Happiness vol. 8

Okay, so this title’s momentum kind of stalled out in the previous volume.  I’d like to say that “Happiness” gets its groove back here, but that’ll probably depend on how eager you were to learn about Sakurane’s backstory.  While we knew that he was a killer before he met Gosho and went away with Yuuki to start a cult, the stomach-turning depths of his depravity are on full display here.  These chapters do explain why he became so obsessed with vampirism — turns out that he wasn’t entirely lying to Gosho about his sister — but they trade on a pretty familiar kind of sensationalism.  Yes, Sakurana was a psycho from the start. Except he also had some genuinely awful parents who dealt with him in the worst way possible. I’ve seen this kind of serial killer characterization before, so I was ready for it to be over by the time his story catches back up to when he first met Gosho.

Fortunately these chapters are bookended by more interesting material in the present day.  Sudo does his best to be Gosho’s white knight, except he winds up getting too much red on him for it to work.  It’s a good thing that Yuuki finally emerges from his stupor with the intent of finally doing the right thing after all these years.  I liked seeing him do this, even though he failed to realize what this audience of cult members has been wanting from him after all these years.  That leads to a dramatic climax as things go very, very bad for everyone in this particular plotline. I say “plotline” because on the last few pages Oshimi lets us know that he hasn’t forgotten about this series’ other protagonist.  Which means that vol. 9 should be the first volume in a while that delivers some genuinely satisfying forward momentum.