Title: The King’s Beast Vol. 10
Author: Rei Toma
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 169
Genre: Romance, Fantasy
Publication Date: May 2, 2023
The Story
The tenth volume of The King’s Beast is a bit of a filler volume that does go pretty deep into Sogetsu as a character. Kougai leaves some of the aphrodisiacs behind and tempts Tenyou to use it on Rangetsu; however, he refuses to and stores it safely on a shelf. Tenyou is called to a meeting and Rangetsu asks if she can burn some incense while he’s away.
I think you know where this is going.
Turns out that Kougai left regular incense as a prank; however, it aligns with Rangetsu experiencing some “growing pains” aka… she’s in heat. In addition to this, Tenyou receives his prosthetic hand. He talks to the emperor about the selection games and how he would like to buy a little more time to get used to them since he fully intends to win. Tenyou restates that his dream is to become emperor and create a world where humans and ajin can live side-by-side without issues. To that end, Tenyou decides that he wants to make Rangetsu his wife!
After learning about Sogetsu, he decides that his issues will just become a burden to everyone and runs away, leaving behind a rather… well… eccentric poem behind in his stead. Of course, everyone is worried about him so they track him down but he has a condition for returning! Can this condition be met and will Sogetsu return? Don’t worry… the answer is in this volume as the ending wasn’t really much of a cliffhanger or anything. It just… ended!
Characters
This volume mainly focused on Sogetsu but I will leave his development for you to read since it encompasses such a huge portion of the book. I will say that it is a new dynamic to his character that gives him something to do while the story moves on. When you do learn about him, you’ll understand that his issues are something that he needs to figure out for himself. It’s just one of those “only a matter of time” character development plots but this one should be interesting (and at times entertaining) while he figures it out.
Tenyou went and decided he wants to marry Rangetsu! While some might deem that a spoiler, you’d have to be blind if you’ve read 9 previous volumes and didn’t draw that conclusion yourself! There is some hesitancy on Tenyou’s part to pop the question, though. It seems as if he’s ready but not ready to make that move. Perhaps he wants to achieve his goals first but even he realizes that his goals may take generations to come to fruition. All of these possibilities weigh on Tenyou’s mind but one thing is for certain… it’s not going to take generations for him to marry Rangetsu. Just like Sogetsu’s situation, this one is also just a matter of time!
Final Thoughts
Once again, we get a volume of the manga that talks about the selection games and we will don’t get the selection games. Now, we have Tenyou’s prosthetic arm being used as a plot device to delay them even further! Here’s a quick little real-life story about me.
I used to work in a call center for an MVNO cell phone service (won’t name them). Customers had to call to re-up their plans and provide us a PIN number on the re-up cards to transfer the funds to their account. We weren’t allowed to take credit card payments over the phone because this service’s system wasn’t set up for that. Imagine not being able to take credit cards in this day and age!
Throughout it all, our management told us that a payment processing center was coming. They would always give us a time frame and when that time frame passed, they would just give us another. At one point, they even began to take internal applications for reps to transfer to payment processing. No one got transferred because the time frame changed. Around the office, the joke about payment processing became “It’s coming next week.”
So, with all that said, allow me to tell you that these selection games… are coming next volume. Trust me.
As for what’s really coming next volume, I would suspect we will see more of Sogetsu adjusting to his decision… possibly more of him succumbing to his… uniqueness… maybe Tenyou mustering up the courage to pop the question… and something with the emperor which has to do with Sogetsu’s collar, or more specifically, the material it’s made of. They did drop a little interesting nugget in there so it would be cool to expand upon it a bit.
We’ll see! Oh, and the selection games, of course! They’re coming next volume!
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This item was purchased for review.
