Synopsis: Cinderella tells Debonair and Grimm that what the Mayor wants isn't just to destroy the Book, but the whole world along with it. She says that if the world ends, everything will be lost to darkness, which is the opposite of what the Red List wants, so she's left with no choice but to swallow her pride and ask them for their help in stopping him. The Red List was never able to find exactly where the Book is being kept, but she's sure they know and will be able to put a stop to this, and if they'll just do that, she'll even let them kill her if it'll satisfy their desire for revenge. Debonair interrupts Cinderella's begging however, and kisses her without warning. Grimm asks why and Cinderella recoils in disgust, but Debonair says she just did something that she knew Cinderella would hate. She says killing her would be the easy way out, and she's not going to grant her that. Instead, she tells Cinderella to come with them and all three of them will stop the Mayor. Just outside of the room, a bunch of the recently passed applicants overhear this discussion. Tylty asks Bonkers if he got all of that, and Bonkers says there's a lot he doesn't fully understand. Merrio says the gist seems to be that Velou and the entire world are in danger, and asks what they're going to do. Bonkers says he's going to the Hunters HQ – Velou saved him from his own darkness, so it's the least he can do. Tylty says he's in as well, and Merrio and Porschen both seem agreeable as well, when Mosko speaks up and surprises everyone by saying he'll go along too, immediately making them all think that he's up to something. Velou asks the Red Hood how they could do everything that they've done, and the Red Hood insists it's for the sake of the world. Velou objects and says that if the Book really works the way they say it does, why can't they just write that humanity eradicates werewolves and solve everything that way. Dutt interjects and says that they've already tried that, seven times in fact, and each and every time has failed and resulted in the eradication of the human race itself. He reiterates what Cursa was saying before about how every human has the potential to become a werewolf within their genes, meaning that werewolves essentially have all of humanity as their reserve, making it so that eliminating one eliminates the other, and allowing one to thrive allows the other to thrive as well. He says it's just how the story has been written, and that each time they've failed, a new humanity has been deployed and a new battle against the monsters begins. Velou says the way they're describing it makes it sound like there's some sort of God involved and Red Hood says that's exactly it. He tells Velou of beings they call 'the Readers', beings that exist far, far away from them, and who watch their world from the outside. Debonair and Cinderella rush towards HQ with Grimm in tow, much to Cinderella's annoyance as she carries her on her broom. She says that Grimm's character has been eroded to the point of just being a husk of her old self, but Debonair still thinks she'll prove useful. As they fly over the island, Debonair tells Cinderella that the Book is kept deep underneath it. She says the Scrivener's Room doesn't have any doors, so their only option is to make an entrance here and then have Cinderella warp them out later. Debonair channels her fire magic up to 6100 degrees and has Cinderella focus it even further, launching a devastating beam of pure heat, the Comet Laser, straight into the base of the island. The Red Hood continues to explain about the Readers, saying it's a name they gave to the ones who created the framework of their world and filled it's earliest pages, making them amount to Gods from their perspective. They further explain that the world as they know it is simply a stage created by the Readers, and they simply play out the roles given to them upon it as mere entertainment for those higher beings. Velou doesn't seem to grasp it at first, but Red Hood compares it to the sorts of ritual dances or plays that his village likely held for holidays and such, and says that it's the Guild's job to oversee the play and appease the Readers. Red Hood then asks Velou an important question: What happens when the ritual performed isn't good enough? Velou doesn't have an answer to that question, and Red Hood says that the purpose of the Book is to entertain the Readers, and says it's not fun if the story is resolved too easily. If they did that and displease the Readers, then judgment will be passed upon them, and their world will end, saying that a story that doesn't entertain is abandoned and the world within it thus disappears forever. The guild works hard to avoid that fate by trying to create good main and supporting characters and scenarios that are exciting, even using the very monsters they seek to exterminate towards that goal. In the process of doing that, they hope to produce heroes and appease the Readers with them, while subtly reducing the number of monsters and somehow hold the world together. Dutt explains that this is their eighth attempt and they've set it up so that werewolves come from the lycanthrope virus and have dangled the possibility of curing it with a special medicine one day, an idea Red Hood says has potential even while being roundabout. Unfortunately, Ludwig (the Mayor) isn't interested in that, and wants to instead destroy everything. Red Hood confesses that any scenario they write doesn't seem to affect Velou, and in fact he actively unravels anything they write about him. Red Hood asks if that was the plan, to have Velou unravel the book itself, and Ludwig says that the moment humanity took up the Book is the moment they failed. He questions what point there is in a world that's sole purpose is creating tragedies to appease merciless gods, and suggests that it would just be better to end things. Not a happy ending, not a tragic ending – just an ending. Suddenly, the Scrivener's Room starts to shake, and Dutt receives a radio call that Debonair is attacking the HQ alongside Cinderella and Grimm, and warned that it seems their goal is to reach the Scrivener's Room. Ludwig says that they must have caught on, and tells the other three to stay where they are before encasing them in a much smaller, more durable room with his magic. As Debonair's laser finally breaks through to the room, it's destruction is stopped by Ludwig, who tells mere extras such as them not to interrupt. Review: First things first, let's get the elephant out of the room. I fell extremely far behind on these reviews as a result of various things, and as such, unfortunate but expected has already long since passed – by the time of this writing, The Hunters Guild: Red Hood has ended it's run in Shonen Jump. The writing had been on the wall for some time now, between the low rankings in the magazine and the way the story had been going. I can't lie and say that this wasn't immensely disappointing regardless, as one thing that's probably shown through brightly in these reviews is just how much I enjoyed this series and thought it had a lot of potential. But Shonen Jump is a fickle beast, and it is what it is. At some point in the future, I'd like to cover the series as a whole and talk about what sort of things I think we may have seen in the future, and elaborate further on the potential I think we've missed out on here, but that's all for another day. I've held off on reading the next and final chapter and avoiding any and all spoilers on it's contents so that I could review this particular chapter with only it on my mind, so let's focus on that for now – it certainly gives us plenty to focus on. Cinderella's heel-face turn to asking Grimm and Debonair for help is something that still feels surprising even with it being built up in the previous chapter, and it's something else that makes me sad to think about how much more effective it could have felt if it had come after a much longer runtime than what we ended up getting. Cinderella was first introduced as a witch that seemed like she was going to be a major threat, and like someone who had a bad history with Grimm (and Debonair as well once she was introduced). The seeds of an interesting character are here, but given the rush to get us to our ending, nothing has had ample time to grow, and Cinderella unfortunately ends up feeling extremely shallow. She apologizes to Debonair for all of the terrible things she's done, even offering to allow herself to be killed if it'll make up for them, but there's no weight to her words because we don't KNOW anything that she's done other than attack Velou's village. If it were at least Velou she were telling this to, then it would still hold a little bit of water, but since it's not, it just falls completely flat. You can't have a villain turn good when they've not done enough villainous things to really make us feel the weight of their sins first. But again, I think this is just another aspect of the story that's falling victim to this rushed ending and was likely something Kawaguchi had planned for a much more built up and grandiose ending and just kept it around here regardless. And if nothing else about this scene hits, the bit with Debonair planting one on Cinderella just because she knows she'll hate it is pretty funny, especially with Grimm's non-plussed yet confused reaction. Grimm is unfortunately another element of all of this that's feeling somewhat wasted, though she's not nearly as affected as poor Cinderella. In Grimm's case, we've at least spent just enough time around her and seen some of what she's capable of to actually believe she's a powerful warrior and is now being drained of all usefulness. It's an interesting choice narratively, and although it does leave her feeling lesser than she was before – well, that's the whole point. She IS less than she was before. It's unsatisfying, but it fits with where the story is trying to go in it's final moments. It's uncertain if we're going to see much more from the rest of Velou's graduating class, but they (or at least some of them) do seem to be heading towards the Hunter's HQ as well, so maybe they'll get one final hoorah before this series is done as well. I at least have hope for Bonkers to get one more moment, as he's probably the most built up character out of the additional cast thus far, which is pretty good for a guy who considered himself an outsider in his own story. Not sure if I really think Mosko's gonna be able to get up to anything or not though, and given the brief amount of time left, that's probably for the best. The main point of interest in this chapter is of course where it continues to get more and more meta, and I've said it before, I'll say it again – this is the series most potent aspect. Even in this rushed, neutered form, this can't help but grab my attention every time, and as good as it is here, I can't imagine how hard this would have all hit if we'd gotten whatever Kawaguchi had originally planned here. The idea that a story and it's characters only live so long as it's readers are interested in it is a beautiful, and yet, sad truth for any story and storyteller. There are numerous stories that have stood the test of time, and they've al done it because they've managed to resonate strongly enough with enough people that they've been able to be remembered even decades, or centuries in some cases, after their author has passed. The opposite is unfortunately also true – a story that doesn't manage to captivate it's readers is a story that's going to be forgotten by and large, and as much as I love this series for what it's trying to do, there's really no way around the fact that it's falling into the latter. I'll always remember it fondly, as will many other fans who had high hopes for it just as I did, but by not managing to capture a big enough audience, it's destined to go down as yet another failed story. You can really feel the pain stemming from Kawaguchi's pen shine through in Ludwig's dialogue, almost as if the character is speaking for him specifically, and it's heartbreaking to think of it that way. It's right at the moment his heartbreaking dialogue is spoken however that Debonair's attack on the Scrivener's Room starts to break through, and even though he seems in control, it looks like things might not be going the way Ludwig thought or hoped. Velou doesn't yet seem convinced by anything he's heard, and although he does seem upset at the idea of a story being written in the book that reduces people's lives to playthings, I have a feeling he's going to make the right – or at least an unpredictable – choice in the end. Because if there's one thing this entire series has well established in it's short run time, it's that Velou is the type of character that firmly makes his own decisions, and they're often surprising to those around him. Until next time! Favorite Panel: Next Time: Chapter 18
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About the AuthorAspiring author and big anime/manga fan, just trying to do my best in the world. For more details, go to About Me. Archives
September 2022
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