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A review by cyrille6k
Vampire Hunter D Volume 2: Raiser of Gales by Hideyuki Kikuchi
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
2.0
A funeral congregation trudges slowly across a bridge with burly men carrying a child-sized coffin wrapped in chains. A hand bursts from the coffin and one of the men goes to restrain it. The coffin struggles mightily and both go over a bridge. All of this happens in broad daylight: a time when the dead should not walk.
How incredible and mysterious does that sound?! And sadly, the book just couldn’t live up to that opener. The story revolves around four children who were abducted a decade earlier, where only three returned. Lina, our FMC was taken in by the mayor. She's meant to be a dreamer who focuses on a better future rather than her horrible present and past. Thus, she's raped by her adoptive father every night (the mayor)... something that says more about his character than hers. She's also constantly the victim, and few of those who do her harm get what's coming to then. When they do, it's never by her hand. She's used by almost everyone in the novel. The Mayor is a rapey douche. He does even less to drive the plot. Nothing he does is productive in any sort of way. The Youth Brigade is a bunch of rapey douchebags who get to do what they want because they're big and strong. Not enough of them get what they deserve.
When you replace the fighting and interesting moments with a young girl's dreams and a high amount of murder and rape, this series takes a serious plummet. There are some good moments in this. I loved the lore expansion, especially the rain's effect on the frontier. The tamed monsters were another great addition to the universe as is the space loop. Too bad the rest of the novel stretches the mystery to the breaking point. And oversells rape and tries to make it “It was my choice I allowed it to happen” in the ending. Just. No.