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👹 In/Spectre Vol. 1 | Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Content/Trigger Warnings: Death, death of a parent, violence, graphic injuries, graphic human experimenting
Friends, you know how much I love my manga. Well, I’m glad that I still enjoyed the story line of this series so far. I really enjoyed the first book in this series and was interested to see where the story would lead us next. I love the story line and I think that’s why I’m still willing to continue on with this series. Plus, a disabled lead character! This manga series is also an anime you can watch on Crunchyroll.
If you haven’t read my review for the first volume, please make sure you read that.
Our story follows seventeen-year-old Kotoko, who was kidnapped by yokai as a child, turned into someone who can communicate between them and the humans, and maintains the peace. In this volume, Kotoko travels to investigate the death of idol, Karin Nanase, who seems to be terrorizing the town of Makurazaka. She’s known as “The Steel Lady”. With Kuro missing, she’ll have to team up the only person who might be able to help her, Kuro’s ex-girlfriend, Saki. Together they’ll uncover the truth about the origins of The Steel Lady’s bizarre powers.
I love the story line of this manga series. It’s probably my most favorite thing about this entire series. I love anything that has to do with yokai. And even thought we had only a few bread crumbs in the first book about Kuro, I was still excited to see Kotoko’s backstory. But when I heard there was the chance we would start learning more about Kuro’s background in this book, I was really excited. The story line keeps you very interested, though. I’m constantly wondering what the next bit of information will be.
Of course I have to talk about Kotoko for a second. She’s our main character of this series. She’s was taken by yokai as a child and when she was returned to the mortal world, she was missing one eye and one leg. So she has an artificial eye and prosthetic leg. There are scenes from both the first and second volume where Kotoko will detach her prosthetic leg when in battle with demons or monsters. While I can’t speak on the disability representation, I deeply appreciate how our main character is disabled and she continues to live her life despite being disabled. I wish more manga had disability representation and it was more normalized within them.
My biggest issues with this manga volume was two major things. The first thing is the way Kotoko announces to Saki that she and Kuro are in a relationship. In the first volume, we never see them have that conversation of becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. We get the sense that they formed a partnership to deal with demons and monsters, but the relationship was dropped out of nowhere. My second issue in this volume has been the fact the author has pinned Kotoko and Saki against each other, fighting over a boy. This is a huge problem especially since Saki has agreed to have dinner with one of her coworkers. It just seemed really unnecessary to have Kotoko and Saki pinned against one another, fighting over Kuro. It felt very petty and it felt dragged out throughout this volume.
Overall, I still enjoyed this volume despite the issues. I’ve been sitting on the fence on whether or not I want to continue this series. I truly love the setting, the story line, the back stories of the main character and love interest, and we all know I’m here for the yokai. I think if this volume didn’t have Kotoko and Saki pinned against each other over a boy, I would have loved it more. It felt too much like a bad love triangle. If this series does interest you, I highly recommend checking it out. This is one of the first manga series I’ve encountered with disability representation and I think many manga readers are sleeping on this series.
Read for The Reading Rush 💚
Chapter Malliumpkin 