Hoshin Engi 15

Ryu Fujisaki – Viz – 2009 – 23 volumes

This volume has one of the best lines in all of shounen manga.  In an epic fight between father and son, Otenkun yells “Dammit! His dilemmas made his heart explode!”  Unfortunately, it was used without irony or comedic intent, but I like it anyway.

The battle in Kingo Island continues.  It wasn’t nearly as boring as the last volume, since the battles this time around involve main characters like Taikobo and Yozen (and it’s a shame that we can consider Yozen a main character, but he’s suddenly become important, so…).  I’ll also freely admit to liking Igo, the newly introduced disciple, even though I hate to have another new character this late in the game.  He battles with Yozen and Nataku to take out two more of the Juttenkun, and Taikobo and Mugen take out another.  Most of the second half of the volume focuses on another subplot involving Dakki in Kingo Island, and how she’s behind not only the war in the human world, but also this massive battle that’s been taking place in the sennin world as well.  She’s been conspicuously absent for several volumes, and still hasn’t reappeared, but I am looking forward to the spectacular way she re-enters.  With all this destruction in her wake, her next plot should be epic.

I can’t recall if this was explained earlier in the series, but the sennin war is caused in a similar fashion to the one in the human world: Dakki went against Kingo Island and had one of her disciples slowly brainwash Tsuten Kyoshu, the leader.  He’s basically a puppet, and they used him to force Kingo Island to break a non-aggression treaty signed long ago.  I had a hard time following along with the aggression between the two forces all this time, and I had reconciled myself to this war since it’s been just as long coming as the war with the humans.  I was also confused midway through, because I thought all the sennin in Kingo Island were non-human, yosei sennin, while all the sennin in Mount Kongrong were human.  This is still true, but apparently Kingo Island is also home to yokai sennin and not just yosei, which are inanimate objects that become sentient after being exposed to moonlight for hundreds of years.

There is a sickness that takes down the majority of the sennin on both sides in this volume, which whittles the war down to a smaller force (thankfully).  The sickness is not a virus, like the one used earlier in the series, but is just Otenkun’s paope, which releases fleas that suck the energy from sennin.  Very few are unaffected, and those few are the only ones fighting at this point.  Because of this, I think the war won’t go on for nearly as long as I thought it would, which is good.  I am beginning to like this part of the story, especially after the huge plot revelation at the end of this volume, but I am eager to see what comes after all this, and how this will affect the human war.

Also, because I don’t say this often enough, Ryu Fujisaki has awesome, awesome, AWESOME character designs.  Sometimes the art gets a little too complicated to follow in action scenes, but you will never ever confuse any of his characters for another.  Yozen’s new look in this volume is one of his best designs yet.