Murcielago vol. 22

The “Silver Scent” arc which started at the end of the previous volume involved a young girl murdering a bunch of thugs after coming into contact with Celine “The Perfumer” Argente.  So far, so standard for “Murcielago.”  Things quickly escalate after it’s revealed that she’s not the only criminal to have entered Japan just now.  There’s a stealthy assassin with far-right associations known as Silhouette, a heavily-armed goth-loli attired duo called Puppet, a former “violence apparatus” of the Tokyo PD Rindo Torayashiki, and the giant brute who goes by the moniker of Hightower.  Kuroko and the rest of the police would likely have their hands full with this crew on a good day, so it’s a happy coincidence that the FBI has sent three agents, led by nineteen-year-old prodigy Sapphire Conrad (that’s her on the cover – yes, they’re saying she’s nineteen), to help out with the chaos that’s sure to erupt from these criminals being on Japanese soil.

Chaos does erupt as throats are torn out, noses are ripped off, fingers are broken, and there’s even a bit of cannibalism thrown in here for good measure.  While it may seem like just another volume of “Murcielago” from the description I’ve given, this happens to be an unusually plot-dense installment of the series with everything else that goes on here.  There are three main plot threads being developed here, with a couple sub-plots thrown in for good measure.  Of particular note is that one of them involves Hakua Satori, she with the Doc Ock arms and black speech bubbles who has been implied to be at the center of the series’ overarching story.

I’m curious to see where mangaka Yoshimurakana is going to go with Hakua’s story as bringing in such a character implies that the action is going to be taken to the next level quite soon.  Hell, maybe we’re looking at the beginning of the end for this series as a whole.  Which is something that I wouldn’t mind seeing as its overall quality has been far too uneven for me to hope that it’ll go on indefinitely.  So if the stepping up of action and story in this volume is the first step towards that, then it’s a good one on the part of the mangaka here.