Sadly, I’ve been busy with IRL and ended up neglecting writing anything lately which sucks especially in Spooktober but it’s all for a good cause.
A Monk travels to a village lead by a gorgeous woman that is constantly under the attack of bandits. The villagers are constantly struggling to survive and on top of that there is an urban legend going around about a dangerous creature in the forest that kills everything that gets close to it.
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Upon hearing this the monk seems content with the news and we find out that he is there seeking the place of the rebirth of the goddess of destruction. The legend of the “hathena” that is attacking people in the forest makes him believe that this might be the place. So he sets forth to stop her.
Spanning in at 3 volumes 4 issues each the Manga is not that big so it can be a very quick read. But even so it manages to have a very rich story with a lot of great characters. There wasn’t a lot of variety but the characters that were there were worth it (if that makes any sense). There was a lot of variety in the tone though, the first volume is not as horror-ish and focused on setting up the story and the characters while part 2 completely taking it up a notch making it wild. Of course my favorite was the monk, I always love wandering monk characters but the biggest surprise was the village leader. I absolutely loved her as a Character.
The best part about the manga though was the artwork. Only manga can have such a bleak feel to it and it can be hard to find but this one nailed it. Although a few pages could have been done better since it was hard to make out what it was I was seeing the majority was still stunning to see.
With all of those strong sides I absolutely loved reading through it however there was one major issue. The ending. The last chapter was shaping up to have an amazing ending and it did, or so I thought. It ends on a cliffhanger that just seems to serve as a tool to advertise the movie that continues on after the manga. I usually like having the same story being told in different mediums but the ending just felt like a slap to the face when I finished it so I really don’t want to know anything about the movie.
Final verdict: 7/10
