Arm of Kannon 9
Posted: December 9, 2009 Filed under: Arm of Kannon Leave a comment »Masakazu Yamaguchi – Tokyopop – 2007 – 9 volumes
Haha, what? What just happened here? I know I took a couple days between volumes 8 and 9, but I couldn’t be the only one that was completely disoriented and confused by the beginning of this volume. Or the ending.
The real problem is that it gets into this ancient Japan stuff, and either there are too many characters, or the characters have alternate identities, or the characters all… you know, don’t look all that distinct, which is unusual for this series, but all the same, I had absolutely no clue what was going on. Onigami/Ryo is killing first a string sorcerer, then the thief/demon possessed by the Arm. This goes on for awhile. It ends… ambiguously for Ryo, but otherwise happily for the cheesecake girl and Daisoujou.
Then we return to the present, to the Garama corporation and their cleanup efforts for events that have happened previously. They acknowledge that the battle with Mao took place… in the same time frame, in the current world… er, as the incident with the Mao-lookalike and the Angel Fist. There is some brief and confusing wrapups. I… think there was an attempt to bring a resolution to the themes of… power and omnipotence, contrasted with the Magician’s companion, the only person he’s ever met “without distortion,” but… the last chapter or two was literally like it was starting a new storyline, then had to stop. They even went to the trouble of bringing back an old character that inexplicably survived the first conflict.
Sorry, Arm of Kannon. Not even I can defend the crash-and-burn ending. Great for the first four volumes, though, in that over-the-top gore and nonsense way that I was looking for.
