Rasetsu 6

Chika Shiomi – Viz – 2010 – 9 volumes

Every volume makes me like this series a little more. It’s a romance, of course, but not the typical high school variety since Rasetsu doesn’t attend school and both Yako and Kuryu are older men. There is the usual shoujo vibe between Yako and Rasetsu, the latter wearing her heart on her sleeve and the former not knowing his own feelings, but that’s fine since things stay interesting with plenty of ghost slaying and the weirdness of Kuryu.

As I’ve said before, my preference for the romantic lead is Kuryu. He is explored in much more detail in this volume, and it’s easy to see that there’s a far more sinister cast to him than there is any of the others. He is completely devoted to Rasetsu, though, so his… “darker” energies are always channeled towards helping her. What we find out about him in the first half of the volume is important, but it only leads to more questions about his nature. After all that, too, I would almost guess that Kuryu is some sort of demon himself, or at least has the same energies as one, which would be interesting indeed. Even more so if he is the demon after Rasetsu, since falling in love with him would lead to its own set of interesting problems.

Rasetsu is trying the whole volume to give up on Yako, who has flat-out rejected her, but she doesn’t quite fall all the way for Kuryu quite yet. She never rejects him, and listens again and again to his feelings, and it looks like she may begin considering his feelings… but given the last chapter, which goes back to the series’ Yurara roots and makes Yako a more viable match, I think Kuryu’s not out of the woods yet.

It is interesting to see a story that gives the rival love interest a fair chance like this. Usually the love interest is set in stone, and not even the most convincing side story ever makes it seem like the heroine is wavering.

Plus, did I mention that they hunt ghosts? It’s become mostly secondary at this point, but the horrible ghosts after Yako in the second half make for a wonderful fight, and we see an excellent display of Kuryu’s awesome and apparently insanely strong power when he slays some demon centipedes in the first half of the book.

Rasetsu’s got a little bit of everything good in it, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite shoujo series. It’s a solid read everytime, and each passing volume means I like the characters more and become more involved in their struggles. I’d heard it ended recently too, so I’m very much looking forward to more of Kuryu’s secrets and seeing how Rasetsu escapes the demon.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.