A manga by Oishi Romy and Meshe
So here we are, the culmination of the “Hansel and Gretel” “level” and the beginnings of phase four of whatever is going on. The characters have made it to the top level, and Shuhei FINALLY remembers something. It’s interesting that Ryoka has kept all of her memories the entire time (as far as we can tell), but Shuhei has only achieved this after surviving a level. In the past few cases, he has sacrificed himself to make sure Ryoka moves on. They still have access to the weapons app, and are ready for the next chapter – one appearing to possibly have four versions of “X”.
“The latest version of Sai may be much more than it seems and Ryoka is uncertain of whether she and her classmate are what Sai is hunting or if they’re just being lead into an elaborate trap!”
The Town Musicians of Bremen is another Grimm’s Fairy Tale that is the bases for phase four of “X”. There appears to be four animals involved, but who knows if they are the villains or, in the case of Hansel and Gretel, are there to be protected. The original story has been adapted into many films and Tv shows, but its not one of the many that have achieved the sort of Disney treatment that makes it a household name in America. It tells the story of four old farm animals (a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a chicken), who after a lifetime of hard work are neglected and mistreated by their former masters. Tired of the life they are living, and weary of the future, they decide to run away from the farm and become town musicians in the city of Bremen, a city in Northern Germany. They end up fighting off a band of robbers, capturing their spoils, and moving into their house before they even make it to Bremen, never becoming the very musicians they set out to be. Perhaps a version of “the robbers” is the actual antagonist? We shall see.
It’s interesting that the last two phases have been based around Fairy Tales; perhaps they all were and I could not pick up on the first two. To mean it just looked like a giant kaiju and a horror monster for level two. now we’ve had two from prominent German fairy tales.
Next up we get a pretty shocking moment when the heroes see photographs of themselves dead in what appears to be a massive earthquake timestamped fifteen years in the future. Not much information can be gleaned from this other than my suspicion of this being some kind of computer simulation could possibly be true. Perhaps the author just copied the plot of Gantz by Hiroya Oku wherein recently deceased people become pawns in a “videogame” by aliens? Sounds possible considering what we’ve seen so far.
The other revelation we get from this chapter is that this “level” appears to have four characters rather than two – we see someone sitting in a dimly lit computer room watching monitors and another young woman showering rather gratuitously. Here’s hoping these people are in it to help rather than obstruct Shuhei and Ryoka. extra people will definitely add a new dynamic to everything, especially if they cause tension between Ryoka and Shuhei. I have suspicions that the female character might be used in such a way.
Overall, this was a great chapter and FINALLY gave a bit more information to the reader than what has been possible before. While we don’t have a definite “here’s what’s happening” moment as of yet, things are falling into place. This manga can be purchased by chapter on Amazon in a release format that seems somewhat irregular. For a while it was once a month, then there were a few months with no release, we will see if there is one this month or not. Stay tuned for more, however this is the current last available chapter as of today.
