The Heroic Legend of Arslan vol. 16

It looks like the adventures of Andragoras and Tahemany have been consigned to the backburner as far as the narrative for this series is concerned.  What does mangaka Hiromu Arakawa offer up her as their replacement?  Pirates!  This threat comes upon the coastal city of Gilan after Arslan and company arrive there hoping to hit up an old friend of Narsus’ for aid.  However, this friend, Shaghad has changed in a fairly significant way.  Where he once was looking to dismantle the practice of slavery within Pars, Shaghad has now come to see its necessity and believes that the slaves are actually happier where they are.  As much as this horrifies Narsus he soon learns about another solution to securing the aid Arslan’s army needs:  Hidden pirate treasure!

While pirates and their business have served as the basis for one of the most popular manga of all time, and have served to spice up events in numerous other ongoing stories, they don’t do a whole lot for this volume of “Arslan.”  That’s because vol. 16 is (say it with me now) business as usual for this series as it involves the title character and his entourage arriving at a new place, fighting off an immediate threat, finding out that the people running the place are up to no good, and then taking out the real threat.   With the requisite amount of bickering and plotting sprinkled amongst these things.  There are some interesting bits like Shaghad’s change of heart and Arslan showing some rare flashes of intuition and backbone, but they’re the exception rather than the rule of this volume.  It’s all enough to make me hope that we get back to what’s going on with Best Bad Dad Andragoras in the next volume (even if the final pages of this one don’t indicate that’s going to happen).