Rasetsu, Volume 2

Guest Review: Rasetsu, Vol. 2
By Chika Shiomi
Published by Viz Media

Review by Megan M.

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Picking up several months after the end of volume one, Yako has settled into his job at the exorcism agency and Rasetsu is starting to feel the pressure of the fact that she has a deadline by which to find her true love if she wants to break the demon’s curse.

In truth, I rather hope that she finds a way to break the curse without having to rely on a theoretical “true love,” whether she finds one (or realizes one who’s already with her) by then or not. In this volume, she takes the first step towards the eventual goal of finding her true love by realizing, apparently for the first time, that some of the men in her life exist in a sexual way, specifically Yako and Kuryu. While it may seem strange for a girl to not start to develop that awareness until she’s eighteen, this particular girl’s first exposure to sexuality was being attacked by a demon intending to make her his bride.

In another manga, Rasetsu’s flushed awkwardness at times with both men would come across as being wishy-washy and no doubt signal the beginning of an annoying triangle. While there may yet be a romantic triangle, annoying or otherwise, Rasetsu doesn’t come across as wishy-washy at all. Instead, she begins to realize that in addition to being large, often annoying, and often useful slabs of meat, they’re also kind of muscular and maybe interesting to look at. Possibly they have other interesting attributes, too. It’s like an adolescent boy hitting puberty and realizing that there are possibly other things to do with girls than pull their pigtails and push them off swings.

For his part, Yako seems to be largely oblivious to the possibility of Rasetsu as a romantic prospect, despite realizing that he has a degree of interest in her due to her resemblance to the ghost he was in love with in high school. Part of this is clearly stubbornness on his part but I suspect that he would also likely never consider an eighteen year old as a romantic prospect, being older than she. While his age hasn’t been established, I would guess that he’s around twenty-three or four–young enough to still be an acceptable romantic prospect but old enough to know he shouldn’t be chasing after her. Kuryu, however, is harder to pin down. A part of me wants to label him as “totally sekritly evil,” but it’s impossibly to pin down when he’s serious, when he’s playing around, and when he’s up to something.

While the problem of Rasetsu’s curse and the mystery of the ghost Yurara remain continuing threads in the series, the plot remains largely episodic, dealing with Rasetsu, Yako, and Kuryu being sent after and exorcising various ghosts. We also learn that Yako can use blood, not just water, to bind spirits, and see more of what Yurara was like soon after her curse and her first meeting with Kuryu. We also get a hint at what ‘s happened with the ghost Yurara, as well as Kuryu and Rasetsu forcing Yako to unbend and have fun, though that backfires on them in the end.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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