About the Mangaka

Not really a lot of info on Hasegawa Keisuke the author, and nothing on Nanakusa unfortunately. K=Ske does however have a rather snazzy website, but be warned it’s all in Japanese; and is flash heavy. Though it does look nice!!

About the Manga

ballad of a shinigami 02

As with the previous volume, it’s taken me a while to get around to reading this volume, and once again I regretted taking so long.

This volume like the first is split into three separate stories, and an extra. The three stories deal with Momo leading someone to the after life, but also with her interfering with the living in some way, as a way of helping those who have died to come to terms with their death.

The stories this volume are pretty good, though they lacked the impact of the first volume, at a guess it’s because I’m used to the story style now so it’s lost it’s shock Impact.

Poolside Girl, the first story was the dullest for me. While it was well written, it just lacked the life and passion seen in the first volume. No matter how well written a story is, if it doesn’t have life, it’s not going to be good. I also found the ending of this story a bit mediocre. By the halfway mark I’d already figured out everything that was going to happen, and how it was going to end. Very disappointing.

Rude Rainbow, the second story, was a lot better, though still not up to the previous volumes standards. However this story did have a presence to it, that made it both enjoyable and a bit tragic. The ending, while far from perfect, was still very good, and a little touching.

Snow Rebirth, the third and final story, is the out and out worst for me. As I was reading it I found myself drifting off to sleep. It was boring, uninteresting, and lacked any sort of presence or life. In fact it was so bad I thought someone else had written it at first.

The extra story, which really is the main one IMO, sets the stage of the main story, who Momo is really. We’re given a lot of information, introduced to the main nemesis of the story. K-Ske’s writing in this story was awesome, the fight scenes and story flow was great. I was guttered to reach the end.

Nanakusa returns for the art, and WOW!!! as always Nanakusa’s art is awesome. Though I still find it a bit to cutesy, I found I really do like the style in this series. Once again the colour panels are superb, and the one line quotes that accompany them really fit the art well.

I’ve no complaints with the Seven Seas release, they keep all original names and terms and add a glossary at the end, even to the point of keeping the naming format. Which is great. However the small format really is a put off for me, I find the book hard to handle as I have large hands. Also, what really pissed me off is that SSE have cancelled the series!! They alienated even more fans when they cancelled their entire light novel and strawberry (yuri) line up, many of the titles with only one volume left to print.

I really want to add this series to my Essential Read list, however since it’s been cancelled and thus incomplete, I can’t. That said, I can recommend you have some spare cash lying around.

where to Buy

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