Title: Dead Mount Death Play Vol. 2
Author: Ryohgo Narita (Story), Shinta Fujimoto (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Genre: Supernatural, Action
Publication Date: June 18, 2019
The Story
Volume two of Dead Mount Death Play brought a TON of story, action, character development and more into the fold! We first start off with Lemmings in Clarissa’s bar, which is where we left off from the debut volume. It seems that Zaki was his target all along. It was at this moment, Polka had to make a choice about using his powers to save her or not. In the end, he did so but Zaki made it easy by whispering something to Lemmings that he wanted to hear. Lemmings soon departed and they returned back home. There, Polka announced that he imbued another spirit, this time a person named Hosorogi.
Together with Hosorogi and Takumi, Polka opens up a fortune-telling “business” as a means to make money to obtain his peaceful life. This draws the attention of the original Polka’s family, the Shinoyama’s, and they pay “Polka” a visit. Polka gets them to go away but promises to visit them tomorrow when he senses a disturbed spirit possessing his niece and nephew.
Polka does just that and heads to the original Polka’s house with Zaki in tow. Here, we get to learn of a plot to dismantle the family and how it tied into Zaki targeting the original Polka and the reasons behind the assassination. Our volume comes to a close with the aftermath of the plan and the appearance a possible new foe!
There was a lot of information to consume in this volume and I tried my best to do a non-spoiler version of it but this volume build a much bigger foundation for our characters and brought with is some highly intriguing backstory for the original Polka. The story still remains very straightforward, though. Corpse God inhabits Polka’s body and wants nothing more than to live in peace. His mission here in Tokyo is to find a way to achieve said peace. Now, the story deepens when the original Polka’s family gets involved. For such a simple plot, there is a ton of depth here which is something I completely expect from the author of Baccano and Durarara. Narita has this uncanny ability to take the simplest of premises and turn them into these deeply-layered and well-crafted stories and Dead Mount Death Play is shaping up to be another one of his best works!
Characters
While Corpse God receive a little development in his terms of thinking on how to live a peaceful life in Tokyo, the original Polka got some major development. We find out about Polka being the son of the head of the Shinoyama family who runs a pharmaceutical corporation. Polka’s older nephew, Takeru, is in charge of security and has some… shadier… connections to the seedy underbelly of Tokyo. Despite this, it is Polka’s father, Rozan, that’s smarter than he appears! He senses something amiss about “Polka” which could spell trouble for Corpse God. Still, we got a look inside the life of the old Polka and things become much clearer about why he was targeted by Zaki in volume one! It only makes you wonder what’s going to happen to him from there.
All of the other characters are still themselves. Zaki and Takumi end up playing the supporting role with very little development but their personalities are what give the story even more life. With Takumi being the voice of reason and Zaki just being an insane nutball (who can actually act civilized when needed as you will see in this volume), their contributions feel like they carry more weight than any other supporting character.
Final Thoughts
Volume two of Dead Mount Death Play is a long one at over 250 pages but the way the story is laid out and the fact that it holds your interest by getting you to keep turning the pages don’t make it seem like a long volume at all. That is why I love Ryohgo Narita so much. He has a way of grasping your attention and holding it all while making you forget about the passage of time.
The cliffhanger ending wasn’t really super impactful but it is setting up something. With the way criminals are presented in this series, by being given nicknames, make them seem supernatural like Corpse God but in the end, they’re just normal humans with really high skill sets. Still, for them to be able to push Corpse God into using his magic just to combat them, it truly shows just how skilled and feared they are. With the emergence of this new criminal, it makes you wonder what will happen in the third volume?
I can speculate and say that this new criminal will be a bit peeved over the fact that their name had been misused and might seek retribution. Once they dig into the situation and find that connection to Corpse God Polka, his vision of peace will once again become interrupted. Of course, it might not go that way but given the fact that things seemed to have wrapped up a bit, that’s the only way I can see it going.
Nevertheless, I can’t wait to see how all of this plays out! Bring on volume three!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
