Manga Mondays (73) Kekkaishi vol. 5 by Yellow Tanabe

Kekkaishi vol. 5 - Yellow Tanabe

Summary

A modern-day Romeo and Juliet, skilled in the art of the "kekkaishi," fight against their families' bitter rivalry and a gaggle of monsters and ghosts on the loose!

By day, 14-year-old Yoshimori Sumimura is just a regular kid going to junior high school, but by night he is a "kekkaishi," or demon-fighter who specializes in generating magical barriers around his prey before making them disappear. His neighbor is 16-year-old Tokine Yukimura, who is also a kekkaishi! Together they share the knowledge of their ancient art and their nights battling beings from the netherworld. Sounds fun, but their families don't get along, because each believes themselves to be the "true practitioners" of the art of the kekkaishi.

Will Yoshimori and Tokine friendship overcome their families' ancient rivalry? And will they be able to stop the frog-demon that's threatening their school?! Their exciting adventures and magical battles begin in this volume!(courtesy of Goodreads)

Review

*Warning: Potential spoilers. My manga reviews tend to be more of a summary than a review. I find it hard to review manga in the same way I do regular books.

Volume 4 ends with Yoshimori deciding that he will find out how to seal off the power of the Karasumori, the valuable magical area that his and Tokine's families guard, forever. That way no one will get hurt. He spends much of volume 5 searching for information on how to do this.

His first opportunity comes with the arrival of a goofy looking deity. Lord Udo is a giant sea-walrus like creature who is the deity of the Karasumori area. His bed has been destroyed and Yoshimori is sent to fix it. Lord Udo is a weird character. I guess his purpose is comic relief as much as anything. He's obsessed with food and has a naggy Jiminy Cricket-like figure who lives on top of his hat. The only benefit to the plot is Lord Udo's wealth of knowledge. Yoshimori wants to know more about the origins of the Karasumori. Yoshimori risks his life to obtain more knowledge. I like this kid more and more every day. He's incredibly selfless. Rather than thirsting for glory, he wants most to keep Tokine and others from getting hurt.

Meanwhile, Tokine is going crazy. She knows that Yoshimori is up to something but he won't tell her anything. She has no idea that he's trying to seal the Karasumori, for her benefit. She thinks he's purposely trying to annoy her. The tension between them is so cute. It's obvious that they're soul mates but they're too stubborn to admit it even to themselves.

The volume ends with a powerful group of demons sent to test the Karasumori. It's a battle much like all the others in this series, but it sets up an ongoing plot point of a showdown once and for all for the Karasumori site.