Aimless Wanderings 18: Well shit, this is becoming a habit isn’t it?

Once again, I am late writing this. Let’s just get down to brass tax, alright?

Trance Knights is a manga set in the future where the safety of the nation is ensured by the military orbital laser satellite known as the Sacred King. The Sacred King  is controlled by one man, Arthur, and he is protected by his elite group of soldiers known as the Trance Knights, so named because of their ability to link to the Sacred King in order to gain superhuman abilities, called a trance. When Arthur is murdered, the Trance Knights disband and the Sacred King is supposed to have gone into hibernation mode until the control code is put in, but the satellite seems to have gone rampant and has obliterated cities, seemingly at random. Ray, Arthur’s estranged daughter, receives a mysterious message to go find Gawain, one of the former Trance Knights, and he will help her. This becomes necessary when the military, among others, comes looking for her to find the control code so they can activate the Sacred King and use it for their own ends.

This is an interesting beast. It draws some obvious parallels with the King Arthur mythos, but so far as I’ve read, they’re only skin deep. The story is well written, but there is a ton of exposition in the opening chapters, so it’s a bit of a hurdle that needs to be surpassed if you want to read this one. It shows definite promise, however, and I hope to see good things in the future.

The Van Hellsing Church is hell-bent on destroying all supernatural creatures, and anyone else who gets in the way. In order to do so, they created cleansing squads, soldiers armed to the teeth, with a mission to wipe out any and all supernatural beings, whatever the cost. But Blood Soul isn’t really about them, it’s about the silver haired man and the red haired vampire who keep wiping out cleansing squads. During their last confrontation, the pair inadvertently save the life of a human girl, who was in the area to deliver a package.

Blood Soul is shaping up to be one of my favorites in recent history. Despite the fact that Van Hellsing is a very clear villain, there remains a lot of grey to ponder, and I like me some morality quandaries. I honestly haven’t gotten too far into the series yet, but I am certainly going to invest a good amount of time to catch up.

Now, it’s time to step out of fantasy and into the real world with Evergreen. Yoshimatsu Hotaka is the president of the manga club at his school, and is always very diligent in his studies and club activities. Indeed, he would be your typical honors student if it weren’t for the air of melancholy that seemed to follow him everywhere, and his habit of staring out the window at the beautiful and cheerful ace of the girls swim team, Awaya Nika.

I know that’s not much of a set up for a story, but despite starting a bit slowly, Evergreen has one of the most realistic and down to earth relationship progressions I have ever seen. There’s also a great maybe-not-a-sidestory going on in the background with the family of Hotaka. Personal hurdles and REALISTIC CHARACTER INTERACTION abound. Yes that was meant to be in all caps. This is a big thing for me. I have yet to see a pandering, conveniently angled panel that so many of these manga fall prey to. You know the ones; the POV is inexplicably at the girl’s butt looking up kind of stuff. But I digress; seriously, go read this one.