Murcielago vol. 11

I was kind of holding out hope that this current storyline was saving its craziest stuff for last.  As it was involving some Japanese practitioners of Christianity and we all know how Japan has treated that religion with nothing but the greatest respect over the years.  Regrettably, that doesn’t happen as the juiciest stuff winds up involving a character we haven’t seen since vol. 2 and Kuroko’s police minder Mitsurugi. The latter has finally found out what has happened to his deceased wife and it turns out the former may have had something to do with it.  Seeing Mitsurugi almost lose control is interesting, but not quite as much as the smile his partner has while it’s happening. It all leads to a wrap-up that’s satisfying enough, yet not nearly as… memorable as previous climaxes which involved madwomen bathing in blood or creepy child murderers.

The next storyline looks like more of the same as it starts out with former rivals Rinko and Aiko enjoying a nice day out for themselves.  That is until Rinko smells blood and the scent leads them to the dead body of a master swordsman and Hikaru, an old friend of Rinko’s. It turns out that this isn’t the only master swordsman to have been killed recently and that leads the three of them to enlist Kuroko’s help — as she’s giving her girlfriend Chiyo a tongue-lashing, of course.  This series hasn’t gone completely soft, just mostly so. I’m sure this storyline will turn out to be fine like the last one was as mangaka Yoshimurakana has demonstrated that she can manage basic storytelling competence. It’s just a shame to see that, based on its current form, “Murcielago” could only manage to be really fun when it was trading on trash, over-the-top, shock value.