Rosario + Vampire – Breaking the Game Breaker

Exactly how many levels of crazy does this woman have?

Shuzen Akuha is one of the few characters I know where I find it hard to tell if we’re supposed to sympathize with her or not. Her entire motivation seems to be getting close to her adoptive sister Moka, but she’s willing to slaughter people and erase Moka’s dominant personality to do it. This would make sense if it looked like she had some sort of yandere complex, but her lines and artwork don’t get that across. I’m curious what those of you who haven’t read this chapter think of her from the above page. She’s drawn and written like a normal girl about to break down from the stress of life, but even that doesn’t make as much sense when you look at her recent actions. Remember that just a few chapters ago she was the one who tried to cut Kurumu in half, and it’s doubtful we’re supposed to have forgotten that already. 

Rosario + Vampire – Can We Panic Now?

The top half of this page was done with silhouettes. It was still too disturbing to show.

WOW.

Five minutes after reading those last few pages, I realized I had completely forgotten everything else that happened in this chapter during that time. See, I always considered Rosario + Vampire a series that has steadily grown up over time. It started off silly and formulaic, and then became the mature, complex series it is now. However, at no point in that growth did it ever feel like a series that would bisect a main character. We’ve seen some freaky things in this manga, but nothing on this level. Not even the first time Akuha did this, since it was a flashback and the character was tough enough to survive.

Current Manga Rankings – 2011 – Part 2

15. Rosario + Vampire II

What a long, awkward trip it’s been. I remember back when I started this manga and it was just another boring harem series with various random monsters to fight. Since then it’s grown up into a surprisingly well done series about the relationships the previous series began, and it manages to provide a good amount of depth to what were previously uninteresting characters. It even manages to make the action more interesting, since it’s no longer just Inner Moka stomping on everyone. I’ve actually started looking forward to the newest chapters, which I would never have expected at first.

Rosario + Vampire II – Chapter 45

A friend told me you had to be masochistic to play Touhou. I don't think this is what he meant.

There’s something that I’ve seen in a lot of different shonen series, and that’s the part where everyone pairs off one at a time to fight. I think we all know that routine by now, since so many manga rely on it to give the cast something to do. But I never expected to see it happen in Rosario + Vampire. I suppose I’ve been listening too much to the people who only know about the anime, which never grew up the way the manga did. The thing is that even during Part II, the series never felt like a traditional shonen, since the fight scenes were never the primary conflict; they were just the result of it. So we never got too many characters who appeared solely to be fought. If we did have those sorts of events more often, though, I think these chapters would feel very grating and unnecessary. But instead, I’m looking forward to these fights, since we haven’t had many good opportunities to see the cast in action yet.