Manga Update: Bokurano 58-60, Kekkai Sensen, Koukou Debut One Shot, Mirai Nikki 38, xxxHolic 175

Damn, are you serious?

As if it’s not sad enough that Yoko was going to die anyhow as a Zearth pilot, she gets blindsided in a random playground.  Jun and Yoko were on the last of their visits to parents of the Zearth children, and Yoko had even just confessed her feelings toward Jun.  Their interactions in the past couple chapters were nice to see and her death is all the more painful since Jun was finally coming out of his shell.  Even Dung Beetle got heavy-hearted as he thought of his fallen sister.  At least he got almost instant revenge by teleporting her assassin to the Sun or something since he said that he was ashes now.  Of course, things couldn’t end without a final twist.  As Dung Beetle and Jun are walking down the beach, they run into Yoko.  Or at least they run into the original Yoko of Earth who has no recollection of who they are.  It’s a bittersweet way to end her storyline, but at least it gives something to motivate Jun for the final battle.

I recently came across scanlations for Yasuhiro Nightow’s (author of Trigun) mini-series called Kekkai Sensen.  The story follows the life of Klaus, a “Fang Hunter” with superhuman strength and exorcism powers.  Along with his comrades, Chain (a female werewolf) and Gilbert (a zombie-ish butler), Klaus battles and investigates supernatural crimes that occur.  Kekkai Sensen feels like Nightow’s shot at a Hellsing-esque plotline and it actually works well.  I’m kind of disappointed to learn that it’s only a mini-series because I feel like this could have been a strong animated series.

I also wish that he had stuck with the characters and storyline that were in the Chapter 0 one-shot.  The whole vampire-poppin’-outta-the-girl’s-abdomen thing was pretty awesome, although I have no idea how she survived that.

True true, Haruna-chan.  I feel you about long distance relationships.  This final Koukou Debut chapter is set after Yoh leaves for Tokyo, but before Haruna finally goes there to visit him at the end of the series.  Haruna’s found work at a restaurant to help with the expenses of long distance romance (phone bills, etc).   But since it’s Haruna we’re talking about, she runs into a series of issues in which she starts to lose faith that she’ll be able to keep the relationship alive.  Things finally boil over after Haruna’s manager taunts her one too many times about how shitty it must be to be away from Yoh.  Her coworkers rally to give her emotional support and in the end Yoh is able to come visit her.  Haruna’s angry retaliations in the name of love are what makes her great, and it was nice to get one last mini-story about the couple.

So the “big” twist finally came out about the third body that was found in Yuno’s house.  It turns out that the Yuno that we’ve come to know is nothing but an impersonator of the real Yuno who was adopted by her parents.  For the sake of avoiding confusion, I’m going to still call her Yuno until they reveal her real name, since the real Yuno is dead.  There’s no word on how Yuno came into that household, but I’d assume that the parents took her in illegaly when the real Yuno died.  I still think the parents are to blame for how Yuno turned out, given the extreme conditions she was forced to live in.  Anyhow, this revelation comes at the worst time as Yuuki and Yuno had finally cornered the the 11th and 8th.  The news strikes up the ill feelings that Yuuki previously had for Yuno when she held him hostage, but I’m hoping it’s an act.  I mean seriously, she’s a crazy serial killer with a crazy past.  What difference does it make what her name is?  Yuuki’s going to kill her eventually, if things go according to plan, so what does it matter if she’s hiding secrets?

Finally, in xxxHolic 175, several weeks have passed and Yuuko is still nowhere to be found.  I find it odd that black Mokona is missing too.  Hopefully it teleported with Yuuko in order to help her or the Tsubasa gang.  Watanuki is still wasting his time on “I’m a bitch who can’t eat my food” Lady, and she better end up relevant to the plot in the end.  I don’t think anymore of Sakura’s feathers are missing but she could have one hidden inside her like Kohane did.  And I guess I wasn’t just imposing my shipping habits when I thought Doumeki was spending more time with Watanuki, as he decides to come stay in Yuuko’s shop for a while during this chapter.  Doumeki also brings out the mysterious second egg that never hatched, commenting that the time to use it is probably coming soon.  I really want to see these two in a battle, because I honestly think they could fare just as well as the Tsubasa group.  Watanuki doesn’t have any attack powers that we know of yet, but he still has Pipe Fox (who is also mysteriously absent).