Title: Akame ga Kill Vol. 6
Author: Takahiro (Story), Tetsuya Tashiro (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Publication Date: April 26, 2016
The Story
In volume five of Akame ga Kill, it was briefly touched upon that there was a new danger beast roaming the lands. Here in volume six, we learned that someone was controlling these new humanoid danger beasts. Turns out that these new danger beasts were leftover experiments of Dr. Stylish and that someone found them and unleashed them upon the world. Both Night Raid and The Jaegers are dispatched to eliminate the new threat.
During a search, Tatsumi ends up reuniting with Esdeath! Esdeath still has no idea that Tatsumi is a part of Night Raid and while the two of them were humorously catching up, the man responsible for unleashing the danger beasts shows up and activates his Teigu, transporting Esdeath and Tatsumi to a remote tropical island! While the situation is pretty humorous, they do encounter two massive danger beasts, similar to the one Dr. Stylish transformed into. Tatsumi and Esdeath work together to defeat them and then devise a way to get off of the island. At this point, Tatsumi gives us a little bit of his backstory while Esdeath opens up about herself to Tatsumi regarding her origins and even how she got her Teigu.
Once they escape the island, Tatsumi makes a break for it and heads back to headquarters. There, they learn of a new mission involving an impending religious revolt that’s about to happen. Esdeath gets word that Akame and Mine are on the move and she gives the order to assemble all of the Jaegers. The volume then ends with the tease that the decisive battle is about to begin!
I liked the comedic break that we received with Esdeath x Tatsumi II. We got to learn about the man who summoned the new danger beasts and how he is the son of the current minister. He’s even more ruthless than his father and even wants to overthrow his dad and take control! While the story did move forward, the majority of this volume was spent on Esdeath’s character development. The fact that there is a tease for a large battle in volume seven raises some concerns, but we’ll see.
Characters
I can’t believe it’s been a whole volume and we were only introduced to two new characters! Takahiro must be slipping!
The first new character is Shura, son of the current minister. Not much is really known about his motives, but he does want to surpass his father and is certainly ruthless. It seems like a rogue character because he did transport Esdeath away, meaning he’s not on the empire’s side fully. He probably didn’t know who Tatsumi was so we can’t really say if he would be on Night Raid’s side either. Shura has his own agenda, which makes this interesting because now it seems we have the potential for a three-way battle!
The other is Bolic. He is a spy sent by the minister to keep an eye on the religion’s “Lord.” He has plans to assassinate him which would lead to a quelling of a religious revolt, something that the empire doesn’t want to deal with.
Tatsumi gets a little development here, but not much. We learn about where he received his training as well as his skills in blacksmithing. One of the members of his village was an ex-imperial and he trained Tatsumi on how to fight.
Esdeath did get quite the backstory. We learned she was from the northern tribes and her life was kill or be killed because they were always surrounded by danger beasts. Her father taught her that the strong live and the weak die. She went out and killed a danger beast one day only to come home and find her village razed. Her father was fatally injured and apologized for being weak. He told her to live on and so she joined the empire and rose up through the ranks to General. Her Teigu is actually a danger beast’s blood. Drinking it would render someone insane, but Esdeath was already on the brink of insanity due to how she loved to slaughter and torture people. She drank the blood and controlled its rage, thus granting herself the power to control and create ice.
Esdeath’s backstory wasn’t all that surprising. Someone as ruthless as her was expected to have a history like that. It wouldn’t really make sense any other way. I mean, it would be foolish if, say, she was a peddler on the street as a kid and some bully took her lunch money so she decided to destroy the world because of it. I mean, come on… this isn’t he real world and Tumblr doesn’t exist in this story so it’s only natural for have a tragic backstory as the bane of her trigger.
Final Thoughts
This was a pretty solid volume of Akame ga Kill. The bit of comedy was a nice change of pace, but it tied into the story rather well. The new threat from Shura adds a new dynamic which shows that it’s not always Faction A vs Faction B. The back half was a little timid with the religious revolt story, but with Esdeath learning that Night Raid is on the move, I’m expecting a massive battle next volume! I wouldn’t mind if story progression was put on the back burner in favor of a large-scale battle because the clash of these two factions has been boiling for quite some time now and something needs to give!
Night Raid still outnumbers The Jaegers by two members, though. That can only concern me because the manga still has nine volumes to go until it is completed, which means there won’t be a victor in this battle, but Night Raid’s numbers surely will dwindle. At least, that’s what I’m predicting. We will have to wait and see!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
