In Jormungand, Volume 7
, we turn our attention to another of Koko's team, R, someone I had never noticed before they pointed him out. He turns out to be a /spoiler/ and as a result, Koko's sanity, worldview and reason for living are called into question. In the end, Koko's okay, Jonah is okay, pretty much everyone but R is okay. Oh well, that's the price you pay for /spoiler/.But, you know, we don't care about death and destruction when we read Jormungand. We don't care about the iffy morals, the ambiguous-at-best ethical standards of the governments involved in the book. What we really care about is how yet another female operative who is obsessed with Koko shows up. Because, of course, we are obsessed with Koko, too.
For fanservice purposes, Koko feels Valmet up a bit. Neither I nor Valmet seemed to mind. I don't say this often, but I'd be okay with some pity sex there.
The art seems to have settled way down - I guess Takahashi either got better deadlines or got used to them. And he's dropped the blacked out eyes every other panel. As a result, the story was much less like a really cheaply made movie. It felt way more high budget movie this time. It didn't make the story-telling less messy, but I've come to find that kind of charming by now.
Other than all of that, people say things that sound really profound about life or death, but when you parse them, it's all pretty much blah blah blah. And then they shoot at each other.
Ratings:
Art - 7
Characters - 8
Story - Hee hee. But I'll say 7 anyway.
Yuri - 2
Loser FanBoy - 4
Overall - 7
The most meaningful scenes in the whole volume for me were when both Hex and Koko commented that they can't sleep when the moon is full. I can't sleep when the moon is full, either.