By Dustin Cabeal
While this hasn’t been the best battle, it has proved to reveal a lot of interesting details about the Twin Stars and their supporting cast. Twin Star Exorcists greatest strength is its utter disregard for its character’s safety. It truly feels as if no one is safe and that anyone can and will die. While that may not be true for the Twin Stars, Rokuro and Benio there feels like a countdown clock is looming over their head.
The group goes after Sayo who’s been captured for her spiritual energy. The battle is slower paced than previous battles, and even though the top ranking Kegare they face are threatening, there’s just something about this battle that doesn’t hold the same consequences as the previous battles. There isn’t something emotional at stake other than Sayo’s life, which granted, is still important. It’s just that, we’ve barely gotten to know here, and she’s a rather weak character compared to the development done with the rest of them. Sayo does reveal something very strange about Benio which I hope to see more of later in the story.
The other big turn of events in probably the one that I have the least interest in, but I’m sure fans of this character are overjoyed. The childhood best friend character has overstayed it’s welcome in this series, but creator Yoshiaki Sukeno found a way to keep Mayura around and develop her abilities faster. It was a genuinely cool moment of the story, so I won’t spoil it, but I was a bit disappointed because it means we’ll have to see more and more of her going forward. She too is an extremely weak character that is only defined by her love for Rokuro and who her father is to the Exorcists world. Sadly, I don’t see the development doing much for her character, but rather just another hallow definition. A series that’s able to add so much to so many characters, it continues to fail to add anything to Mayur and Sayo outside of their one-sided love for Rokuro. Frankly speaking, the harem style story isn’t needed for this tale.
The artwork continues to be stunning. With that is the onomatopoeias that add to the story significantly. They truly give a sense of the action that is going on and bring the page to life. Aside from that the level of the designs continues to be very cool. That may seem generic, almost forced to say, but it is not. The designs are really fucking cool for this series and one of the many things that set it apart from other titles out there.
The only downside to this volume is that it fails to wrap up the current arc which means the next volume is likely to be split in two, part this arc, part the start of the next arc. Those are always the weakest volumes, so it’s a shame it didn’t conclude here. If for some reason this next part of the battle does take the entire volume, then Twin Star Exorcists will no longer stand out for breaking the shonen style and blitzing through story arcs. That was what drew me to this series in the first place. Hopefully, it doesn’t lose that because I don’t particularly want to read the next 1,000 years of this battle between good and evil. Otherwise, it’s a damn fine volume of Twin Star Exorcists.
Score: 4/5
Story and Art: Yoshiaki Sukeno
Publisher Viz Media