, the back of the volume lays out the entire plot up to this point, all the important characters, their relationships to one another, and why all the enemies are fighting against Taikobo, since Dakki is really the only “evil” one. This is extremely useful, and I wish I had known about it before I started the volume. It will serve me well as a cheat sheet while I read the rest of the series.

Aside from trying to keep the characters straight, my other problem is apparently the time frame. Obviously I don’t really care about the months and months between events, like traveling from one country to another, building a fort, etc, but I was surprised when Fujisaki mentioned in the beginning that several years had passed since the start of the story. It’s not really that important since time doesn’t even seem to affect the humans, but I wish it was noted somewhere.

We get the end of the battle with the Maka Yonsho, which involves mostly side characters and not a lot of Taikobo. The Maka Yonsho do have a few tricks up their sleeves, particularly their pretty awesome and short-lived final transformation, but the battle was mostly underwhelming. The meat of the story is mostly in the fact that Zhou is actively declaring war on Yin, and Taikobo is using all the available humans as an invading force.

Bunchu doesn’t agree with this since he sees their fight as a battle between Sennin and Doshi of Mount Kongrong and the Kingo Islands, and is trying for a final solution that will wipe out all the magical beings with the strongest of the Kingo Islands. This is still in the works, but it looks like the two human armies may come up against one another very, very soon.

There is a single doshi fighting against Taikobo et al at their new fort as of the end of the volume. I’m… I’m not sure where this fight is going, because someone came from Kongrong in the middle and the opponent’s daughter proposed and… weird stuff happened.

I don’t know. I think my enthusiasm for this series burned out a long time ago. It’s not bad though, which is enough reason for me to keep reading, I guess. Taikobo is actually a great character too, but sadly there was not nearly enough of him in this volume. Maybe next time.