Queen of Vengeance (Oh My Goddess! #7) ★★★☆☆

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Title: Queen of Vengeance
Series: Oh My Goddess! #7
Author: Kosuke Fujishima
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 152
Format: Paperback

Synopsis:

And we're back to chapter stories.

With the goddess computer system down, the goddesses can't convert the energy they need. Plus Skuld and Urd begin aging differently so Urd gets kiddiefied and Skuld grows up overnight while Belldandy has to split herself into tiny versions to conserve energy. Keiichi ends up solving the mystery by making moon rocks and turning them into bracelets for his 3 houseguests.

Then Skuld and Megumi get into a robot battle and while Megumi wins, Skuld throws a tantrum and blows everything up.

The volume ends with Sayoko trying to steal Kei away from Bell again and failing, again.

My Thoughts:

Thank goodness we return to the chapter stories. Much more slice of life. The ridiculous factor gets dialed down, as it is physically impossible to stuff as much nonsense as we read in the previous book into a single chapter story here. I just read them, was amused and moved on to the next story.

Also, trying to get a decent picture is getting harder and harder as these Dark Horse original releases are out of sync with the actual release and there are no chapter numbers or even page numbers in these paperback copy releases. I have to hope that the digital volume number contains most of the chapters the paper one has and then start diving around. Since chapters are moved around for the paper copies, I feel like I'm throwing a bent fork at a target sometimes.

I was a huge fan of this series when I was in my 20's but now, I have to admit, I am having some real serious doubts about just how far I'll go. Obviously I'm not the target audience anymore, but there are manga that still interest me. It's not even that I don't like romantic comedies, as my owning W Juliet and Karo Kano shows (of course, I haven't re-read those since I bought them either. Oh dear....).

I enjoyed this more than the previous book and think that at this juncture that Fujishima can tell a better short story than he can a novel. However, I had to drop it down 1/2star because being honest, it feels like I've been rating the previous volumes with some serious nostalgia goggles and I can't do that anymore. The cold cruel reality of the weaknesses of this manga have clawed their way into my brain and eaten my eyes and filled my ears with maggots. Ok, that last sentence was just to see if anyone was paying attention * wink *

This is the picture that stuck out to me this time around. I'm not exactly sure why, but something about Kei and Bell, both looking up, it is almost like they are inviting me into the story, into the romance of their life. Being on the motorcycle and in the sidecar, with no other goddesses, grounds the picture in hard reality. But they are both smiling and looking happy and content. THAT is very appealing.

★★★☆☆ 

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