Call of the Night (2022)

[よふかしのうた]

Volume 12

Author/Artist: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
Uguisu's investigation of Mahiru proves that his case is more complicated than originally thought.

Story/Characters:
We start with the OL version of Uguisu breaking and entering to get more information about Mahiru, which reveals that there's something seriously off about the Seki household. In other words, appealing to hearth and home isn't going to work as a way to peel Mahiru off Kiku, but Kou still wants to go forward with his effort to reconcile and Nazuna at least wants to get one good punch in on Kiku for Uguisu's sake. Just as they're settling things, a new challenger appears, batting Kou aside, fighting off Nazuna and snatching Uguisu and Akira. What he wasn't counting on was Kou's half-vampire abilities as our boy pursues. We quickly come to see that this vampiric attacker has more going on than being just a basic villain, particularly his panic when he realizes Kou isn't a proper vampire and nearly kills him. Once things settle down, Uguisu has a little chat with Azami (the vampire in question), who is one of Kiku's offspring, a former yakuza enforcer who was turned by Kiku after he put his life on the line to protect her during a shootout. Unlike her other offspring, Kiku actually spent a fair amount of time getting Azami started in his new life as a vampire and due to his yakuza code of ethics, his obligation to her is what drives him to go after Uguisu, who was hunting Kiku until recently. Naturally, he's thrown for a loop when he learns Uguisu is no longer out for blood, as it were. The rest of the gang is hanging out on the stairs and let a stranger pass, realizing only too late that Nazuna is the building's only occupant.

This new arrival is also gunning for Uguisu. She's a vampire whose job is to sort out problems for the vampire community. Right now, two of those problems are Uguisu, who has been hunting vampires, and Kiku, who has been drawing too much attention with her rampant siring. Azami puts up a good fight, but he's dealing with a fellow professional with some nifty tricks up her sleeve, like using little soy sauce containers filled with blood to give her a quick boost in combat. With Azami buying them time, the gang tries to work out a strategy to counter the new threat. Nazuna starts to teach Kou about phasing, but warns against it as it's risky enough for proper vampires and if Kou's powers were to wane mid-phase... well, it wouldn't be pretty. It's not that pretty as it is when Nazuna demonstrates what happens if a vampire screws it up, losing her arm. It would figure that when she goes to recover her arm that the vampiress phases into the room with her. Nazuna gets tackled first as the primary threat, but the vampiress, like Azami, didn't factor Kou into the equation. Uguisu's theory is that the more Kou is pushed to manifest his powers, the stronger they'll be and the closer he'll get to completing his transformation. Still, he's up against a highly skilled vampire and it seems to be a poor match, but we see more evidence of Uguisu's theory being true as Kou gets pushed hard and bounces back harder. And the cliffhanger... Holy smokes.

Art:
We get a lot of good action this volume with two vampires specifically geared for combat. Azami and the yet-to-be-named sweater babe leave quite the impression. Both are primarily kick-based fighters and we get some awesome panels to show off the hits. The emphasis on phasing in the latter half adds a new layer of dynamism to the fight sequences. And then there's Kou's power boost at the end that really sells the cliffhanger. All very good stuff.

Other:
We get an afterword from Kotoyama with a little sketch of the two new additions to the cast.

Conclusion:
I would've been fine if we just focused on the character drama with Mahiru, but the two new characters introduced in this volume do a good job of raising the stakes. Azami is a nice aversion to first impressions, which increases the impact of the threat posed by sweater babe. We're further exploring Kou's burgeoning powers, which leads us to a cliffhanger that's got me chomping at the bit for more. The story may be developing in ways that the author didn't anticipate, but he seems to be keeping decent control of things, so I'm not worried about the direction so far. We've got a lot of good stuff here, in terms of action, lore and character work, that makes this volume well worth having.

Rating:
Own It