Hoshin Engi 12

I like having more than one volume of this series to read at once.  It’s good, but the plot is so massive and the cast is so vast that the amount of time it takes me to get my bearings is better spent when I can keep them for at least one more volume.  I’ll probably read 13 tonight.

This volume didn’t have that many characters in it, and was actually just a fight between Taikobo and Chokomei.  Well, the first couple chapters featured a fight between Taikobo and Chokomei’s horrible sisters, but they were dispatched pretty easily, so the meat of the volume was Chokomei.  Chokomei is actually an awesome character, and I was pretty excited when Taikobo admitted he would have to fight him seriously.  Taikobo is powerful, but he doesn’t really go all-out in this battle since most of his efforts go to protecting Supushan.

Now when I say Chokomei is awesome, it’s because he does things like this.   In the middle of the volume, he declares Taikobo dead.  It’s easy to tell when someone has died in this series because of the whole Hoshindai business.  This happens.  I know it wasn’t… you know, a true thing, because not only did this happen in the middle of a volume, but this is only, like, halfway through the series.  Chokomei and everyone else thought it was a true thing though, and he celebrates by rolling end credits, making an epic end sequence, and declaring the series over.  The last panel of this chapter features… a preview, drawn in a completely different style, for “National Ennui Academy.”  This panel looks exactly like a preview for a new series, including advertising Shounen Jump magazine’s street date, saying that it would replace Hoshin Engi next week, and that “the time is right for this gem of a sports manga!”  This would be a fine thing, except the next chapter continues the joke by running “National Ennui Academy” for several pages.  It starts out with a title page where the small type introduces the main character as a replacement for Taikobo, then the story gets underway with a new transfer student running late with toast in his mouth (!!!) and getting attacked by a girlfriend/childhood friend and a romantic rival for her on his way to school.  Then the characters of Hoshin Engi cut it off and talk about how godawful it is.

It was magical.  I laughed pretty hard, but I can only imagine how much more effective the joke was in Weekly Jump.  I like to imagine that there was a special front cover illustration for it, too.  I would have died had I been reading it there at the time.

Then the fight with Chokomei continues.  He’s a Youkai Sennin, and he ends the battle with his original and rather destructive true form, which is pretty interesting.  Taikobo comes through in the end with an insane tactic that I approved of.  Chokomei is sealed in the most elaborate way you can imagine, just like his ending to the series and his battles and everything else about him.  I loved Chokomei, he was such a ham.  I love how, despite the insane number of characters in this series, they all manage to have their own personalities too, and none of them really stick to stereotyped guidelines.  One of the reasons I like this series is because it’s difficult to predict its structure and what its characters will do.  It’s insane to keep track of, but very rewarding.

Chokomei’s sisters were horrible as well as awesome.  They had names like “Queen,” “Madonna,” and “Venus,” but were comically drawn old women wearing clothes they really didn’t need to be, like nurse outfits and stuff.  Madonna was a huge woman that needed to keep eating in order to use her powers.  Venus kept having these fantasies about things that could happen between her and Taikobo.  They were just great, and it seems like they will be sticking around.  Sigh.  Unfortunately, the series did not need more characters.

Also… Taikobo seems different at the end of the volume, and the whole Hoshindai thing with his soul isn’t really explained to my satisfaction and/or I think he was lying.  It looks like the next volume moves on, unfortunately, so it may be a little while before this is sufficiently explained.